Orca Tl450 - Newbie Startup Step By Step Quest

Good news....well kinda...
Went to 2 different LFS which did have nice looking LR, but they either only had rubble or no LR, so after a 80 mile round trip I finally have 6.5KG of LR and 1.4KG or rubble.
The rubble has been split into two bags, 1 bag is placed in the 3rd chamber containing the thermostat (removing the boiballs and giving them to the cat to play with)
The other bag is placed in the end chamber c/w 25g of Rowaphos where the noodles once lived. The first chamber still has some sponge (around the UV filter) and some filter floss on the top.

The LR i've arranged into a small cove, due to the shapes I've managed to get 2 tunnels either side and a small cave. Looking at the rocks, I've already got 1 snail shell, lets hope the litte critter is still alive.
Next was the live sand, I tipped the whole lot in once the rocks were in place, which made a complete mess of the water. Looked like pee soup, but after 20 mins (whilst I'm writing this) the rocks are slowly comming into view.

The skimmer is still the bug of my marine tank, I dont know what to do.......it either fills up in 20 mins or never fill at all......got to do some tweaking.
Once the water has cleared I'll chuck some piccies up.

Now the fun begins.

Hi plutosmate,

Very good! Now you have finally taken the plunge.
Next comes the "fun" part.....lots of waiting, and waiting, and waiting....and watching, and watching, and watching....
and hoping that every new thing that you discover moving around.....is a good thing....and not a nano nightmare!

Actually, I kind of enjoyed the first week or two, waiting for the tank to cycle......and my wallet enjoyed it, too!

Good luck and keep us posted.

3 hrs into the new tank........news flash......
I have two new critters........the first is baby shrimp, I dont know what it is as yet, it's about 1mm long and swimming around the front of the rocks, the 2nd one.....is strange, if anyone can identify it then it would be great, (see attached picture)



It's about 3mm in lenth, yellow with a black strip (looks like a caterpillar) two ickle eyes which randomly poke from the top, 1/2 ago it was pointing upwards, now he's making a run (very very slowly) for the sand).
Is he safe? is he cool to keep? (answers on a postcard)

Thanks in advance.

Try googling "peanut worm" and see if that matches. Sounds like it from the description. If so, they're quite beneficial.

peanut worm ?......hhuuummmmm..... Looking through the google images, i'm not conviced as yet.

OK.. Day two with LR, the levels are all ok,
PH : 8.5
Am : 0
Nitrate : 0
Nitrite : 0
Calcuim : 300 (I think it's too low)
Salt : 1.025

Next quiz, in one of my holes in the LR, (15mm across by 20mm) I have something living.
Every 20 - 30 mins, a puff of air and what I can explain as white stuff is squirted out. With the light on all day yesterday nothing poked it's head out and nothing happened when just the moon lights.

Should I be worried ?

Day 3....(late on, almost day 4) anyway. The update.
Today has been a big day for the tank, I decided to spend 1 hour watching, looking at the rock, there is alot of activity. The new additions to the tank (from the LR only!)

3 x shrimps (1 of these is easily 5mm long with a brown and white striped back - hopeing it's not a baby mantis, the rest are titchy)
6 x brisleworms (1 decided to eat a whole stem of seaweed looking plant - greeding bugger)
3 x faning thingys (very technical I know) I call them peacock feathers as they flutter in the water current and hide when I bubbles rush through the water system,
Lots of fluffy red fluff building up on the rocks,
6 x baby ZOANTHIDS, so far they are just brown, but maybe, just maybe they might have some colour in a couple of days,
loads of SPIONID WORMS scattered around the edges of one peice LR.

Update on the spunky chucking thing in the tunnel, he has stopped, thus I fear he might have passed away.

Water readings are as follows :
Calcium : 320 (back up without any additives)
PH : 8.4
Nh3/Nh4 : 0.252
NO2 : 0
NO3 : 0
SH : 1.024

So far........I think everything is ok, I've had no spike on Nitrate / Nitrites, only a rise in the PH level from 7.5 to 8.8 yesterday.

Day 7......finally the first week has passed and no major disasters (as yet)
Lots has changed, alot more colour than when the LR first arrived.

I've managed to identify most things on my LR, I do have 2 x Aiptasia, (Glass Anemone), they look nice and flutter about in the tank - but I've been advised to get them removed.
(Luckly they are in easy to reach spots)

My bistleworms are cool to watch, they dont seem to be day walkers but only at night, they are all over the place, I've got about 6 - 8 of the critters, scattered on the side rocks but not on the back rock (strange). I have been lucky enough to have a baby brittle star as a hitch hiker, loads of mini shrimps. I did think I saw a red bodied shrimp which was so tiny.....but for the last two days I've not seen him.

The live sand has a small sprinkle of dirt over the top......it's seems only where the light shines so I guess it's reacting.
My levels are all zero across the board, PH is 8.8, calcium is a bit low on 280-340 ......so it has still not cycled.

The cycle sound start pretty soon. Did you buy fully cured live rock or uncured? Could you give us a full shot of the tank?

I bought Fuji Fully Cured rock at a cost of 13.95 a kilo.
There is roughly 6.5 - 6.8 kilos of LR


As you can see from the image above, I've tried to create a small cove affect. Also you can see my unidentifed sea slug sunning him self in the middle. (crazy little critter, he likes to feel the spray bar bash water against his head every other day)

Seems sad that I have to remove the Aiptasia, it does look cool and full of charactor, he hides in the morning when the temp is lower than 26.


What I have tried to do is create a few tunnels for the fishes to play about in, the main large rock at the rear has 8 tunnels which bury deep into the LR, whilst overall I feel it looks kinda cool.
Just wish my cycle would start and finish so I can start adding some more life than just brisleworms and the odd small shrimps which takes ages to find as they are so god damm small.

BUT......this is the fun or marine, watching........waiting........

11pm (GMT) not probably the best time to do this....but hay.....game for a laugh.
My two aiptasia's, the cute little stinging critters, the more I read about this tentice waving guys the more the web and everyone say "remove them".
SO.....deep breath........I wanted to keep to a natural route (didnt fancy using chemicals) so........pancake day is over for another year, I have some lemon juice spare in the fridge........so I dug out the syringe, 5ml of juice drink ups guys.......

I enjoyed it on my pancakes but these guys seem to hate it with a vengence, so......20 mins after giving them a quick drink and they have shriveled to a brown pulp.

Tomorrow morning, I'll dig out the tweezers and try to gently remove the remains.
So long little guys, it was nice to see these two guys flutter in the afternoon.........back to watching the tiny shrimps and.......bubbles

Day 14...........
It's been a few days since I posted, I went to the LFS today, spent yet more cash (£45 on....3 x turbo snails, 2 x red legged hermit crabs, more salt and some caluim booster).
The reason for the calcium booster, is my average reading is 280 - 320 max..........which when the ideal is in the 400's, time to take action.

In my last post I commecnted that I decided to remove the 2 Aiptasia.....well they are back, this time they have bought little jonney with them, so I have three of the blighters.
I think I'm gunna have to get serious and use chemicals to remove them.....unless someone here says otherwise and they are actually good for my tank ?

Ok...the crabs.....they are cool, bright red legs, yellow eyes and wow they seem to be really enjoying the light crusting of green alge on my LR and Live sand. Picking up one stone, cleaning it, dropping the picking up the next one, Hopefully they will be ok.

Did a water change two days ago and all my levels seemed ok, I'm thinking the LR has cycled as my nitrates spikes then dropped again in a matter of two days (could be wrong).

Apart from above, the tank is cool, really glad I bought it, but now really nervous as I actually have living things in there and dont want to ruin their day, night time seems the best as all hell breaks loose, the baby shrimps go on their mini rampage around the tank, the brisleworms come out of their coves for a play....and the best of all.........at the start I mentioned somthing which puffs out "white stuff" every 1/2 or so......well he aint dead....far from it.....I STILL dont know what he is, but something has moved a fair amount of Live sand in one area, this was before any of the crabs/snails were placed in the tank.
It would be great to see the thing, but It just wont come out for a showing.

Still getting loads of grief with the skimmer, I can see me ripping the bloooooming thing out in a week or two, sone day it works fine and it's skimming all the crap away, but today it's just chucking bubbles and overflowing everywhere. Stupid design......god knows how it works.

Roll on 5 weeks then I can start playing with fish etc etc. (happy easter)

Glad to see it's all up and coming nicely

I was told that once cycling had completed then fish should be added fairly quickly (within a week). The reason for this is that without some kind of bioload you will start to lose the beneficial bacteria. From what I understand, the cuc are a very small bioload and not usually sufficient to support that amount of live rock.
I added my clowns about a week or so after cycling was completed (and after adding cuc) and I was happy with my water stats and so far everything has been as good as gold.

I wouldn't be comfortable leaving the rock for 5 weeks with nothing to feed it!

Might be best to seek further advice from the nano gods but it does actually make a lot of sense when you think about it. The same thing happens with freshwater tanks of which I have more experience.

Cheers

Mark

Day 20.....OK i give up on the aiptasi's, the little buggers have come back but this time with re-inforcements.
I now have 6 of them scattered around the tank, the weird thing is I visited a different LFS today and they have three tanks with these in.
Should I kepp them ? are they a good sign of a healthy tank ?

Stock update..........I now have 2 more crabs, blue legged hermit's, they seem to like the gravel and it's starting to get cleaner (in places)
My back wall now has only half of the grass algea covering it, thanks to the turbo snails, I've found my first buble algea this morning it's about the same size as a fly.
This could be fun trying to get rid.

My calcium levels are still low (around the 230 - 280 mark) So started to add some chemicals to boots the calium levels.

I think I have a new hitchiker, a clam, it's the size of a 5pence peice (or 5mm) red, with lips. When my turbo snail wondered over it it closed up, then about 1/2 hr later it opened back to about a 2mm gap, lets see whta happens there.

Ordered a new skimmer from good old eBay, 14 quid for a WG-308, from some gizzar in Japan. Thats the next project to try and get my skimmer to work properly and consistant.

After that....should be time for some fishes.

Sounds good so far (more photos! I need something to look at while I'm in auto pilot mode on the phone at work).

With regards to the aiptasia's I would highly recommend using Joes Juice. It does no harm to the tank (dont over use it though, you only need a little bit). It does a great job killing them off. Alterntivly you could go for a couple peppermint shrimp as well (though there is a possibility they will eat certain corals as well and may not actually eat the aiptasia).

With regards to the callium levels. Before you start dosing (too late now I know ) I would consider changing your salt brand. Are you using RO water? If so mix up a batch of water and test the calcium level before it goes in the tank. If it is low there then look for a brand with a higher calcium level. This will do two things, one it is a hell of a lot easier to manage and two you will have more stable water parameters (dosing and measuring all the time is a pain in the #### and its easy to miss it occasional which means levels that rise and drop quickly as you compensate). This is especially important in a nano take where there is less water volume to dilute any water parameter changes so they swing much more quickly.

How have you hermits been with your snails? I gave up trying to keep snails with hermits (at least in a small tank where they are more likely to run into each other)

Edit: What chemicals are you adding to boost your calcium levels? If it is something that is also boosting other things you need to be measuring them as well to make sure you aren't overdosing them.