My Marine Adventure Begins

[MissG55]

Well here goes!!
I have my tank and thanks to helpful replies to my last post now have my halide hanging oh so proudly above the tank.
Yesterday i took several trips to my LFS to get RO water to fill the tank and mixed the salt.
After the exciting switch on and a sleepless night(i am sure there will be many more!) my temperature is at 25.5 and specific gravity 1.022. I was aiming for 1.026 but a thread on here said that the temperature of the water at 25 means the real sg is 1.026 when refractometer reads 1.022. Is this correct?
Know this sounds confusing!! It confused me?

When i am sure my sg is correct i will be going out to buy my live rock and start aquascaping

Donna

 

[MissG55]

Well after sorting out the sg question at my lfs i bought what seemed like a truck load of lovely rock.
I then spent the afternoon aquascaping and after just one more rock... tumble... restack... tumble... restack i got the hang of it and have arranged them into a steady formation. How exciting.
Now i need to test, test, test and wait.

 

[MissG55]

Well here she is without the rock but will add finished picture later!

 

[john.o]

Whoo hooo a percula
I looked at one of these 2 years back when I decided to get back into marines after a long brake from keeping them but SWMBO said it was way to big so I had to settle for a D&D24g and that was the biggest mistake she ever made , now look what’s happened I have taken walls down in the house ect just so I can get the tank ware I want it . I am really going to enjoy watching this one progress it’s going to be really good as well winding SWMBO up “look at this love if only you had let me buy one that wall would have still been there now”
Any how good luck and don’t forget to keep the pics coming
John,o

 

[MissG55]

I have just had a look at your tank John,O and how fantastic. It looks great.
I am a beginner at marines so will probably be pestering with countless questions in the coming weeks,it's great to know there will be people there to help guide me through this.

Now for the next picture update.
Here is my final masterpiece!!


There is approx 35kg of Live rock in there. I have kept it away from the back and sides of the tank and left a fair bit of swimming room at the front - not that you can see too clearly. My plan was to build something with lots of nooks and crannies for critters to hide in and to also have some ledges where i could fix corals. I hope this looks ok. Remember it is my first attempt(if you don't count the several tumbles i had ). I dont think i will have any dead spots.. what do people think?

 

[simonas]

looking good

have you used some milliput or something to keep the rock all secure? its tricky to use in my opinion but stopped and tumbles of rock I had when my clumsy hands were in messing about

 

[ben1987]

good sized tank to start with, im watching

 

[MissG55]

looking good

have you used some milliput or something to keep the rock all secure? its tricky to use in my opinion but stopped and tumbles of rock I had when my clumsy hands were in messing about

Thanks
I have ordered some DD milliput which i will use to secure the top few rocks. The structure did take some time to build and i made sure i had a firm foundation before going up! My LFS recommended not to milliput the whole thing together to start with as it would make alterations when adding coral difficult - which makes sense. I was lucky to get some really interesting shapes which seemed to click into place!

 

[MissG55]

My first readings:
Specific gravity 1.024
ammonia <0.25 (the lowest the card goes)
Nitrite 0
p.h 8.3
nitrate 25

The Live rock has been in my tank for 24 hours now. It was out of the water for about 40 minutes before going in but was fully cured.
I was expecting to see more ammonia and less nitrate or will this take time to show up.
Should i do a water change to lower the nitrate or wait?
Remember i am new at this and am not sure exactly what my readings should be after 24hours.

 

[ben1987]

id try again in another 24 hours, that might be the end of the ammonia though. if they are similar results after another 24h get your LFS to double check. Then it may be time to think about that water change

 

[john.o]

The fact that your ammonia and nitrite are at zero and you have a reading of nitrate suggests that you have had very little to no die off on your live rock and the tank has cycled ,

but haven said that I would go on the side of caution and I would continue to monitor ammonia to see if there are any spikes for at least a day or two {before you put any live stock in there} if you begin to see a spike in the ammonia then start to monitor the nitrite as well once you see both of these drop to zero then check your nitrate there will be a reading as this is the end of the nitrogen cycle and this will not go to zero reading by its self , it will require you to do a water change to bring this down{some people do small water changes during the cycle and others prefer to do a large one at the end its purely up to the individual}
Ps what flow do you have in the tank?

 

[MissG55]

Lets hope thats the case and my cycle is almost over. I will keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrate for a few days and let you know. Wont be adding any livestock until next weekend at the earliest. I was planning to have to wait at least 3-4 weeks. How exciting.
At the moment i have '1000 lph filtration pump, twin 1000 lph filtered circulation pumps'. These are what came with the set up. I have my eye on a Vortech MP10 to add to this, which i will make sure is in place before adding any livestock. Does this sound sufficient. When i spoke to my LFS about a further powerhead they talked me out of it(shock horror ) and as i am wary of people trying to sell me things i don't actually need took this as a good sign!!

Thanks for all your input. It is really appreciated.

 

[Morri]

I would leave it a week do a few tests if stable think about CUC a week later

 

[MissG55]

First day back at work after 2 weeks so had to stop watching the tank for the first time
But i am home now and am pleased to say it is still where i left it

I have tested again and my readings are the same as yesterday: Ammonia0.25
Nitrite:0
P.H:8.3
Nitrate:25
Temp:25.5
Specific gravity:1.024

This is after 48 hours. As i said in my last post i was not thinking about adding live stock for at least 3-4 weeks.
But if this really is cycle over...
I will keep testing throughout the week and do a water change to lower the nitrate. If the results are still stable will take a sample to LFS at the weekend. If they o.k me i can think about CUC right?

I have been thinking about 6 blue leg hermit crabs, 2 skunk shrimp(added later), 2 Star Astrea snails, 2 Tongan Nassarius Snails(that is if i can find them). Does this sound ok or do i need more?

 

[Morri]

CUC seems fine not a fan of cleaner shrimps mine jumps all over my most expensive corals I would consider adding a couple of true peppermints just in case you get any aiptasia