Popek's EVO 13.5 Reef

[748S911]

19 hours ago, popek said:

20 hours ago, 748S911 said:

I usually mix a batch with fresh rodi, mix salt, throw heater and pump for circulation.  Next day test it to make sure its at 1.023 or so.

I see, was reading on the box that they don't recommend mixing longer than 4 hours due to precipitation.

Do you mix it to 1.023 so you have that buffer space when it rises to 1.025 ?

 

I'm old school and have been mixing salt and letting it mix, heat and aerate over night works for me. 

[popek]

Sounds good, will definitely follow the advice you guys gave me.

Today was the first day of adding bacteria, I am slowly replacing tank water with RODI too dial in the salinity.

Also replaced the wall plug with a GFI one today.

 

Day 1, So far so good 😛

 

[popek]

Its been a week since the tank is running, I am still not detecting any ammonia nitrite or nitrates.

One big thing I had to learn the hard way was relying on my calibration of red sea refractometer.

The bloody thing needs calibration every single time before use, I did test it  1st day with RODI and it showed correctly.

So I've been changing water trying to raise salinity to 1.025 from 1.020. 

So I'll be counting today as Day one of cycling. Getting rid of this refractometer and saving up for the Milwaukee digital one.

 

 

 

[748S911]

Hanna has a temp and salinity checker thats much cheaper. 

 

https://hannainst.com/marine-salinity-tester-hi98319.html

[popek]

I'm a little baffled with my cycling process.

I dosed PRODBIO startup while doing some light ghost feeding.

For the past 2 weeks my parameters were steady with ammonia and nitrite at 0, and nitrate at 2.5.

Added a raw shrimp 3 days ago and I am still reading ammonia at 0, nitrite 0.25 and nitrate at 5.

Shouldn't I be seeing some ammonia spikes? Testing with salifert test kits.

 

 

[748S911]

Is the shrimp still there? maybe it hasn't broken down yet.. test next few days. 

[popek]

Yes it still there, I put it on top of some filter floss in chamber one.

[asting]

Not familiar with prodbio, but i've had good luck with biospira in "instant" cycling tanks. Did you use live rock?

[748S911]

hmmm...could you just throw the shrimp in display? and let it do its thing in there. 

[pricewayne]

I’ve been told best way to check your cycle is you can order Dr Tim’s Ammonium — dose it then test for ammonia (you should get a reading) — wait 24 hrs and test again — if your ammonia is 0 24hrs later then means your tank’s cycled 👌🏻

 

Shouldn’t be dosed if any live stock is in the tank though.

[Gravity]

You may not see ammonia if you have a large bacteria population. but If you are seeing  nitrite and nitrate increase the tank is cycling. 

[popek]

Do I leave the shrimp in the tank?

And after I see the No2 rise and fall back to 0 should i consider the tank cycled?

[Gravity]

I haven’t done the shrimp method. So it’s hard to say. But during my cycle nitrate reached 40 ppm with ammonia and nitrite at zero. At this point 2 ppm of ammonia was processed in less than 48 hours. So if your nitrate reaches 40 ppm you should be good after a few water changes. 

[popek]

So the tank has finally been cycled for a couple of weeks.🤩

Got some new livestock, a hermit crab and a pair of clownfish.  New addition hardware wise is the smart ATO micro so far very pleased with it.

 

[pricewayne]

16 minutes ago, popek said:

So the tank has finally been cycled for a couple of weeks.🤩

Got some new livestock, a hermit crab and a pair of clownfish.  New addition hardware wise is the smart ATO micro so far very pleased with it.

 

Nice!! And your photos are awesome!

[asting]

Love the hermit's striped legs!

[popek]

Parameters are holding steady at 0 ammonia No2 and 5 ppm No3.

I've added 4 Astrea snails to the tank, I think in a week or two ill be ready to add a few corals. Gonna spend some time researching on what to start with.

 

The dry rock has started to get some Coraline algae on it! Very excited about that. I do have some brown algae here and there if I run the light too long, but that's to be expected.

My hermit crab gave me quite a scare, he was not moving for a few days and  I saw what looked like his body behind the rocks.  I thought he was dead, I left his shell in the tank and after 3 days he popped out! Lil bugger gave me a lesson on crab molting.

 

 

 

[Gravity]

Wow, that seems like some fast coralline growth.