Need help for cycling new tank

[comycus]

Hi guys, would like to ask some noob questions. I just started cycling my 40g tank on Sunday with cured live rocks from fellow reefer. Using a Deltec MCE600 skimmer, Hydor K3 as powerhead and an Eden return pump (2000-3000l/hr). Have Sorb-4 in the skimmer's media chamber, and Pur-II in my filter chamber with some filter wool.

1) Just did an ammonia test last night, it came out undetectable. Is this normal due to the live rocks already fully cured by reefer? Or maybe 2 days still too soon, got to wait a bit longer?

2) Eventually decided on going BB due to shallow tank height. Problem is there will always be residual sand from live rocks that settles on the tank floor. Should I do anything about it coz the sand's too heavy to be float up to the IOS?

3) After running for 2 days, my skimmer still doesn't seem to be producing any skimmate. Could be coz the air intake has been set at 12 o'clock. Changed it to 2 o'clock position last night. Seem to be producing much more bubbles albeit a slight high pitched sound through the air pipe thingy. Anyone knows how long I have to wait for the skimmer to break in?

4) Using a callibrated PH meter. My water was at an obscenely high ph of 9.6 before adding live rocks!!! It has since gone down to 8.6 last night. Anyone care to share how the ph levels went down so fast? maybe it was due to live rocks? I'm concerned with my high ph levels, especially if i were to do a water change, hope to get some advice on how to control this.

thanks v. much!

[Fuzzy]

Most reefers recommend not to skim while your tank is cycling.

Also you shouldn't be running Pur-II (Activated carbon) in your filter yet, this might be the reason you are not

reading any ammonia..it is being absorbed by the activated carbon and your cycle cannot be completed.

The BB require some Ammonia to start multiplying.

Have you measured your Nitrites and Nitrates? If both are also undetectable, you should probably remove the Pur-II and maybe introduce a

piece of market prawn to restart the cycle.

The residual sand from your LR shouldn't cause any problems, aside from being unsightly, maybe just siphon it up with any detritus there once in awhile?

If your liverock is already cured there shouldn't be much if any skimmate at all produced in your tank, as there would be nothing releasing

significant amounts of dissolved organic compounds in your system yet, so your skimmer should not be working hard if at all.

pH varies with termperature and when the lights are on etc, you should not be overly concerned about it when cycling. If it continues to fluctuate wildly, you

will probably have to buffer your water more. Have you measured your GH and KH?

Also what brand of Salt Mix are you using and what is your Salinity at?

[comycus]

Thanks Fuzzy for the reply! sorry never replied to ure queries... sigh my tank suffered a small crack n started leaking like crazy, and i have to restart my tank... kinda got tied down on work the past month, but i definitely not giving up! will be looking out for 3 ft tank + sump + cabinet in pasar malam! think definitely gonna get a sump this time round...

so anyway, i'm back! decided to setup a small 25g (1.5" cube) qt tank in my room for the time being. hopefully can get a main tank soon. The plan is to cycle main tank n start quarantining at the same time to shorten my wait. just started cycling qt tank last night. just a minimal setup for now. Pardon my noobness, but can any experienced bro advice me on whether i'm doing the right thing now?

Added in some aquapharm bacteria starter to start the cycling process. seems like I'm getting the same sort of crazy ph reading again... I have not tested for ammonia, nitrate, nitrites, gh, kh. when should i start testing? my current readings are:

PH: 9.58!!!!!

Temperature:29.2 deg C

Salinity: 1.022

i'm currently using tropic marin meersalz. My equipment is v. basic:

1) Huge sponge filter powered by some cheapo big boy 7000 air pump

2) small atman water pump, should be 300l/hr for circulation

3) 1ft light. tube says odyssea 36W 12K daylight. don't think i need powerful lights for qt tank right?

oh, and i got this huge ans cooling fan 3000... i should be blowing it at the surface of the water rite?

thanks in advance to any bro tt answers this!

[Harlequinmania]

Thanks Fuzzy for the reply! sorry never replied to ure queries... sigh my tank suffered a small crack n started leaking like crazy, and i have to restart my tank... kinda got tied down on work the past month, but i definitely not giving up! will be looking out for 3 ft tank + sump + cabinet in pasar malam! think definitely gonna get a sump this time round...

so anyway, i'm back! decided to setup a small 25g (1.5" cube) qt tank in my room for the time being. hopefully can get a main tank soon. The plan is to cycle main tank n start quarantining at the same time to shorten my wait. just started cycling qt tank last night. just a minimal setup for now. Pardon my noobness, but can any experienced bro advice me on whether i'm doing the right thing now?

Added in some aquapharm bacteria starter to start the cycling process. seems like I'm getting the same sort of crazy ph reading again... I have not tested for ammonia, nitrate, nitrites, gh, kh. when should i start testing? my current readings are:

PH: 9.58!!!!!

Temperature:29.2 deg C

Salinity: 1.022

i'm currently using tropic marin meersalz. My equipment is v. basic:

1) Huge sponge filter powered by some cheapo big boy 7000 air pump

2) small atman water pump, should be 300l/hr for circulation

3) 1ft light. tube says odyssea 36W 12K daylight. don't think i need powerful lights for qt tank right?

oh, and i got this huge ans cooling fan 3000... i should be blowing it at the surface of the water rite?

thanks in advance to any bro tt answers this!

We should always remember that keeping a marine aquarium is not the same as keeping a freshwater tank, where we just pour in some tape water let it run for a hour or two with air pump and happily put in the fish we bought from the shop.

You should try to change 10% - 20% of the water as often as you can if you are not runing on skimmer on your small tank , and if it is such a small tank keep the tank with as little Bio-load as possible.

The 3ft tank with cabinet and sump should be the way to go for your long term headace free fish keeping..

[comycus]

yup tt's why cycling qt tank now (coz got no main tank to seed my filter), so that eventually when i get a main tank, i can cycle tt and start quarantining fish at the same time. tt way i prob save some time.

no worries, qt tank is setup mainly for qt purposes only, so prob gonna keep 1 fish at a time n do 10-20% weekly water changes to maintain water quality. tt's my main concern now, coz i think my tap water is prob v. hard, which accounts for the high ph values, which also means i cannot just anyhow change water or risk wild fluctuations.

read tt i could try to use Prime to remove chlorine, ammonia etc. dunno if tt will bring down ph. if all else fails i will prob leave buckets of water standing in my toilet at all times to facilitate water changes, and mix with distilled water if need be. any bros have any suggestions to help me? at the end of the day, i also want to be responsible reefer, tt's why doing all these research n testing now before i get LS better to be wrong n stupid now, than to gamble with the lives of fishes eh?

cheers!

[Harlequinmania]

I think you are on the right track, Patient is the key to success in marine setup..

You can use oyster shell , puka shell or even coral chip to stabilize the PH ..

Happy Reefing !

[sun2000]

yup tt's why cycling qt tank now (coz got no main tank to seed my filter), so that eventually when i get a main tank, i can cycle tt and start quarantining fish at the same time. tt way i prob save some time.

Sounds like a plan. Did you add in your cured life rocks? Not a good idea for a QT tank in case you need to treat the LS ( hypo or copper). If this is a QT tank and you treated your LS the sponge filter and all the rest may be wasted( full of copper or dead from the hypo) so you can't x'fer to your main tank later (unless clean and cycle once more).

Suggest you buy LR from a decom tank to jump start you main tank when you have repaired the tank and use NSW, may be faster but still need to cycle and monitor.

just my 0.5 cents

sun

[comycus]

Nope no live rocks in QT, just v. basic setup. I'm basically gonna try to follow the quarantine processes that can be found in these 2 links:

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-d...-step-step.html

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/...ature/index.php

Sounds v. stringent, but i think it should work if done correctly. PATIENCE is the key!

For noobies, i think Lee in the forum has written pretty good articles for cycling, acclimatization, freshwater bath. They can all be found here:

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-d...ine-system.html

Although the article talks about keeping a fowlr, I think its also still relevant to the reef tank. Based on these articles and my other research online, I have compiled a list of 'to do' items in excel to tick off, so that i won't get new tank syndrome and jump the gun Maybe seniors here can comment on these articles too to help us newbies? If everything goes well, considering to refine and post my 'spreadsheet' to help others interested in setting up their own tank in future!

[comycus]

to update on my qt tank, the ph has dropped to 8.6, still too high

think i will get Prime this weekend and dose it in tap water, and aged water of 1 day to see if it makes a difference. gonna try to experiment mixing with distilled water too, will update on the results.

Ammonia seems to be hovering around 0.25mg/L. Qn: will i still see the ammonia spike if i dose bacteria pills? its either that or i remember reading from somewhere that my ph is too high for ammonia to be detected. The water also turning quite chalky... hope its normal?

sigh, nobody seems to be selling a decent 3ft in pasar malam. am toying ard with the idea of sumpless tank with an external filter like eheim 2075 hooked up to chiller + my deltec mce600 hang onto the side of the tank. the idea is using mainly LR and some biohome in canister for bio filtration, mechanical filtration and PUR II in canister, and Sorb 4 in the chamber of my deltec. how does that sound? The eheim 2075 is rated for up to 600L aquariums, and has a pump output of 1250L/hr, so I think there shouldn't be much trouble teeing it to a hailea 150? (recommended flowrate of 250-1200L)

anyone with experience in sumpless tank wanna help me list the advantages and disadvantages of where I seem to be headed?

[Solo77]

someone selling 3ft....not in this place but another.

[comycus]

Maybe PM me his contact bro Solo? just called Yonghua this morning, maybe will just do up a nice simple tank if there's no good deal since there doesn't seem to be a very big gap in diff in price... any bro here wanna decomm their 3ft can PM me before i make the plunge some time next week!

someone selling 3ft....not in this place but another.

[sun2000]

, nobody seems to be selling a decent 3ft in pasar malam.

Need a bit of patience for the right deal to come around. Seen a few decom in the pasar malam V(tec) has a beautiful set ..dunno if he is selling his tank or only just his equipment.

Sumpless idea.... no experience but seems that having a sump helps increase the water volume and helps keep all the equipment away from the main tank and thus freeing more viewing space in the main tank.

Best of luck anyways

sun

[comycus]

Think someone reserved V(tec)'s tank, and tt's one of the better ones

The more I research, the more I like the idea of using canister. Can you imagine the ease of water changes? Just plug out the canister n change the water in the canister while washing/replacing the filter wool. wootz! no more hassle!

Of course the downside is abit more clutter at the side, but I think that isn't really a problem. The main drawback is the inability to hook anything else up (like CR or UV) because the canister pump is only 1250L/hr. I think I can live w/o tt? cross fingers. planning to keep LPS n soft corals only...

The other thing is no surface skimming if using canister. Think just aim the return or a wavemaker to create surface agitation should be good enough right? hmmm so many questions, n me impatient waiting for answers... heh thank goodness for the internet, makes researching sooo much easier!

Need a bit of patience for the right deal to come around. Seen a few decom in the pasar malam V(tec) has a beautiful set ..dunno if he is selling his tank or only just his equipment.

Sumpless idea.... no experience but seems that having a sump helps increase the water volume and helps keep all the equipment away from the main tank and thus freeing more viewing space in the main tank.

Best of luck anyways

sun