Starting my nano 24g cycle

[BreBearz]

I am new to this group so I’m not sure if I’m doing this right for my journal but I am posting about my start on the saltwater journey! 
 

Day one of the start to my cycle with some fritz 9 bacteria and a shrimp from the sea food section at a local store. Using the reef salts from instant ocean as I plan to add coral in the future and didn’t want to get just the basic one and need to buy new salt in a couple months.  
 

I am starting with some dry rock I got from a fellow hobbiest for free and am waiting for my shipment from bulk reef supply to arrive in 6ish days. When I say dry rock I mean it was alive at one point but she let it sit in a shallow bucket for weeks in storage and then I let it dry out in the sun for a few days and scrubbed it. I assume nothing is alive on it. I didn’t want to risk any pests.   
 

I ordered 15 pounds of MarcoRocks REEFSAVER dry live rock from BRS. With some shelf varieties of this, BRS Rox 0.8 Carbon, mesh media bag for it and ammonia chloride for a fish less cycle though I may not need it due to the shrimp I added. I added the shrimp as I didn’t want to wait 6 days for it to arrive and figured i could at least start the cycle now,so some beneficial thing is happening in my tank.  Not sure if it will be a pain adding in the new rock in 6 days but we will see. Also my tank is only filled half way because the water station broke after filling 2, 5 gallon jugs and my husband couldn’t find anymore water at the other stores as there water stations where broken. I plan to get a rodi system in a couple months when I can afford one. The water from the water station did read TDS 15 when I measured it. Hopfully that won’t be a issue.  

[debbeach13]

Welcome to NR. It is nice to have a friend that is also reefing. If you can put a power head or pump and a heater in there to keep the water at around 78 and moving. I hope you can get some water soon. The dry rock should be cleaned after it arrives. If your cycle has actually started by then you might want to cycle the new rock in a bucket, or a new cycle will probably start. Have fun and good luck. In the meantime Check out some tank threads for ideas.

[TerraIncognita]

Looks Great! My $500 RODI System reads 12 TDS Anyway. I don't think you're going to get it under 10 TDS without spending 1,000+ on a system.

 

natural tap water in most places ranges from 170-250, so yeah, if you can get it 1000% less, i'm sure you're just fine.

 

My tips for the first timer:

 

Take this weekend, and tell everyone in your life to not bother you, and just spend like 16 hours straight researching.

Before you add any water or sand, design your aquascape completely and to your satisfaction, if you need GLUE GET GLUE.

Realize that rock in 4 years from now, will be barely visible if you plan to have a coral reef, dont build your rock structure with Rock in mind, but instead, where do I want coral to grow and how should it look.

Also plan if you want SPS or LPS in your tank, and think with your rock scaping, where you will put each frag as you get it so it can get 1. Proper light. and 2. Adequate flow for the species.

 

And these are the first 5-6 things I'd do out of maybe 100. But that'll get you started in the right direction, and I'm sure you'll start to figure it all out.

 

I know it sounds like a lot of research, but if you do it now, 1 year from now, you'll be like "man I'm glad that dude form that one site said this" lol.

[RedTheReefer]

Wouldn't using distilled water be a better solution here? I've used distilled with good success meaning I observed no difference between using RODI and distilled water. I would use distilled water if you are unable to get to 0 TDS or until you get an RODI system if you can't get RODI at an LFS.

[TerraIncognita]

1 hour ago, RedTheReefer said:

Wouldn't using distilled water be a better solution here? I've used distilled with good success meaning I observed no difference between using RODI and distilled water. I would use distilled water if you are unable to get to 0 TDS or until you get an RODI system if you can't get RODI at an LFS.

I feel like there's trace minerals distilled gets rid. But again no one has ANY science on this, shows you how under studied this hobby is. It could be better who knows.

[RedTheReefer]

I think you are misunderstanding. You want pure water to start before making it into saltwater. That means water with absolutely zero dissolved solids which any RODI system can produce. If you wish to introduce trace elements or anything of that nature that is beneficial to aquatic life, that is mostly dependant on your choice of salt mix or dosing regiment.

[TerraIncognita]

9 minutes ago, RedTheReefer said:

I think you are misunderstanding. You want pure water to start before making it into saltwater. That means water with absolutely zero dissolved solids which any RODI system can produce. If you wish to introduce trace elements or anything of that nature that is beneficial to aquatic life, that is mostly dependant on your choice of salt mix or dosing regiment.

Does RODI really remove everything? I don’t think they work quite the same man.

 

or why would you have 2 different methods of changing water.

 

better yet, go drink a glass of distilled water, and a glass of RODI and you tel me the difference.

 

if you don’t notice one, your mouth is broken.

 

i also feel if you distilled 1 million gallons of RODI water you’d find mineral or other deposit in the residue left.

[RedTheReefer]

What you really want is 0 TDS.

 

Yours could be reading 12 TDS because your RODI sysyem cannot completly handle filtering your source water. This means you need additional filtration or your filter media might need replacing. It would help if you have a water report to understand whats in your source water so you can get the right tools to get it to 0 TDS.

 

But like that other fellow said, that could cost thousands so distilled water would seem like a better option in that regard if you do not have a LFS.

 

A good option you could do is send out your filtered water for an ICP test too see if any of the dissolved solids would negatively impact your reef and then go from there.

 

[TerraIncognita]

18 minutes ago, RedTheReefer said:

What you really want is 0 TDS.

 

Yours could be reading 12 TDS because your RODI sysyem cannot completly handle filtering your source water. This means you need additional filtration or your filter media might need replacing. It would help if you have a water report to understand whats in your source water so you can get the right tools to get it to 0 TDS.

 

But like that other fellow said, that could cost thousands so distilled water would seem like a better option in that regard if you do not have a LFS.

 

A good option you could do is send out your filtered water for an ICP test too see if any of the dissolved solids would negatively impact your reef and then go from there.

 

Well seeing as I never complained about my water quality or params lol I am fine but thank you.

 

i guess you can argue on your point for a clean system or no nutrient.

 

idk too unnatural for me.

 

even rain water isn’t that pure.

 

as long as I can remove chlorine, fluoride and any other man made and added chemicals I think were fine.

 

teuthfully if I lived somewhere in Oregon or with better air quality I’d try to have a collection filter system for rain water and would use that instead of RODI.

 

i don’t like doing things that I find super off from how one would find it in nature I guess.

 

but then again idk how they make the sea salts we use either.

 

i guess if they were making our ocean salts out of dissolved ocean water Disstilled water might be the way to go, as really all they took out of the mix would’ve been distilled water.

 

but I unfortunately don’t believe that’s how they make Our sea salt water. 
 

but again I don’t think there’s enough study on RODI bs distilled for us to continue this argument.

[BreBearz]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Just finished aqua scaping everything and will be filling up the tank fully now that I found more water. I let the epoxy and super glue sit over night. I’ll be making a post about it soon. I put in some serious work 😂 Did about 9-10 scapes till I got the perfect one. Hopfully it’s good for flow. I made little caves and places for fish to hide and good spots for corals even have 2 island in the tank for invasive corals 

[TerraIncognita]

Photos or it didn’t happen. 😋

[BreBearz]

Haha I will honestly have to take a video to show the dimensions fully. Or a ton of pictures. Pictures don’t due it justice though in my opinion. I’ll post some in this thread then talk about it in a journal entry 😂 Side note I super glued some rocks over the epoxy that showed to hide it but ran out of super glue. Will coralline grow over the epoxy? I was reading sometimes it’s hard for it to. 

Having trouble figuring out how to add photos? I’m on mobile 

[BreBearz]

[BreBearz]

Sadly it wouldn’t let me post a video 

[TerraIncognita]

21 hours ago, BreBearz said:

Sadly it wouldn’t let me post a video 

Nice I can see the intricacies for sure. 👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻
 

I think it’s an awesome scape.

[BreBearz]

Thanks!

[Guest]

23 hours ago, BreBearz said:

Wonderful scape! And amazingly thought out, I am sure in a few years you wont even be able to see the rock cause it will be filled with coral 👍