Will this tank make it???

[stingers81]

Hey guys
I think i might have messed up

1st mistake: my LR was delayed in mail for 8 days
2nd mistake: I put the delayed LR right into my tank without first curing it
3rd mistake: I have a sand bad

what do you guys think?? Will this tank make it or what??

the rock is doing pretty good i think....here are some pictures:

first day when I added the rock

This is the rock now

and here is a shot of my sand bad

here are my parameters:
0 ammonia
almost 0 nitrite
100 nitrate
460 calcium
0.5 phosphate
8.2 pH
78 temp
its been running for almost 3 weeks now

There was quite a bit of dead stuff on the rock....i would say 2/3 of it is off the rock now and new stuff is starting to grow.....I dont have much of an algae problem on the rock...pretty clean so far....I have some brownish/purple hase on the sand in the middle....Im guessing thats diatoms and cyano.....I turkey blast the rocks everyday and then i siphon all the debry that accumulates on the sand....Im running my g3 skimmer pretty wet and is picking up quite a bit....try to do 5-10% water change every couple days....im running carbon and im getting a refug set up right now...

what do you think??? will my sand bad survive or will it crush?? im reading so much about dsb and how you're suppose to cure your rock in seperate containers for 3 months...what do you think I should do? continue what im doing or get rid of the sand and kinda start over?

any suggestions will help
cheers!

 

[areze]

I would leave the rock in there for atleast a month total. longer if there are any detectable nitrite or ammonia at that time or if it looks ugly.

then I would add fish reeeeaaaalll slow.

might want to pick up a really nice peice of LR locally too, just so you know if anything died off you have 1 good source of "stuff" to inhabit the tank.

 

[jarhed]

Ummm... first of all, a sand bed is not a bad thing. There are more sand beds out there than there are bare bottom. I think it's just a matter of preference.

Second... what kind of sand is that?

If you have no animals in the tank, I'd say you can just cure the rock right where it is. PLEASE dont add any fish yet. I think you'll be fine. It'll just take you a while to get those nitrates down.

Nitrate at 100????????? :eek2: WOW!!!!

 

[areze]

side note, what test kit are you using, Im not sure if mine even goes to 100 lol.

nitrates are not toxic, but their not good either.

 

[stingers81]

dont worry
Im not adding anything yet....I will probably wait until march until I add any fish....I might add a shrimp or few snails once my nitrates get down

yes my nitrates are at 100
all the tests were going crazy when I added the LR.....ammonia jumped to 1.5-2.0 the first day....I started doing 10% wc daily....after 6 days the ammonia dropped to 0 and nitrites went up to 4.0.....it stayed at 4.0 for about 15 days.... they just dropped to near zero today....so now its nitrates....Im getting a refugium set up right now and im gonig to do 5-10% daily or every second day....hopefully the nitrates will drop fast....

jarhed...
dont get me wrong...I luv the look of a sand bed....I dont want to get rid of it...I was just worried because everywhere I read it says cure the LR in seperate containers....if i was to remove this sand...I would get sand again once the rock fully cures....but if people think this sand will be ok then im going to leave it.....the sand btw is quikrete play sand...silica based...i wish it was that white stuff but I couldnt find any of southdown here and im not paying $40 for 30lb bag of aragonite sand in my lfs....

 

[stingers81]

i use salifert for all my test kits

 

[areze]

that is a very... brown sand. if you like it, its all good. not like I can keep the expensive argonite stuff white anyway.

 

[xcreonx]

Is that the Quickrete playsand from home depot? There used to be a link to an informative article written by Dr Ron I believe about different sand grains and their benefits/drawbacks. I can't seem to find it right now. Might be a good thing to search for.

 

[stingers81]

areze
it is pretty brown...I wish it was the white stuff but I can't find any....although it looks a little better in real life then on those pictures....Im going to upgrade to a bigger tank in few years so if I ever find that stuff I will just buy it and put it aside....for now this sand will do the job

 

[delafe]

After the rock has cured for a month do a 50% water change followed by another 50% water change a week or two later. Before changing the water (both times) stir up the sand as much as possible so that the ditritis that settled in the sand is freed up and can be removed from the tank with the water change.

-Alfred