starting a seahorse tank?

[ann83]

If I did, I'd get the free frag for myself ;-) Sneaky fishymann.

 

[fishymann]

ahha i didnt even notice that. I just wanted to try and find out some information on it before i bought it.

 

[Fredfish]

Horses will perch on anything that is in the right location. I have very little of it right now and have not seem them perch there yet.

It is a nice algae though. In my previous reef tank, it grew very quickly and I actually harvested it every couple of weeks.

Fred

 

[fishymann]

thanks fred i'm gonna order some once i get the tank cylced

 

[c-horseman]

yeah i've seen it at the store and was curious about that red algae myself.

 

[pledosophy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9443023#post9443023 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by whatnot45
I dont see the point of doing water changes personally in a cycling tank.... You are trying to build up a large enough colony of bacteria to take care of all your amonia problems, yet in doing water changes you are removing the amonia yourself.... I'd wait, and let the bacteria do their thing. Just deal with the ugly algea for now. Just MO

Waterchanges can be beneficial in a cycling tank if the ammonia reaches levels of 1ppm or larger. Ammonia that high will cause the aerobic bacteria to grow much slower. High levels of ammonia are toxic to bacteria to. Not really the case for this partcular thread, but it is why you do water changes during cycling.

They are also helpful in rock cooking endevers for different reasons.

 

[fishymann]

alright this seemed strange so i tested it twice and both readings were the same.
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
nitrite 3 ppm
pH-8

does this make any sense?

 

[ann83]

makes fine sense. it means you need to feed the aquarium again. Keep feeding the aquarium whenever ammonia goes down to zero, until the ammonia and nitrite are at zero 4 hours after feeding. Right now your aquarium has processed all the available ammonia and turned it into nitrite. You have to keep providing it with an ammonia source to feed the nitrifying bacteria so it doesn't die off, and also so the bacteria that convert nitrites can reproduce to high enough levels to get nitrite down to zero also.

 

[fishymann]

should i try and get pure ammonia or just throw in a dinner shrimp

 

[ann83]

what have you been doing? Pick a method and stick with it. The pure ammonia way requires a 90% water change at the end of the cycle. At this point, if you haven't already been adding pure ammonia, I'd just toss in a dinner shrimp.

 

[fishymann]

alright, im receiving more rock tomorrow so i'll put that in and see if that adds any more ammonia (it should have die off) and then depending on that ill put in the shrimp (theree is still some algae tablets decomposing in the tank)

 

[fishymann]

okay, so idecided to just drop a shrimp in last night figured cant hurt. The ammonia hasn't gone up at all though, how long should it take to start breaking down? And how long do i have until i'll loose the cylce because of no ammonia source

 

[fishymann]

alright heres the tests for today
Nitrate 20
Nitrite .5
pH 8
Ammonia 0

So it seems like im almost fully cycled.

 

[pledosophy]

Your nitrite is higher then a few days ago?

You still got a ways to go grasshopper.

How much are you feeding at a time? How often?

What is the tank temp?

 

[fishymann]

this is the lowest the nitrite has been. any lower and itd be at ZERO on my test. Tank temp is mid 70s (heater wont go any higher hmm didnt get a powerfull enough one i guess). I was adding fish food every day an then put in the shrimp but the shrimp hasnt decayed at all.

 

[ann83]

Fishymann, you need to make sure that you are adding a detectable ammonia source, and then you need to be tracking the time it takes for the ammonia and nitrite to go down to zero. Ideally, your tank is cycled when you add the amount of mysis you plan to feed your seahorses, and then when you check the parameters 4 hours later, everything is at zero. Eventually everything will go to zero if you leave it without a new ammonia source for long enough, what you want is for the tank to be automatically processing it every time you add it. The bit of shrimp you added may need more time to decompose and add ammonia to the aquarium, so I'd keep watching things for a week or so to see if it is just processing it efficiently, or if the shrimp just hasn't started breaking down yet. Then try the mysis test.

 

[fishymann]

alright, if i get a chance ill stop off at my LFS this weekend and pick up frozen mysis shrimp and use that.

 

[fishymann]

alright well i checked today and the dinner shrimp is defintly breaking down i placed it by one of my returns from my sump so its getting a nice shot of water and ammonia is now detactable and nitrates are back at 3


also in a seperate container i want to start culturing copepods so the tank is full of them once i get started with fish in it. i read the article on them over at seahorse.org
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/copepods.shtml

but do i need to already have a population of them or just put some saltwater into a container, and feed and they will come from that?

 

[whatnot45]

Copepods do not just spring up out of the sea salt, no... you will need to get a culture of them from somewhere. there is almost a 100 percent chance that your tank already has some living in your live rock. Put a small piece of live rock in a container, and then feed it for a while. Soon you will see white dots all over the glass of the container... then you can put the rock back in the main tank, and viola you have a culture of pods.

 

[fishymann]

ahha thanks whatnot, i didnt think they just appeared. The rock was all shipped to me though so would it still have them? It was all live, then shipped to me (5 days out of water).

Also i see a lot of people saying that they just culture them in their sumps but will my pump kill them?