Humuhumu's 10g Waterbox

[Humuhumu]

HI all! After having an IM Nuvo 8 for the past 7 years I decided to get a new tank and a fresh start. Over the years I have moved the Nuvo across the country and back several times, at this point it's probably moved to about 7 different locations from several apartments in NYC, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia and back to NYC. Over the course of the moves the tank has slowly deteriorated and a few months back the glass was chipped. The only coral left in the tank is the GSP I started with as a small little frag when I first set up the tank, needless to say it has basically taken over the entire tank and is just one giant GSP now. Also still in the tank from day one is the hitchhiker pistol shrimp (Mr. Shrimp), I got him from a friend on some live rock and estimate he is about 8 years old by now. Along with him I also have had his companion a yellow watchman goby, Weebay, for about the past three years. Over the past 4 years or so I've been going to school out of the country so my wife has been doing her best but the tank is not in great shape (see pics). 

 

So, I recently set up a new Waterbox 10g to make a new home for Mr. Shrimp and Weebay and will hopefully be getting some cool corals growing soon. I will try to trade the GSP to the LFS i guess (anyone know if it's worth anything?) and will NOT be getting another one. Below are some pics of the old tank with a shot of it in it's current state as well as a couple of the new one.

 

What's inside the Waterbox:

 

1. 10lbs of CaribSea AragAlive sand

2. 10lbs of CaribSea Life Rock 

3. 1 small piece of my old rock (the only one without GSP)

4. Sicce 0.5 Syncra Silent return pump

5. Jebao SL-10 wavemaker (any tips on settings for this guy would be appreciated)

6. InTank media basked

7. Chemi-pure 3.5oz in the middle rack

8. Filter floss in the top rack

9. Eheim 50w heater

10. AI Prime 16HD

 

Pic of the old tank before I left for school:

 

 

Pic of the tank in it's current state (YIKES):

 

 

Pic of the new setup!

 

Looking forward to seeing where this goes! I had the tank set up for about 10 days with just the one old rock inside while I waited for the new rocks and everything else to arrive (it was at room temp so I imagine the bacterial growth was limited). I set everything up yesterday and added 50mL of Instant Ocean BIO-Spira about an hour ago. 

 

Some questions I have right now:

 

1. How long do you think it will take to cycle well enough that I can move Mr. Shrimp and Weebay into their new home, I'm not in any rush and since I've had them for so long I really don't want to kill them now. Ive been reading all over the forums about this but since I have some old rock in there and I added the BIO-spira I'm not really sure what to expect. I've considered moving the chemi-pure from my other tank over too just to help establish more bacteria as its been in there for a few months and I'm sure it's covered. 

 

2. I would really like to add another fish to the tank but I'm not sure what is safe in such a small tank. I would love a little clownfish but the last one I had in the Nuvo died after about six months (not sure why). Any tips??

 

Thanks for sticking with me if you've made it this far!

[Firefish15]

Pretty slick new setup! Lots of potential there! 
A good way to tell if your tank is cycled is to make sure that the bacteria have a good food source, and then track the ammonia levels. Once you see the levels rise from the addition of food, and then fall back down again, you’re ready.
You could add a piece of table shrimp to let decay, that’d get you somewhere. Or get a bottle of ammonia intended for cycling aquariums. 

[debbeach13]

11 hours ago, Humuhumu said:

I had the tank set up for about 10 days with just the one old rock inside while I waited for the new rocks and everything else to arrive (it was at room temp so I imagine the bacterial growth was limited). I set everything up yesterday and added 50mL of Instant Ocean BIO-Spira about an hour ago. 

Was the new rock live rock?

[Humuhumu]

Hi guys, first off... tanks for the replies (pun intended)! I have been adding a few pellets to the tank every other day but they kinda just sit around and don't break down, eventually they disintegrate but it seems like they sit around for 24hrs+. The last two days I've crushed up 4-5 pellets and then thrown them into the tank to hopefully give the bacteria more surface area to do their job. I tested the water and had zeros across the board, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate, so guessing the cycle had't really started at that point. I meant to test the water tonight but I got home late and didn't get around to it. 

 

As far as the rock goes... I put one rock (thats been in my old tank for 6 years) in the tank for the first 10 days at room temperature. Two days ago I added the CaribSea Life Rock which was "dry rock", so in total I have about 10# of dry rock and maybe 1/2 pound of mature rock. I just got the SeaChem Ammonia Alert leave in monitor so hopefully that gives me a better idea of where I'm at. 

 

I understand the basics of the cycle but I'm more curious about how long I should wait before adding my dudes to the tank. I plan to test every couple of days but after reading the Amazon reviews for Bio-Spira it sounds like the cycle can last less than 24 hours. After reading the reviews I now feel like I could miss the cycle and the tank might be fine for fish without me knowing. But then I read the forums and it seems like no matter the readings I should wait until I get some diatoms and cyano... so maybe I've answered my own question??

[Humuhumu]

Tank update! I let the tank cycle for around three weeks before adding my yellow watchman and pistol shrimp. About one month later (6 weeks since starting the tank) I added three ricordeas and a few zoas. One week ago (10 weeks since starting the tank) I added a few more zoas, a pipe organ, a frogspawn, and a torch. 

 

Recently my nitrates have fallen to zero (phosphates have always been zero) so I began feeding more pellets. I've been feeding a few pellets and frozen mysis every day for about a week, I'll be checking the parameters again on Wednesday and hope that the nitrates have increased. I've also been a little worried about the light intensity being too high as I'm just running normal Saxby settings with no intensity reduction but everything seems to be doing well so far. All the ricordeas are growing and the zoas are multiplying. I'm going to start checking calcium (and magnesium?) soon to see if I need to start dosing. Alkalinity has had some fluctuations between 8-10 but 1-2 gallon weekly water changes seem to be keeping things pretty stable. All in all everything is going about as well as I could hope for which probably means disaster is imminent.... So far so good though.

 

Here's a shot of the tank today!