\Clownfish/ 29 Gallon BioCube Tank

Hey Clown. I'm interested to know how your levels change so drastically from day to day. My nitrites are slowly creeping up but it seems painfully slow. For example it seemed yours jumped a couple shades of purple from one day to the next. Mine took a few days to go from blue (0 ppm) to maybe light purple (.25 ppm). Just curiosity. I'm all about the wait so I'm just happy the readings are climbing.
 
I saw your thread and thought I would chime in as a fellow biocube owner. I love my tank and have experimented quite a few things with it over the past 2 years.
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Kyle did you dose ammonia or put some ammonia source (shrimp) in the tank? If not it will be a much slower process for you.
 
I dosed with "pure ammonia" (LA's Awesome brand). It did the trick but for some reason it took a lot to get my levels up to 2.0 ppm. I'm thinking it was a really low concentration of ammonium chloride. I'm considering throwing some shrimp in there to help boost it again once they drop to see if I have the correct bioload to handle it.
 
Hey Kyle :)
Since I have a small tank so things change so quickly like salinity, nitrates which are my struggle at the moment. I was pretty surprised with ammonia and nitrites. When I raised the ammonia for the first time I tested it twice when I added the shrimp and it was almost up too 1ppm In a few hours and the next day I believe it was up to 5ppm. When I took the shrimp out my ammonia did start disappearing as well as nitrites. I also tried to raise ammonia all the way up to 2 ppm for a second time and the higest it got was 0.25 I believe. The smaller the tank the faster things change, the bigger the tank the slower things change.
 
Update: bought a calcium tester this morning as well as a carbonate hardness (alkalinity right?) still trying which brand of magnesium test to buy. I'm also starting to see coralline spreading on rocks!
 
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Kyle461 said:
I dosed with "pure ammonia" (LA's Awesome brand). It did the trick but for some reason it took a lot to get my levels up to 2.0 ppm. I'm thinking it was a really low concentration of ammonium chloride. I'm considering throwing some shrimp in there to help boost it again once they drop to see if I have the correct bioload to handle it.
Click to expand...

if you are using an API test kit test the ammonia test but dropping in some raw ammonia. Mine barely registered and when I gave up after 3 different test kits and went with a red sea my ammonia was off the chart.
 
Everyone cycles tanks differently, some people just wing it, some people are very tedious. Honestly, I just add bioactive sand, live rock, let it run a few days, throw some food in, wait, or a piece of shrimp like you did, or something, and once it begins to break down into mush Id take it out. wait another week, test, but never did I do a water change until the end I did a few to ensure that the water quality was good, but in my professional opinion as I manage hundreds of aquariums is that there really is no RIGHT way to go about it, however there is a wrong way and that's to just throw rocks, sand, and fully stock your tank in one day. Two weeks is long enough to add your first fish I believe. If you stock slowly I truly thing you would be fine without going through long periods of empty tank syndrome.
 
I wonder if it has to do with the solution not really being pure ammonia but eventually breaking into the individual ions through partial ionization? I'm sure the shrimp produces raw ammonia without having to rely on ionization.

Definitely a cool chemistry experiment I should get my students to run.
 
Day #25

Parameters Today

Salinity - 1.024
PH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5.0 ppm
Phosphate - 0 ppm
Calcium - 380 ppm
Alkalinity - 10 DKH

What supplements do you recommend to increase calcium?
 
not knowing what my corals will suck up especially as I add more I went with the BRS set up. It will last quite a while and I can tweak as needed for the different elements.

Many people start with kalk then move up to 2 part dosing as their corals and such require more then the kalk can handle.

I figure why bother spending money on a stepping stone when I would go 2 part eventually anyway. With small tank I will not need to use much until I add more SPS so this $50 should last months and like I said I can add more of one or the other to bring up calc or alk as needed.
 
Clownfish with your Coralife 29 Gallon BioCube a 5 gal per week water change should take care of your Calcium etc.
Barry.
 
My readings today:

Salinity - 1.024
PH - 8.0
Ammonia - 1 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm

ammonia still at this level ?? i introduced a tiny bit of brine couple of days ago already
 
BarryV said:
Clownfish with your Coralife 29 Gallon BioCube a 5 gal per week water change should take care of your Calcium etc.
Barry.
Click to expand...

That's what I was also thinking but I wasn't sure. Doing water changes would be better than adding supplements then Barry?
 
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