Sand shifting question?
- Thread starter gistsc
- Start date
A few weeks into your cycle you will get a thick layer of brown algea. It will coat just about everything, but with patience (in a week or so) it will go away. Just be patient with it. Cycling your tank will take about a month. I wouldnt put any hermit crabs or anything else in it at this point. Just let your tank cycle the way it should. A week or two after the brown algea is gone you will get a green algea bloom. This is a good sign your tank has cycled well. Before this point your chemistry will be all over the place so dont worry about it untill you see this green bloom. Once you get a green bloom start testing your water daily or every other day. When you have a full week of no ammonia spikes and all of your test results are where there supposed to be you know your tank is good to go. This is when you should consider introducing a few snails and hermit crabs. Turbo snails seem to love the green algea and will keep your glass pretty clean. You might want to only get like 1 turbo snail and 1-2 hermit crabs in your 29 gallon tank. This is when you should consider adding your first fish.
Remember SLOOOOWWWW and steady is the way to be sucessful. It can take 6 months to a year to get your tank stable and established. Dont be afraid to ask as many questions as you can think of. Oh and go to the reef chemistry forums and read the stickied posts to learn more about water chemistry.
Oh and I am very new to the hobby, about 2 months into my first tank so dont read this like its the final word. My tank is doing very well at this point and this is the cycle I went though. Hope it helps, best of luck.
Remember SLOOOOWWWW and steady is the way to be sucessful. It can take 6 months to a year to get your tank stable and established. Dont be afraid to ask as many questions as you can think of. Oh and go to the reef chemistry forums and read the stickied posts to learn more about water chemistry.
Oh and I am very new to the hobby, about 2 months into my first tank so dont read this like its the final word. My tank is doing very well at this point and this is the cycle I went though. Hope it helps, best of luck.
That brown algae is most likely diatoms, and it's pretty much inevitable. Give it time, reduce your lighting cycle if you're actually turning on your tank lights, go ahead and run a couple of those powerheads, and make sure the tank's not right next to a window and getting direct sunlight. Oh, and skim, skim, skim. Eventually, you're nitrates and phosphates will stabilize, and the diatoms should go away. Stirring your sand around really isn't going to help matters at all. It may clear up the sand momentarily, but it'll come right back. I don't know if hermit crabs or snails will help the problem directly, but once you're ammonia is undetectable, and your nitrates are down to an acceptable level (I'll throw out 20 ppm or less as a number, but that's probably up for debate), go ahead and start picking up a clean up crew (crabs and/or snails). Don't be in too much of a hurry. You're probably going to want to wait at least a few weeks before you add any animals to your tank.
demonsp
In Memoriam
( days to early for any stock. And to soon for dead spot in sand. Algea blooms are normal. Just be sure you have all equiptment running ie.. skimmer , power heads , and lights but keeping lights to a minimum couple hours a day and your weekly water changes. Dont use any stock for cycling not needed. You may put a cocktial shrimp in over night though to help. Keep an eye on perms and in 4 to 8 weeks you can start your cleanup crew. This is the time to ask questions and prepare your stocking list . Sand sifters ( I also thought it was sand shifter ) being high on that list. Gobys are good cucumbers , star fish nass snails are great. But the go slow advice is the best. This is a patiant hobby that is well worth it. GL AND PLEASE NEVER USE TAP WATER. 
drummereef
Team RC
I tend to lean towards cerith and nassarius snails for the sandbed. They aren't too disruptive and do a great job at cleaning. Just make sure to wait until the cycle has completed. 
Yeah, fully cured rock definitely helps the cycle. I'm glad you haven't been in too much of a hurry to add any animals to the tank, though. My tank also never showed any detectable levels of ammonia, but you also need to give the tank time to build up its nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, which just takes time. I would think if in another couple weeks your water parameters still look good, it would be fine to add a small cleanup crew and then go from there.
Sygnath&Elasmos
New member
Ok time to chime in. First of all the pace is that they have been telling you to go is dead on. On the AVERAGE it takes about a month to properly cycle you tank. The reason you want to wait for your tank to reach the green bloom is that any spike in excess of 80ppm Nitrate or nitrite will off most inverts, and at this point a spike in your nitrites will occur well before a nitrate spike (remember its ammonia to nitrite, nitrite to nitrate). Avoid any cleaners as hardcore as cucumbers when your tank hits one month, however. See while its one thing to cycle your tank empty, its a whole other thing to see what any livestock will do to the water chemistry, plus if the cucumber dies the toxins present in its body chemistry will significantly throw off all your hard work.
Definitely run those powerheads my friend. Water movement means oxygenation and circulation which can help with diatoms settling out on the sand. Fully cured live rock was the perfect choice, it definitely helps the process.
Now, IMHO if you add the cocktail shrimp wrap it in pantyhose it will help draw out any critters hiding in the live rock as well as make removing the decaying shrimp carcass that much easier for you. The reason you would even consider doing this is to add some form of waste (ammonia) to the system in order for the bacteria to have something to feed on. I personally have just added a small sand sifting shrimp (kinda resembles a bait shrimp but don't get it from the bait shop as those shrimp can be high in vibrio) and placed him in my tanks. Now I know this may raise some eyebrows and bring the gods of reef keeping down upon me but two purposes get served here. One the shrimp will eat the diatoms sludge, which means he will create waste. That waste fulls the bacteria. Secondly if the tank sees a spike which it will now that someone lives in the tank, and the shrimp dies it does exactly what the decaying cocktail shrimp would have done. If it lives it lives, and will move sand and eat leftovers for you.
In my experience I have seen people cycle empty and never see any form of spike, and then as soon as the first animal hits the water and settles in BAM!!! huge fluctuation in the water chemistry because the tank really didn't bacteria cycle it only algae cycled. But thats just my opinion. It is up to you whether or not you use my lil sand sifting shrimp trick is up to you. Note I use the shrimp because it causes far fewer problems when it dies than do sand sifters like starfish. And please.....PLEASE.....when you are good to put fish in there only use damsels if you plan on keeping them when they get bigger. Sometimes they get big, ugly, and very ill tempered....sometimes the devil damsel is actually pretty ok but most of them can just be a pain in the *** later.
Definitely run those powerheads my friend. Water movement means oxygenation and circulation which can help with diatoms settling out on the sand. Fully cured live rock was the perfect choice, it definitely helps the process.
Now, IMHO if you add the cocktail shrimp wrap it in pantyhose it will help draw out any critters hiding in the live rock as well as make removing the decaying shrimp carcass that much easier for you. The reason you would even consider doing this is to add some form of waste (ammonia) to the system in order for the bacteria to have something to feed on. I personally have just added a small sand sifting shrimp (kinda resembles a bait shrimp but don't get it from the bait shop as those shrimp can be high in vibrio) and placed him in my tanks. Now I know this may raise some eyebrows and bring the gods of reef keeping down upon me but two purposes get served here. One the shrimp will eat the diatoms sludge, which means he will create waste. That waste fulls the bacteria. Secondly if the tank sees a spike which it will now that someone lives in the tank, and the shrimp dies it does exactly what the decaying cocktail shrimp would have done. If it lives it lives, and will move sand and eat leftovers for you.
In my experience I have seen people cycle empty and never see any form of spike, and then as soon as the first animal hits the water and settles in BAM!!! huge fluctuation in the water chemistry because the tank really didn't bacteria cycle it only algae cycled. But thats just my opinion. It is up to you whether or not you use my lil sand sifting shrimp trick is up to you. Note I use the shrimp because it causes far fewer problems when it dies than do sand sifters like starfish. And please.....PLEASE.....when you are good to put fish in there only use damsels if you plan on keeping them when they get bigger. Sometimes they get big, ugly, and very ill tempered....sometimes the devil damsel is actually pretty ok but most of them can just be a pain in the *** later.
