New 14Gal bio build!!!

[aquawolf]

The brown stuff sounds like a Diatom bloom which is a very normal part of the cycle process. It feeds off of silicates and should disappear once the food source is gone. You can use a turkey baster to blow it off the rocks and keep it stirred up some if you want to as well.

HTH

[Paramecium]

How about the green stuff? I'm assuming it's a type of hair algae. Is that a normal part of the cycle as well? That stuff is all over the glass and most of the rocks.

~Danny

[Zach]

Sweet BioCube so far! I'll be following this one for sure. Be sure to give us a steady stream of pics.

[Paramecium]

I couldn't take it anymore and cleaned some of the stuff off the glass, most of the rock still has brown or green algae growing on it though. I also used a turkey baster to blast the rock clean and changed the floss on the overflow tray twice today. I believe one rock had a sponge type thing on it that is now dying off. It was brownish and is now somewhat loose so I blew/scraped it off and removed some of the bigger pieces. Hopefully this means that a real die off is happening. I don't mind the wait I just want a full cycle to happen.

~Danny

[aquawolf]

It sounds like you are on your way to a good cycle. Have you checked your ammonia level yet?

[Paramecium]

I will tonight when I get home, the other day it was still pretty low so hopefully it spikes soon. I saw the worm again last night, he is only an inch or so long from what I have seen and about half orange half grey. He has really only been hanging out in one spot so I'm intrigued to see if he starts cruising around more. So far it's just been him and lots of those little snails for stowaways, aside from the shrooms that I knew about.

~Danny

[Paramecium]

So I tested again today after being gone since Thursday.

PH~8.0 or a lil higher. Between .0 and .3 on Salifert test.
Amm~0
Trite~0
Trate~20
Salinity~1.024

It's only been 2 weeks and I never saw a spike in either ammonia or nitrite so I am wondering if that is still yet to come. The algae on the glass didn't come back where I cleaned it off but on the rocks it is about an inch long in places. The shrooms are getting bigger and more numerous and the brown algae seems to be tapering off.

I don't want to jump the gun on a cleanup crew but I would like to get the algae under control before it covers everything in the tank. Any thoughts???

~Danny

[Paramecium]

Tested again today and the same results.

PH~8
Amm~0
Trite~0
Trate~20
Salinity~1.026 but I need to top it off with RO

Still lots of green hair algae on the rocks and some purple bubble algae of some sort. Was thinking about doin a 5 gallon water change tomorrow and adding some cleanup crew. Any thoughts, is it too early? It's been 3 weeks with no real spike of any sort so I'm wondering if the rocks were fairly well cured when I got them. I was also thinking about adding an oceanic nano skimmer to clear the water up and take some of the nasties off the surface.

Any advice on the algae or cleanup crewand skimmer? Is it too soon and if it's not what and how many etc...

5 Gallons is about a 30% water change roughly. Is that enough?

How do I go about getting that ph up a bit as well? should be around 8.3 correct?

~Danny

Sorry about the flash but here's a pic

[mitchmac]

get ur cleanup crew in there and it will be taken car of a scalret shrimp . some blue/ red leg crabs a turbo and maybe even a lawnmower blenny !!! thats a lot of algae .....might wanna take care of it befor it ets outahand

[Paramecium]

So I got some of my cleanup crew this weekend!! Got 5 small black turbos, a few scarlet hermits and a blue knuckle hermit. Also an emerald crab and a few Nassarius snails to keep the sand moving. Everyone has been doing well and mowing down the hair algae!

I also threw in an Oceanic nano skimmer so we'll see how that does for things. Currently in the back of the tank i have the skimmer in the first chamber. Filter floss on top of the second chamber and the heater and MJ900 in the 3rd. The Hydor flow and koralia nano in the main tank. The temp is staying fairly consistent at about 78 and I retested yesterday and everything looked good. We'll see how the crew is doing later this week on the algae and this coming weekend we may add a few more snails and hermits and possible a cleaner shrimp.

~Danny

[aquawolf]

Sounds like things are progressing nicely for you. Congratulations on the clean up crew and let us know how the skimmer works for you.

[Paramecium]

Everything is still going great. We have been adding more CUC slowly, checking everything every few days. We have a blood shrimp and a few more snails in now and they are starting to knock out the hair algae problem. I'll get some pics up as soon as I can figure out how to take a decent pic with my camera.

~Danny

[crvz]

Glad to hear the algae is starting to recede. Looking forward to the pics!

[Paramecium]

The algae issue is getting much better. Been testing everything a couple times a week and the tank has been completely steady with a one and a half to two gallon water change once a week. One of the bigger mushrooms that was on the live rock from the start detached itself and moved to the back of the tank. Those shrooms have multiplied already a bit so I'm interested to see what happens with them. There are also a few darker red mushrooms that popped up recently.

I think we may be ready to add some coral soon and maybe a fish. I would like to go slow with just a couple corals and a fish at first. Any advice on a good starter coral?

~Danny

[Paramecium]

Did somebody say coral and livestock?

I still haven't gotten a good picture of the shrimp but he did clean my hand nicely for me the other day. On Friday we went to a few stores looking for some frags and ended up getting some Pulsing Xenia and some Zoa's. A local store called Eye Candy Aquariums had a large colony of the Xenia and he was kind enough to frag a couple small pieces off along with a small Zoa frag for 30 dollars. The hair algae is on the decline and today we got a small Starry Blenny to finish it off. Here's some pics of the coral along with some older ones I never got off the camera showing how bad the algae was before the cleanup crew. Along with some of my ghetto acclimation drip lines and the shrooms that came on my rock. The biggest one is the one that detached and moved to another rock a tthe rear of the tank. It has since reatached and seems happy.

The Xenia is looking great and pusling nicely and the Zoa's are opened up and seem happy as well. All of the lonf strands of hair algae are gone and the back wall is free of any algae. We have some coraline growing on the rear wall and powerhead as well. More pics to come soon.

~Danny