NakiFantaki's Nuvo 20 first time reef tank

NakiFantaki · Nov 14, 2016

Hey folks!
So after reading and researching for the past 6 months and bugging the community with a million questions.. I have finally set up my tank and started the cycle today. This is my first saltwater tank and I'm very excited to start this little journey. I plan to post my progress in this thread so feel free to follow along and offer an tips or tricks you might have!

Build:
IM Nuvo Fusion 20
20 pounds of Tropic Eden Live Reefflakes
15-20 pounds of BRS Reef Saver Rock
Using pre-mixed saltwater from my LFS which measures 1.025 salinity.

To start the cycle I added a bottle of Dr. Tims one and only live nitrifying bacteria and dosed Dr. Tims ammonium - 1 drop per gallon of water to achieve 2ppm.

I will do my first water test tomorrow evening and see where things are at.

WadePW · Nov 14, 2016

Welcome to the hobby that just keeps sucking you in! haha I recently set up an IM Nuvo 16 and love it! Innovative Marine makes some of my personal favorite tanks. Excited to see where you go with yours, Have any stocking ideas yet? Plus... Ps4 to the left, Good choice

NakiFantaki · Nov 14, 2016

As far as stocking goes.... i for sure want a bonded pair of mocha clown fish and a pistol shrimp and goby pair. Other then that probably just some soft corals... zooanthids... frogspawn/torch... and a basic clean up crew of course.
I really want a mandarin... however I know that will be a challenge unless I find one that is trained to eat frozen food..

So we will see!

What do you have stocked so far? What lighting are you using?

WadePW · Nov 14, 2016

I have a little bit of everything haha, Fish wise, Spawning pair of occys, and a falco hawkfish. Coral, tons of shrooms.. from st. thomas, to discomas, to bounce, to candycrush... Hammer, Torch, Wellso, Lobo, various colorful sticks (SPS) Acans. I'm running a single AI Prime HD+ and I LOVE it! Highly recommend it!

Feel free to check out my thread for pictures, https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/wadepws-nuvo-16.268192/
Have the most recent picture on the 2nd page

NakiFantaki · Nov 14, 2016

Getting clearer! This is about 24 hours in... now... if only my UPS would get here and deliver my package! I hve testing supplies in that box that I need!
Legit... most times I don't get my UPS delivers till after 10pm

NakiFantaki · Nov 15, 2016

First set of water tests... This is about 25 hours after I first dosed Dr. Tim's One and Only and Dr. Tim's ammonia.
Thoughts? Normal?

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 15, 2016

NakiFantaki said:
First set of water tests... This is about 25 hours after I first dosed Dr. Tim's One and Only and Dr. Tim's ammonia.
Thoughts? Normal?

Yep

Daniel@R2R · Nov 15, 2016

I like the scape a lot! Following!

NakiFantaki · Nov 16, 2016

Tested the water again tonight and got pretty much the same results.. I added in the rest of Dr. Tim's one and only which was about 10ml. Time to wait some more!

I also just realized that I never took out the filter sock out... which I guess goes without saying that I should replace it once I'm ready to add livestock right?

NakiFantaki · Nov 16, 2016

3rd water test done this evening.. slight drop in ammonia.. reading at about 0.5ppm. Still no sign of nitrites or nitrates. I added half of the intial dose of ammonia (10 drops) as everything I read says that I want to keep ammonia up to around 2.0ppm until I start to see nitrates/nitrites.

Patience is surely a virtue in this hobby!

tankstudy · Nov 16, 2016

NakiFantaki said:
3rd water test done this evening.. slight drop in ammonia.. reading at about 0.5ppm. Still no sign of nitrites or nitrates. I added half of the intial dose of ammonia (10 drops) as everything I read says that I want to keep ammonia up to around 2.0ppm until I start to see nitrates/nitrites.

Patience is surely a virtue in this hobby!

Do not add in more ammonia. Dose it once up to 2.0 ppm ammonia and then leave it. If you continue to keep ammonia at 2.0 ppm, the nitrites will build up to a point where the nitrite bacteria stop converting nitrite into nitrate. This generally happens when nitrites reach greater than or equal to 5 ppm. Once the bacteria can actually convert all of 2.0 ppm ammonia->nitrite->nitrate, add in another 2.0 ppm to see how fast it consumes it. Once you get it to consume 2.0 ppm of ammonia in a day you have cycled your tank to a good degree. If you feel like you want a stronger bacteria load, you can increase the dose of the initial ammonia but I would not recommend exceeding 5.0 ppm of ammonia.

NakiFantaki · Nov 17, 2016

Thanks. I guess I'm confused.. I dosed it originally to 2.0pm and saw nothing but the ammonia lowering over the past 4 days to about 0.5pm. I haven't seen a trace of nitrites/nitrates. I redosed because I had almost no ammonia left and wanted to make sure I still had enough in there. I haven't seen an ammonia test come up anything over 2.0pm and most have been closer to 1.0pm.
I won't add anymore and will keep testing daily.

tankstudy · Nov 17, 2016

NakiFantaki said:
Thanks. I guess I'm confused.. I dosed it originally to 2.0pm and saw nothing but the ammonia lowering over the past 4 days to about 0.5pm. I haven't seen a trace of nitrites/nitrates. I redosed because I had almost no ammonia left and wanted to make sure I still had enough in there. I haven't seen an ammonia test come up anything over 2.0pm and most have been closer to 1.0pm.
I won't add anymore and will keep testing daily.

Generally, if ammonia starts going down, you should start seeing nitrite or nitrate. Make sure to double check your API test kits and the procedures for the individual tests. Simply not waiting five minutes or not shaking the bottles on some of your test kits will give you the wrong results. Until you figure out whats going on, dosing anymore can cause problems. Bring a sample to the LFS and have them run the three tests as well.

Its not impossible to have nitrite and nitrate be zero this early on but from the tanks I've cycled with bottled bacteria, generally there isn't enough nitrate consuming bacteria to do so right away. Unless, your adding a carbon source/type bacteria or some other form of nitrate removing system in place, nitrites and nitrate should have already started to appear when ammonia started to go down.

Just keep checking for now

NakiFantaki · Nov 17, 2016

I crossed checked my API tested with my freshwater tank just for giggles and everything seemed on point. No ammonia and about 10-20 ppm on the nitrate - So I know the API tests are working. I plan to take a water sample to my LFS this weekend and get it tested anyways. I will test again tonight and see what I get.

Thanks for your help!

tankstudy · Nov 17, 2016

NakiFantaki said:
I crossed checked my API tested with my freshwater tank just for giggles and everything seemed on point. No ammonia and about 10-20 ppm on the nitrate - So I know the API tests are working. I plan to take a water sample to my LFS this weekend and get it tested anyways. I will test again tonight and see what I get.

Thanks for your help!

That is much better, the nitrates indicate that your cycle is going well. The concern was that with ammonia dropping, you weren't seeing anything afterwards (Nitrite/Nitrate). Test the nitrites to see where it is.

If it is also zero, you can add more ammonia.

NakiFantaki · Nov 17, 2016

5th water test in.. I think I'm finally starting to see some slight nitrite and maybe some nitrates? Ammonia is back to being high but I'm hopeful that tomorrow at this time my ammonia will be down and I will see that nirite spike a bit more! Lol... I'm just excited to see any color change at this point.. I was getting bored. Lol..
Or am I going colorblind?
Thoughts?

NakiFantaki · Nov 19, 2016

One week in! Latest results...

Kinda confused as to where I'm at in the cycle.. I was expecting to see my ammonia come down a bit more now.
Should I add a bottle of bio spira? Should I add more ammonia?
Or do I just need to be patient and wait??

NakiFantaki · Nov 21, 2016

Just another update... 10 days in. I was really expecting the Dr. Tim's products to work much faster based off what i have read.. I don't mind the waiting much though.
Where am I at? I see the ammonia lowering slowly and the nirite rising slowly.
Is there anything I need to add or is there anything I should be doing at this point?

NakiFantaki · Nov 22, 2016

I feel like a broken record... looks the same as yesterday...
Would there be any benifits or negatives if I added in a bottle of bio spira?
I'm starting to get the feelings I don't have enough good bacteria in the tank...