Help!!! New to this.

[mattnano13.5]

So let’s start I ended up getting a evo 13.5 and got it all set up with RODI water and live sand and dry live rock i believe it’s called (im a newbie). I have the stock foam sponge and media in there atm but I have now ordered a inTank chamber 1 media basket and a SICCE Syncra Silent 1.0 to upgrade the pump. Is this a pretty good start? Or is there anything else I will need to upgrade to keep 2 clowns and maybe a shrimp? I was planning on just running a cut of the stock sponge on the top layer of the media basket then the ceramic rings

(adding more soon) then the Carbon (going to add more to the basket) on bottom. And the run my heater in chamber 2 then the upgraded pump in 3. Let me know any tips!!! 
 

and yes I’m currently doing the first “cycle” so I’ll be waiting a few weeks to add any kind of clean up crew or fish. 

[seabass]

Sounds nice.  Welcome to Nano-Reef.com.

 

1 hour ago, mattnano13.5 said:

I have the stock foam sponge and media in there atm

You can use it if you keep it clean.  But most people recommend removing it as it collects debris and becomes a biological filter (your rock is your biological filter, and additional bio-filters are not needed and can even be undesirable).  Instead, most people will use disposable filter floss (inTank has some nice floss which you can cut to fit).

 

1 hour ago, mattnano13.5 said:

I was planning on just running a cut of the stock sponge on the top layer of the media basket then the ceramic rings

The ceramic rings could be used if you had insufficient rock.  But they are primarily for tanks that need a biofilter (like freshwater aquariums).  It's the same thing as above, additional biofilters aren't needed and can even be unwanted (something else to keep clean and potentially producing excess nitrate).  I'd take these out too.

 

So for the media in your inTank basket, I'd probably run filter floss up top, and activated carbon below.  The activated carbon could be put in a media bag, or you could buy some pre-bagged media like ChemiPure.

 

1 hour ago, mattnano13.5 said:

I’m currently doing the first “cycle” so I’ll be waiting a few weeks to add any kind of clean up crew or fish. 

Is this a typical fishless cycle?  Which usually involves:

• Dosing enough ammonium chloride to bring the total ammonia level to 2 ppm
• Waiting for ammonia to drop to 0.25 ppm
• Repeating the above two steps until your tank can process 2 ppm of ammonia down to 0.25 ppm within 24 hours

 

[Murphs_Reef]

Hi welcome to nano-reef 👍🏼 

 

[Ratvan]

Sounds like a really nice start, I have the same tank and just reaching 7 months with it running. 

 

Remove the sponge or cut it to fit the in tank basket and put floss over the top, the back AIO section collects a lot of detritus, especially in chamber 2 I've found. So if you can replace the floss and rinse the sponge I think that would help. 

 

Also a nice pump upgrade, I'm still running mine completely stock but the upgrade would allow for greater flow throughout the tank, maybe look into RFG nozzle as well? Would create a more dispersed turbulent flow through the tank.

 

Finally I found the whites of the lights too bright for what I wanted to keep so added a nicrew controller to the lights, they also make a temp controller that's similar to the inkbird for a bit less of the cost.

 

Happy reefing and let's see a set up pic. 

 

[mattnano13.5]

7 hours ago, seabass said:

Sounds nice.  Welcome to Nano-Reef.com.

 

You can use it if you keep it clean.  But most people recommend removing it as it collects debris and becomes a biological filter (your rock is your biological filter, and additional bio-filters are not needed and can even be undesirable).  Instead, most people will use disposable filter floss (inTank has some nice floss which you can cut to fit).

 

The ceramic rings could be used if you had insufficient rock.  But they are primarily for tanks that need a biofilter (like freshwater aquariums).  It's the same thing as above, additional biofilters aren't needed and can even be unwanted (something else to keep clean and potentially producing excess nitrate).  I'd take these out too.

 

So for the media in your inTank basket, I'd probably run filter floss up top, and activated carbon below.  The activated carbon could be put in a media bag, or you could buy some pre-bagged media like ChemiPure.

 

Is this a typical fishless cycle?  Which usually involves:

• Dosing enough ammonium chloride to bring the total ammonia level to 2 ppm
• Waiting for ammonia to drop to 0.25 ppm
• Repeating the above two steps until your tank can process 2 ppm of ammonia down to 0.25 ppm within 24 hours

 

As of now I have not added ammonia I was told by someone I know to get “turbo start 900” so I have ordered that but sadly won’t be here for a few more days. And yes fishless. 

[seabass]

21 minutes ago, mattnano13.5 said:

As of now I have not added ammonia I was told by someone I know to get “turbo start 900”

That's certainly a good start, but I'd still build up the biofilter prior to adding any livestock.  You can test to see how effective it is by dosing 2 ppm of ammonia, and see if your tank can process it (down to 0.25 ppm) within 24 hours.  If it can, then you are good to go; but if it can't, then dose it back up to 2 ppm and check again in another 24 hours.  Keep doing that until you build up the biofilter.

[mattnano13.5]

3 hours ago, seabass said:

That's certainly a good start, but I'd still build up the biofilter prior to adding any livestock.  You can test to see how effective it is by dosing 2 ppm of ammonia, and see if your tank can process it (down to 0.25 ppm) within 24 hours.  If it can, then you are good to go; but if it can't, then dose it back up to 2 ppm and check again in another 24 hours.  Keep doing that until you build up the biofilter.

Yeah Im supposed to get the turbo start in on Monday or Tuesday then I was gonna wait a few weeks after that to put anything in the tank. Where would I go about getting ammonia to test that? 

[DaJMasta]

If you follow the directions for the turbo start, you should be covered, but you can buy ammonia 'supplements' sold as bacterial food, or can add a small amount of fish food to the tank and wait for it to start breaking down, though it is tougher to accurately dose that way.

 

My guess is that if you run the course of turbo start, then test for ammonia/nitrate to verify the cycle has started, there should be no need for additional ammonia and you should have enough of a bacterial population to support light initial stocking.  From there, you feed and keep from adding new stuff too quickly so the biological filter has time to grow in and build up.

[mattnano13.5]

1 hour ago, DaJMasta said:

If you follow the directions for the turbo start, you should be covered, but you can buy ammonia 'supplements' sold as bacterial food, or can add a small amount of fish food to the tank and wait for it to start breaking down, though it is tougher to accurately dose that way.

 

My guess is that if you run the course of turbo start, then test for ammonia/nitrate to verify the cycle has started, there should be no need for additional ammonia and you should have enough of a bacterial population to support light initial stocking.  From there, you feed and keep from adding new stuff too quickly so the biological filter has time to grow in and build up.

Yeah I appreciate the help! Wish I could have found the darn stuff in store so I didn’t have to wait over a week just for it lol. But what can ya do? Wait! 

Quick question about what should I run in the media basket? On all 3 levels? 

[DaJMasta]

Up to you, some people use something like filter floss and chemipure elite, gfo, carbon, or whatnot, but when starting the tank I wouldn't use any chemical medias for a while as they can lock up nutrients that would otherwise feed the cycling/grow in process.  I tend not to run much media in my tanks, but having some carbon on hand and a filter bag gives you an option if something suddenly goes south.

[mattnano13.5]

22 minutes ago, DaJMasta said:

Up to you, some people use something like filter floss and chemipure elite, gfo, carbon, or whatnot, but when starting the tank I wouldn't use any chemical medias for a while as they can lock up nutrients that would otherwise feed the cycling/grow in process.  I tend not to run much media in my tanks, but having some carbon on hand and a filter bag gives you an option if something suddenly goes south.

Yeah right now the tank come with some carbon and ceramic rings so I’m think I’ll just keep them in the new media badly and add something on the top like filter floss