New Guy Wanting To Confirm My Progress

[Mat.P]

hi there,

i have a 90litre reef tank with T5 compact 36 watt tubes x2 and 12w LED DAY/Night 2w blue led modes, so far i have a 2inch sand bed and 12kg fully cured live rock, first fill of RO water and waiting for cycling to complete so i can add some livestock.

so far i have readings of,
PH8
Ammonia 0.3
Nitrite 0.1
Nitrate 10
salt 30.1 ppt
(these results are from the 6/8/12)
i hope someone with more experience can let me know if im on track (been cycling for 5 days and live rock and sand were taken from a established tank placed in mine within 20 mins of transport, temp is between 25-26 degc, i have been using fish food to kickstart the ammonia cycle.

Mat.

 

[lljdma06]

Have been continuing to add the fish food? I'm wondering because you still have ammonia and nitrite, though the presence of nitrate indicates that some cycling has occurred. I'd stop the fish food and see if you can get zero ammonia and nitrites.

pH is a tad low, but you know what? Don't worry about it. Many young tanks don't have a very stable ph in the beginning, resist the urge to meddle with it. After doing some conversions, hahaha, not uk sorry, your ratio of LR to gallons looks really good to me.

You're lighting is rather week, but it'll get you through the cycling without incident. It's great for fish and tbh, you should be focusing on softies anyway if you plan on doing coral. IMO, and this is just my opinion, but with 4 systems under my belt, I've observed that the more difficult and light hungry sps really do much better in a tank that has the required lighting AND is at least 6 months to even a year old. So there's absolutely no rush to upgrade your lighting. One of my tanks has thriving, growing sps and guess what? It's the oldest system.

L

 

[Mat.P]

hey thanks, you are right i have continued to keep adding fish food as my lfs told me i should keep the ammonia level up from zero to keep the live rock bacteria alive they were concerned that without any stock to keep the bacteria fed that the hard work of transplanting material from one tank to the next would be wasted.

i will be stopping the ammonia boost soon to let the numbers settle, i am testing levels daily and keeping a log on a table that i drew up so that i can look back and have a good idea how stable things are from day to day.

The lighting was somewhat of a comprimise as i have the Kent marine 90l tank and it comes prefitted with a light hood, however it has a corrigated reflector which seems to create a nice even spread and those 12w white led's seem to give a good boost to the total output, and the blue is for night lighting or adjusting the colour since the T5 Ho fittings are all daylight white to make best use of the available wattage, so turning the blue on at the same time gives a much better luminance of the bright colours on the live rock.

it does look feasable to cram another 2 T5 Ho and ballasts in the hood as it is fan cooled but still i dont know the value of having so many at the front of the hood since the electronics are at the back limiting placement of bulbs.

as far as corals go i was going to keep it simple and get the ground crew first then maybe a fish a week or 2 after that then soft corals later once the fish and other forms of life are happy and the tank remains stable.

also another thing i wanted to ask is regarding filters etc, i have a skimmer a powerhead and sponge filter also bio balls, activated carbon, now the manual says to install all filters etc specifically for marine and tropical setups, is this correct as im hearing a lot about not putting anything in there at all, on a side note the carbon roller things support the bottom of the skimmer so removing them would require a mod to stop the skimmer sliding down the glass on the suckers?

also is uv sterilizer necasary as there are now some tiny micro tube powered uv sterilizers that could be hidden in the back pannel of my tank with the heater, or move the heater to the front of the tank?

Todays readings on the tank

PH 8.2 (going up from yesterday)
Ammonia 0.2 (slight drop)
Nitrite 0.1 (same)
Nitrate 10 (same)
Salt 30.1 ppt (same)

seems the levels are slowly coming down (bear in mind that 0.1 is the lowest reading on the chart for all 4 tests)

sorry this has gotton to be a wall of text but i just been adding to it throughout the day

 

[kyle sicard]

How long has the tank been running? with LR and pumps/filters running?

 

[Mat.P]

How long has the tank been running? with LR and pumps/filters running?

5 days (fish free) all lr and ls was transplanted from an established aquarium.

 

[kyle sicard]

Very nice will make the cycle go quicker. If your new to the hobby I'd suggest to add things very slowly. I'm a bad example when it comes to that, but just make sure your tank remains stable after adding something. If you do decide to add anything pretty quick make sure it's very hardy. It's hard to keep the more fragile fish/corals/inverts alive until the tank has been established for a number of months. You wanna add things slow so that your filters can catch up with the bioload and you don't get a giant spike from adding to many things at once. Once your cycle is complete (everything at 0) I would wait 2 weeks from when you add your full clean up crew in to add fish. That will give you and your tank time to prepare for whats ahead! good luck and maybe make a journal in the journal section! Taking your time and being slow is always the better way to go.

Hopefully my advice helps ,but even if I did provide some mis information which will be corrected if I did, I do know that taking things slowly is always the better option. So if you ever second guess yourself about adding something just wait.