120 upgrade......

Yeah I was just wondering. And to clarify my last post was supposed to read 'how high to I let it go before removing shrimp' not fish like it says.
 
Weird thing was, after at least a 6 cocktail shrimp over 8 weeks, my ammonia when I finally decided to test it was 0 and the nitrate was 0.25. Made a live rock being a nitrate reducer believer out of me.
 
I think that I let mune get up to 1.0 before I removed the shrimp, I only put 2 fish in to start so there was no reason to let it get too high just to have the majority of that bacteria to die off. However for a more robust system the more fish you can add right away (after the ammonia gets down to 0)
 
I've got three waiting now with one more planned. Blue tang, rabbitfish and a pair of skunk clowns, that I only have one of yet. Not sure about total fish yet as I'm after a larger coral tank then fish. I have the 55 for fewer corals and more active fish.
 
What the?! I put three shrimp in three days ago and they are still disolving. Tested ammonia tonight along with trite and trate. Ammonia dropped from 1.0 down to .25, trite shows 0 and trate is between 10 adn 20 ppm. What gives? I thought ammonia would still be steady if not going up, trites would just be showing, and trates not there yet. Am I still working on the cycle or did it go really fast?

I ask cause when I did the 55 it took longer before I saw trates.
 
LOL! Just count your lucky stars. You have a busy bacteria population actively eating and multiplying. Looks like you are headed for an early cycle completion. Seeing the diatom bloom yet?
 
No diatom bloom yet. The last ~50 lbs of LR may have helped me out I guess. Crap, not ready to think about a CUC yet, gotta do my research as to how much and what I want in there. Granted nothing will go till the ammonia does it 0 so I guess I still have some time.
 
Huh, So the live rock you added was "live"? Nitrites aren't a big deal to salt water inhabitants so, I would do the same thing and once the ammonia drops start stocking. I've had a nitrite test kit that was funky, I would test and get 0 an d then immediately after test again and get an accurate result???? (An API test kit)
 
Well I'm going to watch and be careful here. I gotta trust the test kit, but this seems way fast to me. Ill check it again tonight and post my findings.
 
From the start-up of my two tanks, I've found that keeping an eye on the series of blooms is a good way to confirm the tests. I had an early diatom bloom, quickly replaced by green stuff. Diatom bloom coincided with the ammonia and trites going to almost zero, and the trates started to come down when the green stuff started to replace the brown stuff. That's when I got aggressive with water changes on the first tank.
 
Green algea has been there on some rock since almost day one. I also have some nice coraline growing on some of the live rock, which also surprises me.
 
Hey, 1 more post and you'll be up to 1,000!

I don't mean the green algae that came with the rock. I mean NEW green algae that replaces the NEW diatoms.
 
I was going to make my 1000 post something meaning and witty, but I guess ill use it here instead. The algea is new, my rock was clean besides coraline on it when I got it. Seems to be growing slowly too, but I'm not currently running my lights and all the tank get now is indirect sun light, I figure that is the cause.
 
ahh, if you had coralline on the rock, more chances then not it was live, and any cycle you witnessed was quick. I'm surprised you saw ammonia get that high.
 
My guess on the ammonia is the three shrimp I left in there. Only 50 pounds of LR, while the rest was all dry base rock. Then new sand that was dry. I figure that the shrimp caused it.
I put some stability in per directions and took the shrimp out. Ammonia 0, trite 0, trate 10-20. Dosed again last night and had trates at 5-10. Also noticed this morning that some of my very clean white rock had turned light brown. Diatoms here I come.
 
and they are in.....
<a href="http://s496.photobucket.com/albums/rr321/dougcobb/?action=view&current=1c82cc7b.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr321/dougcobb/1c82cc7b.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
blue tang, skunk clown, and rabbitfish.
 
Back
Top