Finally getting off the mark.

[Steve W]

My 24 gallon nano has been set up 3 weeks today. This is my first tank for those of you who may not have seen my earlier posts. Everything I have in it (not much - two small frags, some feather dusters and coraline algae on my rocks) are finally starting to grow. Yippee!

Had a horrific brown algae bloom about a week ago, but all the ammonia and nitrites were gone by last Saturday. The folks at the Coral Reef and Bill at Fins and Skins have been very helpful as have you guys. Nitrates were really high two days ago but started vodka dosing and today they are dropping like a rock. Another day or two and I will be in the right range.

Green algae, filamentatous algae and thread algae have bloomed this week, but I got an emerald crab, some Nassarius and Astea snails yesterday and they are having a field day. Algae is visibly disappearing. I only bought two Astreas, and I think I need to get at least a couple more. As soon as I get the nitrates thoroughly under control, I have a Blenny and a Clown Fish on hold at CR. Anxious to get some fish in there for the eye candy if nothing else.

The guy I bought the tank from threw in a Kenya tree frag and a tiny brown coral that I think is a zoanthid. Until today I was convinced that the Kenya tree was dead. Absolutely no signs of life other than it didn't dissolve. Today it is almost completely standing up and waving its polyps. The Zoanthid is putting on a second polyp.

I want to thank everyone on this forum for helping me get over some humps in getting started. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you at the meeting next week.

Steve W

24 g nano w/ 150 w MH

 

[Engloid]

If you've been three weeks with live rock and coral algae is already growing, you probably will be fine to go ahead and put those two fish in the tank. All you'd have to do is change water if ammonia or nitrates went up.

In other words, going ahead and adding fish will add ammonia, which will be food for beneficial bacteria... IF your fish create more than what the bacteria can handle, do water changes. If they don't, the bacteria will have all the "food" they can eat, and will multiply very quickly.

In my tank, I wasn't able to get nitrates and nitrites down to zero until I stopped doing water changes once a week. I was taking out too much ammonia and it was limiting the food for the beneficial bacterial colony, therefore limiting its growth. When I realized this, I stopped doing water changes. I watched ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, checking about every 3 days....for 4 weeks. All three then dropped to zero and stayed there until I changed into another aquarium.

It's a different approach to cycling, but IMO, it beats running a tank for weeks and weeks with nothing in it...and nothing producing food for the bacteria. I have even heard of people putting a shrimp (from grocery store) in the tank to help cycle it. That's a bit odd for me. I don't want to put anything dead in my tank.

 

[macclellan]

To me, it seems far more humane to put a chunk of a dead organism than live fishes which (whom?) are very sensitive to ammonia to cycle a tank. The no-brainer way is to buy a bottle of ammonia, and use that to cycle your tank before adding fish. This topic has been discussed to death (no pun intended), so you can read elsewhere for details. I've got a big ol' bottle of ammonia here. More than enough to cycle LOTS of tanks. PM me if you can't find some and need it.

 

[AcroJames]

Steve have you checked out aquatic marine? that is a awesome store.