banshee Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I wanted to start a thread on my BC 14 so I can watch it evolve and keep a log of what I do right (and wrong!). FTS: 5-24-12 Plans: Equipment: Eheim Jagr 50W Heater inTank Media Basket w/ chaeto, purigen, filter floss Maxi Jet 900 pump Koralia 425 powerhead Coralife Dual Power Strip Coralife Digital Thermometer Ecoxotic Panorama Pro LED module/RGB Panorama Pro LED module Future Equipment: ReefKeeper Lite or Apex Jr Another Ecoxotic 12k/445nm module CUC/Inverts: 5 Candy Snails (Nerite?) 5 Dwarf Ceriths 4 Florida Ceriths 2 Nassarius 3 Nerite 1 Stomatella snail 3 Red Leg Hermits (Daughter's request) 3 Scarlet Hermits 1 Blue Leg Hermit 3 Trochus Snails 1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp 1 Pom Pom Crab 1 Porcelain Crab 1 red/green mini mini nem 3 purple martini mini mini nems Macros: Chaeto C. Barbata Red Grape Blue Ochtodes Halymenia Codium Dragons Breath Unknowns Current Corals: Green Toadstool Mushroom Leather (Fiji) Blue Mushroom Red mushroom Green mushroom Rock covered in purple mushrooms Open Brain Frogspawn Metallic Green Daisy Polyps 22 ricordea 1 Yuma Blue Clove Polyps PYA Clove Polyp Orange Digitata Future Corals: Sun Coral fox coral orange cup coral button coral Fish: None for the moment. Waiting until August to try again. Link to comment
banshee Posted February 18, 2012 Author Share Posted February 18, 2012 2-16-12: Added live sand, live rock, and pre-mixed SW from the LFS. 2-17-12: Ran filter overnight to clear particulates from sand. To rinse filter floss or replace now? 2-17-12 First Water Tests: SG: 1.025 pH: 8.4 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 Does this mean nothing's happening? Should I try the raw shrimp to start a cycle or what? I expected to see something on the ammonia after 3 days. Am I being too impatient? Link to comment
JoelRHale Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I'd just relax for a week. Also since your water is clean I'd replace your floss. The sand dust is a pain to rinse out and you won't get it all out. Good luck with your tank! Link to comment
Sashimi Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 save yourself the headache and buy a RO/DI unit Link to comment
banshee Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 Thanks. I replaced the floss. I plan to buy an RO/DI unit eventually but it's not going to be right now. Water today is pretty much the same: pH: 8.4 Ammonia: 0.50 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 I'm not going to test again until at least Monday. Link to comment
banshee Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 Excited to find this on a ledge in the back today! Water is clear and temperature is holding steady at 81. I turned the heater down 2 degrees to try to get to 79-80 consistently. Happy so far! 1 Link to comment
banshee Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 Testing water params again tonight. Going to take a sample to the LFS to compare tomorrow. Can't wait to see where I'm at now! Just using this to bump so I can find this again tonight for my update! Update: pH: 8.4 Ammonia: 1.0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 Will it ever start to break down?! Link to comment
banshee Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 2-23-12: It's finally begun! pH: 8.4 S.G.: 1.025 Ammonia: 2ppm Nitrite: 0.25 ppm Nitrate: 5 ppm Woah! 2-23-12: Link to comment
banshee Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 We're in full swing now! pH: 8.4 S.G.: 1.025 Ammonia: 4.0ppm Nitrite: 0.50ppm Nitrate: 20ppm Temperature: 82 Turned my heater down another 2 degrees. Starting to believe it's stuck on. Did a small water change (half gallon or so) to try to save my crabs and coral. Link to comment
banshee Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 2-25-12: Ammonia: 4ppm Nitrite: 1ppm Nitrate: 40 ppm Did a 10-20% water change and got my temperature stabilized at 79.5. Link to comment
banshee Posted February 26, 2012 Author Share Posted February 26, 2012 2-26-12: pH: 8.4 Ammonia: 4ppm Nitrite: 2ppm Nitrate: 40ppm S.G.: 1.025 Ammonia has leveled off. I hope this means I can expect a drop soon. I actually think it was little lighter than 4ppm today but it was darker than 2ppm so I wanted to be conservative and not get excited. Link to comment
notwithit Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 I do suggest changing the fans in the aquarium hood. There noisy. Currently I run three ecoxotic panorama pros and no fans and things have been good. Will be adding a 80 mm fan soon to cool it all. Congrats on the tank! Its an exciting process! Link to comment
rO.oster Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 even cutting away the shiny aluminum grate that covers the fans on the inside of the splash guard will help tremendously stabilize your temps.. Link to comment
notwithit Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 even cutting away the shiny aluminum grate that covers the fans on the inside of the splash guard will help tremendously stabilize your temps.. Good idea. I pulled all aluminum out of the tank when I went led. Tried to keep some as a reflector and ended up getting heat issues. Link to comment
banshee Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 My fans are quiet so far and no issues. My temp is stable at 79.5-79.7 day and night. I'm looking at getting the AI Nano LEDs for a retrofit of my hood but I'm totally uneducated on wiring/electricity and afraid of how much could go wrong. I'm only 13 days into this tank and I've already messed up the CUC! Link to comment
notwithit Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 How'd you mess the CUC up? If you go with the rapidled plug and play set it comes with instructions and you don't need to solder anything:-) Hows the tank looking? Link to comment
banshee Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 How'd you mess the CUC up? If you go with the rapidled plug and play set it comes with instructions and you don't need to solder anything:-) Hows the tank looking? Added 2 hermits and a snail too soon. Hoping they survive the cycle. Is the rapidled plug and play the AI nano or a different one? The tank looks the same. I'm just waiting for the ammonia and nitrites to drop so I can start looking at corals. Going to do corals first and fish later I think. I want a nice grown in tank with lots of color! Link to comment
notwithit Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 http://www.rapidled.com/biocube-14 This is the link. You should be just fine with the snails and the hermits. If you're really worried get some prime and some bacteria addition supplemental stuff Link to comment
banshee Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 2-27-12 Can a tank crash during initial cycle?! Ammonia: 8+ Nitrite: 5+ Nitrate: 80+ I'm off the charts here! Help! Link to comment
banshee Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 http://www.rapidled.com/biocube-14 This is the link. You should be just fine with the snails and the hermits. If you're really worried get some prime and some bacteria addition supplemental stuff Thanks! It says it needs a reef controller. Would the reef keeper lite be what I'm looking for? In the meantime this all only matters if my cycle eventually ends! ETA: I've got a brittle star! He's super tiny but I saw him come out of a hole in the rock tonight! My second hitch hiker! Woohoo! Will he survive this crazy cycle?! Link to comment
Dendroguy Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 I would stop testing,there will be a diatom bloom when the cycle is complete Link to comment
banshee Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 I want to have a full record of my cycle. I'm going to keep testing until I'm sure it's over. Right now though it's a mess and so am I. 2/28/12 Ammonia: 8+ Nitrite: 5+ Nitrate: 160+ Noticed my big hermit hadn't moved from this morning... dead as can be. Havent seen my trochus snail for two days. Guessing he bit it too. My coral looks like azz. I gave in and did about a 3 gallon water change. Hopefully I'll be able to save the little bit of life I have left in there. Update! Found the trochus alive and kicking. Hermit is not dead either! It was just my first molt! Scary stuff! Link to comment
notwithit Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Well I guess at least you learned a valuable lesson. With saltwater keeping it is an expensive hobby and you are only goin to make it more expensive by rushing. For the dimmable leds on rapidled you can use a controller or you can build a simple dimmer box for about 10 bucks Link to comment
notwithit Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Hey. Btw. That last post wasn't to be rude! Your ammonia may be spiking a lot from dead animal. Andbif your ammo is that high you may look at letting your lfs hang onto the rest of your live stuff til your spikes over Link to comment
banshee Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 Hey. Btw. That last post wasn't to be rude! Your ammonia may be spiking a lot from dead animal. Andbif your ammo is that high you may look at letting your lfs hang onto the rest of your live stuff til your spikes over I know it wasn't malicious. Adding the small CUC too early was my first big mistake and I'm sure I'll make some more along the way. I don't think there's anything dead though. I found the trochus alive and well and the hermit 'death' was actually a molt. I didn't know the molt looked so real! But the 'empty' shell got up and walked away last night! I removed the molt and threw it away so it's not in there decomposing. I counted and I have everything still so unless some HH died that I didn't know I had it's not an ammonia spike from decomp. Hopefully it will be over soon since I'm in the third week of cycling now! Link to comment
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