And now what do i do water change?

[Treenk]

Ok let's start from the go I suppose.
1. All base rock and dry sand in a drilled 29g biocube with a 13g sump.
2. Add cheato big chunk of corolline algea, and a used floss filter from lfs to get bacteria going.

3. Started adding fish food to get amonia going. It wasnt getting it up at all.
4. Ordered amonia added to 2ppm

5. A week later still 2ppm
6. Went to lfs and got turbo start and added a fish. (Turned off skimmer)

7. 2 days later coraline algea in a bottle came and added it.

8. 2 days later 0ppm on amonia.
9. 2 days after that bought second fish and a duncan.

10. 2 days after (today) turned skimmer back on. Nitrates have been slowly elevating up to around 20ppm today. Yet chaeto seems to be dying off some maybe 75%-80% left.
11. Ask for help (right now ) so the question is when should I start doing water changes? I'm not sure how long to wait after adding all that good bacteria. And is 4.5g water change enough weekly?(33g total water). 1 bucket would obviously be easier then a bucket and a half a week for 20%. Also who thinks I'll get purple coraline algea from the chunk or pink from the bottle first?

 

[Sailfin11]

A water change never hurts, especially with fish and corals in a newly set up tank. For me, coralline started growing once I added hermits and snails with coralline already on their shells. Also, in the future, I wouldn't worry about buying pure ammonia to dose the tank; a jumbo shrimp from the grocery store in a filter sock will do the trick The setup is looking good!

 

[ihavecrabs]

Hmm I would say you should let your tank fully cycle before adding the fish, coral, Algae, or coralline algae.

Sounds to me that you are still in your cycle and you should never add ammonia into a tank with fish or coral or add fish or coral while ammonia is present.

Your cycle isn’t complete until you can process 1ppm ammonia in 24 hours or less.

Unless you have a hospital or quarantine tank to move the livestock to, I’d leave it go and monitor your ammonia level with a seachem ammonia badge. Also get some prime to dose in case ammonia rises to a level above 0.25 to protect the fish.

Hope this helps.

 

[Treenk]

I do process over 1ppm amonia a day that turbo stuff was crazy pretty well insta cycle. It went from the 2pp to 0 in two days and stayed there even after adding the 2nd fish still 0. Nitrates are all I have now. Everything in tank is pretty happy. Fish were insta friends I never saw them fight super weird but they seem to be happy eat swim sleep nothing out of normal duncan opened in about 2 hours and has not closed since. But yes first lfs was dumb with them giving caroline chaeto and floss filter.. that's why i went to a new lfs and they encouraged the turbo and a fish to salvage the other mistake. And it's not like they pushed expensive product on me I spent like $25 including fish. About the same cost as the duncan and next fish. And as you know in this hobby that isn't hardly anything.

 

[lapin]

my ipinion
Change out 50% of your water. This will bring down your nitrate. Stick with 10% water changes each week (3G).
The chaeto may live or die off. You prob do not have the same light and nutrients as it was growing in. Since your main concern is corals and fish, dont worry about keeping macro algae alive for now. If in 6 months you have a nutrient issue then add chaeto or ulva to the sump and see if it will work for you.

 

[BeejReef]

Likely not an issue, but you'll want to be able to test for phosphate as well sometime in the next few months.
Congrats on the new fish and coral.

Chaeto is wierd. If you see dead chunks, I'd go ahead and take them out, but chances are really good it will just "turn on" and start growing. I betcha right around thanksgiving.

 

[CasaReefer]

Welcome to R2R... Great Questions... I am following to see the outcome. Nice to have a place you can get help. Really smart people in here.

 

[Treenk]

If anyone was curious which worked first between the piece of purple coralline I put in, and the bottle of pink corraline in a bottle i barely started seeing what might have been pink a week ago and today same rock looks like this. Both are pretty quick seeing as how the tank is less than 2 months old and rock is obviously still maturing.