[37G, started cycling 25th May]I think my tank is ready to accept livestock, however...

[ashwin1224]

There is no livestock available anywhere it seems

 

I use the basic API SW kit to test water quality, these are the various parameters tested last sunday:

1. Ph 8.2
2. Ammonia 0
3. Nitrite 0
4. Nitrate 0
5. Temp 27C
6. SG 1.024

Other than that, Ive got 37lbs of LR, 1.5"-ish sand bed, the tank is 18" deep and Ive got my lights about 6" from the surface. Ive for a 14G sump, with just chaeto, which was also added very recently under a 28W PAR Lamp. I run a small power filter with filter floss and activated carbon to supplement filtration. Using store bought RO water for changes now, 5g per week.

 

My lights are a DIY Fixture with 60W of blue and 60W of 6500k. Many have advised me to get better lights, and Im looking for them, but trouble is, even chinese LEDs are not being shipped here for some reason, including marsaqua. Ive put marsaqua 165W fixture in my ebay shopping cart, as soon as it gets a shipping option i ll order it.

 

My plan is to keep easy corals along with a pair of clowns/trio of chromis and a pair or a single goby. Corals Im planning are GSP, Xenia, Mushrooms and zoanthids. Maybe acropora and brain coral too after my new lights. Since this is my first foray into SW, I am in no hurry and every day is something new in the tank, with just the LR in it.

 

Copepods attracted to the light, there are probably billions in the tank

 

 

Im growing lots of algae it seems, but there is good coraline growth on almost all the rocks. Ive been manually culling bryopsis from the rocks, and its been working good. Ive also reduced my lighting by a lot. I only put them up for about 10 hours a week. This destroyed the diatom bloom and the bryopsis seems to have been affected too. I need a proper solution to control bryopsis though.(The filter is usually in sump, I  was trying out different setups for filtration placement so was testing it on the DT.)

 

Is my tank ready for livestock? I wanna add GSP or some corals before I add fish, should I go ahead with it?

[Thrassian Atoll]

I would add your cleanup crew for sure.  I would add the cleanup crew and keep measuring your parameters but seems like your cycle is good.  I don't think you could kill gsp if you tried, so adding that shouldn't be an issue.  Maybe some zoas.  I would get better lights.  I don't know how well your filtration will hold up for anything other than softies though.  

[seabass]

I'd almost try to resolve the bryopsis problem before adding livestock.  Even if that means running your tank without any light to help weaken it.  There are some remedies like Fluconazole, but I'm not sure what you have available to you.  You could probably dip the rocks in hydrogen peroxide, but that will kill off a good portion of the fauna.  Do you have Kent Tech M available?  Maybe that, with lights out will give you the upper hand on bryopsis.

[ashwin1224]

1 hour ago, TILTON said:

I would add your cleanup crew for sure.  I would add the cleanup crew and keep measuring your parameters but seems like your cycle is good.  I don't think you could kill gsp if you tried, so adding that shouldn't be an issue.  Maybe some zoas.  I would get better lights.  I don't know how well your filtration will hold up for anything other than softies though.  

Thnx for your reply. I thought live rock should be the major filtration for a small reef tank. Ive got about 53x flow rate in the tank. Should I add something more?

 

 

42 minutes ago, seabass said:

I'd almost try to resolve the bryopsis problem before adding livestock.  Even if that means running your tank without any light to help weaken it.  There are some remedies like Fluconazole, but I'm not sure what you have available to you.  You could probably dip the rocks in hydrogen peroxide, but that will kill off a good portion of the fauna.  Do you have Kent Tech M available?  Maybe that, with lights out will give you the upper hand on bryopsis.

Thanx for the suggestion! I was at a chemists when I read your reply and got 3000mg of fluconazole right away. I read about it and it doesnt seem to bother anything else and I can basically continue with everything else that I do to the tank. Gonna dose it tonight.

[seabass]

If you haven't yet, read this thread:

 

[ashwin1224]

24 minutes ago, seabass said:

If you haven't yet, read this thread:

 

Incredible! I cant wait to post my results in the thread.

[Clown79]

Your filtration is fine for corals. 

You have a sump, an additional filter and liverock...its fine. 

 

You are correct. Liverock is the biological filtration

 

Your lighting will be the issue.

 

There are stores in India a Google search provided a few.

 

I'd order from Amazon.in If eBay is an issue

 

I also agree. Take care of the algae before adding anything

[ashwin1224]

2 hours ago, seabass said:

If you haven't yet, read this thread:

 

I got my hands on flucanozole, called fluca 150. However, its got a coating ponceau 4r on each tab. I read about it and it is a food safe dye. But I don't have any clue what will it do in a saltwater setting. What should i do?

 

1 hour ago, Clown79 said:

Your filtration is fine for corals. 

You have a sump, an additional filter and liverock...its fine. 

 

You are correct. Liverock is the biological filtration

 

Your lighting will be the issue.

 

There are stores in India a Google search provided a few.

 

I'd order from Amazon.in If eBay is an issue

 

I also agree. Take care of the algae before adding anything

I looked, the stores that are listed online have no clue about marine mostly coz the hobby is terribly untouched here. Especially the nano side of things. Amazon.in doesn't have it either. Ive to get it from ebay.com and pay $26 for international shipping. I checked it today and international shipping is live now.

[seabass]

Any possibility to remove the coating?

[ashwin1224]

42 minutes ago, seabass said:

Any possibility to remove the coating?

Nope. I added it, 2800mg of it. The water has a pinkish hue, but i think it'll clear on its own. Fingers crossed now.

[seabass]

How did you come up with that dosage?  Seems a bit high compared to the recommended dosage.  Granted, the tank isn't stocked yet, but I'm not sure what, if any, effects there would be with upping the dosage.

[seabass]

The medicine is sold as 200mg/capsule.

 

I converted the dosage from the R2R thread as being a single treatment of 1 capsule per 6-10 gallons of system volume.

 

Capsule contents removed from casing, dissolved in tank water, added to tank. the end

That's 20 to 33mg per gallon, per treatment.  So for your tank (37 gallons), that would be 740 to 1221mg per treatment.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens.  I'm also interested to see how the chaeto holds up.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Filtration doesn't seem like it would be able to handle acro imo,  but I would just keep an eye on P04.  I would personally add a skimmer or increase the water change amount if I were to introduce sps.

[seabass]

I would also read through the R2R thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bryopsis-cure-my-battle-with-bryopsis-using-fluconazole.285096/

[ashwin1224]

1 hour ago, seabass said:

That's 20 to 33mg per gallon, per treatment.  So for your tank (37 gallons), that would be 740 to 1221mg per treatment.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens.  I'm also interested to see how the chaeto holds up.

I messed up my math it seems. The R2R thread starts off with mg/liter calculations and mid way shift to mg/gallon. They mention 20mg/gallon but i did 20mg/ liter. Shit. I hope theres nothing extremely bad with such a high dose.

 

The dye seems to have cleared off in half an hour.

[seabass]

13 minutes ago, ashwin1224 said:

The dye seems to have cleared off in half an hour.

That's good news.

 

It'll probably be alright.  Keep us posted.

[ashwin1224]

12 hours ago, seabass said:

That's good news.

 

It'll probably be alright.  Keep us posted.

Left the tank overnight, and in the morning I could see a distinct pink hue. Maybe my eyes settled in and I just wasn't seeing any pink last night. Nothing seems to be affected though. All the fan worms have their crowns up, and there is nothing else larger in the tank so I can't be sure. Ive turned off the sump pump to dose the medicine, Im thinking of changing the water in the sump today and then restarting the sump, so that the dose will be slightly diluted and maybe the pink will go away.

[seabass]

Activated carbon should remove the dye from the water.  But unfortunately, it will also remove the meds.  I think you'll just have to put up with the hue until treatment is over.  I would look for another source of Fluconazole (which isn't coated).  The more you dose, the more pink the water will become.