New tank advice

[gatekeeperdi]

Hi,

I'm new to your forum but I've found it really interesting & helpful so far.

I'm in the process of setting up an upgrade bigger tank, 900 gross litres (total display & sump) water volume before adding rock & sand.

I have been running nitrate & phosphate reactors on my old Red Sea Max 250 & will be transferring these to the new one once it's ok to move all the livestock.
I have been adding 0.9 ml zeostart 3 & 9 drops of zeobak according to the Zeovit 14 day cycle instructions to the new tank so far but without any reactors, as I need to keep them running on the old tank for now but I am not & won't be running a zeo reactor for now.

I am on day 12 of the cycle & have quite a lot of new filamentous algae growth on the back wall of the tank & on the mature live rock, that was transferred from my old tank from the start of the cycle.

I have some clean up crew in there that are trying their best to clean up the algae & I have been trying to remove some of this manually. I have one matted filefish in there from the old tank now also.

My current readings are NH4: <0.25 (salifert), NO2: 0(salifert) & N03: 0 (salifert).

Would you suggest that I continue adding the zeostart 3 & zeobak daily?

Is it ok for me to start adding other fish very slowly & introduce some of the soft & lps corals from my old tank?

Once I can transfer all of the livestock I will transfer the D-D nitrate & phosphate reactors as well as the slow flow filters containing carbon, aquaphos & seachem denitate. I have also been using a GHL controller & doser to add Balling light additives, which will transfer to the new tank when I can move my sps corals.

I realise I am not running a full zeo system but I have had good results with the reactors & by using zeobak, biomate, coral snow & zeozym on the old system & plan to continue with this once the new tank is fully operational.

It's been quite a few years since I started a new tank so
any guidance you may be able to offer would be most appreciated.

Thanks, Di

 

[brandon429]

Welcome to R2R nice to meet you~

since you are posting the ammonia reading from a non api test kit that .25 could very well be accurate so its my opinion we should wait till true sustained zero

little more time


we can infer tons of info about your cycle off tank pics can you post some


everyone has an opinion about initial algae, mines this

since your goal isn't to farm algae kill it everytime you see it, a cuc is meant to prevent not remove algae. we are cycling for bacteria so I never accepted algae as part of a cycle.

I know the whole point of ulns is being free of algae, so that's two reasons to kill it now and not try to catch back up later. others would advise waiting letting the chance for it to subside naturally, pick one and run~ I think the move between tanks and subsequent upwelled nutrients, the new lighting setup and chem balance all bring on some new algae to battle which is why it bloomed, the aged rocks are thought nowadays to retain and liberate phosphates over time and this may play a part.

I'd still hold the course and let things settle in. I'm not a big fan of concerning over aged rocks as mine are ten yrs old doing fine, Paul Bs are 40 and doing fine etc.

by simply killing all algae I've never had a problem with it, that's my take and welcome!

I