Today is the day!!!!

[pdiehm]

We're up and running!

Everything works. No leaks as of yet. It's dead silent.

It's roughly 115 total gallons of water in the system out of a possible 145 or so (given where the baffles are set).

The only question I have is tuning my skimmer (which is DEAD silent, along with my return pump DEAD silent).

The loudest part is the trickle of water into the 48" overflow box. With my canopy on, that will be unnoticable as well.

Many thanks to Bean, Uncleof6, and everyone else who had the patience to answer what seemed like 500,000 questions about getting this set up, drilling for the overflow and such. I apologize if I don't remember the names, every piece of information has been immensely welcome.

Next up: Starting to cycle.

Question - Gee that didn't take long...do I dose ammonia based on tank volume (95 gallons) or total system volume (~115 gallon).

 

[KillerKlownFish]

Depends as well as what's in your tank?
Live rock? Live sand? Live water or mix?

 

[pdiehm]

No live rock, no live sand. Just water and salt

 

[KillerKlownFish]

So your tank is empty? Besides water.
Not sure it's possible to cycle just yet.
What do you plan on putting in it? Fish? Reef? Coral?

 

[pdiehm]

I have 75lb of dry Pukani rock. 90 lb of reef flakes

 

[KillerKlownFish]

I'm no expert. I'm sure people are gonna tell you to just put a piece of raw shrimp in the tank and give it time.

I cycled mine in 3 weeks but I put live everything. So I had tons of bacteria.
A few weeks later I put a few crabs and snails. They can handle a lot. I pretty much missed the spike. All my params were good.
It's a waiting game now

 

[pdiehm]

i'm waiting for the temp to get up to 77/78 before I start dosing. I am getting my gyre tomorrow. I feel like Batman...all these new toys!

 

[Reefing Madness]

You can dose ammonia if you want, but you'll need to keep it up. Kinda like adding the jumbo shrimp from the grocery store, he's going to be in there along time, and create a big ol ammonia bloom for a good time, so you need to do the same thing with ammonia, ya just can't add it once. It won't make a big enough bacteria to sustain what you plan on adding once its gone, then you run into mini cycles once you add critters.

 

[pdiehm]

Yep. I know that. cycling my QT tank as we speak...high nitrites, just waiting for the other bacteria to catch up.

 

[gtbarsi]

I like the DR Tims method of dosing ammonia it is based on volume and then you measure how long the tank takes to break it down. Then you dose again and repeat until it is processed properly.

With the shrimp you have no way to know how much is being released constantly. How do you know when the tank is fully cycled, and you can remove it? Also don't you get a lot of other stuff like phosphates in the water with the shrimp method? Not to mention the extra special smell that is likely to come from rotting shellfish.