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Nano Tank Diary...

I'd LOVE a firefish, but my husband thinks they look funny with their really big dorsal fin :rolleyes: :lol: Our lfs actually usually has a couple in stock.

I also noticed last week that they have a couple Rainford/Court Jester gobies and those are nice too...... If I can get my husband to agree, that might take the place of the damsel. I LOVE gobies.

For the algae, have you gotten some snails? My lfs said to come in at the first site of algae and they'd get me hooked up with a good initial cleaner crew.
 
imo if you are really thinking about spending some time, effort, and money on it. save your self some money, rather then upgrading your lights later, buy a 70W Mh then you could have a small clam, and sps, and almost (almost...) any coral...
 
Thanks for the idea Max, I'll have to check that out :)
 
Got some new test kits yesterday and I'm glad I did. The test strips I was relying on had led me astray with the nitrate results in the past and they were showing ammonia at .25, but my new tests are still showing ammonia levels at 0.0ppm. I didn't bother testing for anything else yet.
 
I got the separate test kits for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate last night, but am not including them in my costs for setting this nano tank up b/c I would have gotten them anyway for my FW tank...

Total cost to date = $110.04

Expenses to come:
Inverts
Fish
Lighting
Coral

Those last 2 are not priority but will come eventually. I may also get some more LR...
 
fish_r_great said:
FYI Madrins need copepods to survive and that means a tank thats been established for atleast a year.
Mandarins?...

I know, that's why I said I'd LOVE to get some but knew I probably couldn't sustain them in a 10g.

Thank you for pointing that out though :) :thumbs:
 
I haven't done up a whole list yet. Definitely some snails (8-10) hermit crabs (2-5?) and maybe some shrimp. The lfs said when I get the first bit of algae bloom to come see them and they'll get me started - snails I assume. I need to read up on this part more b/c my tank's been up and running for just over a week now.

The first week, I had the lights on about 3.5 hrs a day, now I'm up to about 4.5 hrs a day.
 
parker: I think I'm just few days ahead of you with mine. I had a big outbreak of diatom algae a little over a week ago. Then, one day, it was gone as fast as it came.... and replaced with a short bushy green algae. When it showed up, I added some hermit crabs. I put in 4 hermits at first, and they weren't doing the job.... so I added 10 more this weekend. They've cleaned off one big piece of LR and are working on another. Now I'm starting to see a few spots of some type of red slime algae (cyanobacteria?) and the purple coraline is spreading.

My LFS owner wouldn't sell me snails yet. He said the snails are more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite than the hermits are. He said to just use a scraper pad (I have a mag-float stuck on mine) and keep the glass clean by hand, and let the hermits groom everything else. Once we're sure it's cycled and stable, THEN he said to add snails. Also, get some spare shells for the hermits, because if they can't "move houses" they'll rip the snails out and hijack their shells.

On mine, I didn't do the "gradually increase hours" thing with the lights. I ran a 14w T5 bulb for about 6 hours a day for a few days until my good lighting came in, and then the 55/65w (depending on whether you believe their wattage ratings) PC bulbs have been on a 12 hour 9:30am-9:30pm cycle ever since.
 
Hello and sorry for arriving late on this thread :*)

I would like ot add at this point (might be a bit late) that if you have added mature filters and especially a large quantity of good quality of live rock then your tank will not cycle.

You will do your tank more harm than good by waiting for the tank to cycle when it simply never will.

If you have good live rock onlready in the tank that has only been out of the lfs tanks for a few hours then you will still have the bacteria needed for the nitrogen cycle to work within your tank. If you have these bacteria and do not feed them (by feeding them i mean adding a fish or adding food/dead shrimps etc for feeding the bacteria) then the bacteria will slowly decline in numbers nad their efficiency in dealing with a future bioload is hampered.

I have added this extract from a fellow reefer before but i will add this again for your benefit.

Fully cured live rock should not cycle on introduction to a new salt water aquarium.

What Steve has said above is right - it really all comes down to the rock being fully cured on introduction. If it is, when it enters your tank, then there should be no problem.

I've noticed a lot of replies lately about fully cured live rock going through the 'recognized' cycling process. I really don't think that this is true. The reason I don't say that "it categorically isn't true" is because I'm waiting for an answer to a question from some microbiologists - hopefully within the next week (all established tanks cycle continuously but this is beyond test kit detection )

Fully cured live rock has nothing on it that will die back. With no die back, there can be no cycling of the rock - end of story.... - ish . There is the issue of 'osmotic shock' to address though. From what I believe, the Nitrosomanas sp. of bacteria found on/in live rock don't have a cell wall that allow the rapid transfer of water into/out of the cell (this is what I'm trying to establish). So, osmotic shock should not be a major factor.

That said, if anybody doesn't agree with me, then why do Steve, STM, Fantasea etc (all purveyors of quality fully cured live rock) say that their rock is ready to go????? Provided that the rock arrives with you within 12-24 hrs then it should be fine. The only way this rock will 'cycle' is if some of it has died during shipping (unlikely, given the experience in packaging of the sellers) or if you kill some of it on receipt.

Provided that your salt water is set-up in accordance with your salt manufacturers’ recommendations, then there really shouldn't be a problem.

I've only set-up 6 reef tanks thus far (nothing, compared to others), all using fully cured live rock as the main filtration, and I've stocked each tank within 2 days of the rock going in . So far, I have suffered no fatalities as a result of this start up procedure (fatalities down the line are a different issue ). Now, I'm either the luckiest Taff reef keeper around or the suppliers of fully cured live rock are right .

Once I've received the answers to the questions I've asked, I'll write a diatribe on this subject . If I'm wrong, then I'll go gracefully


Cheers,

Jerry
 
Ok - Just got back in town from a short vacation. Everything still the same in the tank.

Navarre - Thank you for sharing your post - very informative :thumbs: All of my rock was fully cured when I got it and was in my tank within an hour of coming out of the lfs tank. My only problem is that my SG is still too low...

As soon as I get my SG taken care of (which I've been procrastinating hoping that just by evaporation and refilling it with more saltwater it would be OK) I'll get the Ocellaris Clown :)

My SG is 1.019
 
chkltcow said:
My LFS owner wouldn't sell me snails yet. He said the snails are more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite than the hermits are. He said to just use a scraper pad (I have a mag-float stuck on mine) and keep the glass clean by hand, and let the hermits groom everything else. Once we're sure it's cycled and stable, THEN he said to add snails. Also, get some spare shells for the hermits, because if they can't "move houses" they'll rip the snails out and hijack their shells.
That's funny (odd funny), my lfs owner told me that some snails would be perfect starters :S

Too much conflicting information out there!!!

So, I got 3. Astrea, Margarita and I think he said Brittle Star Snail but haven't been able to find any info. It's big and brown with a white foot and a mustached looking mouth. It's really cool.

Since I wanted to stay on top of the algae, I went ahead and got the snails and will get the clown (or Rainford/court jester goby).

3 snails @ $2.99ea + tax = $9.51
 
Great post... very fun to follow the thread. :thumbs: Like Navarre said, your tank won't cycle if you put in enough live rock. I figured this out when I set up my tank and went nuts testing the water every day for two weeks with zero ammonia and zero nitrites! :p I thought I was doing something wrong... :*) I am planning on setting up two 10g saltwater tanks in the near future. Woohoo! Just a tip, stop counting how much money you're spending. You'll pass out. I stopped counting once I reached $800... :lol: :lol: :lol:
 

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