Tuffryu Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 I started my Spec iii with live sand and nutri-seawater and found it took every bit of 3+ weeks to cycle. Ammonia went up and down in about 10 days but Nitrates stayed high for 2+ weeks and then dropped to zero overnight. ymmv. Good luck with the tank The sand and water alone won't be enough and will require longer cycle time as you mention. The live rock is essential to speed this timing up. Either that or I was lucky. Link to comment
DrPete Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Cycling times seem to be all over the board for these tanks and picos in general I suppose. I started mine with live rock as well and a tiny bit of raw shrimp. The last reef tank I had was 15+ years ago so this was a good reminder for me about how crucial patience is to the process. Mission accomplished!! Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Cycling times seem to be all over the board for these tanks and picos in general I suppose. I started mine with live rock as well and a tiny bit of raw shrimp. The last reef tank I had was 15+ years ago so this was a good reminder for me about how crucial patience is to the process. Mission accomplished!! You should post some photos. The pico/nano tanks are always fun to see! Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Some minor updates. The micro ATO is kicking much ass (see blue light in top right of photo below). Bought a 3 gal container from amazon that I will use for it. Also bought some seachem reef advantage magnesium salt that I'll probably start dosing into the top off water (more on this later). After some diligent testing, I'm finding that small polyp stonies are some serious nutrient hogs and I will need to continue dosing c-balance everyday. I've been dosing everyday for the past week now and I am doing a little more than half the maximum daily amount - primarily because I only dose in the morning and have no time to do the other half. After the week of dosing I'm happy to maintain params at ~8dkh for alk and ~430ppm for calcium. I'll continue manual dosing for now. Nitrate is higher than i want it to be at 2.5 so will have to water change this weekend. Newest addition is this acropora valida frag. Love the way this guy is shaped with branching looking things. Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 Parameters and the tank all look good! I'd love for my nitrates to be down at 2.5 - that's really a pretty good target. As long as things aren't going brown and you don't have too much algae. My nitrates are usually over 12 and I've been working really hard at getting them down Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Parameters and the tank all look good! I'd love for my nitrates to be down at 2.5 - that's really a pretty good target. As long as things aren't going brown and you don't have too much algae. My nitrates are usually over 12 and I've been working really hard at getting them down Thanks man! I don't feed the fish very much, maybe once a day so that helps. I am still planning to diy a micro protein skimmer soon. Just waiting on a few more parts to come. 12 does sound high - you must be changing water constantly? Link to comment
DrPete Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 Tank looks awesome Tuff. Question for you. What was your water change schedule with the spec iii in terms of percentages and frequency? Dr P Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Tank looks awesome Tuff. Question for you. What was your water change schedule with the spec iii in terms of percentages and frequency? Dr P Thanks Pete. So when the spec 3 was up and running, I did changes every 1.5 weeks - but at that time I had half the livestock as i do now and only a single fish that i barely fed. I have a tupperware container that i used which was exactly 20% so I just used a cup to remove water from the tank and filled it to discard. I have saltwater in my garage and I would fill the tupperware container, microwave it for a 30 secs or so and add back in. The process took a whole 10 minutes Link to comment
aer0 Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 I do my WC's the same way, no need for a microwave at the moment as its summer here in NZ but I have a container that is approx 20% and just do a scoop out and replace every Sunday, the easier the WC is the more likely we are to do them and have a better looking tank as a result Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Thanks man! I don't feed the fish very much, maybe once a day so that helps. I am still planning to diy a micro protein skimmer soon. Just waiting on a few more parts to come. 12 does sound high - you must be changing water constantly? I do a weekly change and sometimes a mid-week change. But I feed the corals heavily every day, and I have lots of fish for the size of my tanks. I've been working on bringing things down but because everything looks good I don't want change too fast, or make a change just to chase numbers. You can do a lot of damage to corals by stripping out the nutrients from the water column with too much skimming or chemical filtration. Link to comment
DrPete Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Thanks for the feedback guys. The Spec iii is my first pico and have to say that while maintaining parameters can be tricky at times, nothing beats the ease of water changes with a red solo cup and about 2 minutes of effort. Pete Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Thanks for the feedback guys. The Spec iii is my first pico and have to say that while maintaining parameters can be tricky at times, nothing beats the ease of water changes with a red solo cup and about 2 minutes of effort. Pete Agreed. All you really need is a container of premixed saltwater for changes and a container of fresh RODI for top off and you should be set. Pete, I will caution you with one thing and that is evaporation - it happens so fast in the spec 3 to the point where you will need to top off everday and check specific gravity daily as well. good luck! Link to comment
DrPete Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Yeah, I definitely have been doing that and can see how insane the fluctuations can get. SG was .025 yesterday morning and .027 at midnight. I think I may spring for an ATO just to stay on top of it during the day. Agreed. All you really need is a container of premixed saltwater for changes and a container of fresh RODI for top off and you should be set. Pete, I will caution you with one thing and that is evaporation - it happens so fast in the spec 3 to the point where you will need to top off everday and check specific gravity daily as well. good luck! Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Yeah, I definitely have been doing that and can see how insane the fluctuations can get. SG was .025 yesterday morning and .027 at midnight. I think I may spring for an ATO just to stay on top of it during the day. Agreed. All you really need is a container of premixed saltwater for changes and a container of fresh RODI for top off and you should be set. Pete, I will caution you with one thing and that is evaporation - it happens so fast in the spec 3 to the point where you will need to top off everday and check specific gravity daily as well. good luck! The micro ATO works wonders! Link to comment
shinjo2040 Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Very great information guys! I am also starting a spec 3 and am learning so much from this thread. I haven't run into that many problems with evaporation and specific gravity yet but i'm sure i will. I also live in the bay area of california which isn't exactly an arid climate. I'm sure that has some factor to it. Thanks again for everybody's contribution to the thread! Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Very great information guys! I am also starting a spec 3 and am learning so much from this thread. I haven't run into that many problems with evaporation and specific gravity yet but i'm sure i will. I also live in the bay area of california which isn't exactly an arid climate. I'm sure that has some factor to it. Thanks again for everybody's contribution to the thread! Glad to hear this this thread helps! The Bay area could certainly be a factor, but if your tank has just started it will soon start evaporation. I decided to invest in a dosing pump to keep up with nutrient levels. The primary advantage is that I'll be able to set dosing in the middle of the night, and do the max daily dose (if/when needed). I'll also be able to do magnesium as well which I haven't started yet. The Jebao 4 pump doser is what I went with after reading countless articles and threads. It's the same one used in the "Featured reef" as well so I went ahead and ordered off Amazon last night. My local reef store uses this on a couple of tanks and they all say positive things. Plus it's one of the cheapest ones on the market so we'll see how it goes. The ATO is working out great, but I moved the sensor up last night as I was cleaning the HOB filter and powerhead and man did that make SG swing. Didn't realize until this morning when I was dosing cal/alk but it was down to 1.022 I guess it makes sense where if you move it up, the pump turns on and stays on until it reaches the new point. Trial and error my friends. New purple & green monti digita went in last night so I'll post this an update this weekend. Happy Friday folks. Go Seahawks!!!!!!!!! Link to comment
Langer6 Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Tank is looking sick as per usual. Keep it up! Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Tank is looking sick as per usual. Keep it up! Ohhh thanks man! Appreciate it! Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Good luck with the doser! I have one just like it and works well. You will probably have to dilute your dosing solution, though. The minimum dose with this doser is 1ml, and in a small tank that means your only options for setting daily dosing amounts are too little and too much I eventually changed over to the BRS dosers which work much better for small doses, but you need a controller for those. Link to comment
FlamingPrawn Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Been following this behind the scenes. Glad to see this develop Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 Been following this behind the scenes. Glad to see this develop Thanks Prawn. Appreciate the reply! It's been interesting thus far and learning primarily through trial and error lol. Hope it keeps everyone entertained at very least. Good luck with the doser! I have one just like it and works well. You will probably have to dilute your dosing solution, though. The minimum dose with this doser is 1ml, and in a small tank that means your only options for setting daily dosing amounts are too little and too much I eventually changed over to the BRS dosers which work much better for small doses, but you need a controller for those. Good to know teeny. So did you have to dilute by any specific % ratio? Let me know, please! thanks! Minimum of 1ml should work as I'll need to do probably 4-6ml a day. THanks for the heads up! Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 There's no specific dilution ratio you need to do, just whatever works for the amount you have to dose. I'd try two parts RODI to one part dosing solution to start, and only fill up the dosing reservoir halfway. If you find that you can't adjust your doser to the exact amount you need, dilute it some more. Oh, and don't make the mistake I did - write down how much you diluted it each time so that you can recreate it when you have to refill Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 There's no specific dilution ratio you need to do, just whatever works for the amount you have to dose. I'd try two parts RODI to one part dosing solution to start, and only fill up the dosing reservoir halfway. If you find that you can't adjust your doser to the exact amount you need, dilute it some more. Oh, and don't make the mistake I did - write down how much you diluted it each time so that you can recreate it when you have to refill Great advice, thanks. Right now I am adding almost 4ml every morning manually and may not need to dilute if the doser can do 1ml increments. I want to have it turn on in the middle of the night doing 1ml calc, and 30 mins later 1 ml alk - up until 6 ml is reached. Can i program this doser to do so? Link to comment
teenyreef Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Yes, it will do that. You just tell it how many times per day, how much each time, and what times for each dose. It's a little tedious I dose Calc during the day and Alk at night because Alk drops after the lights go off and goes back up when they are on. That's why it's important to measure Alk at the same time of day each time, btw Link to comment
Tuffryu Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 Yes, it will do that. You just tell it how many times per day, how much each time, and what times for each dose. It's a little tedious I dose Calc during the day and Alk at night because Alk drops after the lights go off and goes back up when they are on. That's why it's important to measure Alk at the same time of day each time, btw That's awesome. I just need to find the space behind my little stand to put all this crap in. I'll try this schedule. I have sechem magnesium reef advantage that I'll probably add to the doser as well. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.