P-139 First Contact 👨‍🚀👩‍🚀

[xcom]

Mystery to come.... 

Here is a photo for those who are curious.

 

[Clown79]

Nice aquascape!

[Toxic enigma]

Just from that I'm following

[specore]

Very cool!  I think your work here is done 😋

[Christopher Marks]

I can't wait to see what you create with this one @xcom! 

[xcom]

11 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Nice aquascape!

I have to give credit to jestersix. He helped me execute what I had in mind. 👽

2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

I can't wait to see what you create with this one @xcom! 

Me too hahaha 

3 hours ago, specore said:

Very cool!  I think your work here is done 😋

Until the cycling completed!

[Justind823]

I'll be following! Looking good so far

 

Xcom is a great game - nice choice

[xcom]

I will do a proper write up for the concept I’m doing with this tank soon. In the mean time, I’m confused about the Dr Tim’s fishless cyling method with his bottled bacteria. I’ve never cycled my tank this way so it is new to me.

 

I followed the instruction of adding the bacteria and ammonia drops (according to my tank size). Waited 24 hrs, measured ammonia which was around 2ppm (awesome) and zero nitrite. Per instruction, I added half dosage of ammonia. 

 

Day 2, I measured ammonia which is now around 4-5ppm (+), nitrite still at 0. I added half dosage of ammonia. 

 

Day 3, measured ammonia is at 4ppm-8ppm (colors are too similar between those values), now I have a reading of nitrite at 0.25.

 

My question is: Do I keep adding low dosage of ammonia?!! Until nitrite get up to 1-2ppm and start declining?

 

the instruction doesn’t say anything about keep adding ammonia after the second day....

 

Any expert with this method? 

 

[xcom]

Also, whoever designed the AI prime mount..... I curse you....

 

[xcom]

Waiting for your tank to mature is rough, right now my fighting conch and limpets are battling the constant diatom bloom 😌

[1891Bro]

On 7/23/2018 at 7:28 PM, xcom said:

I will do a proper write up for the concept I’m doing with this tank soon. In the mean time, I’m confused about the Dr Tim’s fishless cyling method with his bottled bacteria. I’ve never cycled my tank this way so it is new to me.

 

I followed the instruction of adding the bacteria and ammonia drops (according to my tank size). Waited 24 hrs, measured ammonia which was around 2ppm (awesome) and zero nitrite. Per instruction, I added half dosage of ammonia. 

 

Day 2, I measured ammonia which is now around 4-5ppm (+), nitrite still at 0. I added half dosage of ammonia. 

 

Day 3, measured ammonia is at 4ppm-8ppm (colors are too similar between those values), now I have a reading of nitrite at 0.25.

 

My question is: Do I keep adding low dosage of ammonia?!! Until nitrite get up to 1-2ppm and start declining?

 

the instruction doesn’t say anything about keep adding ammonia after the second day....

 

Any expert with this method? 

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

[xcom]

20 hours ago, 1891Bro said:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

Thank you for the link. I’ve actually read that before and completely forgot about it until now.

 

My tank was fully cycled in 2 weeks. I will let it run empty with limited CUC, for another month or so before I start adding all my gobies from my other tank.

[xcom]

I guess it’s time to update this build.

 

After the tank was cycled, the tank went through a “fuzzy white/brown slime” period. For people who encountered the same problem using real reef rocks/artificial rocks, this is common due to the fact that these rocks are not as porous. My parameters were normal, my tank still had to go through this. Yikes....

 

People (who tank suffered from the same issue) was back and forth between bacteria and algae. After researching, I think mine was calothrix (cyano strain). It can be confused this with dino but definitely easier to get rid off. 

 

My recipe:

- 75-80% water change 

- Marinepure balls in my sump (I have no skimmer at this point)

- for 25G: 2 Turbo, 8 Astrea, 1 Fighting Conch, 3 Nassarius. (I find a combo of 10-12 Snails per 20-25G works best)

- remove felt filter sock (I washed and reused them) and replace with a mesh socks. This way I can remove and quickly rinse under the sink.

 

Ugly fuzzy thing was gone in a week.

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

Wow, your nano reef is looking great @xcom! Glad to hear you got it through the ugly phase without too much trouble. This is such a cool aquascape to place coral on, looks like your collection has been growing! Keep up the good work 👍

[xcom]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Wow, your nano reef is looking great @xcom! Glad to hear you got it through the ugly phase without too much trouble. This is such a cool aquascape to place coral on, looks like your collection has been growing! Keep up the good work 👍

Thanks! It will primarily encrusting monti, Porites and cyphastrea. I need to use a better equipment to take pics instead of my crappy iPhone 6 😂 

[xcom]

A little hard to capture these little guys on an iPhone but received this wonderful specimen of Christmas worm cyphastrea rock with filter feeding hermit carbs living inside.

 

I’ve been feeding the tank heavy with mixture of fish food, reef food, reef chilies and live phytoplankton everyday. So far no algae outbreak, no cyano etc.

 

Tank currently houses 5 fishes: 3 trimma Cana, 2 red neon eviota gobies. I’m on the hunt for small trimma species but will see.