My River Reef 94 Marine Adventure!

[simonas]

Dead stuff/waste -> ammonia -> nitrite (with the help of bacteria) -> nitrate (bacteria again) as you can see nitrate is the end result and least harmful of the 3 to fishys and as long as you have plenty of good bacteria only nitrate should be present in your tests. If after a cycle you get an ammonia spike somethings probably dead, followed shortly by lots of other deaths apparantly.
Your water changes are mostly to rid yourself of nitrate, using algae such as cheato can help absorb nitrates aswell.

cheers Sorgan that all makes sense and I sort of new that. I have cycle dyslexia

I could only do a small change maybe 10% as thats the only water mix I had, I will get some water tomorrow from LFS and do another change and see where we go from there and if water tests ok saturday night I may get something sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yay!!!

 

[simonas]

did my 50% water change this time last night and just tested the water

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 10

happy days thats what I want isn;t it?

Bought 2 red legged hermits and 2 turbo snails this afternoon as well and they are beavering away. the red legged hermits don;t stop!!! £16 for the lot

Do either of the above damage or graze on toadstools or xenia?

 

[Morri]

I have never seen snails or hermits eating Corals you should be fine but sometimes mother nature likes to mess with us

 

[Harry1996]

well all my hermits and snails are fine.... buti have one stupid hermit. you have to buy extra shells for them so i got a bag of shells put some in. and then this stuid hermit want the biggest longest shell in my tank. so now he keeps going on my star polyps and nocking them over and a few days ago he sat right on it and now my star polyps are snaped in half. so when getting shells for your hermits dont buy/collect long shells

 

[simonas]

well all my hermits and snails are fine.... buti have one stupid hermit. you have to buy extra shells for them so i got a bag of shells put some in. and then this stuid hermit want the biggest longest shell in my tank. so now he keeps going on my star polyps and nocking them over and a few days ago he sat right on it and now my star polyps are snaped in half. so when getting shells for your hermits dont buy/collect long shells

ha ha good advice and Harry what you doing up so early I;d be having a lie in if i was 13 and lived with my parents!!

 

[Harry1996]

i normaly have a lie in but i had to complete assassins creed 2 on my ps3 i have now completed it carnt wait untill they bring out the 3rd one.

 

[simonas]

Been naughty today and bought some things and was given others!!! oops!!!

Bought a toadtsool coral of some kind yesterday advertised as Leather Toadstool coral? £20
when i put it in it came out with all the polyps and looked gorgeous, its been withdrawn since then

also got from a local reefer whos breaking everything down a bit of rock with a ricordea florida coral. It has 4 heads and looks cool. on the rock is a green zoa with about 5 heads although not all out yet

and fortuntaley for me he had a couple of xenia pusle frags and he gave me one for nowt so would have been rude to say no!! its tiny but i;ll take a pic anyway with phone camera!!

I;m enjoying the tank already although I really want to change it around as I;m not happy with the rock work, that willbe next job

hope you like comments and suggestions please

Simon

 

[Harry1996]

you could smash up some of the rock to make smaller bits. love your corals. my leather isint looking as good as yours.

 

[Morri]

Are you running carbon in your tank yet?

 

[Harry1996]

morri if you are talking to me then no not at the moment. im going to soon but seapets and rats cats dont sell rowacarbon. or any carbon for that matter. i have seen it in rats cats before though

 

[Morri]

No Harry was just asking Simon need to kerb the chemical warfare before they start

 

[sorgan]

Are you talking about the stuff leathers release morri? I havnt had a problem with it that I know off and I don't run carbon (or any other filter exept LR) can you elaborate on this chemical warfare? May be worth while looking at carbon if leathers can be naughty.

Simon the tanks really coming along, I would leave the LR alone and just add smaller pieces later on (make sure it's fully cured) more LR means more filteration (to a limit) and most softies come mounted on small hunks of LR so it will build up.

Nice to see some freebies!

 

[Morri]

All leathers release a toxin which is designed to retard the growth of other corals so they have space to grow into and in a nano with so little water this can have an impact on all corals in the tank. Its not essential but if you run carbon it will remove these toxins from the water as well as clear lots of other junk out of the column.

 

[simonas]

sorry been busy in work today so didn;t see these posts

I haven;t got any carbon running Morri not sure how I;m going to manage that in this small tank unless I put a stocking full of it in my small internal that was in the tank in the first place and it may add with flow? what do you think

Another forum has questioned the quality of the live rock? does it look like proper live rock to you guys?

I;lldo another re jog of the rock before I leave it as I;m not satisfied but I;m happy with the progress so far. Looking forwrd to the xenia growing as I like the look they create

 

[Morri]

UR can be a bit harsh sometimes the LR looks fine to me if you have any doubt just pop into your lfs and buy a hunk of cured from there and add it to yours it will seed it if you have any bacteria missing but you had a cycle so I would doubt there is any issues

Also as you buy corals these generaly come on rock which will seed

My rock has very little purple on as I have 3 urchins to get rid of the coraline.

And yip carbon in the internal will do the trick I ue rowa carbon but not the cheapest.