Finally got rock for my tank!!

Wrench

Wrench

AC Members
Sep 9, 2004
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After a few weeks of nothing but water and powerheads in the tank I finally got some live rock in there. I made the 2hr drive to Pacific East Aquaculture (Dr.Mac and Sons) and bought 70# of their Fiji rock and 20# of live sand. The rock is beautiful with a good amount of coralline growth and lots of different shapes. It's been in teh tank for about 2 hours now and I've spotted a few dozen tube worms and even a small colony of zooa's on a small rock. I couldn't be happier and would reccomend them to anyone. They ship too ;)

Now the cycling begins. Here are my parameters so far, please let me know if you see something wrong. I just put in a couple shrimp so I'm still waiting on the Ammonia to spike. How long does that usually take?

temp 80
pH 8.2
Alk 3.5
Ca 500
SG 1.024
Phosphate .01
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0

Tank is 45g, 10g sump, coralife skimmer, 3 Maxi-Jet 900's, Rio 2100 return pump, 200w PC lights, 70# rock, 60# sand (20 live).

70709622.23sLNLHg.jpg


70709629.Uopa0KwY.jpg
 
That is some good-looking rock, lots of coraline algae, too! How big were the shrimp you put in? I'm one to err on the side of going small (or not at all) for nitrogen load early. Ideally, if that rock is well-cured, you won't see an ammonia spike at all.
What are you planning to keep in there?
 
Thanks for the comments! The shrimp I put in are coctail shrimp. They're supposed to spike the ammonia and start the cycle. Once the ammonia comes up they'll come out. I plan on keeping a couple clowns, a firefish, a blenny or two and a pair of jawfish. Lots of LPS and Zoas too :)
 
Wrench - my tank just finished its cycle earlier this week. I have a 36 gal tank and started with about 30 lbs of rock (a 50-50 LR/base rock mixture). I also used the "raw shrimp" method to get the cycle going. I used 1 medium sized shrimp in mine. If you haven't already done so, you might want to think about putting the shrimp in some panty-hose. I read about doing that in one of the threads here and can't tell you how happy I was when it was time to remove it cos the decayed stuff didn't get all over my tank.

My tank cycled in about 12 days ... it took about 7 days for me to register a 1.5 ppm ammonia spike. My nitrIte spiked to about 0.35 and then both zeroed out. I was a little confused with how quick everything went. But I come to find out, that is your LR and in your case live sand has enough bacteria in it, you may see a small spike, or won't see one at all!

I'd just test everyday to see how things go once the shrimp starts to decompose.

One other thing you could do to be sure if your tank has cycled, is to dose your tank with some PURE ammonia. A good measure is 5 drops/10 gal and then see how long it takes for the ammonia to disappear. I did that this past Thursday night, and in the morning, both NH3, and NO2 were 0. This pretty much means that the cycle is complete.

I'm still fairly new at this, so if someone more knowledgeable disagrees with what I've said, please do correct.

Hope this helps. For more info, you can check out my thread about the cycle:

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89023

Cheers!
Yash
 
Thanks for the tips. I used two shrimp wrapped in a piece of cheese cloth and placed them in my sump. Ammonia is up to .25 now and I'm starting to register some nitrates already. What type of pure ammonia did you use?
 
I used regular pure ammonia that I got from my grocery store. The household cleaning stuff is perfect for this use, but make absolutely sure that it does not contain any additives or perfumes before using it! It should be free of surfactants, perfumes, and colorants. Always read the ingredients on the bottle. If it doesn't list the ingredients or say Clear Ammonia (or Pure Ammonia or 100% Ammonia, or Pure Ammonium Hydroxide), then leave it on the shelf and look elsewhere. Shake the bottle if you're not sure about it because Ammonia with surfactants will foam, while "good" Ammonia will not.
 
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