Peninsula 650

[Kirino]

Hello again, I'm finally starting up the red sea P650 I've been posting about here (in case you're interested in the cabinet). It was filled up once before, but after using equipment from my other tank, I felt like I had to empty it, clean it, clean it some more and leave it dry for a month. Maybe a bit silly, but I want to go the route where I quarantine everything.

Picture with the lights on:

Feel free to comment on my first time, probably flawed aquascape. I really wanted the peak on the right for some reason. You probably can't tell, but there is a swimming lane from one side to the other between the rocks for the fish. With one kinda cave like bridge on the right under the twin peak. Then a little plateau in the middle, which is fairly closed off on this end, but pretty open on the back end. On the left we have a rock standing straight up and one creating a bit of a hangover.

Here's a little clip:

Since I'm a total beginner, there won't be any crazy hard corals any time soon, so for now lotsa rocks to put stuff on. As you can see it's kinda bare-bottom, with maybe too big base stones. They are all movable, individual pieces that are easy to handle though. Should make it easy to move something aside and do maintenance. Or who knows, in the future even take out an entire piece. The only thing that's hard to move is the silly twin peak.

Regarding the actual start up, I've tossed in an entire bottle of some German bacteria blend, probably around 3 weeks ago with an ammonia source. Forgot the exact date, probably should write these things down .. and started dozing Polyplab genesis bacteria daily. I figured, the more bacteria strains, the better. I also got those Polyplab genesis stones in the sump.

Cycling progress report:
- so the first week my ammonia Sera test colors light green, which is 0,5 ppm. Yellow is 0 and darker green is 1 ppm. So to be honest it could be anything in the range of 0 to 1 ppm, right?
- second week, still light green 0,5 ppm, no trace of any Nitrites or Nitrates
- third week, still light green 0,5 ppm, no trace of any Nitrites or Nitrates
- Today, a bit earlier then I planned to test again, I put in a silly test strip I had left over, and both nitrites and nitrates strips colored just slightly pink! So I decided to do some actual tests: still light green 0,5 ppm on ammonia, no readable nitrites but at least 1 ppm nitrates. To be honest, sometimes I really don't like these liquid color tests, I mean sure the pink matches the 1ppm, but it could be anything around that right? Anyway, at least I know there are nitrates now so it's doing something at least. Guess I wait now until the ammonia goes away.

At this point I'm wondering if I can add any macro algae, like chaeto and start up my refugium? There are some phosphates in there from the rocks and there is some nitrate ... but maybe I should wait longer. About adding chaeto: I have some in a fishless tank for at least a month now, probably more. It's still alive, although probably pretty starved for food (besides the refugium lamp). Do you think that's enough time to get rid of any potential parasites? If more time is needed, maybe I could do a water change from the P650 tank at some point later and use that water for the chaeto quarantine. At least they'll have some nitrates and phosphates to feed on again.

Any thoughts or advise on my newbie start up would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

[Reefing102]

Looking good. Only thing I might change would be to take out the two singular rocks on the end and slide the left island over. Otherwise, I’m a fan of sand but plenty of beautiful bare bottoms out there.

As for macros, I’d wait to ensure proper supply of nutrients but that’s just me. Don’t want to bottom them out by adding it too early.

 

[griss]

I agree, I like the aquascape. Looks cool. I, like Shane, am a fan of sand. But, like he said, there's nothing wrong with bare bottom.

 

[Kirino]

Thx guys for the replies. I like sand too, but I'm a bit scared of the maintenance on a sandbed this size. So I'm gona do it like this for now.

I might move the scape around a bit at some point, made relatively small islands for that purpose. We'll see how it evolves.

Just a tiny measurement update: reading 0 ammonia today. Still some nitrites on the test strip and of course nitrates.

Now I was wondering one thing: since I was starting up fishless, did my amonia source run out? Should I doze more? I figure I should wait until the nitrites read 0 before adding the first (clown)fish? Can the bacteria starve and undo the entire cycle? If I add the fish too late.

 

[griss]

Yes, you will need some source of nutrients to keep the bacteria alive. A little fish food here and there should suffice.

That said, as long as your ammonia and nitrite are under control, there's not need to wait for nitrate to drop all the way to zero before adding fish. Fish can tolerate nitrate quite well. It's the corals that are less tolerant of nitrate in very high levels and high levels of nitrate can also contribute to nuisance algae.

 

[Kirino]

This week the nitrites are still there, so I reckon the cycle isn't finished yet. Ammonia reads 0 though so I hope the nitri bacteria don't starve while I wait for the nitrites to disappear. At least the nitrate bacteria won't starve for now :3

edit: so I should hold on putting the first fish in, nitrites are still pretty toxic.

 

[Reefing102]

What is your nitrite reading? Alot of times nitrite is less toxic in marine tanks so you may good to go in adding fish

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

 

[Kirino]

The No2 is between 1-5 ppm according to this test. Silly color codes. I should prob wait until it's gone.
The No3 is around 20 ppm
Ammonio still 0

 

[Reefing102]

I wouldn’t be concerned. Could be a false read. Given that you have NO3, we can tell that Nitrite is being processed.

 

[kharmaguru]

Yep,

 

[Kirino]

Haha, sorry guys I kept reading nitrites so I decided to wait a little more. Then beginning this week it started reading 0 so it looks like I just needed a little more patience. I did the test where I added some ammonia again, and in 24 hours it was all gone. Follow up tests keep reading 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. Nitrates are actually fairly low too now. Instead of 20 I'm reading 10 ppm. Are they actually being processed and gassed of as well? Either way it looks like the cycle is active. So it looks like that took about 2 month then, where I started using Polyplab genesis bacteria with 2 matching stones in the second month. Dozed the Polyplab bacteria for around 2 weeks I think (until the bottle ran out). Not sure if this is fast or slow, but it's bare-bottom so I think it's fairly fast for that.

Enter the clown:

This little guy went through months of quarantine, like you might know from my other posts. I am pretty sad though that the blue tang isn't here. Let's see how he does in the coming weeks. I did turn of the two large flow pumps. This fish is way to small to handle those.

 

[Kirino]

A bunch of quarantine procedures later, I've moved the two little blue devils and the yellow tang into the new, main display. Here's a clip from shortly after moving in the yellow tang.

Its color is better meanwhile, although unlike with the clownfish and the blue devil damsels his breathing hasn't gotten that much slower since the treatment against all sorts of flukes, worms and such. With the other fish the rate of gill movement had gone down noticeably after the treatment. Not so much with the tang, although it does seem better then before.

Very bad quality webcam recording:

The biggest of the two damsels has made a home out of some holes in a rock and keeps asking the little one to enter.

The clow really doesn't like the tang. He evades him at all cost and has stuck to his corner of the tank since the tang joined.

 

[five.five-six]

I’m bare bottom now but I was sand for decades. I’ve only been bare bottom for about 3 years now, we’ll see how it turns out.


I hate to say it but the most important ingredients in a reef tank are patience and perseverance. I’m in the perseverance stage right now I and it’s very rewarding. That said I have been through the patience stage more times than I can count and I understand how acute it can be.

Your Tank is looking wonderful. When you do add coral, remember they will need room to grow. Even with that for thought, they still will grow in patterns that you will have to mitigate. I just lost a clam because a tabling acro shaded it.

FYI, those damsels will transform into velociraptors. They are giant A-holes. They are going to kill each other untill just one is left unless you start putting other fish in there for them to pick on. The trick is to get that last damsel out once that’s all that’s left of them.

 

[Kirino]

Thx for the reply. I think it will enter the ´ugly´ stage soon. Patience will be key. I plan to move a few corals from my old tank in 3-4 months. Trying to kill any potential parasites in the old tank by going fishless. It will serve as a coral and invertebrate quarentine in the future.

Haha velociraptors. I know what you mean, the big one has some issues.

 

[Kirino]

More then 3 months have passed, so I've decided it's 'safe' to move corals to the main display. I started with a couple of soft corals, followed a few weeks later by my duncans and so on. At the same time I turned up the lights just a bit, from around 10% to 40%. Should have known that would make my ugly stage even uglier. Probably shouldn't have so impatient to move over corals.

Behold the ugly stage:

Now if you've read my previous posts you might know my phosphates have been just that bit higher because of the rocks, adding in the extra light, come in the diatoms! I mean they were there before, obviously since there was nothing else in the tank, but they really, really overgrew everything in a thick layer once the lights went up a notch. To the point they were growing over some corals and the rocks I transferred that actually have coralline algae.

So I was getting a bit concerned, and of course I forgot to add a cleanup crew to my old tank in advance, so I could transfer them together with the corals after 3 months. On that note, I do have 4 nice Astrea snails in the old tank now, devouring algae like no tomorrow. Which is good, because there were tons after the yellow tang moved out.

Back to the main display. To counter this, I decided to add the 50g of ROWA phos I forgot I ordered. Figures I forgot I had that stuff exactly to prevent this issue. So I added it and like 'magic' all the diatoms started to disappear. Well it's not really magic since I took away their food. I did get super cloudy water in return. Some kind of bacterial bloom or whatever?

At any rate, a week later the rocks are almost too white again. I tested for phosphates and they are barely there ... so I removed the rowa phos. Only a day later the water has cleared up a ton and things look like this now:

Good by brown algae, by cloudy water. The fish are super active and the corals in general look good. Well except for the zoa that were doing badly in the old tank, they still look like crap. The zoa that were doing good in the old tank look decent enough. Most corals seem to have adjusted just fine from the transfer (up till now).

Now as a final topic, my pH ... with the large chunk of phosphates removed, ... you can guess it, my pH has dropped accordingly.

It's been going down steadily since I added the rowa phos, and even though the rowa phos is no longer in the tank, it has still gone down since. Now I did recalibrate my sensor earlier this month (note the giant peak). Before the recalibration the pH was very steady around 8,3. The swings were very, very small (well yea there weren't any corals or anything). Now since the move and all (and the rowa phos) swings are much more notable. My main concern now is ... will the pH keep dropping. This morning it was at 8.0. I'm used to it being around 8.2. Should I be concerned? Should I take action to counter this?

Oh by the way, I did have a refugium starting up. Guess what the row phos did, kill the macro algea. Kinda should have figured that ... idiot.
They melted just like the diatoms. Luckely I do still have a bunch in the old tank, so I can always start it up again later. I'd prefer to have a refugium running instead of going back to the rowa phos.

 

[Reefing102]

Tank looks good. I would still watch the PH 8.0 is still good in my opinion. If it starts to drop much below that, you may consider adding an outside line to your skimmer (if you have one) or an air stone for more gas exchange