Checking in...

[wink1906]

Loving life at the moment, water in, added 100 lbs of Tonga Fusion Rock, 75 lbs uncured, 30 lbs cured. Only 5 pcs total. This rock looked incredible, although its losing some of its color from the cycling(red coraline is turning light green). Working on getting a shrunken pic to post.

Anyways a few question...
1 - Im keeping MH on about 6 hrs a day - reccomendation from LFS that it would help prevent alot of die-off of some algae. Any benefit/drawback to this strategy?
2 - Some white specks on glass, about 0.1mm diameter. I am assuming its algae - since it's not moving at all.
3 - Should I wait until algae spikes to add the cheato to help reduce nitrates?
4 - Water param history:
6-17 added LR
Temp 77
SG 1.021
PH 8.2
Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 0.0
Carbonate hardness 7dkh/125ppm

6-19
Temp 78
SG 1.023
PH 8.2
Ammonia 2.0
Nitrite 1.0
Nitrate 10.0
Carbonate hardness 8dkh/143ppm

4. What should I expect next from water readings?

Currently working on raising salinity slowly and getting temp balanced to 80 w/o overheating with the MH on.

Once trates spike, 30% large water change(already brewing).

Seems like everything is progressing nicely, anything else I should be on the lookout for?

 

[Snowboarda42]

Personally I wouldn't do any water changes during the cycle.

Before you think about getting anything wait till the Ammonia and Trites get to 0. If I remember, the trates will come down on their own. Wait until they're really low. Then you add about 2-3 fish and your clean up crew.1 Wait about 2 weeks and add 2-3 more and so on. Don't use damsels or anything to cycle the tank.

To answer your Questions:
1.) Yes, 6-8 Hours a day is perfect. (increase 10-14 when livestock is added)
2.) White specs can be anything from algae to corraline to who knows. I wouldn't worry much.
3.) Wait until Nitrates start to rise to add the chaeto. Its always good to get ahead of this stuff.
4.) To raise your SG, pull out about 10% of your water and jack the SG way up by adding salt to the water you take out. I bring mine up to about 1.060 and slowly pour it back in. You don't have much in there right now that will be affected by this change. Its pretty suttle too.
4 again.) Next readings you should be seeing less ammonia and more or less nitrites (since it goes Ammonia -> Nitrites -> Nitrates)

Another thing you might want to do is keep your water changes to about a 10-15% range.

You might want to invest in a Calcium and Magnesium test kit next, especially if you want to keep any SPS (small polyp stony) corals. For Ca, Mg, and dKH, I would go with nothing less than Salifert Kits. For everything else, you can use what you want.

So what are you planning on keeping in this tank? What kind of fish? Corals? Inverts? Clean up Crew? Etc?

 

[wink1906]

Thanks for the excellent advice! I'm truly shocked that I'm starting to see trites and trates only 2 days into this...

Once tank stabilizes and I see some algae growth the cleanup crew is coming in. I've had so many reccomendations from the board and LFS I may just customize the crew.

Initial fish stock would probably be a few gobies, followed by a Lemon Peel Angel, then a mated pair of clowns with BTA. No LARGE fish as I want activity with the least amount of bioload.

As far as corals go still have not decided. Tried to configure the system to be as flexible as possible and should have all the light needed.

OH - and I'm not doing any water changes until the trates spike. Then about a 30% change.