The 75gal reef tank cycle has started!!!!!!!

It funny we don't have any power heads, skimmer, lights, and I'm sure there is more but we started anyway. LOL I figure by the time we need them will get them.

My work is dead right now too. f you have noticed I'm on here all he time. The tank is saving me money because if it wasn't for this thing I would be going out of my mind or I would be out partying which would be more expensive then the tank.
 
yeah we got about a good month/month and a half till we get goin here, once the snow stops!!!!!! but between trying to get this tank started, trying to buy a house, and keep my car up and running, i can't even think of partyin, plus my son is dying for some "nemos" lol, so no spending on anything but the above, he'll kill me if we don't get them soon!!!!
 
i'm just glad i had the patience to spread out the spending over a year, made it a lot easier on the wallet, and gave me a chance to really research before i got into something i had no clue about, so we'll see how well i've done in roughly about a month, if good ol uncle sam would hurry his a$$ up with my money:mad2:
 
OK so I did a run of test this morning just to see what was going on in the tank. I will be doing the daily test later tonight because I have been doing them a 5pm every day to keep things like PH the same. I only did test on SG, ammonia, rites, and rates.

SG 1.024
Am .25
rites 1
rates 75

Now that the ammonia has come down and will be at zero by tomorrow should I be ding something to keep at least so ammonia in the tank for the bacteria to eat? I could use fish food. I did put some in the other day and all the bugs ate all of it. I thought I read that you want to keep the ammonia up just a bit so that the bacteria wont die off. Is this true?
 
It will be fine to leave it without adding a source of ammonia...The only time i would say that an ammonia source is going to be required again is if the tank is going to be left for a long time after the cycle completes...
 
Ok great that makes things even easier.
 
Well we were thinking of getting one of those package deals but from talking to people on here they are not a good idea. They say that if you do that there might not be enough for them all to eat in the tank yet. So I think we are going to buy things as we need to take care of what ever pops up. I'm sure we will get some snails and hermit crabs maybe a sand sifting star of some kind. As far as type and amount I really am not sure. I haven't really been able to find anything that is like a set plan for our size tank. Being so new to this whole thing I guess I would like someone who knows allot more then me to tell us what we should get. The only thing I might know is what we were plaining on spending on the CUC. We figured it would be around $60. If anyone has any subjections please post them?
 
i would not recommend a sand sifting star. they really require a very very large tank in order to survive for a long period of time or they will stave to death. also they will eat all the benificial life out of your sand bed... that being said i would start out with just a handful of snails- a mixture of astreas's, turbo's, cerith's, and some tonga nassarius snails for the sand bed. if you want hermit crabs (i am pro hermie) get a good dozen of them as well to start with.
 
Update....

I had kind of a busy day yesterday so didn't get to do the testing on the tank but I did them today. Here they are. I think things are looking really good.

SG 1.024
ph 8.2
Am 0
rites 0.5
rates 35
Cal 480
Temp 77
 
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