Cycle

[tidefanjam]

got my newly set up tank running with a shrimp rotting on the sand, dry rock, caribsea live sand, should I put some biopure in or just let it run? I'm in no big rush really, also will I need to get a piece of live rock in for my dry rock to purple up eventually ?
Thanks

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Nice scape. You don't need to put anything in there other than the shrimp, the bacteria will populate eventually. As far as coraline algae, you can seed with a little scraping from a friend or lfs. It'll come in on frags eventually too so there's no real need to seed it. It's going to take a little while before it starts to really show up.

 

[sbash]

If you are good just waiting it out, pull the shrimp when your ammonia hits 2 and test every couple days until it is 0...

You will need a seed for the coraline to establish. That could be a small rock, or even just a snail or hermit will do it. Once your tank matures and your parameters are right, it will start to spread...

 

[Big G]

Welcome to R2R! Most folks use dry rock to avoid the "hitchhikers" that can come in on live rock. Since you already "seeded" the tank with live sand and a shrimp, you are good to go. Need to start testing for ammonia to see if your shrimp contributed enough to spike the ammonia concentration in your tank. Once it spikes and then declines to zero, you need to test it with some pure ammonia just to be sure. Dose it to 1ppm of ammonia which is usually 1 drop of ammonia per gallon of your tank. But check with your test kit! And then watch to see if it drops to zero within 24 hours. If so you are on your way. Cheers!

 

[tidefanjam]

Thanks, now I've got to do some light shopping and look at some ato's, I'm having to add about 3/4 gallon a day to keep the water over my return pump

 

[Coastie Reefer]

I have the Smart ATO. It's such an easy plug and play setup, absolutely love it.

 

[Big G]

Thanks, now I've got to do some light shopping and look at some ato's, I'm having to add about 3/4 gallon a day to keep the water over my return pump

Tunze ATO with a 5 gal Trigger Systems storage res. Works great on my 90. Tank fill lasts about a week. Cheers!

 

[tidefanjam]

so pull the shrimp out at 2 ppm? there seems to be a lot of disagreement on taking it out versus letting it rot away.

 

[glb]

I have a Tunze ATO too and they're great. You don't want the ammonia to get too high. I kept mine between 2-3ppm during the cycle. That keeps the nitrates from going through the roof. Once the ammonia reaches zero, you will need to dose it up to 2ppm and wait 24hrs to see if it goes down to zero again. I do this for two days and then the cycle is done. The nitrifying bacteria need a food source until you get fish in the tank. Good luck!!

 

[tidefanjam]

ammonia 0, nitrites 2, nitrates 10, ph 7.8 or 8, can't really decide which color it looks like...dosing ammonia back to 2ppm at what point should i turn the lights on?

 

[tidefanjam]

should i go ahead and get some cheato in the refugium to try and keep the nitrates down?

 

[Big G]

I put an 8x8x1 marine pure block and cheato in my 90 and the nitrates dropped from 5-10 to almost zero within a month. No other changes were made. Cheers! And turn those lights on! You may want to start with about 8 hours of bright light and alter as needed.

 

[tidefanjam]

ive been dosing to about 2ppm ammonia, it drops to zero in a day, nitrites are staying about 2 ppm but nitrates are up to 40 ppm, should i keep dosing the ammonia back up or give it some more time in between? i did check the phosphates since i have some dried pukani rock, they are at zero

 

[Big G]

Lots of differing opinions on your question. So your "ammonia cycle" is done. But the nitrite and nitrate are still working themselves out. On my own 90, I kept dosing at 1 ppm until the nitrites dropped to zero. Took about 30 days give or take, for that to happen. Once the nitrites dropped to zero it was water change time because the nitrates were very high - off the scale of my Red Sea nitrate test color chart. Huge 50% change and then 25% changes over the next day or so until the nitrates were around 10-15ish. Worked for me with: Bio-Spira, dry rock, dry sand and a small bag of live sand to help kick start the sand bed a bit. It was about 70 lbs of dry sand with one 10 lb live sand. And all of that took about 30 days or so. Hope this helps.

 

[tidefanjam]

thanks, yea I've only had water in it for 2 weeks, ill just keep bumping it up and wait on the nitrites. I've got a couple of rocks i want to add, a big water change will make it easier to do while the level is down anyway.