New Tank Start Up Question

[Anthony Malagisi]

Hey everyone I am in the process of starting up my new setup and had a few questions

1. When should I add the live sand?
I am using a 20 lb bag of live sand to seed my dry aragonite sand. My current salt level is 1.025 and the temperature is 78.

2. Will the live sand also seed the dry rock and kick start the cycle?

3. When about I turn on my protein skimmer?

I think that's it for now if I think of more I'll ask them in follow up posts

Thanks everyone

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R!

You can add the sand at any time. I would have added it right away, But you can still add it now if it's got water in it. To kickstart the cycle you can either get a bottle of biospora, or add some raw shrimp to the tank for the bacteria to feed off of. You can probably kick on your skimmer at any time. Shouldn't hurt anything. But hopefully someone else can chime in and correct me if I'm wrong

 

[VietExtender]

You don’t need to turn on your skimmer until you start adding fish.

 

[jsker]

1. When should I add the live sand?
I am using a 20 lb bag of live sand to seed my dry aragonite sand. My current salt level is 1.025 and the temperature is 78.

Now

2. Will the live sand also seed the dry rock and kick start the cycle?

It will help, but everything together will make the system cycle once instead of a bunch of small cycles

3. When about I turn on my protein skimmer?

It take about two weeks for the skimmer to break in, I started mine in the beginning so the break in would be finished. Some wait but that is all up to you.

 

[Mr. Bill]

Agree, the sand should've been added when you filled your tank, but it's not too late.

Yes, the live sand will seed the dry sand and rock, but again as mentioned, the bacteria will need a food source to survive and spread. With or without live sand, live rock, or bottled bacteria, I prefer to add a raw shrimp and let nature take it's course. Some use pure ammonia so they can control the level and monitor the bio-filter's progress more closely. Either way works just fine.

 

[Anthony Malagisi]

What kinds of raw shrimp do u use like go to the grocery store and buy uncooked shrimp cocktail? hahaha

 

[Crabs McJones]

What kinds of raw shrimp do u use like go to the grocery store and buy uncooked shrimp cocktail? hahaha

Yup, just raw shrimp from the grocery store

 

[Anthony Malagisi]

That's crazy but hey whatever works

Also does anyone have any tips for water top off and mixing your own saltwater so that the salt level doesn't fluctuate to much

 

[Crabs McJones]

That's crazy but hey whatever works

Also does anyone have any tips for water top off and mixing your own saltwater so that the salt level doesn't fluctuate to much

I would highly recommend getting an Automatic Top Off. There are many different brands, I use the Smart ATO. And mixing salt is fairly straight forward, depended on how much you want to change at a time, get a bucket that you know the measurements of, example a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with RO/DI water and follow the instructions on the salt container.

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

Also does anyone have any tips for water top off and mixing your own saltwater so that the salt level doesn't fluctuate to much

I just manual top off my tank 2x times a day, each time 1/4 gallon in the morning before I head out to work and another after I got home from work.
You will need to measure your salinity daily for the first week and take notice how much water evaporated each day then adjust the water top off from there.
For salt water mix I use 5 gallons bucket cause it's easier, you can follow the direction from the salt bag and tested then adjust it to right salinity. You can also scale the amount of salt with digital scale and take note the amount then just repeat same amount every time and you will have consistent salt water mix every single time.

 

[PatW]

For cycling, I use ammonia. It can be purchased from many local fish stores. The nice thing about ammonia is you get precise control over the dosage involved. Bacteria will find its way in even if you don’t add any. It just takes a little longer. You can buy bacteria starters at the LFS. I am not sure how much they accelerate things but they can’t hurt.

Oh, and Crabs is right. An auto top off is pretty near a must have just for the convenience. I have a cheap one from auto top off . com. It works fine. Or you can pay some more and get a more sophisticated unit.

 

[Anthony Malagisi]

I'm back to asking some more questions. So I tested my levels today and it seems my tank has started cycling the levels are

Ammonia .50
Nitrite .25
Nitrate 0
Phosphate .25
Salinity 1.027
pH 7.4
Temp 76.9

So my question is should I add any pH buffer to raise it up?

Should I be running my lights yet?

 

[Anthony Malagisi]

Anyone?

 

[Crabs McJones]

I'm back to asking some more questions. So I tested my levels today and it seems my tank has started cycling the levels are

Ammonia .50
Nitrite .25
Nitrate 0
Phosphate .25
Salinity 1.027
pH 7.4
Temp 76.9

So my question is should I add any pH buffer to raise it up?

Should I be running my lights yet?

You can run your lights, but at this point you don't need to. Don't add any ph buffer, let your cycle finish before you start adjusting stuff, because you're going to start doing water changes to get your nitrates down after your cycle completes and that may change your ph level.

 

[Anthony Malagisi]

Ok thanks for the help