Return to Reefing

[petrea92]

I’ve recently jumped back into Nano Reefing after a long hiatus (over 10 years). I got into the hobby in my teens and left it when I went off to college. Nano-reef was my go-to for so much information. I learned a lot then, but am finding that quite a bit has changed in reefing. 

 

I got my tank (6.6 G) set up, got live rock and live sand (Carib Sea Pink Fiji) from my LFS, got the lights installed (a Nicrew 30 Watt Hyperreef LED), and am waiting a bit to add a CUC. 

 

That being said, although my LFS said the live rock was cured (was sitting in a tank), and there appears to be coralline algae, I’m not seeing much signs of life yet. I’m hearing stories of painted rocks, so hoping that the thin layers of purple are actually algae. No pods either.. so we’ll see! Any thoughts on the rock/ algae? 

[seabass]

Yeah, could be painted.  Might be man-made rock.  Could also be "cured" (no organics to produce an ammonia source).  And, at the same time, it's possible that it doesn't have much of a biofilter.  I wish stores were more transparent about the origin and how they cycled their rocks.

 

Without livestock in your tank, I'd dose some ammonium chloride up to 2 ppm of ammonia to see how long it takes to process it down to 0.25 ppm of ammonia.  If it can do this within 24 hours, you're good to go.  If not, dose it back up to 2 ppm and wait until it is processed down to 0.25 ppm.  Keep doing this until your tank can process it within 24 hours.

[petrea92]

Thank you, Seabass! That’s helpful info, and along the lines of what I was thinking. I did notice yesterday that I‘m seeing a bit of brown algae (could be a diatom bloom?) starting to form on the rock‘s white parts.