New To Saltwater

Added two Coralife 50/50 bulbs. Definitely a different wave-link of light I kinda like it.
Water stats to follow in next post for tonight, but wanted to post these two items to see what you think.

Some new lime green growth in between the corraline algae



And some white growth on the rocks...in real life it looks kind of like mold:


WATER STATS FOR TONIGHT:
Exactly the same as last night.
Time to add CUC!! YAY!!!!!!!

[font="Verdana]So I think my tank has been cycled since last Monday or so.[/font][/color]
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[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Water tests confirm:[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]PH 8.1 (last night I had a little spike in PH. Tested around 8.4)[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Ammonia 0.00[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]NO2 0.00[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]NO3 20.0[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]SG 1.025[/font][/color]
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[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]They've held steady all week.[/font][/color]
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[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Been so busy with work I haven't had a chance to get my clean-up crew picked out and in the tank. Been a little hesitant because I'd really like another 10-15 lbs of live rock I think (I'm going to go see a local reefer tearing down a tank this weekend if we can get hooked up) so I may have another small cycle after I get that in there.[/font][/color]
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[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]In addition, I don't have my powerheads yet, and I feel like that is a pretty essential item to have in there for the live rock filtering to be most effective. The good news is that they have finally shipped and "should" be here late next week.[/font][/color]
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[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]So, tomorrow I go get some more live rock from the local guy, if everything stays within range, I'm thinking a 25% water change and add clean-up crew this week. Maybe next weekend I can finally put my first fish in there.[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana][/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Need to get clean up crew as soon as possible as I've got some pretty good diatom growth and starting to see some other algae as well.[/font][/color]
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[/font][/color][color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Had pretty good luck with the Aiptasia X. Seems to have knocked out everything that I was able to get it applied to.[/font][/color]
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[/font][/color][color="#222222"][font="Verdana]For fish, I think I'm gonna start with a pair of gold banded maroon clowns. I know they get bigger and are a little more aggressive, but I think they are beautiful.[/font][/color]
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[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Any questions/comments are welcome,[/font][/color]
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[font="Verdana][color="#222222"]Yuma[/font]

Yay!!!

Although I didn't see what you were saying at first- My background is dark grey and black text blended in! Was wondering why there was a big blank box as a post

Added some more live rock today. Thought I'd post some pics as an update for tonight. Haven't done water tests yet for tonight.

These also show the new lighting I installed.

Sorry the pictures are a little hazy, the tank is still settling from getting the rock in and moved around.

LEFT SIDE:



RIGHT SIDE:



And here's a full tank shot: (Again, the sand hasn't fully settled yet so they are a little bit hazy)

Looking good!

OK, tank stats for tonight.

Ammonia 0<.25 (maybe a smidge over 0)
NO2 0
NO3 20
SG 1.024
Temp 80.4

I've done some rearranging on the left side, so here's what it looks like now.




And here's the new FTS:

And here are some of the hitchhikers that came with the rock.

First.....some mushrooms: (Again, sorry for the haze...still settling)




And second.....I see some lime green peaking out, and my guess is star polyps:



Also saw a small bristle worm.

Yuma

Ammonia still zero tonight.

Everything else still the same.

Spot fed my new mushrooms a little zooplankton tonight to give them a little boost. Think they were pretty excited, as were all of the bristle worms.

Here's the best pic I could get of the biggest mushroom:




Nothing else new to report. Another day or two of -0- ammonia, a water change, and start adding CUC.

Yuma

Looking really good my biggest mushroom I had at front but after a rescape of the rocks working on it for over 3 hours one thing lead to another and ended up blocking the site of the mushroom lol but its in the rock scaping somewhere

Been a couple of days since I posted so I thought I'd give a quick update.

Did a 10.5 gallon water change tonight. Wanted to do a 15 gallon change, but since I bought premixed SW(with OFF the chart SG) I had to make due with the RO that I had. Lesson learned. Also have GOT to find a better way to do water changes. All in all, learned quite a few things and the next one will go smoother.


Also, rescued the two mushys that had fallen down to the substrate behind the rocks. Got them in much better spots now so hopefully they'll make it home.

Water stats prior:
Temp 79.6
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20<40

Wate Stats after:
Temp 79.1
PH 8.3
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 10<20

So I helped the nitrates a bit. The bigger water change probably would have been better, but I'm ok with where it's at. Gonna be adding CUC in the next couple of days. May wait until the weekend, but we will see.

Thanks for checking in,
Yuma

I thought for sure you were goinng to come home with some friends last night...

Came home tonight from work to what I think are some SUPER happy mushys, so I thought I'd share pictures:

The biggest one:



And the smaller ones:

We have some new inhabitants.

10 Cerith Snails (who haven't really moved much)
10 Nassarius snails (who VERY promptly dove right into the sand.)
2 BIG turbo snails (who are doing upside down acrobatics of the "ledge")
2 emerald crabs (who look a little worse for wear, but have been eating non-stop since I put them in there several hours ago)

Still haven't made the final decision on the shrimp yet, but I am guessing that I'm going to end up going with skunk rather than peppermint.

Mushy's still VERY happy and sand sifter star is still alive. YAY!!

Didn't do water tests tonight, will check them tomorrow.

Yuma

Yay!! What you've been waiting for! Glad that everyone is doing well.
I demand pictures!

Koralia Evolution 750s showed up at my door today....cool. Dropped on in and fired it up. WHISPER, I mean WHISPER quiet. Very cool.

And some pictures of our new inhabitants:





For reference, that's the intake for the penguin filter...about 1 1/4" wide: