Back in town and good to see you all !!

[Final-approach]

Good day all !! I had to leave town for over a week very unexpectedly and it is good to be home with my newly cycled reef tank. 80g with 120 of LR and a 5 inch DSB. It took 10 days to cycle out and my wife did a wonderful job keeping things running on course...as always A couple of questions have come up and I was hoping you all might be able to help me with some answers please. Temp swing is from 79.3 to 80.9 in a 24 hour period. Is that acceptable? Nitrates are now at 25ppm and I was wondering how long it takes to see some results from the DSB. In the mean time is the only thing I can do is water changes to keep nitrates down. Is 25ppm hurting my liverock? Still no fish or anything in the tank except whatever came on the rock. I'm putting in a "cleanup crew" on Wednesday and then I'll wait a month or so before adding a couple of fish and then a bit longer before the corals. There are a few spots of diatoms but only very few and they don't look healthy at the moment, at least for today. Good to see Jay is still at it and Happy Birthday to all of you that I missed being around for. Believe me, I would have much rather been here !! Thanks as always, as you all have HELPED me soooo much with my new reef. I hope someday to be able to help others out but for right now and still relearning the whole hobby of reef keeping. I can't wait to take some pictures and let you all see how all of your knowledge and input has helped me. Just waiting for everything to pop out before the photos. Thanks again everyone, good to see you all again
francis

[Geoff]

glad to see you back around, was wondering where you have been.

a 1.6 degree temp change is not bad at all for the summer. if this is the way it stays, than you should be fine especially for the time being.

i did not do any water changes when i was cycling my tank. i do now, but not in the initial cycling. i felt that i would be removing the food for the bacteria i am trying to culture. some agree, some do not. i also let my tank cycle without any critters for almost 3 months.

you might want to wait another week for the clean-up crews. the diatoms will come and go on their own. i would not want you to stress out the new critters with the nitrates.

G~

[Buzz_Hog]

Since your in Nevada, I'm assuming you don't use a heater....

For the price of one and it's operation in a Nevada climate, I'd suggest getting a 200 watt Ebo Jager just for the peace of mind at least....

check www.bigalsonline.com It's only like $15