The new guy (sort of) with a question...

[TrippAllen]

I used to be big into this hobby (in my opinion) several years ago; I had 55, 75 and 120 reef tanks, two of which were filled with "the package" from TBS. About 12 years ago I got out of the hobby due to time and cost constraints. A couple weeks ago I went snorkling in Jamaica and realized how much I missed my tanks, so I'm back at it again, this time with a 90G reef. Richard at TBS is the BEST, so I have once again purchased a package for the tank. I'm amazed at how things have changed since I got rid of my tanks several years ago. In the past, I had huge 40lb ballasts for the MH lights and quite large ballasts for the VHOs. For this tank, I puchased a ML 24 hour lighting system with the MH, T5 and LEDs built in, with only 1 cord! I love it! Anywho, on to my question...

Richard sent me my first shipment of rocks (four large, beautiful rocks) and they were added to the tank yesterday. Today, I noticed a large sponge on one of the rocks had turned white, so I removed the rock and scraped off the dead (and smelley) sponge. To go along with that, I have an ammonia spike (all part of the cycle) but it's not at levels that require a water change yet. But, nitrates are spiking pretty high as well. I'm a little rusty with all this, so please help jog my memory; is water change the best thing to bring the nitrates down?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Tripp

 

[noahm]

Personally, I wouldn't pay too much attention to nitrates at this point in the cycle, but keep and eye on the ammonia for now. However, if either get to a level you don't feel comfortable with, WC should be fine. The idea that WC prolong the cycle was discussed in one of the recent Reefkeeping Magazine articles here on RC.
Basically, the gist of the article (I am too lazy to look it up, but it was something like the 'Top 10 myths of Reefkeeping' ) was that most of the bacteria that is colonizing your tank is in your rock/sand etc. and that removing even large portions of water is only going to remove a minimal amount of bacteria in the overall picture. Others may disagree, but it makes sense to me, so use your own judgement. Just my 2 cents.

Oh yeah. Pics... where are they?

 

[TrippAllen]

Pics will come but I want to let the water clear up a little bit more first. Now that I have the lights running we found our first hitch hiker today. I think it's a type of goby that is blue with black stripes. I've never had a fish as a hitch hiker before!

 

[tektite]

Probably a tiger goby. I got one as a hitchhiker too.

Here's a picture of it:

 

[TrippAllen]

That's it exactly! We also found a mantis tonight - he's an ugly critter!