General questions.

[Alid34]

Hello my name is Alicia and my husband and I recently started a 90 gallon saltwater setup. We had a 75 gallon setup years ago and loved it, but then my tank crashed after getting black bearded algae and it killed everything while we were on vacation. I’m assuming it came from a piece of live rock I had added as the tank was always perfect up until that point.

Anyways that’s been years ago and obviously some things have changed and I’ve also forgotten some things as well.

My last saltwater tank after about 48 hours of it up and running I added 4 fish to start the cycling process. Within days it started to cycle and took a couple weeks. Later on down the road I added live rock and coral and more fish.

This time I set the tank up but added 66 pounds of live rock and then 48 hours later added 4 fish. But I haven’t seen a spike in anything yet and it’s been a week since I added the fish. Here is a list of my readings. I’ve tried 2 different test kits and both are pretty spot on with each other.

Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrates 0 ppm
Nitrites 0.2 ppm
PH 8
Alkalinity 11 dkh
Phosphate 0.25 ppm
Calcium 410 ppm

I know my alkalinity and phosphates are a little high but that’s probably because I used tap water to start it up (waiting on my ro/di to come). But I figured like my last tank I’d see it start the cycling process within a few days of adding fish and feeding. Only difference is I started out with live rock this time where last I waited months.

I know to get the phosphates down you should do a water change, but with my tank being so new I don’t want to do that. Should I get something to lower the phosphates or just keep letting it run it’s course. I really don’t want to get a algae bloom lol. Which I noticed some browning on some of the rock.

Do I let it keep doing it’s thing or should I try to jump start the cycling process some more?

 

[cracker]

here is a bump for You

 

[Radman73]

Hello my name is Alicia and my husband and I recently started a 90 gallon saltwater setup. We had a 75 gallon setup years ago and loved it, but then my tank crashed after getting black bearded algae and it killed everything while we were on vacation. I’m assuming it came from a piece of live rock I had added as the tank was always perfect up until that point.

Anyways that’s been years ago and obviously some things have changed and I’ve also forgotten some things as well.

My last saltwater tank after about 48 hours of it up and running I added 4 fish to start the cycling process. Within days it started to cycle and took a couple weeks. Later on down the road I added live rock and coral and more fish.

This time I set the tank up but added 66 pounds of live rock and then 48 hours later added 4 fish. But I haven’t seen a spike in anything yet and it’s been a week since I added the fish. Here is a list of my readings. I’ve tried 2 different test kits and both are pretty spot on with each other.

Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrates 0 ppm
Nitrites 0.2 ppm
PH 8
Alkalinity 11 dkh
Phosphate 0.25 ppm
Calcium 410 ppm

I know my alkalinity and phosphates are a little high but that’s probably because I used tap water to start it up (waiting on my ro/di to come). But I figured like my last tank I’d see it start the cycling process within a few days of adding fish and feeding. Only difference is I started out with live rock this time where last I waited months.

I know to get the phosphates down you should do a water change, but with my tank being so new I don’t want to do that. Should I get something to lower the phosphates or just keep letting it run it’s course. I really don’t want to get a algae bloom lol. Which I noticed some browning on some of the rock.

Do I let it keep doing it’s thing or should I try to jump start the cycling process some more?

With 66 pounds of live rock, from a store I assume, you might not see any "cycle" at all. I started my first tank, a 29gal biocube, with about 15 pounds of live rock and never saw an ammonia or nitrite spike. Just a slow increase in nitrates as I ghost fed.

Your phosphates are likely high due to using tap water. Which leads to the advice of, take things slow. If your RODI was on the way, best bet would have been to wait for it and start with clean water. When you RODI does come, I would recommend doing several large water changes in the 30-50% range over a week period. Your other option would be to get some GFO and run it in a reactor.

Do you have a protein skimmer?

 

[Alid34]

I was going to wait until it came, but then I got a email it was on back order. So I figured I’d start with tap and then when it comes next month I was going to do a larger water change. I bought jugs of RO water to use to top off the tank. No I don’t have a protein skimmer. I plan on getting one soon though.