vlangel Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 The skimmer looks good. Hopefully you can get it to quiet down some. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted December 23, 2016 Author Share Posted December 23, 2016 I'm starting to think these test kits are junk Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted December 27, 2016 Author Share Posted December 27, 2016 So some things went terribly wrong today. I emptied tank, washed it out then tried to spray on some black touch up to the side where power heads wore through etc. Well the paint melted the old paint and one thing turned to another, the xylene came out, more troubles began. By the end of my lunch break I had a mess. Most of the paint is gone now all together and some of the trim has like a paint slurry dried onto it. Its a mess. BUT i think i can fix it but I have to take it home now to do so 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted December 28, 2016 Author Share Posted December 28, 2016 All cleaned up and ready to go. Just need some contents. And i had a new idea, Im going to get a 1 1/8" paddle bit and counterbore some holes into the live rocks. This will give the frag plugs a nice cozy spot to sit in flush with the surface. 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted December 29, 2016 Author Share Posted December 29, 2016 Im thinking about ordering some jumbo pukani and hoping to get a nice single rock i can carve to fit in the 15 perfectly Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted December 29, 2016 Share Posted December 29, 2016 That's a good idea. That or get a bunch of small rocks and glue them together. But definitely get the pukani rock, super good stuff! Quote Link to comment
jtwisconsin Posted December 29, 2016 Share Posted December 29, 2016 BRS has a 30 pound minimum on the jumbo pukani. That is a lot of rock to purchase and ship. What you might do instead is just send BRS an email and give them the dimensions of the size you want. I have done this before, and they were very helpful in getting me what I wanted. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted December 29, 2016 Author Share Posted December 29, 2016 Sand is in. I got to nervous about what i would get with pukani sizes so i went with reef saver from BRS, 20 pounds. Tank has such a small foot print, ill need easy stacking options. 10 pounds of sand is nearly 2" deep. I left a message on the order for either a nice big rock that would stand up nice or smaller rocks to stack. and gave them tank dimensions. I dont expect them to get that personal but we'll see. 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 3, 2017 Author Share Posted January 3, 2017 rock is in. shipping box says 25 pounds. Came as 3 rocks in a bag. And into the 15 they went. That puts me up to 35 pounds of rock and sand in the 15 gallon. and 1200gpm of turn over. 2 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 4, 2017 Author Share Posted January 4, 2017 Tanks almost full. Turns out it holds 13 gallons of water, i thought 12 was enough. So i'm about a gallon shortly. Still deep enough to run turn on all the gear. Just noisy and micro bubble city from the 1" drop off the AC70 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 5, 2017 Author Share Posted January 5, 2017 all topped off ready to begin cycle. I'm going to try a different method. Going to dose pure ammonia and bio-spira. going to start at 1ppm ammonia. Add biospira and then daily dose to 2ppm. I assume after a couple days that each day it should be back to 0ppm ammonia and i should be seeing nitrites and then nitrates. Once i see nitrates, I will add small amounts of ammonia only to feed the bacteria until i get fish. 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 5, 2017 Author Share Posted January 5, 2017 ok, so.... Surfer free ammonia is REALLY hard to find Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 6, 2017 Author Share Posted January 6, 2017 I added the bio spira yesterday. saw maybe a slight green hint of ammonia on test kits and no other levels looked elevated. Today the slight hint is gone, but nitrates are around 15ppm. Not sure from what, the tank was "sterile" before i added bio spira. I added a bag of carbon today to colonize. And will recheck parameters monday 1 Quote Link to comment
jtwisconsin Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Like the new rocks! Looking forward to seeing this tank come back to life. What are you planning for a water change schedule on this tank going forward? My goal was to do a 2-3 gallon weekly change on my office 6 gallon tank, but there were definitely weeks were I skipped them. You could always tell how much better the tank did when I kept up on water changes, but dragging water from home every week is certainly a pain. Quote Link to comment
flatlandreefer Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Really neat tank for being a work tank! Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 7, 2017 Author Share Posted January 7, 2017 Its a major pain. I think im done with the 2 gallon weekly in favor of 5 gallon by weekly. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 nitrates are back down to 0. I still want to find some ammonia and dose to 2ppm and see how long it takes to go away Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 10, 2017 Author Share Posted January 10, 2017 Is there like a good hitch hiker pack i can order with like stomatellas, micro brittle stars, pods, tube worms etc.. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 11, 2017 Author Share Posted January 11, 2017 ok so little updates. I put the bio-spira in last week. I saw a nitrate spike the next day but that was pretty much it. Then I started thinking, if the product is nothing more than nitrifying bacteria, then they will start to need food to survive. I couldn't find surfacant free ammonia so on monday I got a Regal damsel, and i fed it a him. Mr Regal zipped around the tank and ate all the food. Except a peelt or two that fell into the sand. I checked levels again yesterday and still all good. 0 everything. So this morning i brought from home a hermit covered in coralline and a small nassaurius. The hermit immediately went for the pellet in the sand and the nassaurius just buried its self and went back to sleep. Today however the water is a bit cloudy, cant quite tell if its microbubbles from me cleaning the skimmer yesterday or if its some sort of bacteria bloom from feeding the tank. I'll keep checking levels everyday but it appears the biospira may have worked as advertised and gave me a decent base of bacteria to handle a small bioload. 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 ok so little updates. I put the bio-spira in last week. I saw a nitrate spike the next day but that was pretty much it. Then I started thinking, if the product is nothing more than nitrifying bacteria, then they will start to need food to survive. I couldn't find surfacant free ammonia so on monday I got a Regal damsel, and i fed it a him. Mr Regal zipped around the tank and ate all the food. Except a peelt or two that fell into the sand. I checked levels again yesterday and still all good. 0 everything. So this morning i brought from home a hermit covered in coralline and a small nassaurius. The hermit immediately went for the pellet in the sand and the nassaurius just buried its self and went back to sleep. Today however the water is a bit cloudy, cant quite tell if its microbubbles from me cleaning the skimmer yesterday or if its some sort of bacteria bloom from feeding the tank. I'll keep checking levels everyday but it appears the biospira may have worked as advertised and gave me a decent base of bacteria to handle a small bioload. I have been using biospira for probably 10+ years. Its a good product for getting a tank's cycle kicked started or when transferring a tank with inhabitants keeping the mini cycle controllable. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 11, 2017 Author Share Posted January 11, 2017 Im glad you have had good luck with it. I know the rule of thumb is patience but if all your waintg for is the nitrifying bacteria to populate while added junk to the water to form ammonia, then why not just manually add the bacteria, ditch the wait and SLOWLY build up the biofilter the cloudiness went away since this morning. maybe it was just some kicked up sand dust 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 4 days in feeding the damsel. If levels stay 0 for like this another week I'm going to go find a zoa or mushroom rock for the open spot in sand bed. Aquaworld usually has a nice selection 1 Quote Link to comment
Droy008 Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 Looking good. Keep up the progress! Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 13, 2017 Author Share Posted January 13, 2017 tested again just now, same as yesterday Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted January 16, 2017 Author Share Posted January 16, 2017 Monday morning test. Still all 0ppm. Nitrates may be between 0 and 5ppm, could be a 2 if anything Quote Link to comment
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