da1001 Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 No hammer here, might just take it outside into the street and drop it to break it. I dont know tho, I think it looks alright as-is. I will play with it some more this weekend to see how it looks before I start breaking up rocks left and right. Just no time right now to play with it. On a side note, this will be getting wet this weekend sometime. The LFS called today and said my Sicce return pump was in so I will go get that tomorrow night, and some reef putty and then im set. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 I think I have narrowed it down to just the Nikon D90 or the Nikon D3200 body. D90 was top of the line amateur camera a few years ago, but its only 12 mp. Would a 24mp "low level" beginner 3200 be worth spending $80 more? ($229 vs $309) I guess I should talk about the BRS dry live rock I picked up. It was the Fiji Dry Live Rock for $2.79 a pound, its pretty good. Lots of little holes, plenty of algae on it, relatively clean and looks like it will work well for me, feels heavy as hell though. 10 pounds seems like a good amount for a 10 gallon. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Stopped by the LFS today, picked up my digital thermometer and Sicce Micropump. They had a Tunze 3152 I was going to buy until the new kid brought it over and showed me the price. Some idiot there stuck a price of $174.99. The kid is like: "I will match any price online!" I told him to check BRS, he saw it there for $108 and nearly choked and said he couldn't match that. -.- Guess I will need to order it from BRS and have it shipped. Wont really need it until after the cycle anyway. Tomorrow I pick up some filter floss, reef putty, stick my rocks together, toss everything into my tank and PLUG. IT. IN. Booya Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Awesome! Looking forward to pics! I now what you mean about the price for the Tunze. I totally don't mind paying a little more at the LFS so that they can make a profit, but I have to draw the line at getting ripped off I don't know what to tell you on the camera. With the D90 you're getting the best possible amateur level camera from that generation (same as mine which is a D60). But with the D3200 you're getting a camera that's two generations newer. I can tell you the additional focus and metering points in the 3200 can make a big difference for point and shoot stuff. But for taking pictures of your tank, you will be doing a lot of manual focus and exposure adjustment, so it won't be as critical. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 True that, teeny. Another thing I have to think about, a lot of the lenses I am looking at wont auto-focus on my D3200 because they are older lenses and not the new AF-S style. Plus I have heard the body is beefier and heftier in the hands compared to the 3200, which I think I might like. But then again, it is 2 generations farther back compared to the 3200...If I can find it on sale, I think I might get the D90 body instead of the 3200 if only for something that feels a little more professional in the hands if that makes sense? 12mp isn't bad for a camera, anything over about 10 is really all I need considering I'm not making 30 inch wide prints or anything. Forgot to mention about the LFS, they have a crap-ton of small black clowns I have been eyeballing the past couple weeks. I think I might be getting a pair of black clowns if they have any left in a week or two. I also noticed that they just got in a shipment of frags, damn they looked good. There was a Favia in there with little orange and blue tips it looked freaking awesome under the LED's. They got it marked at 65 but I can probably talk them down to 40 when I go buy about 10 at once in a few weeks. Here's hoping they still have a good selection by the time I get there. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Well, I did it! Nikon D90 is on the way Give me a few hours to run to town for reef putty, my extension strip and filter floss (once the stores open) and this thing will be getting wet and you can see some cloudy water pics Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 It. Has. BEGUN. Tank Wet. Stand leveled. Rocks in. Heater cranked up to cook this turd through its cycle. I went with the small piece and the large rounded piece side by side, I wasn't getting the look I wanted with all 3, plus I would only have about 5 gallons in there if I kept it in. Taking it out left me about 6.8 gallons overall. Almost flooded it, wasnt paying close enough attention when I started getting water into the AIO chambers in back haha. I got a ton of filer floss in chamber 1 so it shouldnt be too long until its clean and I can show you the 'scape. P.S. I thought the Kessil 150 was sort of loud until I plugged in everything and got water flowing through there. I heard a weird grinding sound and I was like, what the hell is that? Surely its not the brand new pump? Nope. Its the IM spinstream gears. It has gotten a little quieter since then, im hoping it just needs to break in a bit. If it doesnt I will need to pop it off every night just so I can sleep lol. Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Finally wet! The light looks great I've found the old "1lb live rock per gallon" rule is good to figure out how much to buy, but not how much to actually put in...at least for picos and small nanos. You want to have plenty of rock so you can pick the pieces that work best, and have the option to break some up to get smaller pieces. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Finally wet! The light looks great I've found the old "1lb live rock per gallon" rule is good to figure out how much to buy, but not how much to actually put in...at least for picos and small nanos. You want to have plenty of rock so you can pick the pieces that work best, and have the option to break some up to get smaller pieces. Exactly teeny. If I end up not liking how it looks (which probably wont change, it has a nice look to it imho) I can always cycle the last piece in a spare bucket, break it up and see if adding a bit more later will make it look better. If anyone uses a spinstream too I would be interested in hearing if yours is relatively loud too. Mine has quieted just a little bit since its been running for a few hours but its still loud enough I am worried about sleeping at night. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 OK, for the chemists in the forums: pH: 8.1 Salinity: 1.022 Ammonia: 0.5 ppm Nitrates: 5.0 ppm Looks like its going good, I will test it daily for a week and if it continues to stay low I will toss in the clean up crew in a week It probably wont, but I can dream Here she is! Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Looks good. I like the shapes of the rocks - you got some good ones Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 I've never had the chance to say this before but the picture doesn't do it justice. It's actually totally clear now, but the camera doesn't do a good job of conveying that fact. I am looking forward to tossing some life in there, its sort of barren right now. Looks good. I like the shapes of the rocks - you got some good ones I do appreciate the kind words teeny. I really liked the 2 rock idea after I stepped outside of my "must use all rocks" box I was living in for a day or two there. The flow with the Spinstream wasn't all that great and the plastic gears grinding together was a horrible noise so I yanked it off and popped back on the stock angled return nozzle. Seems to be quieter now, although I think my Sicce Micrapump is still breaking in because there is some slight gurgling sort of sounds coming from it. I tried to take it apart to see if the impeller was loose but couldn't get into the case so I am not really sure what is going on with that. Regardless, I had it going all night long and slept pretty well so I guess I can't complain too much. Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Looking great, might wanna bring salinity up to around 1.025 for when you get some corals, really looks good though Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 True that, I had just dumped in a crapton of DI water to get the water at the appropriate height but got a bit too much in there so that might be part of the problem haha. (dont top off right after you wake up lol) Link to comment
skyscraper2290 Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Haha ya just figured I'd give ya a reminder Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 Parameters all seem the same, no diatom bloom yet. tank runs 77.5 at night 79.5 during the day pH around 8.0 Salinity 1.022 Ammonia 0.5 ppm Nitrates 5.0 ppm I was hoping to see at least some change in the ammonia and nitrates to see that my cycle is moving along but no change yet. Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 In my tank I never did see much indication of a cycle. Since you have dry rock, there may not be that much organic material dying off. You could try adding some ammonia and a little bit of raw shrimp to verify that the ammonia rises and then goes back down again, with the corresponding change in nitrites and nitrates. Btw, the rise and fall in nitrites can happen in hours, so you can easily miss it when testing water. I had a similar swing in temperature from day to night whne I set up my first tank. I ended up just keeping the heater set to 79 so that it didn't swing so much. In both my tanks, the diatom bloom didn't start until about the end of week two or three. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 27, 2015 Author Share Posted January 27, 2015 Ya I have been feeding it some fish food to introduce ammonia as it breaks down, I don't mind it taking awhile but I had hoped to at least follow its progress better. I will just keep going the low and slow method until its done. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 28, 2015 Author Share Posted January 28, 2015 Today's update: Idk wut the hell is going on lol. Parameters are 8.0 pH, 79.5 temp, probably about .40 ppm Ammonia and 0 Nitrates.... I figured the Nitrates would be going up because the ammonia is going down but whatever. The tests are still good for another 2 years, anyone else had anything like this happen? Should I do a water change and check again tomorrow? Hold off? Any advice is welcome, this isn't like any of my other cycles lol Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 0 nitrates is probably an indication that you are about to start seeing diatoms or algae. Or both. Often when you have nitrates in your tank, the algae will consume all of it, leaving nothing for the test kit to detect. Same thing happens with phosphates. I had undetectable levels of nitrates and phosphates in my 4g tank for about the first 6-8 months, but I always had little outbreaks of diatoms on the sand or cyano in the low flow areas. Once the tank got mature, enough of the algae died off that there were low levels of nitrates and phosphate. In my 10g tank, it's a little different. I've been running the skimmer and have an emerald crab, a red mithrax crab, and four or five micro hermits plus all the snails and two starfish. Any tiny bit of algae gets eaten immediately. So in that tank, ammonia and nitrites are always zero but nitrates are still up around 20-40 because there's no macro algae to eat it. I'm trying to get my chaeto to grow but it's been kinda stagnant for some reason... Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 28, 2015 Author Share Posted January 28, 2015 0 nitrates is probably an indication that you are about to start seeing diatoms or algae. Or both. Often when you have nitrates in your tank, the algae will consume all of it, leaving nothing for the test kit to detect. Same thing happens with phosphates. I had undetectable levels of nitrates and phosphates in my 4g tank for about the first 6-8 months, but I always had little outbreaks of diatoms on the sand or cyano in the low flow areas. Once the tank got mature, enough of the algae died off that there were low levels of nitrates and phosphate. In my 10g tank, it's a little different. I've been running the skimmer and have an emerald crab, a red mithrax crab, and four or five micro hermits plus all the snails and two starfish. Any tiny bit of algae gets eaten immediately. So in that tank, ammonia and nitrites are always zero but nitrates are still up around 20-40 because there's no macro algae to eat it. I'm trying to get my chaeto to grow but it's been kinda stagnant for some reason... Im worried about the ammonia still being .40 ppm though, I prefer to toss stuff in when the ammonia is undetectable by test kits. Would .4 be a bad number to toss in a clean up crew if I do happen to get a diatom outbreak? Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 Yes - .40 is still too high. Until it's down at or very near zero even snails will have a hard time. Did it stay at the level for long? It will go up after you add something to the tank but it should go right back down if the tank is cycled. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 28, 2015 Author Share Posted January 28, 2015 No actually its been reading .50 this whole time and only just dropped to .40 last night, the nitrates were in the 5 ppm range the whole time until last night too. Regardless, I can wait it out until 0 ppm ammonia, I just know a lot of people do a water change right after their nitrates take a big dip. Mine went from 5 to 0 so I consider that a huge dip haha. I can still smell it letting off the ammonia so I know its not ready yet, but I am finding more small spots of purple coralline starting on my rocks so I am happy. Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 29, 2015 Author Share Posted January 29, 2015 Well, here are today's numbers: Temp - 79.7 pH - 8.0 Salinity - 1.021 (need to get that up next water change) Ammonia - .25 ppm Nitrates - 0 ppm So, the nitrates are still staying at zero which is weird, but the biggest change is the ammonia went from .40 to .25 overnight. Here's hoping it continues at its current rate and I only have a week long cycle. Hoping to see diatom bloom any day now. Guess dry live rock and live sand was a good combo... Link to comment
da1001 Posted January 30, 2015 Author Share Posted January 30, 2015 Freaking ammonia went back up to .50 again. Blah!! Looks good otherwise though, ordered my macro lens, got my camera at my post office to pick up tomorrow morning and then I ordered the Pico Skim (backordered for like 5 days) and the Tunze 3152 ATO unit too. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.