Evo 13.5 first week

[Pharris13]

So I recently have setup my evo 13.5. Ive got about 12 lbs live rock 20 lbs of live sand and 9 gallons of water from my local LFS. Have had the tank setup for about a week now and have seen no changes in any parameters. I used a 1 oz bottle of turbostart 900 (2x recommended dosing for my tank but it said up to 5x was ok). I have what appears to be an emerald crab that was a hitchhiker on my live rock and he seems to be doing okay. I have noticed a slight orange growth appear on my live rock that has appeared over the last 24 hours. Did I skip the cycling process because of all the live already cultured things I used or am I just being an impatient noob lol? Any help or input would be appreciated!

[Elizabeth94]

If you got cured, wet live rock from an lfs it’s unlikely you’ll have a cycle. If you have no ammonia or nitrite but have some nitrate you are probably good to add a small fish or better yet- a clean up crew if you have algae. Test water after you add the fish for the first week to make sure you don’t get an ammonia spike. 
 

A few years ago I got live rock from down the road. Kept it wet some towel and had no ammonia spike. Pretty much instant cycle. Just add livestock slow. 

[Fryguy0201]

^ What they said and if you wanna check before adding livestock get some ammonia, dose it to 2 ppm and see if it processes it to nitrate in 24 hours. 

[Pharris13]

Not 100% sure that my rock was cured but it's covered in purple coralline and was kept wet with a paper towel while transporting it. Really thinking I'm not going to have a cycle but hate to be the noob that goes and buys fish and then they all die because I'm impatient. I'll try dosing the ammonia and hope for the best. Think it will kill my hitchhiking emerald crab?

Also I forgot to say that I appreciate the help

[Fryguy0201]

1 hour ago, Pharris13 said:

Not 100% sure that my rock was cured but it's covered in purple coralline and was kept wet with a paper towel while transporting it. Really thinking I'm not going to have a cycle but hate to be the noob that goes and buys fish and then they all die because I'm impatient. I'll try dosing the ammonia and hope for the best. Think it will kill my hitchhiking emerald crab?

Also I forgot to say that I appreciate the help

Uhm maybe just dose to 1 ppm of ammonia or less if you’re nervous but it should be ok if the tank has nitrifying bacteria. I would say make sure you stock slowly give your bio filtration time to adjust and build up. Good luck! 

[Clown79]

On 6/18/2020 at 5:51 PM, Pharris13 said:

Not 100% sure that my rock was cured but it's covered in purple coralline and was kept wet with a paper towel while transporting it. Really thinking I'm not going to have a cycle but hate to be the noob that goes and buys fish and then they all die because I'm impatient. I'll try dosing the ammonia and hope for the best. Think it will kill my hitchhiking emerald crab?

Also I forgot to say that I appreciate the help

If the rock was wet with coralline algae it's most likely cured liverock and won't cycle because its established rock.

 

I personally wouldn't dose ammonia with liverock or a crab in there, it can kill off some beneficial life.

 

Do you have any nitrates?

 

Can you post a pic of the rocks?

 

 

[Pharris13]

Sorry for the delayed reply. Big chunk is from local LFS and the small the chunk is from Petco but supposedly cured live rock. Nitrates and Ammonia seems to be running around 0 but I’m using an API master test kit so it’s hard to tell the small differences. (Sorry for dirty glass. Ordered a flipper and had some issues but that’s another story)

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, Pharris13 said:

Sorry for the delayed reply. Big chunk is from local LFS and the small the chunk is from Petco but supposedly cured live rock. Nitrates and Ammonia seems to be running around 0 but I’m using an API master test kit so it’s hard to tell the small differences. (Sorry for dirty glass. Ordered a flipper and had some issues but that’s another story)

Looks like established rock and you have algae. Do you see feather dusters, pods any of the such on it?

 

Api tests are fine. Unfortunately if nitrates is under 5 you will get a 0 reading because of how api tests.

 

Ammonia will be yellow when 0

 

Always check the test against the white part of the card and in natural light.

[Pharris13]

No feather dusters but have seen a few pods here and there. Going to start slowly adding my CUC and hope for the best. Like I said just really don’t want to be that noob that thinks his tank didn’t cycle lol

[Pharris13]

I'm back with another update. Changed my aqua scape up a little bit and added a CUC. Heres a list of my current livestock

1 emerald crab

2 blue hermit crabs

2 red led Cortez hermit crabs (hoping for Scarlett but lfs was sold out)

2 turbo snails (thinking about getting rid of one) 

2 astrea snails 

1 margarita snail

Hoping to add 2 nassarius snails for sand bed clean up and a Randalls pistol shrimp for an eventual goby pairing. Tell me what you guys think

 

[findingnemo23]

On 6/28/2020 at 3:36 PM, Pharris13 said:

I'm back with another update. Changed my aqua scape up a little bit and added a CUC. Heres a list of my current livestock

1 emerald crab

2 blue hermit crabs

2 red led Cortez hermit crabs (hoping for Scarlett but lfs was sold out)

2 turbo snails (thinking about getting rid of one) 

2 astrea snails 

1 margarita snail

Hoping to add 2 nassarius snails for sand bed clean up and a Randalls pistol shrimp for an eventual goby pairing. Tell me what you guys think

 

Have your test results changed at all since you posted this pic?. Did all your livestock survive? 

 

I'm in this exact stage (evo 13.5 has been cycling for 1 week with same test results as your picture)

 

Tank looks great btw

[Jimpens71]

On 6/24/2020 at 5:32 PM, Pharris13 said:

Sorry for the delayed reply. Big chunk is from local LFS and the small the chunk is from Petco but supposedly cured live rock. Nitrates and Ammonia seems to be running around 0 but I’m using an API master test kit so it’s hard to tell the small differences. (Sorry for dirty glass. Ordered a flipper and had some issues but that’s another story)

Love the colors on the big piece of rock