Luke's 20 Gallon Simple Reef Tank

[Luke78]

Day Nine

Parameters:

Ammonia: 0! (For real this time)

Nitrite: Getting a test kit for this tomorrow evening. I know it must be spiking.

Nitrate: 0

 

I don't know why the pictures get fuzzier after I email them to myself so that I can post them on here, but I will try my best to improve the quality of the photos. I may need to adjust the size before I send them.

[Tired]

You may get better photo quality if you upload them to a site like Imgur instead of emailing them. It's best to put photos through as few steps as possible if you want them to look nice.

[Luke78]

Day 10 

 

No image for today, sorry.

 

Parameters:

Ammonia:0

Nirtrite:0?

Nitrate:0

 

The ammonia in the tank has recently dropped to 0 and I expected a spike in nitrite, but there is not one. Maybe my rock recovered? I don't even know what is going on at this point. I tested twice just to make sure that the parameters were correct and the results were the same both times. Bacteria in the water column seems to be blooming and its making my water moderately cloudy. I am putting more ammonia in the tank today and seeing if the tank is still cycling through ammonia and I will post my results on that after it is done.

[Luke78]

Day 11

 

Parameters:

Ammonia:0

Nitrite:0

Nitrate:0

 

I added ammonia to the tank last night to make sure that my cycle was established and the ammonia had gotten back to zero by this morning. I have noticed some copepods on my glass as well as some amphipods in the rockwork. There is a bit of cloud, which I assume is from a bacterial bloom, which is pretty evident in the picture. I also added my cuc back in the tank today and I guess I will add some fish after a few weeks of letting it run. I also have a question about my skimmer. I have an old and noisy seaclone 100 protein skimmer and was wondering if it would be a better option for my tank because I heard that nano skimmers were not as effective as larger ones.

[Tired]

If your nitrates are 0, your cycle isn't finished. I don't know where that ammonia's gone if your nitrites and nitrates are 0, but you should probably figure out where it went, or re-check your results. The presence of pods is a good sign, though.

[Luke78]

I have rechecked my results three times at this point by adding ammonia and seeing if it would drop to zero after a while. I am still confused though because I never got a nitrite reading or a nitrate reading. I used an api test kit for nitrite and I did not get a reading for either of them. Could the test kit be faulty? I have heard of cycles where nitrites hardly show up, but I doubt this is the case. I will test my nitrates with a better test kit today to see if they are detectable on that one rather than the one that I’m using.

[Tired]

It's possible the kit is faulty, yes. That ammonia has to go SOMEWHERE. In cycles where nitrites hardly show up, it's because they pretty much skip right to nitrates, so you'd see nitrates if that was the case.

[Luke78]

That is why I am testing with a better test kit today. I don’t think the one I was using was the best for detecting nitrate(test strips). Where are some other places that the ammonia could go?

[Tired]

As far as I know, the only place it could feasibly go is being turned into nitrites, then nitrates. I'm sure there are other places ammonia can theoretically go if you get into some major shenanigans, but not anything that's plausible in a reef tank. 

 

Test strips are extremely inaccurate. That's your problem right there.

[Luke78]

Day 13 (Halloween, what a coincidence)

 

I will upload a pic later today.

 

Parameters: 

Ammonia:0

Nitrite:?

Nitrate:10-15ish

 

I looked for a liquid nitrite test kit at the store, but they only had the crappy test strips, but I did manage to find a nitrate test kit that I had that was still in date. I assume that the nitrites are being converted to nitrates because the water that I use for the tank does not have a nitrate reading. I will not be adding any fish into the tank until I get a nitrite test kit to make sure that everything is going smoothly. I have added my cuc back to this tank and they seem to be doing fine, but they are snails and from my experience with freshwater snails they are fairly bulletproof. The cuc has been back in the tank for three days now and they all are displaying normal behaviors (eating and actively moving). Is this any indication that the tank is ready for livestock? Also, my water starts off fairly clear in the morning, but after I get home it is cloudier than before. What could be the cause of this?

[Tired]

If you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites (honestly a reasonable assumption in this case), and some nitrates, your tank is cycled. You can probably add some livestock, though you should consider your CUC to be livestock, and wait before adding anything else. 

 

Cloudy water is likely caused by a bacterial bloom. It happens sometimes in new tanks, and isn't dangerous until/unless your water is starting to look like milk. If it gets bad or lingers for a long time, there may be an overabundance of nutrients, but at this stage it's probably just something having a little party in there.

[Luke78]

How large should a cuc be? Right now mine consists of 2 nassarius snails and one nerite snail. I will most likely add some aragonite sand so that I can keep the nassarius happy. I planned on doing a water change later today once I get some more distilled water so that I can get rid of some of the bacteria and lower my nitrates. 

[Luke78]

First ever water change

 

[Luke78]

Hopefully the water change will help some with whatever is blooming in my tank right now, even though it was still cloudy after the water change. I can only hope that this is just a phase that the tank is going through because as of now, because I can not see the the other side of the tank when I look down the tank longways. Should I do a blackout to help rid the tank of it or just let nature run its course? 

[Luke78]

Looking to make a stocking list this weekend. Got any suggestions?

[Tired]

If you can find one, a coral croucher/gumdrop "goby" (actually a scorpionfish) is a really cool fish. Same for rooster waspfish. Clownfish are another classic, and for a reason. A yellowtail blue or other peaceful-ish damsel is always a good last inhabitant, lots of color and personality. Cardinalfish are pretty. There's a few small wrasses, too, like possum wrasses. Neon gobies and clown gobies are cute, firefish are pretty. Blennies, too. You have a decent range of possibilities in a 20gal, if you pick nano fish. Just no shrimpgobies or jawfish, without sand. 

 

For inverts, there's multiple cleaner shrimp to try. Blood, skunk, Pederson's, and so on. Stay away from coral bandeds, they're large and aggressive. Blue or yellow coral banded shrimp are smaller and supposedly less aggressive. Porcelain crabs, pom-pom crabs, sexy shrimp if your fish are all tiny. I personally love the look of Halloween hermits, but they'll mess up your corals moving them around. Brittle stars are a possibility. 

 

For a 20gal, I'd say pick about 3-5 small fish. See what your water chemistry is like after those are near maturity, being fed a healthy amount. If your nitrates are down low and nothing is fighting, you could add more in. Inverts are fairly low bio-load, so you can pick a few of those also.

[Luke78]

So many options lol. I will try to narrow it down this weekend. I would like to get a pair of snowflake clowns though. I’m also pretty sure that I would like a cleaner shrimp in there just because I like the look of them. I really like the look of pom-pom crabs as well. I’m planning on going to the not so local fish store this weekend to get some of my stock if all goes well parameter wise. I would also like to thank you for all of the support that you have shown for me and this tank, it really means a lot.

[Wonderboy]

Good job being patient - not to back track or anything, but the tank looked cycled on day 9 - if you were dosing ammonia and growing brown algae with 0 nitrites, then the bacteria has been converting it quickly to usable nitrates since the first brown spot. SW inverts are not very hardy compared to FW inverts - so your snails being well have been a good sign that the water has been safe. No black-out necessary - would probably just prolong developing balance. Good job @Tired keeping up posts and being persistent with motivation! CUC crew should be aquired based off of the issue at hand - so not sure why you added nassarius, but trochus or cerith will help get the diatoms cleared up. Generally 1 - 2 hermits/snails per gallon is expected (added little by little as required of course). Looks like this thing is about to take off from here, so now I'll have to be patient for your updates lol   :]

[Luke78]

25 minutes ago, Wonderboy said:

SW inverts are not very hardy compared to FW inverts - so your snails being well have been a good sign that the water has been safe. No black-out necessary - would probably just prolong developing balance. Good job @Tired keeping up posts and being persistent with motivation! CUC crew should be aquired based off of the issue at hand - so not sure why you added nassarius, but trochus or cerith will help get the diatoms cleared up. Generally 1 - 2 hermits/snails per gallon is expected (added little by little as required of course). Looks like this thing is about to take off from here, so now I'll have to be patient for you updates lol   :]

I didn't really add the snails that are in there, they are left over from my old system and I just kept them in a five gallon bucket (working on getting a quarantine tank) which I did frequent water changes on until this tank was ready. I will also have another update posted later today and will try to do an update every other day or daily.  Also, thanks for the info on the cuc and cloudiness. @Tired has been a huge source of help and information and I can not begin to thank them enough for their support.

 

[Luke78]

The tank gets cloudier as the day goes by. What is could be causing this and should I run some carbon to help?

[Ratvan]

27 minutes ago, Luke78 said:

The tank gets cloudier as the day goes by. What is could be causing this and should I run some carbon to help?

It's most likely a bacterial bloom. Are you running floss to catch particles? Personally I waited this out but if it keeps repeating I added to seachem bacteria to the tank to increase my biological filter

[Luke78]

3 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

It's most likely a bacterial bloom. Are you running floss to catch particles? Personally I waited this out but if it keeps repeating I added to seachem bacteria to the tank to increase my biological filter

I'm not running floss right now, but I am travelling to the lfs to get some tonight as well as some carbon. I was trying to go without a hob on this tank, but I guess I will have to use one. I am trying to get some more cuc while I am there. Will the bacterial bloom harm any inverts that I put in there?

 

 

[Ratvan]

4 minutes ago, Luke78 said:

I'm not running floss right now, but I am travelling to the lfs to get some tonight as well as some carbon. I was trying to go without a hob on this tank, but I guess I will have to use one. I am trying to get some more cuc while I am there. Will the bacterial bloom harm any inverts that I put in there?

 

 

Not necessarily. @WV Reefer runs a couple tanks with no Hobs, or skimmers for that matter. Hopefully you'll get some tips.

 

Check out my Pico mine went on for weeks in the mornings. Was too much natural sunlight so I moved it. Didnt lose anything in fact things looked better afterwards. Probably partly why I was so lazy "fixing" it

[Luke78]

Is getting a cleaner shrimp a good idea or would it trample my corals?

[Tired]

It may minorly annoy corals sometimes, but they're usually reef-safe.