Allan.Pritchard
New member
Hi
I'm completely new to this hobby, I kept freshwater tropical 20 years ago and always wanted a marine tank. Now I can afford to do it but no amount of money helps when you a learning from scratch.
I know everyone starting out posts this so please forgive me.
I have a 450 lt tank (118g) plus sump. using RO water, dual heaters, Dupla reaktor, Deltec skimmer along with Neptune Systems Apex controller.
I cured the dry rock in heated salt water for 5 months. (We can't get live rock in New Zealand due to quarantine laws.)
I started cycling my tank 6.5 weeks ago. I'm using Dupla Bacter m (2 vials every week) along with the booster. Initially the tests for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate were all high (maxed out) and then the Ammonia dropped to 0.25, it has been 0.25 for the last 4 weeks and never changes, I test daily, I have tested my RO water and the test kit will test to 0 mg/l
I haven't being testing the others but tested today
The Nitrite 2.0 and Nitrate 4.0
I'm using the Giesemann Professional test kits which max out at 2.0 mg/l for Nitrite and 4.0 mg/l for Nitrate. I see on the forum people have numbers in the 25-50 range Nitrate.
Temp is running at 27 deg C, PH 7.8 ORP 245, Salinity 35 ppt.
I'm running the skimmer (not much coming out at all) and have some siliphos in the reaktor. Lights are running over a 14 hr cycle with a slow ramp up and ramp down, averages 9 hrs of full light with blue light at each end of the day.
I did a 20% water change last weekend. Other than that have just topped up as need with either RO water or salt water to keep the salinity correct.
There is a very very fine amount of brown fuzz on the rocks which you can see under the blue lights and a small amount of green algae has formed on some rocks. Most the rocks look like clean coral rock in daylight.
Nothing seems to be happening at all. I read all of the "how to cycle" and they talk about algae blooms and brown sludge diatoms that clear up but I'm getting nothing. I would have expected algae at least as the room it is in does get a good amount of sunlight and the corner of the tank gets direct sunlight due to the low winter sun at the moment.
My LFS says the the Dupla Bacter M has all the bacteria strains needed and the Dupla booster is the food for the bacteria.
Do I just keep waiting? do I need to do something else to move things along ? I'm not keen on the throwing a dead shrimp in and defiantly not putting an unsuspecting fish in there. I did ask about feeding with Ammonia but the LFS said that's what the booster is plus there is Ammonia in the tank so the bacteria have food, its just not going to 0
Any advice would be appreciated.
I'm completely new to this hobby, I kept freshwater tropical 20 years ago and always wanted a marine tank. Now I can afford to do it but no amount of money helps when you a learning from scratch.
I know everyone starting out posts this so please forgive me.
I have a 450 lt tank (118g) plus sump. using RO water, dual heaters, Dupla reaktor, Deltec skimmer along with Neptune Systems Apex controller.
I cured the dry rock in heated salt water for 5 months. (We can't get live rock in New Zealand due to quarantine laws.)
I started cycling my tank 6.5 weeks ago. I'm using Dupla Bacter m (2 vials every week) along with the booster. Initially the tests for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate were all high (maxed out) and then the Ammonia dropped to 0.25, it has been 0.25 for the last 4 weeks and never changes, I test daily, I have tested my RO water and the test kit will test to 0 mg/l
I haven't being testing the others but tested today
The Nitrite 2.0 and Nitrate 4.0
I'm using the Giesemann Professional test kits which max out at 2.0 mg/l for Nitrite and 4.0 mg/l for Nitrate. I see on the forum people have numbers in the 25-50 range Nitrate.
Temp is running at 27 deg C, PH 7.8 ORP 245, Salinity 35 ppt.
I'm running the skimmer (not much coming out at all) and have some siliphos in the reaktor. Lights are running over a 14 hr cycle with a slow ramp up and ramp down, averages 9 hrs of full light with blue light at each end of the day.
I did a 20% water change last weekend. Other than that have just topped up as need with either RO water or salt water to keep the salinity correct.
There is a very very fine amount of brown fuzz on the rocks which you can see under the blue lights and a small amount of green algae has formed on some rocks. Most the rocks look like clean coral rock in daylight.
Nothing seems to be happening at all. I read all of the "how to cycle" and they talk about algae blooms and brown sludge diatoms that clear up but I'm getting nothing. I would have expected algae at least as the room it is in does get a good amount of sunlight and the corner of the tank gets direct sunlight due to the low winter sun at the moment.
My LFS says the the Dupla Bacter M has all the bacteria strains needed and the Dupla booster is the food for the bacteria.
Do I just keep waiting? do I need to do something else to move things along ? I'm not keen on the throwing a dead shrimp in and defiantly not putting an unsuspecting fish in there. I did ask about feeding with Ammonia but the LFS said that's what the booster is plus there is Ammonia in the tank so the bacteria have food, its just not going to 0
Any advice would be appreciated.
