Guys,
Old freshwater guy here and hoping for some advice. Red a ton on this site and others but still a little cornfused!
Tank is a 130 gallon with 60lbs of dry pulkani and 30lbs of dry reef safe. I added the pulkani rock around Thanksgiving (call it 7 weeks ago) and the reef safe one week ago. Added 80 lbs of "live" sand in the bag about 7 weeks ago. Note that I am basically curing the rocks in the tank right now....no fish or other creatures.
Ammonia was 0 at Christmas. Kind of surprised me since I expected the rocks to leach more than that. So I started adding a little fish food every other day and now have ammonia at 4-5 ppm..still seems low but no fish. Nitrites are 0 and Nitrates are about 25 ppm. Did I miss the nitrite cycle between Thanksgiving and Christmas?
About to add an aglae reactor (just to play) to see if/how much it soaks up those nitrates. Not seeing any phosphates but was planning to do a 100% water change prior to adding any animals.
Just turned on the lights this past weekend....WOW what a difference it makes after being dark for so long! White rocks and white sand, the whole room glows! The older pulkani darkened up slightly but nothing growing on them yet. Going to turn the lights off again if I see green algae. I plan to change out my old wet/dry sump next month and then a skimmer after that.
I find that PATIENCE is the hardest part. Can't hurt just waiting....
Old freshwater guy here and hoping for some advice. Red a ton on this site and others but still a little cornfused!
Tank is a 130 gallon with 60lbs of dry pulkani and 30lbs of dry reef safe. I added the pulkani rock around Thanksgiving (call it 7 weeks ago) and the reef safe one week ago. Added 80 lbs of "live" sand in the bag about 7 weeks ago. Note that I am basically curing the rocks in the tank right now....no fish or other creatures.
Ammonia was 0 at Christmas. Kind of surprised me since I expected the rocks to leach more than that. So I started adding a little fish food every other day and now have ammonia at 4-5 ppm..still seems low but no fish. Nitrites are 0 and Nitrates are about 25 ppm. Did I miss the nitrite cycle between Thanksgiving and Christmas?
About to add an aglae reactor (just to play) to see if/how much it soaks up those nitrates. Not seeing any phosphates but was planning to do a 100% water change prior to adding any animals.
Just turned on the lights this past weekend....WOW what a difference it makes after being dark for so long! White rocks and white sand, the whole room glows! The older pulkani darkened up slightly but nothing growing on them yet. Going to turn the lights off again if I see green algae. I plan to change out my old wet/dry sump next month and then a skimmer after that.
I find that PATIENCE is the hardest part. Can't hurt just waiting....
Always proof read!
