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29gallon newbie
- Thread starter timdmb
- Start date
timdmb said:
If the rock is fully cured, then, there should not be significant die-off. That is what curing the rock means. If the rock is cured, DO NOT make water changes during the start of the cycle. Ammonia MUST rise. Then nitrites MUST rise after that (when ammonia should start falling down consequently). You can even hear some people dosing in their tanks cleaning amonia to start the cycle, but personally, I am against that. Only after couple of weeks start doing water changes to control nitrates.
If this cured rock is added AFTER the inital cycle was ower, then certainly keep with the regular water changes. Since no rock will be fully clean of biomass even after prolonged curing, there should be a readjustment in your cycle where you could see some spikes in ammonia and nitrites. If you do not have any live criters inside, just let the spikes be and cycle will balance itself after some time.
If the rock is not fully cured, the amount of biomass on it can be so huge. In that case, the buildup of nitrogen compounds in your system will be very large and you should do frequent water changes with aggressive skimming. Personally, I would advocate addig some hermit crabs to the process of curing the rock. They are very good at picking and sccraping the rock of the dead stuff.
Unwanted hitchiers are ALLWAYS a GREAT concern !!! Curing process only lets dead tissue (coral tissue, algaes and other criters growing attached on the rock) decay and through natural decay (rotting) be removed. However many living organisms are very hardy and will easily survive such process if not even thrive in it (being natural part of it). You can get a crab hidden so deep inside the rock that you could never see it. It will actually enjoy the curing process, eating all that dead tissue, but once introduced to the tank, it can wreak havoc and decimate your livestock in just a few days. You can get various unwanted worms, majano or aptasia anemones, parasitic or carnevorous snails and other parasites. When I got my LR, it came with pices of sragasum plant so deeply embedded in the rock, that even after several weeks of my extra curing (it was supposedly cured) and very thorough scrubbing of the rock with the hard brush, some pieces have left and have overgrown my tank in just a month.
Now I don't want to scare you too much
, getting bad stuff does not happen allways, but it does happen. Some people prefer to bake their LR in the owen. Well it won't be alive after that, but you certainly won't get hitchikers. It can the easily be seeded from the small piece of trusted LR from very nicely established tank. Even a cup of water from a good tank will seed it properly.Tim,
I don't know whether it's been said or not, but I highly, HIGHLY recommend you get a refractometer to measure your salinity.
When setting up my tank I originally thought I could save a few bucks and get away with a swing-arm hydrometer, but I became VERY frustrated at how inconsitent the readings were, no matter how often I re-tested.
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Wendy
I don't know whether it's been said or not, but I highly, HIGHLY recommend you get a refractometer to measure your salinity.
When setting up my tank I originally thought I could save a few bucks and get away with a swing-arm hydrometer, but I became VERY frustrated at how inconsitent the readings were, no matter how often I re-tested.
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Wendy
thanks everyone, im gonna hold off for another week or so to add the live rock once i feel this initial cycle has come to an end or at least very close to it, also wendy or annyone else can u point me in the right drection of a refractometer (preferably something inexpensive, altho i kno u get what u pay for) thanks again everyone for you help.
Tim
Tim
Tim,
You are off to a great start with your tank. Get ready to be "hooked" in no time.
Look here for refrectometer: http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=6920.0
Not really inexpensive though, IMO.
I got mine through eBay. Look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Portable-Refrac...yZ117435QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Salinity-Re...ryZ20755QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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Wendy
You are off to a great start with your tank. Get ready to be "hooked" in no time.
Look here for refrectometer: http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=6920.0
Not really inexpensive though, IMO.
I got mine through eBay. Look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Portable-Refrac...yZ117435QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Salinity-Re...ryZ20755QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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Wendy
JerseyWendy said:Tim,
You are off to a great start with your tank. Get ready to be "hooked" in no time.
Look here for refrectometer: http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=6920.0
Not really inexpensive though, IMO.
I got mine through eBay. Look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Portable-Refrac...yZ117435QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Salinity-Re...ryZ20755QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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Wendy
Wendy,
unfortunately I would have to disagree with you on the refractometers. From my personal experience and from what I see from other discussions, they do not neccesarily seem to be that accurate. That one that you got from e-bay looks exactly like mine and mine is WAY off. Now, maybe some of those over 100$ are of better quality, but I wouldn't blindly trust those in 60-80$ range. I would strongly suggest you to verify the accuracy of your instrument by measuring at least at two points on the scale against samples with precisely determined salinity (reference liquid or measured by instrument whose accuracy was verified). I would suggest you to measure at 1.000 and 1.025 scale points and perform calibration adjustments (if necessary) on 1.025 point and not on 1.000 as some people might suggest (or in other words do not calibrate it with RO/DI water but with water which properties you want to have in your tank - salinity and temperature). If the instrument does not measure BOTH 1.000 and 1.025 values correctly at the same time, calibrating it at 1.025 will not make it precise, rather it will make its error be smaller around that value and bigger everywhere else.
The one I got from eBay is no longer listed, and I only did a quick search to show a couple of the ones that are currently listed.
I have never had a problem with my refractometer, and frequently check and test to see if it needs to be callibrated. So far so good.
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Wendy
I have never had a problem with my refractometer, and frequently check and test to see if it needs to be callibrated. So far so good.
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Wendy
timdmb said:either way i cant figure out why my hydrometer is telling me i have such a low specific gravity and it does not change when i add salt so i imagine its not working properly (or at least its user isnt working properly)
How much salt did you use in relation to your total tank volume of water?
One small box of salt raises SG to where it should be for 5 gallons of water. If your total tank volume is around 20 gallons (take in to consideration the volume that LR takes up) you should have probably used around 4 small boxes of salt to get your water where it should be...
Nitrite have to be 0, so give it a day or two. Nitrates show tat it is start to make water changes if you haven't started yet. I would also keep temp sligthly higher, lets say around 78. 74 is certainly inside the range of temperature swings on tropical reefs, but it is on the low side of those swings. 78 is around the median. If you are not using chiller and don't keep super cold house/appartment during the summer, this will reduce the potential swing that you might experience during hot summer days.
You could certainly add a few hermits now which will start scrubbig your rocks and a snail or two to start working on algae that have started growing in your tank.
You could certainly add a few hermits now which will start scrubbig your rocks and a snail or two to start working on algae that have started growing in your tank.
Mushroom will be OK. They are hardy. Looks good. I would add more turbo snails and few hermit crabs.
so since my last post that mushroom went to hevean it lasted about a day or two then all of a sudden it spit up its insides and a day later shriveled to nothingness, at the time tho i did notice a small spike in ammonia probably becuase i added a large piece of live rock it had some die off, im guessing this was probably what lead to the demise of the mushroom, at any rate, other wise i think things have been progressing, the diatoms were getting heavy in the sand in some areas and patchy on some of the rocks, so i cut the lights for a couple days and it disappeared however since i have put the lights back and im beginning to see spots of it again, i guess ill just have to deal with it for now, also noticing some green algae on the rocks, i think ill add a few more snails, right now i have 5 turbos and two small hermits, altho i havent been able to count them all in a long time, the most of been able to see at once is 4 snails and 1 hermit, should i go searching and make sure theyre all still alive? lastly in the last week or so ive noticed very small white "bugs"? moving aroud on the glass, are these some type of pods? cant really get a pic i think cuz theyre too small, ive also noticed some other type of algae growing on the glass its also very small white/ maybe a slight pink tinge little specks slitghtly bigger then the "pods" i scraped the glass once and it made the water almost look as if it was a sand storm. is there some way i could identify the type of algae it may or may not be (altho i have no clue what else it could be) i think ill add a few more snails this week, what else would be advisable to add at this point? id like to have a lil more life... anything really
hey mike thanks for the reply, ill take u up on the zoas at some point... im still a little nervous about jumping into the corals just yet, especially with all this algae growing i think i must be missing something somewhere, was i right about those little white things moving around most likely being some type of pod? are the stars fairly hardy? will i have any problems with incompatibilies and the stars in the future?