First Saltwater

[mlefessler]

Thought it'd be fun to "promote" myself to start a saltwater tank.
A step up from brackish and I'm slowly learning.
Perhaps a reef some day............some day. Definitely not ready for that now.

Picked up a 75-gallon.
Using aragonite sand and 15 pounds of Totonga LR to cycle.
It looks a little barren at the moment, but as funds allow, I will be adding more LR. Certainly isn't cheap.

So far, it's been up and running for approximately a week.
I've gotten spikes in NO2 and NO3, but have never seen a spike in NH3 (and I've been testing the water every day since it's been up and running).
Should I have seen a spike in NH3 by now? Or is it possible that the NH3 spike happened so fast and then quickly converted to NO2 and NO3?

Stocking questions....what's a good "clean-up" crew?

[Reefscape]

Your off to a nice start...Personaly, i would either add more live rock now, or add a filter, as the live rock in there is not enough to act as natural filtration...

What did you use to start the cycle off??

**Edit....is that a filter i see on the last pic??

[mlefessler]

Thank you. It's a slow process, but it's getting there.

I'm running a filter and a protein skimmer (laying off the skimmer until the tank has cycled).

Decided to use the cooked prawn in a mesh bag for a source of NH3. It's definitely been rotting away, which is why I brought up the question of "where's the NH3 spike?".

[ChrisK]

Looks like your off to a great start

[Pasfur]

You probably won't get an NH3 spike, using live rock from the start. I have a tip for you that you will find extremely helpful. Check out marcorocks.com. They are a dry rock provider. I have used this site for both my 58 reef and my new 180 reef, with awesome results. I really like the Fiji rock and Key Largo rock. The Fiji is a great base rock... very porous. The Key Largo is very workable and easily tied together with plastic ties to make caves and overhangs. The price is about $2.00 per pound. I suggest ordering a 50 pound box of Fiji to start and then seeing how you like it. You have to "seed" it with live rock. Your existing 15 pounds will be plenty to seed a 50 pound order in 4 to 6 weeks time.

Here is a picture of the dry rock in my 180:

http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh398/Pasfur/180%20Reef/180CaveFinished.jpg

[Pasfur]

Here is my 58 reef. It has 25 pounds of live rock and 25 pounds of dry rock. Within 2 weeks I could not tell the difference in the rock. The picture isn't great, the tank was only 48 hours old... most livestock had not fully opened. To clarify: this was an upgrade from a 38 gallon reef. The 58 itself was only 48 hours old. Anyhow, the rock is what you are looking at:

http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh398/Pasfur/58%20Bowfront/58White006.jpg

[mlefessler]

That's a great idea....certainly will alleviate some of the punch out of my wallet.
Takes some patience, but I certainly want to do this right and have all the patience in the world. =D

Another question.....when I first set-up my tank, I had a regular 48" light strip. I had purchased a double light strip, but it was the wrong order. So my LFS gave me the single to hold on to until the double came in.
Now I've got the double light strip and ever since I've put that on, there's been a HUGE bloom of orange algae growing on the rock.
Think it's got something to do with the double light? Should I go back to the single?

[saltydunc]

The orange algae bloom is normal and it will pass as the tank matures.

[BoCoMo]

Looking good! :thumbsup:

[mlefessler]

Figured as much on the algae growth.

Thank you! =D

[ToeJam]

2.00lb of LR... ok who did they steal it from and where can I go to steal it?

Dude... I pay 6.99lb and some special rare LR are 9.99lb here locally...