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Zero's *official* build thread.*NEW PICS*


ZeroEvoX

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Current FTS: 9/16/2013* and pics2f03c8d41ed711e3bb8f22000ae90eb1_7.jpg

 

Equipment:

IM Nuvo 8

Cobalt Mj900

Spinsteream

InTank Media basket

AI Nano

Jaeger 50w Heater

 

Livestock:

1 Black Occy clown

1 YWG

1 yellow pistol shrimp

1 red RBTA(except its never bubbly)

 

Coral:

Multiple zoas

multiple Acans

5 headed duncan

Shrooms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/317029-hello-all-i-finally-took-the-plunge/

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xerophyte_nyc

One of the hardest things to get control of is the salinity, especially in a small tank where small water volume causes greater fluctuations. Check your salinity regularly and keep an eye on the water levels for topping off. Evaporation can be drastically higher in the summer.

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Well i just got home from work, tested my water params,

IMG_0516_zps30178207.jpg

I guess my ammonia is spiking, even though i did read that these api kits are inaccurate.

If you followed my other thread i have pics of this diatom bloom(i guess??)

this is yesterday

IMG_0513_zps58cf44aa.jpg

this is today

IMG_0518_zpsbfde12ad.jpg

im getting nervous because i see ammonia with no nitrite and nitrate. unless the kits wrong and my tank is ok. ill wait another couple of days, do top off and test again. Any input would be appreciated!

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And with no livestock, if i want to do a 10% water change should i even bother heating it up? i have it at room temp right now.

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Food & crap ---> Ammonia --> Nitrites ---> Nitrates.

 

 

Heat it up. You want to encourage bacteria to grow that can survive the ultimate temperature of the tank. No water changes until your cycle is over.

so your saying i should see some nitrates soon?
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xerophyte_nyc

Nitrifying bacteria grow fastest in the 90F range so you can easily bump the temp as already mentioned. Also, you can add some macroalgae to help absorb ammonia. Ammonia is taken up by algae quicker than nitrate.

 

Yes, test kits are not always the most accurate, so you also have to take cues from the tank life. That does look like a diatom bloom. Wait until you see real algae - green hair algae always make an early appearance - before you can consider the rock/ sand cured and ready.

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This is the hardest part, waiting, lol. Love the rock shapes by the way.

Thank you! i had the poor guy at my lfs digging for about 20 minutes through their cured live rock tanks lol. Yea im usually not an impatient person....but for some reason this is killing me lmao, im gonna shove my koralia nano in there tommorow and change my filter floss lol it'll hold me over while i wait. If i dont start seeing some real signs of ammonia spike by saturday im gonna say im cycled.

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deathscythe617

Once you feel its cycled, just take it slow with stocking and you should be fine. My tanks get stocked so slowly due to cash reasons lol.

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Once you feel its cycled, just take it slow with stocking and you should be fine. My tanks get stocked so slowly due to cash reasons lol.

With a name like death scythe I'm sure all your livestock is happy and thriving lmao jk

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I've had my tank set up since before christmas, and waiting has been killing me. So I can understand your impatience. I'm sure mine's fine to put stuff it, but I also happen to be ridiculously broke right now. So I will be waiting longer to add anything. I bought a ricordea that was in my friend's tank for "holding" right now,but I'm probably going to leave it there for various reasons. :/

 

what do you think you're going to end up with first when your cycle is done?

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I've had my tank set up since before christmas, and waiting has been killing me. So I can understand your impatience. I'm sure mine's fine to put stuff it, but I also happen to be ridiculously broke right now. So I will be waiting longer to add anything. I bought a ricordea that was in my friend's tank for "holding" right now,but I'm probably going to leave it there for various reasons. :/

 

what do you think you're going to end up with first when your cycle is done?

Besides the immense weight off my shoulders!? Lmao. After the cuc, I'll probably just throw in a pistol , goby pair. Then I'd like to do corals after I get my water chemistry down pat. If not the pair then probably just one clown fish and later on some coral. I'm really loving those blacker ice clown fishes. I dunno. I guess it'll be up to where my heads at I'm a month or so. Any ideas on livestock that'll be fun to watch? I really get a kick out of my best friends cleaner shrimp In his 65 gallon reef.
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Well, I love my peppermint shrimp, he's amusing to watch (I had a minor aiptasia infestation from one rock that I decided I didn't need to quarantine.) I have no idea what I'm going to end up putting in mine. I have an emerald crab, some nassarius snails, peppermint shrimp, a cerith snail, and my live rock - oh, and some hh bivalves and zoas. I think the clown would be fun to watch. My friend's ocellaris clown is a riot (when I was placing my ricordea in his tank it was pecking me but of course it didn't hurt)

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You're going to love this aquarium! It's a great little setup.

So far , the ease of use and size has definatley been dead on for what I was looking for. The stock pump was a real turd, but it's great for mixing water lol. That is really my only complaint so far, the lighting also is pretty stellar and crisp.

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Polarcollision

So far , the ease of use and size has definatley been dead on for what I was looking for. The stock pump was a real turd, but it's great for mixing water lol. That is really my only complaint so far, the lighting also is pretty stellar and crisp.

Oh - that's a great idea for the stock pump. I just installed the mj900 this morning and was shocked by how much gunk was kicked up into the water column. Even the corals seem to perk up a bit with the extra flow.

 

Is yours loud? Mine is humming quite a bit even after slipping filter floss between it and the tank walls.

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Oh - that's a great idea for the stock pump. I just installed the mj900 this morning and was shocked by how much gunk was kicked up into the water column. Even the corals seem to perk up a bit with the extra flow.

 

Is yours loud? Mine is humming quite a bit even after slipping filter floss between it and the tank walls.

 

actually no, i don,t even have filter floss in there. i just cut the stock tubing a little shorter so it held the pump in place with that one crappy suction cup on the bottom. mines right next to my bed too , i sleep like a rock though.

 

 

Ok, im really getting impatient! 6 days and no sign of ammonia , nitrite , or nitrate and the diatom bloom is expanding, will the diatom go away on its own?

Daily test results:

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite:0

Nitrate:0

Salinity: 1.024

Temp: 80.2

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Polarcollision

actually no, i don,t even have filter floss in there. i just cut the stock tubing a little shorter so it held the pump in place with that one crappy suction cup on the bottom. mines right next to my bed too , i sleep like a rock though.

 

 

Ok, im really getting impatient! 6 days and no sign of ammonia , nitrite , or nitrate and the diatom bloom is expanding, will the diatom go away on its own?

Daily test results:

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite:0

Nitrate:0

Salinity: 1.024

Temp: 80.2

Be patient! :-) It's reeaaalllly hard to wait. Especially when there are so many questions about what's happening and if changes are normal or not -- I feel ya -- but the cycle will happen. Maybe distract yourself with planning out coral and reading through other threads that detailed their cycle so you get a little more idea what's normal and what's not. I've been checking in on some of the DIY builds for automating water top offs and buffer dosing to keep me chilled out while my tank recovers from flatworm exit disaster.

 

I had slightly different starting conditions than you do since I purchased live sand (the really fine grain argonite stuff) but here's how mine went so you can compare what's happening. First, don't sweat the brown stuff growing. It looks normal to me. I notice that when my blue lights are off that my rocks look more brown/green. It's possibly that film algae we scrape off the glass every day and also probably even the colonizing bacteria that make the rock look like that. I never had a diatom bloom with the Nuvo cycle which makes me think the glues IM use didn't leach silicone.

 

To get my cycle going, I dropped in a dinner shrimp and let it rot for over a week until it had a nice gooey biofilm. Tested every day 'cause I wanted to see the graph spike of ammonia, then nitrite, then nitrates. When ammonia and nitrite were 0 and nitrates reached 5, I took the shrimp out of the water, did my first water change and bought a toadstool leather and 2 asterina snails. The cycle was incredibly fast. Just 2 weeks. Pretty sure it's because of the live sand and live rock. Since it was so fast, I only bought one leather toadstool and 2 asterina snails to break in the bioload slowly. A week or so later, I was confident the cycle was truly past and started stocking a bunch of frags, adding 5-6 each week. Probably should have held off on the SPS for a few more weeks/months cause when the two sexy shrimp died from the Fltworm exit treatment, they took out my birdsnests, too. Sad and hard lesson to learn about patience. I get attached to the coral.

 

One of the other cycles your tank will hit is cyano outbreak. I recommend getting the little sand snails (cerinth?) that will break up the cyano biofilm and aim your power heads at it. I also vaccummed up what I could each night. The outbreak lasted 3-4 days and has never come back. No chemicals to upset other balances, just biological warfare. :-)

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Be patient! :-) It's reeaaalllly hard to wait. Especially when there are so many questions about what's happening and if changes are normal or not -- I feel ya -- but the cycle will happen. Maybe distract yourself with planning out coral and reading through other threads that detailed their cycle so you get a little more idea what's normal and what's not. I've been checking in on some of the DIY builds for automating water top offs and buffer dosing to keep me chilled out while my tank recovers from flatworm exit disaster.

 

I had slightly different starting conditions than you do since I purchased live sand (the really fine grain argonite stuff) but here's how mine went so you can compare what's happening. First, don't sweat the brown stuff growing. It looks normal to me. I notice that when my blue lights are off that my rocks look more brown/green. It's possibly that film algae we scrape off the glass every day and also probably even the colonizing bacteria that make the rock look like that. I never had a diatom bloom with the Nuvo cycle which makes me think the glues IM use didn't leach silicone.

 

To get my cycle going, I dropped in a dinner shrimp and let it rot for over a week until it had a nice gooey biofilm. Tested every day 'cause I wanted to see the graph spike of ammonia, then nitrite, then nitrates. When ammonia and nitrite were 0 and nitrates reached 5, I took the shrimp out of the water, did my first water change and bought a toadstool leather and 2 asterina snails. The cycle was incredibly fast. Just 2 weeks. Pretty sure it's because of the live sand and live rock. Since it was so fast, I only bought one leather toadstool and 2 asterina snails to break in the bioload slowly. A week or so later, I was confident the cycle was truly past and started stocking a bunch of frags, adding 5-6 each week. Probably should have held off on the SPS for a few more weeks/months cause when the two sexy shrimp died from the Fltworm exit treatment, they took out my birdsnests, too. Sad and hard lesson to learn about patience. I get attached to the coral.

 

One of the other cycles your tank will hit is cyano outbreak. I recommend getting the little sand snails (cerinth?) that will break up the cyano biofilm and aim your power heads at it. I also vaccummed up what I could each night. The outbreak lasted 3-4 days and has never come back. No chemicals to upset other balances, just biological warfare. :-)

Thanks for the encouragement and advice! I'm sure your tank will be good as new in no time(or from what I've come to understand in this hobby , no time feels like an eternity lol) do you have a build thread? I'd like to check it out.

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well the diatoms are getting heavier, im still not seeing any nitrite or nitrate. my parameters are spot on. i dunno whats going on. is it possible my tank cycled in the 2 days i wasn't testing the water?

photo-8_zpsdb98563d.jpg

photo-6_zps40988a51.jpg

photo-7_zps9972bc6b.jpg

My tank is @ 80 degrees.

i mean even if my cycle did happen i should have nitrates? no? I mean I still have zero bioload in there.

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im reading up on dynos and now im getting really nervous. it kinda looks like that.

 

 

Yeah, looks like Dinoflagellates.

 

I hate those, but all you need to do is get more Flow.

 

Or, you could use a Turkey Baster.

 

And blow off your rocks.

 

Don't worry too much, just don't let it get out of hand.

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