MikeTR Posted September 17, 2012 Author Share Posted September 17, 2012 Tank's been runnin for 2 weeks. Hard to tell for sure, but looks like the ammonia levels are at .25. I've just started to get into the programming of my Apex and already this controller is going to prove invaluable. Playing with the feed mode I discovered that if the main pump kicks back on too fast, it splashes water out of the front of the tank. Nailed myself twice and then found the code to defer the pump from coming on for 2 minutes after a power loss. Not really sure why other than maybe there is air trapped in the pipe and it spits up the water that was still backflushing. Doesn't happen at all when the water has had a chance to stop flowing back through the plumbing. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted September 18, 2012 Author Share Posted September 18, 2012 Saw a bit of ammonia.. .25 and now nothing. Going to try some bottled bacteria to get this party started. API kit is definitely reading 0 today, was a little darker a couple days ago. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 Added the first dose of Microbacter7 yesterday. I plan to dose for the next 10 days till the bottle runs out. If I don't see any marked cycle by then I'll assume I did a good enough job on keeping the few hundred lbs of rock alive in the brute for the past 8 or so months. Still going to wait a full 2 months before I do anything else. Just started with lighting, 6hrs a day. Don't have my chiller hooked up yet but have the controller shutting the lights off for an hour if the temp reaches 84. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 3 weeks.. no sign of a cycle.. No way in heck is a capful of this microbacter 5ml, it's a 250ml bottle and dosing 5 capfuls a day and I'm almost out already after 5 days. Unless I calculated wrong it should have lasted 10.. ok maybe 8 if i spilled. Going to tear down my biocube this week and use some of the "soup." Maybe that'll get er goin. Link to comment
flampton Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 If I'm looking at this correctly you set up your tank with dried clean rock. As such there is no nitrogen or carbon to fuel a cycle. You need a source or the bacteria will not grow (theys are hungry lil bastards). I'm not sure what you want to go with, some people use a dead shrimp, others use fish food, others use fish food and damsels, others use ammonia, I personally used glutamine (though I usually cycle with live rock/the dead stuff on the live rock is what cycles the tank). I might be one of the only people to use glutamine but it's chemical characteristics are perfect for cycling a tank. btw you will need a small amount of PO4 as well but the rock will likely carry enough. (PO4 is needed for ATP) Anyways without a 'load' you'll never see a cycle. NH3->NO2->NO3->N2--| ^---------------------< And although the above cycle is the natural one there is likely very little nitrogen fixation in a marine tank so the incoming nitrogen is from amino acids and other nitrogenous compounds found in foodstuffs. Link to comment
najluni15 Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I might be lost but didn't he say he kept the live rock in a brute bin for 8 months cycling? If so there wouldn't be much of a cycle. Microbacter will also prevent a large cycle it is made to be a form of an instant bacteria culture to prevent large cycles. Link to comment
flampton Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I might be lost but didn't he say he kept the live rock in a brute bin for 8 months cycling? If so there wouldn't be much of a cycle. Microbacter will also prevent a large cycle it is made to be a form of an instant bacteria culture to prevent large cycles. I must have missed that part, but looking at the rock it looks awfully clean for 'live rock'. Also keeping rock in a bin for 8 months is not cycling it is dieing. Eventually the bacteria will run out of nitrogen and start to die off. There will be some that go into stasis or sporulate however that population will be much smaller. And yes dosing with extra bacteria will prevent high numbers on tests, however a lot of that will end up just in the water column. You need the bacteria to be on and in things. Also those products don't provide anaerobic denitrifiers that will populate the anaerobic regions of the live rock and sand. Those guys are the real heroes as they turn the NO3 to N2. Quick edit: tl;dr - bacteria need food. Link to comment
najluni15 Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I completely agree. When I setup my new tank I put 50 pounds of live rock that i ordered in (had a lot of die off from cross country shipping) plus 25 that I had in an old tank and 30 pounds of live sand plus 30 pounds of dry sand and a bottle of micro Bacter. I threw all my fish and corals in that day as it was a tank transfer and didn't lose anything. This process is not advised though Link to comment
MikeTR Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 I did top it off with 80lbs of live sand on top of the 200lbs of what I bleached. I would have thought there was somethin in there to get it goin, but maybe not. There should have been some die off on the rock from having it out of water for an hour or so while I was aquascaping, that is if it wasn't all dead to begin with. I had started dosing the microbacter because someone in our local reef club setting up a 400g had the same issue getting his cycle going and used this product, though I'm not seeing the same results he did. I tested the water in the brute for phosphates and it did read 1.5ppm so some phosphate should have made it in the tank when the rock was transferred. Appreciate all the comments. Does explain why I might not being seeing anything. Hopefully when I add the sludge from the biocube it'll have something to feed off. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 Vortechs are now being controlled by my Apex WXM module. For now they're on reef crest at 75% as I'm a bit perturbed to mess around with them anymore. I did quite a bit of research on how to hook these up, played around with trying to upgrade firmwares as suggested, none of it was successful. Was getting firmware download failure messages. So I just ended up opening up the manual.. skipped all the bull#### and went right for the last few steps. Press 2 buttons, wait for blinky lights. Press Set, wait for more blinky lights.. Wabam sync'd.. Eventually when I regain my patience I'll program it to change different modes and intensities throughout the day. Haven't had a chance to break down the biocube yet, but tossed in a handful of pellets yesterday. I should be able to to get some really good established sand in there by the weekend. Biocubes been up for 3 years. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 8, 2012 Author Share Posted October 8, 2012 Began dosing ammonia (Ace hardware brand), now we're getting somewhere. 10/2/2012 - NH3: 8ppm NO2: 0ppm 10/6/2012 - NH3: 4ppm NO2: .25ppm 10/8/2012 - NH3: 4ppm (dosed) NO2: 5+ppm (spiked) Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 9, 2012 Author Share Posted October 9, 2012 Redoing my entire aquascape do to this concept. Still have quite a bit of work. At the moment I'm wishing I hadn't touched it at all, but I know in the end it'll turn out. http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=311811 Link to comment
saltwatercoral Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Updates on the scape? Incredable setup! Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 I've gotten quite a bit done but at a standstill at the moment. I have 2 large rocks in the sump of my frag system that I want to use, but I need to wait until I get all the fish moved over. Other than a few inches of sand in the sump, those 2 larger rocks are all I have for biological filtration in that system. Tank should be ready in a couple weeks I'm guessing. I have to dose 1/8 cup of ammonia per 12 hours now to keep up with the demand. Nitrites are falling, but still registering 5ppm, definitely not as purple as when they first spiked. Nitrates register at 10ppm. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Still workin on the pile on the left. Just piled up all the rock I didn't need just to get it out of the way. Link to comment
GHill762 Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 That looks awesome... good work!! Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 24, 2012 Author Share Posted October 24, 2012 Nice... tank is cycled. 0's across the board. I started slacking on the ammonia dosing last Friday and stopped altogether on Sunday. Now I need to slowly drop my temp by the end of the week.. meaning.. I need to get my arse off the couch and N-R and finish my chiller lines so I can place an order for a CUC by Monday. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 Thank you. Most of the plumbing for the chiller is now done. Ran out of daylight. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 29, 2012 Author Share Posted October 29, 2012 Crikey's.. I've hit a snag in the works.. I stayed home yesterday so I could test the chiller operation. Appears I don't have enough ventilation in the chiller housing I made. Even with the lid completely off the deck box, the chiller gets too hot and shuts the compressor down. I'll need to completely remove the chiller from the enclosure so that I can confirm.. but I believe that will be the case. My options now are to either get a bigger exhaust fan, one that is at least 340cfm (expensive) which matches the cfm on the chiller fan, or create duct work that connects to both sides of the chiller so the air freely flows through the chiller. I believe I'm going to try and use the duct work option. Link to comment
JDigital Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Sounds like your starting to overtake me in regards to the cycle.. I'm still waiting for my Nitrates to start dropping. Good luck getting the Chiller, chillin. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted October 29, 2012 Author Share Posted October 29, 2012 I was not aware I'd have to become a plumber and HVAC technician to have a fish tank. Apparently so! If your ammonia and trites are down to 0, just do a water exchange to get your nitrates down. If you still have nitrites, your nitrAte kit will give you a false reading. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted November 20, 2012 Author Share Posted November 20, 2012 Duct is finished. Should bolt right up to the back of the chiller and exhaust all the hot air right out the chiller house. Needs a coat of rustoleum on the parts that will be exposed but I should be able to get this installed by Wed and finally be able to control my temps. Link to comment
saltwatercoral Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 Still workin on the pile on the left. Just piled up all the rock I didn't need just to get it out of the way. Looks good! I like the channel going inbetween the two rock works. I should have don somthing like that... Maybe in the future when I get the but to rescape. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted November 24, 2012 Author Share Posted November 24, 2012 Finished up the chiller housing yesterday. Broke out the dremel and with a bit of patience was able to mount a 12" plastic grille on one end and install the duct on the other. Got my apex logging temperature changes by the minute to keep an eye on things. Temp was down to 76 this morning due to the cooler weather. I kicked the lights on early and plan to run them all day to make sure the chiller can keep up. Took 2 hours for the lights to raise the temp 3deg to 79 and chiller seems to have just kick on at 79.5 and should cool to 77.4. Just need to make up about 40 gallons of water for a water change and provided temps look good tomorrow I can start adding livestock! Link to comment
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