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bro... my previous replies to other newbies on the same queries on cycling. Hope these help bro. ================================================== When you start a new tank, add in live rocks (there are organisms on the rocks that are dying), drop a market prawn etc, these will produce ammonia. A strain of bacteria will slowly convert this ammonia to nitrite. another strain of bacteria will slowly colonize and convert nitrite to nitrate. Ammonia and nitrite are toxic to livestock. Nitrate is not. The colonization of this bacteria takes time .. maybe 3 - 4 weeks. People speed up this process by adding livesand, dosing bacterias etc. Once they are colonized, all ammonia and nitrite will be reduced to 0 (This is based on your current stocking level!) This is when your tank is cycled. Now that when your tank is fully cycled, it does not mean that the colonies of bacteria will stay forever in the tank. They may increase or decrease depending on amount of feeding, stocking level etc. Now assuming your tank is cycled and ready. You purhcase 2 - 3 fishes and put them in. Now the waste produced by these fishes may be greater than what the current amount of bacterias in your tank can handle. This is the reason why people advise to go slow. add minimum fishes, let the bacterias cope and multiply and then add another fish later so that there will be no ammonia or nitrite spike. Then to speed up the bacteria multiplication, they add bacterias starter to help dreak down the waste. So cycling is an ongoing process until you decided you don't want to add any livestock anymore Do note that if you add too much bacteria (overdosed greatly), they take in more dissolve oxygen too and if there are insufficent waste, they die off and your water quality will be affected. That's why you need to follow reccommended dosage amount indicated on the product and not to overdo it. =================================================== another reply previously: Cycling the tank. When you start up a new tank, your tank do not have all the benificial bacterial. Cycling basically means getting the tank to reach the equilibrium of having sufficent bacterial to break down ammonia (bad) -> nitrite (bad)-> nitrate (not so bad) as fast as they are produced. When you introduce the 1st fish (or some ppl use market prawn) in the tank, it will produce waste and ammonia will build up in the tank due to the lack of the 1st stage bacterial. Over days, the bacterial will slowly build up and ammonia concentration will decline but nitrite will start to increase. When the 1st stage bacterial are fully established, ammonia will be processed as fast as the fishes are producing it. At this stage nitrite will start to peak. Nitrite is also very toxic to the fishes. Again we have to wait for another batch of bacterials to grow in population to bring nitrite level down. When this bacterials are sufficient in numbers, the nitrate will boom so slowly nitrite will be undetectable. when nitrite is eliminated, the tank is cycled. equilibrium is reached. This takes approximately 4 weeks. The resultant nitrate is not as harmful to fishes. Large concentration of it does harm the fish well being and they might be more susceptible to disease. Reqular water change will help keep the nitrate level in check. Growing Mangrooves, installing denitrators, having deep sand bed will help too to keep nitrate level within acceptable levels. Now when you add new fishes, the balance is offset again. more fishes = more waste = need time to let the bacterial grow again. So even after tank is cycled, it depends how many fishes you add at one time. If you add several at one time and several again a week later, the bacterial will not be able to populate and break down the ammonia and nitrite in time and fishes die. That is why ppl say go slow, go slow Give the bacterial time to be established in your tank. Each time the equilibrium is offsetted (whether by introduction of new fishes/corals, increase in feeding frequency or quantity, dead fish/ corals unremoved) you need to give time to tank to balance the ecology system.

For Powder Blue, Powder Brown, Powder Black and AT, They require high oxygen water thats why they like to go to wavemaker.. My PBT does that too... But I only experience with the following that i listed... Other tang, haven seen them like that..

Polysiphonia sp or Wrangelia argus

Very nice macro shots... :thumbsup:

bro, adding water will not make your TDS reading zero. the only way is to run the water through water treatment filter like crystal pro or the system gary is selling. you can try PM him. cheers.

i would also recommend http://www.reinbiotech.com/biohome/biohome.jsp <-- biohome +. skimmer will be good to have (else you will need to keep change water to keep nitrate and phosphate down) Filtration can be (Surface skimmer -> filter wool (<--- change frequently if not nitrate will shoot up if left un-touched as food might be stuck there and decompose)carbon (seachem carbon would do $6 can get) -> biohome + (1kg $38 at clementi c328)->skimmer (this can be left blank if you change water frequently but it's a good to have) -> pump back to tank. above are just my suggestion (thats how my 12G filtration goes) dosing off bacteria would also be recommended can try: -http://www.aquamarin.com.sg/productsDetail.asp?productid=1223 (can be brought at Marine life/aquamarin e.t.c or -http://perso.ovh.net/~prodibio/index.php?file=produits&fc=detail&eau_id=2&id=3 (biodigest) which can be brought at petmart e.t.c hope this helps bro i used a fan to cool the water to around 27 degree but must keep topping up water everyday (but must take out the hood for it to work)

wow really awesome.....