EBCourtney
New member
Hello All! I have been out of the hobby for almost 8 years now. A move overseas in 2018 prompted a shutdown of all things fish related. Upon our return to the US I set up the one tank I kept in my office at work as a 20 gallon planted, CO2 injected aquarium. A lot of my equipment is first or second generation (ie: OLD) including the AI Hyrda LED light over the tank. When we upgraded the routers at work something happened that the light got kicked off and despite many MANY attempts, troubleshooting, calls with customer support, etc. the light just would not reconnect so it defaulted to its original saltwater spectrum programming. At the same time my CO2 tank ran out of gas and it's such a monumental pain to get it filled I decided it was time for the whole thing to come down.
It's too bad because I will say at it's peak, it was a beautiful tank but had become so overgrown that there was barely any substrate left! It was just a solid mat of plant roots that I had to feed monthly.
So last week everything got ripped out and in went 30lbs of live sand. I let it sit from Wednesday to Wednesday just running. It cleared up perfectly. A few days ago I set up 22lbs of live rock from Pacific East Aquaculture. I will admit I was hoping for more "life" from their live rock, but not much I can do about it now. There are a few little featherdusters that I can see but that's about it. Aside from the sand and rock, the only other filtration currently are some socks full of carbon. There is a protein skimmer (I can't for the life of me remember the brand) set up but not on yet as I doubt there's much point this early on. Tank is an Innovative Marine 25 gallon Fusion Lagoon. There is an ATO set up and I'm hopeful that my husband can resurrect my first generation MP10. The controller works but the adjustment is seized and I think a bearing is bad on the dry side. If so there's nothing to lose by following a few You tube videos to try and open it up to repair. I have the battery backup for it so I'd love to get it running again. I have an MP40 as well but even at its lowest setting I can't imagine it won't launch everything inside that tank into next week!
I'm still waiting on test kits to arrive so aside from the salinity (1.024) and pH (8.5) I don't have any values yet. My coworkers are begging for a clownfish and I will oblige them. I'm debating an anemone as I'd like to do some smaller gobies as well and don't want them to wind up being expensive snacks. The other big thing is I don't have access to RODI water. I can't set it up at work and I'm not dealing with it at home and lugging to work. Ironically I work at a water treatment company so the amount of filtration the tap water runs through is pretty significant. I'm really not planning on corals or at least nothing outside the most basic. I might try my hand at some macro algae.
What is the current "rule" of cycling a tank? It's been running with live sand since 12/31 and live rock 1/7. I will admit I've absolutely done the old school method of throwing a damsel in there to jump start things.
If anyone has any tips/tricks/advice on someone starting over again I'd be grateful!
It's too bad because I will say at it's peak, it was a beautiful tank but had become so overgrown that there was barely any substrate left! It was just a solid mat of plant roots that I had to feed monthly.
So last week everything got ripped out and in went 30lbs of live sand. I let it sit from Wednesday to Wednesday just running. It cleared up perfectly. A few days ago I set up 22lbs of live rock from Pacific East Aquaculture. I will admit I was hoping for more "life" from their live rock, but not much I can do about it now. There are a few little featherdusters that I can see but that's about it. Aside from the sand and rock, the only other filtration currently are some socks full of carbon. There is a protein skimmer (I can't for the life of me remember the brand) set up but not on yet as I doubt there's much point this early on. Tank is an Innovative Marine 25 gallon Fusion Lagoon. There is an ATO set up and I'm hopeful that my husband can resurrect my first generation MP10. The controller works but the adjustment is seized and I think a bearing is bad on the dry side. If so there's nothing to lose by following a few You tube videos to try and open it up to repair. I have the battery backup for it so I'd love to get it running again. I have an MP40 as well but even at its lowest setting I can't imagine it won't launch everything inside that tank into next week!
I'm still waiting on test kits to arrive so aside from the salinity (1.024) and pH (8.5) I don't have any values yet. My coworkers are begging for a clownfish and I will oblige them. I'm debating an anemone as I'd like to do some smaller gobies as well and don't want them to wind up being expensive snacks. The other big thing is I don't have access to RODI water. I can't set it up at work and I'm not dealing with it at home and lugging to work. Ironically I work at a water treatment company so the amount of filtration the tap water runs through is pretty significant. I'm really not planning on corals or at least nothing outside the most basic. I might try my hand at some macro algae.
What is the current "rule" of cycling a tank? It's been running with live sand since 12/31 and live rock 1/7. I will admit I've absolutely done the old school method of throwing a damsel in there to jump start things.
If anyone has any tips/tricks/advice on someone starting over again I'd be grateful!
