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New to the hobby and excited! Need Some advise.


AndresAcross

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AndresAcross

I used to have a 150 G Fresh water aquarium back home and that one is now my mom's. Since I moved I've always wanted to start a new one and was a little scared about the salt water aquariums. After a couple of months researching, reading and watching a lot of videos I decided to start a Fluval 13.5 Evo Nano Reef Aquarium and I'm really excited to make it grow.

 

I started my Aquarium just 5 days ago and I have done 3 testings so far. I have dry rock and Arag-alive Pink Fiji Sand.  I used Dr Timm's Chloride Ammonia as indicated in the product and Fluval's Biological Enhancer to start the cycle. I've been reading online and Dr Timm's Cycle guide and it says that you shouldn't let the Ammonia levels go higher than 5.0 so I did a partial water change on my 3rd day of the cycle. 

 

These are my current testing readings I did them with the API Test Kit: 

readings-July6.png.0acaaada433586f9708864972c6be106.png

 

I'm just wondering if the process is going right or If I should do something. I'm in no rush to finish the cycle but wanted to know if I should keep the lights on or off and if I should add more Bio enhancer or not.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

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This is my setup so far:

 

aquarium_1.thumb.jpg.96614bdd212a6b14de1b66e25c94c801.jpg

 

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Salinity is kinda low if you wanna keep corals, I would bump it up to 1.025/26. As for the cycling, everything seems to be looking ok. Just gotta wait it out and let it do its thing. For the bio enhancer just follow the directions on the bottle,  and I would keep the lights off while cycling.

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:welcome: to Nano-Reef.com.

 

Wait for ammonia and nitrite to reach 0.25 ppm, then dose ammonium chloride so that ammonia is 2 ppm.  Repeat this until your tank can process 2 ppm of ammonia to 0.25 ppm within 24 hours.  Then change out all of the water (and you're done).

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  • 2 weeks later...
AndresAcross

Hey everyone, just got an update on my fish-less cycle. I've been reading around and seeing different opinions on the topic of having high Nitrites and if it stall the cycle or not. I'm such a newbie and I'd love some feedback.

 

Right now my tank has this readings with the API Master Saltwater Kit (Day 15 of cycling) :

 

PH: 7,8

Ammonia: 0.25 ppm

Nitrite: 5+ ppm (goes to purple immediately in the test kit)

Nitrate: 20 ppm

Salinity: 1.026 

 

Since I got some presence of Nitrate I guess the cycle is happening correctly and I dosed ammonia to get to 2.0 ppm and it was transformed to 0.25 ppm in less that 10 hours. I was thinking on doing a 30% or more water change to lower the Nitrites and then keep adding the ammonia when it gets lower than 1 ppm and see what happens.

 

What do you think I should do? 

 

Thanks Again!

 

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If it were me I'd wait until saturday or your next day off and retest .. if the nitrites are off the scale still then I would do the w.c.  happy reefing 😎

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Definitely do a water change.  The process slows down if either nitrite or ammonia is 5ppm or higher.  Bring it down below 5ppm, then wait for it to reach 0.25ppm before adding more ammonium chloride.

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