benmod Posted October 13, 2008 Share Posted October 13, 2008 Heya, I've been wandering around this site for a couple of weeks now while I've been setting up my first reef tank - its currently at the start of a slooow cycle (or at the end of a quick one - more later) so I've got some time to put some pics up and hopefully get some questions answered. The Tank I've owned a 4ft fresh water tank for almost a year now with the intention of eventually making the move to saltwater, and my nano looks like its going to be the intermediary. Its a 48 Litre (12G) Resun DMS 400 tank off ebay for $110 Australian with an AquaOne glass heater. Your going to spot more then a few mistakes in this thread and buying a second hand tank was probably the first - i have no idea what was in it before. I had a quick look around online at the Resun tanks and couldn't find any horror stories so I went ahead and bought it. I would love to hear from anyone with experience with them, there isn't much online but there seems to be a mild online consensus that they're cheap, fairly reliable but still unpopular. Lighting The tank came with 2 x 15watt MiniPC bulbs one actinic and the other 10k and broken. I replaced this temporarily with a 15W 6.5k bulb because I cant seem to find the Coralife bulbs anywhere in Aus. Also, as I was switching the bulbs to test whether it was the socket or the bulb that was broken i twisted the bulb the wrong way (gotta remember lefty loosy, righty tighty dammit) and broke the socket. So now I've got a broken socket and import only bulbs and I'm starting to consider scrapping the MiniPC bulbs and installing a a PC retrofit. Hopefully PC's come small enough to fit in the existing lighting cutout.. about 10 inches from memory. Does dodgy lighting matter while your cycling? I'm running the one good light about 5 hours a day and slowly increasing it. Filtration I removed the bio balls and sponge out of the back so now I have four chambers, I've got live rock rubble in the second and my heater + stock pump in the fourth, I was thinking of a refuge in the third and maybe another pump in the first. I bought 6kgs of live rock, about 1kg got the hammer, my aquascape uses about 4kg and Ive got one large rock left over I've just left in there while its cycling. On a side note I used Sellys Knead It epoxy putty to join my rock together - I tested it the next day and the rock lifted straight of with no effort. I still have most of the roll left so I'm going to give it another go in the next couple of days and see if it sticks. Ill post an update. My Cycle My live rock went in 11 days ago. I tested last night using the API Master Test Kit and my ammonia was next to nothing (cant remember the number), Nitrites 0 and Nitrates 0. The live rock I bought had a fair amount of biological goodies on it, most of which has not died off. Furthermore Ive spotted three tiny snails, a tiny hermit crab and an even smaller shrimp like creature moving around in there. Should I drop in some shrimp to kick off a cycle? Could it have already happened? I didn't really test up until now because I wasn't expecting much of anything for at least a couple of weeks, but surely I haven't missed a cycle. Could my dodgy lights be stopping the tank from starting a cycle? Hitchiker - is it a shrimp? The Rest OK i feel like we've come far enough for me to throw this out there.. I used tap water. From the tap. Unfortunately I didn't read up on it until well after I had mixed my salt and it was in the tank. Should I do a complete water change? I'm buying distilled water for water changes and topping up until I can get a RO/DI filter, but will this be enough? At the moment haven't any real plans as far as fish and corals go, I haven't really researched either that much. I want to get as much vivid colour as i can into the tank and I also love this idea of symbiosis so I can definitely see a pistol shrimp and goby at some point in the future. Maybe a pair of mated clowns? I don't know. Also, if your also new to this, have a look at steelhealr's thread http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...;hl=submersible it's invaluable. I've also been listening to the Talking Reef podcast at http://www.talkingreef.com/ which isn't nano specific but still good stuff. Ben Link to comment
got2envy Posted October 13, 2008 Share Posted October 13, 2008 Hey Ben! looks like a pistol shrimp you got there The lights wouldn't have anything to do with the cycle, many people dont even run the lights during this time. I would however try and find the 15W bulb if possible, you can keep some softies with the lighting you have as for the tap water..you may want to test it might be ok If you are 11 days in you may be going thru a soft cycle rather than a full blown one depends on how much die off you have on the live rock..just do some small water changes 1g every few days and test..have you seen diatoms (brown dusting) on the sand and rocks at all? if you have them time to add a CUC hope this helps Maria forgot to add that the scape is great Link to comment
benmod Posted October 15, 2008 Author Share Posted October 15, 2008 Pistol? nice. and thanks for the reply Maria. There is a light brown dusting on the sand towards the back ill try take some pics tonight and put them up tmorrow. I think ill give it another week to see if i get a full outbreak, if there's no change ill drop a piece of shrimp in. I tested last night and again got .25 Ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate. Link to comment
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