What Should I Be Doing Now??

M

mikeandcari

So my tank is currently cycling. I have about 90lbs of live rock. The tank has been cycling for about seven days now. I have been adding Purple Up once a day for the last seven days. Starting tomorrow I will cut back on the purple up to once every two or three days. I am worried the calcium levels will get too high if I continue to add the purple up once a day. My rock came with some coralline algae since I got most of it from an established tank but of course I am hoping that in three months or so the rock will be covered in purple. I plan on adding fish beginning in september so i will have about a 45 day cycle.

Okay on to my questions. what should I be doing now. What things should i be testing for and are there any chemicals I need to be adding. Should I add any cleaner snails or stars. Any advice would be appreciated. What can I do to have the optimum environment for the fish I will eventually add.

I am looking forward to tomorrow's meeting. It will be our first. :D
 
what are you using to cycle the tank. are you utilizing the "no fish" method?

Your rock will color up, so you may not want to "rush" it. There are many additives some use and others do not.

ie., ESV B-Ionic is a two part additive that several folks use. Others utilize additional equipment, ie, calcium reactor, drips, etc.

Once your tank is cycled, you can begin adding livestock. Is it a fish only or will it be a reef tank? Determine early the fish you would like to eventually have and then ask which order to put them in.

Hope this helps just a little.


david
 
@mikeandcari wrote:
I plan on adding fish beginning in september so i will have about a 45 day cycle. Okay on to my questions. what should I be doing now. What things should i be testing for and are there any chemicals I need to be adding. Should I add any cleaner snails or stars. Any advice would be appreciated. What can I do to have the optimum environment for the fish I will eventually add. I am looking forward to tomorrow's meeting. It will be our first. :D said:
Well, it'd be nice to plan the length of a cycle, but what really dictates how long your tank takes to cycle are the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate measurements.

Each of those should raise sharply then gradually decline, in that order.

I'd be testing those levels at this point. If you don't have any cool hitchhikers that you're trying to keep alive through the cycle, I wouldn't test anything else. Don't worry about the purple-up at this point. It'll take a while for coraline to get started after the cycle finishes.

Good rule of thumb, though- don't dose anything that you don't have a test kit for. At this point, water changes will replenish any elements that may be used by your live rock.
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you need to be testing for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. during a cycle, there will be an ammonia spike, then a nitrite spike, and finally you will get a nitrate spike. you should test every day for each of these and keep a note of it. once you get a nitrate spike, you should have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. don't add any livestock until you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite for a few days.

question for you, what filtering methods are you using and do you have a protein skimmer?
 
Like I said I have about 90lbs of live rock and about 60pds of live sand. There are no fish or anything else in the tank. I will start with a fish only tank and do that for about a year or so just to get my feet wet and then I will start a full reef. The fish I am considering are a clown pair probably perculas, a tang or two, a mandarin goby, and a flame angel. but like I said I won't add fish for another 45 days. and I will add the fish slowly.
 
Awesome. Well I guess I should start using that test kit I bought LOL. So should I not add the purple up or continue to add it like I have been doing. Yes I have a skimmer and a bio wheel filter emperor 400 filter. I will eventually stop using the bio wheel filter when my biological filtration is up and running.
 
I just listened to the podcast talkingreef for cycling a tank (episode 50), very good episode might want to give it to a listen. My suggestion is wait on the mandarin till the tank is really setup maybe past sept as it feeds on copepods and might starve to death if not enough copepods are in the tank.
 
My tank is 55g. Yeah I have read that about the mandarin. I have read they are finky fish and hard to keep. I plan on adding the clownfish and tangs first. I just did testing and my pH is 8.2 and the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite tested zero. I think this is weird. I should have had a ammonia spike since I added the live rock and live sand seven days ago. but oh well i will continue to test. I am happy to wait as long as it takes to get the hang of all this. I also noticed this green shade to some of my live rock. is this bad algae and should i be concerned. it is a few pieces...it is a light green shade one patch is kinda large. sorry for my concern but i am new at this.
 
Some mandarins arent finicky, i have two...one will eat brine shrimp the other only copepods.
If it is hair algae that is bad and better get it out now before it gets out of hand...

One thing i recommend is dont buy damsels as your first fish in the tank as they are teritorial. And will be bullies of the tank. I bought couple green chromis as my first sacrificial lambs. They actually lived through the cycling of the tank.
 
@mikeandcari wrote:
My tank is 55g. Yeah I have read that about the mandarin. I have read they are finky fish and hard to keep. I plan on adding the clownfish and tangs first. I just did testing and my pH is 8.2 and the ammonia said:
if the rocks you got were already cured, then you may just get a mini cycle from the live sand you added. I would still wait a couple of weeks and check the parameters to make sure.

do you see any brown diatom algae?
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@disbjohn wrote:
if the rocks you got were already cured said:
What John said is right on.
And be sure when you start to add livestock, do so slowly. One fish at a time and close monitoring of your parameters after each addition.
I would also suggest waiting on the Mandarin until your tank is well established and you have a refugium of some sort that will provide a constant supply of pods.
You should also spend this time reading as much as you can about the fish you want to add to your tank. Make note of the size these fish can attain. And keep in mind that a fish like a Tang, if well fed can outgrow a 55 gallon tank in a very short amount of time.
Continue to ask any questions here. There are plenty of people here that are more than happy to help.
Consider becoming an official memberof the club too. It will be the best $15 investment in the hobby you could make.
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Ok...My pet peeve here - Mandarins are not hard to keep, if you wait until your tank is fully established and the pod population is built up, then it's no problem keeping one alive and healthy. It will take at least 6-8 months(depending on amount of LR) of propagating pod's in a predator free zone before you should even think about a mandarin. I know they are beautiful, graceful fish but please, please, please don't buy one unless you are absolutely sure it already will accept frozen, cyclopeeze etc., before your pod population is built up. You will start to see a lot of pod's crawling on your tank glass in a couple of weeks but don't be mislead, even a small mandarin will wipe them out a lot quicker than you could imagine.

Cheers!
 
No, I don't see any brown diatom algae at least nothing resembling the pictures I looked on the google search. Me and my girlfriend both just became members a couple of weeks ago. I got most of the live rock from an established tank of a dfwmas member. He had lots of corals which were removed from the rocks before I bought the rocks. The other 20lbs or so I got from a lfs who assured me it had been cured. I am pretty sure it is not green hair algae since i tried to scrub the green algae off and it wouldn't come off after vigorous scrubbing...I am going to watch the algae growth and if it continues to spread I will post a separate thread. I will continue to test parameters. But like I said i am in no hurry to put fish in the tank. I have started to consider my fish choices. Most of the sw fish are really pretty so I am not really picky. I mainly want hardy fish that I won't have to replace two months after buying. I am not going to buy damsels since i have heard horror stories. I am also considering a pair of cardinals since they are community fish
 
I am glad to hear I can eventually have a mandarin becaue I think they are awesome looking fish. Just to ask this question again. Am I wasting my time adding purple up to start the growth of coralline. Since i got the rock from an established tank it already has a bunch of purple coralline on it so I am just hoping that purple will stay alive on the rock. I was told most of it would die off...but i maintain hope.
 
Hmmm.... Ashlar answered your question already about adding purple-up. At this point you would be basically wasting money by adding this during your cycle, as you said yourself the coraline will most likely die off some so what's the point in adding PU unless you are trying to rush the process. Just let the cycle complete, you will see green, yellow algae as the cycling process occurs and the different bacteria etc are being established, then at some point diatom's will apear near the end of your cycle. Keep testing your water, the chances af having 0 nitrates at the end of 7 days is hard to grasp, my cycle only took two weeks and I my nitrates were 20 at the end. No need to try to scrub anything off either, just let it take it's course. Patience is key, I know you want a tank now but SW takes time unlike FW. What did you use to start your cycle, live fish, dead shrimp or chemicals? Was your tank previously used for SW, FW or did you purchase it new?

Cheers!

Cheers!
 
I have started to consider my fish choices. Most of the sw fish are really pretty so I am not really picky. I mainly want hardy fish that I won't have to replace two months after buying said:
You do realize that you can't just buy fish because they are cool or pretty, you have to research compatability and care of the fish you buy...before you buy them. Don't go off the word of someone that tells you that this fish will get along with that fish, do your own research. As mentioned already, there is a sequence to stocking fish depending on aggression level. If you have fish dying every 2 months then you have something very wrong. Are you practicing patience yet??

Cheers!
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@mikeandcari wrote:
Me and my girlfriend both just became members a couple of weeks ago. said:
You need to check with Cathy (Kitty) about your membership since you don't have your fish icon under your name.
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I setup this username before I became a member. Then when my girlfriend set up our membership she started another username but i continue to use this one to post questions etc. Maybe I will stop using this username and use the member username exclusively.

I understand that fish choice is more complex then what looks cool. But as everyone will admit how a fish looks is what first attracts us to them. I will definitely do plenty of research about fish choice. My amount of research is obvious by my numerous posts on this website. and yes bimmerz I has started to practice patience, which I seem to be getting more and more of since i started this saltwater tank.

To start my cycle I am using the live rock and live sand. I was led to believe that those two combined would be enough to get my cycle going. Should I throw in a dead shrimp or something of that nature.

Oh and when I gave my water tests results I was not posting them to imply my tank was ready for livestock, and am sure my tank won't be ready for livestock for at least four more weeks at the minimum. I just posted them because I thought it was weird that all parameters tested at zero. I promise I am in no hurry. I started this thread with the intent to make every effort to insure my tank was completely ready for livestock after my cycle has a stated hopefully by september. If it is later then september, I am in no rush to put fish in since I plan on doing this hobby for a long time. Thanks for all the advice everyone. Keep it coming. and i will save my purple up for a later time. It is like 15 bucks a bottle.
 
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/index.php

There's a great description of how a tank matures (not just the initial cycle). I'll admit that I've fallen prey to the same misconceptions.
 
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