New to the hobby

mannyo_09

mannyo_09

New member
Hello everyone! I recently acquired a JBJ 28 Gallon NanoCube that i set up on Friday 6/9.
Current equipment:

-JBJ 28 Gallon NanoCube
-12lbs of live sand
-Eheim Jager 100w heater
-Stock return pumps
-Coralife NanoCube skimmer

I'm currently only running filter floss in the media basket.

Waiting a couple of days to get live rock from my lfs since they didn't have any full cured ones in stock when I went. Might even try another lfs to see what they have.

I've tested my parameters 30 hours after adding 3.3oz of bio-spira and currently reading:

PH - 7.8
Ammonia - 0 to 0.25 (looks to be between them)
Nitrite - 0.25
Nitrate - 0
Salinity - 1.022
Temp - 80.3

My LFS told me there saltwater is slightly higher in salinity and that they would give me 5 gallons of RO water, to just add it. And silly me, without checking their water salinity before adding RO water I added the last 5 gallons of RO. And later come to find they salt water they gave me was perfect at 1.025. I think I'm just going wait for the tank to cycle and wait until I need to do the water change to bring the salinity up, because I replace the water now I'll just be starting the cycle all over again.

I'd also like to bring my PH up to at least 8.0. Before adding any livestock.

Plans for this week or next are to remove the hood and add an AI prime HD (but will not run them yet) add a couple more pieces of dry rock and a few pounds of live rock. And maybe add a bag of chemipure elite to the media basket to keep the water crystal clear.

Thanks for taking the time in reading this and I hope to get feedback and opinions from everyone.
b20e84e6d4a298237821cba6b706c054.jpg





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Will get a few shots of the tank tomorrow since all the sand has settled and it's much clearer now


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Sounds like you're off to a good start man. I agree with hecterma, a hydor 240 would work well in that size tank :)

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Sorry, forgot about the circulation pump. I'm using a hydor 425. Loving the flow with this thing


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This morning I picked up some janitorial strength ammonia from Ace Hardware and dosed 2ml at 7:30am.

Test results at 8am:
Ammonia - 4.0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
PH - 7.8 (would like to bring this up to 8.0)

I just checked my parameters again at 3 pm and current readings are:

Ammonia - 4.0
Nitrite - 1.0
Nitrate - 10 ppm

Do I continue to dose ammonia after it drops or do I maintain it at 4.0?


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Currently how the tank sits, I'm going to the lfs this weekend to buy some more rock and another 10lbs of sand, I'd like the sand bed to be a bit thicker.




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These are the test results as if 3pm. Taking a closer look, nitrate may be closer to 40ppm

47bd00930eb77c373b0a90c63ac1c1e1.jpg



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4 ppm ammonia is plenty high enough, bordering on too high. I wouldn't dose any more ammonia until ammonia and nitrite read zero, meaning the cycle is complete. After that, if you want to check how fast the tank can process waste, you could dose it to 1ppm or so.

Adding any more ammonia will just lead to higher nitrates.
 
nereefpat said:
4 ppm ammonia is plenty high enough, bordering on too high. I wouldn't dose any more ammonia until ammonia and nitrite read zero, meaning the cycle is complete. After that, if you want to check how fast the tank can process waste, you could dose it to 1ppm or so.



Adding any more ammonia will just lead to higher nitrates.
Click to expand...



Perfect! Thanks for the reply. Now it's just a waiting game lol.


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nereefpat said:
4 ppm ammonia is plenty high enough, bordering on too high. I wouldn't dose any more ammonia until ammonia and nitrite read zero, meaning the cycle is complete. After that, if you want to check how fast the tank can process waste, you could dose it to 1ppm or so.



Adding any more ammonia will just lead to higher nitrates.
Click to expand...



Also, how often should I testing now to see both of them drop?


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I wouldn't bother testing nitrates at all, until the others are zero. NH4 and NO2 weekly or so. I wouldn't add any livestock until tank is cycled AND it has been at least a month.
 
nereefpat said:
I wouldn't bother testing nitrates at all, until the others are zero. NH4 and NO2 weekly or so. I wouldn't add any livestock until tank is cycled AND it has been at least a month.
Click to expand...



Ok. I didn't plan on adding any livestock until the tank has been cycling for a month and the diatoms build up and the algae take over. Once the diatoms bloom and the algae builds up I can add a CUC?


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Sounds like you have a good plan.

There will be mixed opinions on when and how much cleanup crew is needed. If you have algae, then it's ok to add some crew to eat it, imo. Make sure you do some research on specific members for the crew (avoid sand sifting stars and horseshoe crabs, for example)
 
nereefpat said:
Sounds like you have a good plan.



There will be mixed opinions on when and how much cleanup crew is needed. If you have algae, then it's ok to add some crew to eat it, imo. Make sure you do some research on specific members for the crew (avoid sand sifting stars and horseshoe crabs, for example)
Click to expand...



For the most part I want to keep the CUC pretty basic with a few snails, hermit crabs, and a cleaner shrimp. And not sure if it's considered part of the CUC, but I also want to get an anemone porcelain crab. And a watchman goby.


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So I was curious to see where my parameters were this morning. As of 7:30am

Ammonia - 1.0ppm
Nitrite - 5.0ppm
PH - 7.8

Won't be testing nitrates until both ammonia and nitrates read 0ppm


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looking like you are off to a good start. With you bringing your ammonia so high, you'll want to be ready for a large water change after the cycle is complete to bring down what I'm assuming is going to be very high nitrate levels. Also, your PH is fine. Not sure how you plan to bring that up to 8, but fish will be fine where it is, and any additive that increases PH will only do so temporarily, but cause huge changes in Alkalinity. Basically never dose anything to change PH.

And go easy on the CUC when you do add one, you won't need much for that tank. My 65 gallon tank really only has an urchin, blood shrimp, a scarlet hermit and the odd snail as the CUC. I added a lot of snails at the start, they all ended up dead. Shrimps do very little to clean the tank also. Mostly they are just cool to have. The best CUC is you and your water changes.

Any reason you want to add more sand? From the pictures it looks like you have enough.
 
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