weirdest thing...about a 10 gallon I was working the other day

kyrie_eleison · 03-26-2007, 10:37 AM

I was kind of bored the other day and decided to take an old freshwater tank and convert it to saltwater but what I did was sort of in a way of cheating my way to the end. Last thursday, I took the old tank out; cleaned it up; drained it and took a scoop of established substrate out of my 55 and emptied the rest of the argonite (live sand) I had left in another bag. Next, I placed a big piece of live rock (nice center piece) I had been curing for about a month and half from a curing container I've been using. In the filter on top, I took an old bag of carbon and used that for addition filtration.

Well, on thursday afternoon (earlier) I had kept about 3 to 4 gallons of "waste-water" from a water change I performed on another tank. I used that 5 gallons (slightly high in nitrates) in addition to approx. 6 to 7 gallons of new water. Water was obviously cloudy for a few minutes but I fired up the filter; wiped down the glass and cleaned around the "florescent" light cover. And, I let it sit and do its thing.

Last night I tested it and to my surprise, pH=8.2; NH3=nil; NO2=nil; NO3=0.5. No algae bloom; nothing but a clear tank! I wasn't sure about this test so I tested it again only this time...I let the test tubes sit out for over 10 minutes to confirm.

Unbelievable. It took me more than a month to cycle a 5 gallon piece of crap and only 4 days to cycle this thing?! No money invested; not a dime.

Loverotties · 03-26-2007, 01:07 PM

I'd still waite.

kyrie_eleison · 03-26-2007, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loverotties

I'd still waite.

I am. It's weird...I'm kind of laughing about it. Originally, it was used for freshwater but a while back I converted it to a small saltwater quarantine. Yet ever since I got rid of my regal tang who pretty much cost me a gramma, coral beauty, naso tang AND a mandarin, I've not had much use for it (for any reason). It sat in my garage with salt creep all over it. It's amazing, getting rid of that Ich-magnet (regal tang) has given me this incredible feeling of comfort.

Just got to figure out what fish I'm going to put in there. Unfortunately, it can't be used as a nano-reef; piss-poor lighting. Oh well.

I'm going to let it sit for another week to see if it stabilizes; if it does...I'm thinking of getting a small maroon clown.

jenajet · 03-30-2007, 06:50 AM

That's the good thing about having mature systems. You can start up a new tank using mature rock and some water from the existing system and have very little if any cycle. You can always get a nice pc fixture for that tank pretty reasonable and make a nice softie or lps tank.

kyrie_eleison · 03-30-2007, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenajet

That's the good thing about having mature systems. You can start up a new tank using mature rock and some water from the existing system and have very little if any cycle. You can always get a nice pc fixture for that tank pretty reasonable and make a nice softie or lps tank.

You're absolutely right jena! From now on, NO more cycling from scratch. Come to think of it...I'm thinking of keeping the waste water that I was using to cure my rocks. THREE days; that's it! No special gimmicks whatsoever. That's an interesting idea...some PC lights? hmmm...I could put some really cool frogspawn or bubble corals in it and a bunch of zoas and some mushrooms and some starpolyps and maybe even a feather duster...

sorry, I'm getting too far ahead of myself. I turned a $0 dollar project into a $1000 aquaparadise. I do that sometimes.

XeniaGirl · 03-30-2007, 06:05 PM

I'm glad it worked out so well! How exciting... and think of all the money and time you saved!... you should go buy yourself something for your tank, to celebrate.

YiNYaNg · 04-03-2007, 04:38 AM

Yeap I did the same thing with my 10g .... Instant cycle

Daemonfly · 04-08-2007, 01:46 AM

Well, the main thing is that there should be no die-off like you'd get from new rock. Thats the big part of waiting for rock to cycle. All a cycle really is is populating everything with the proper bacteria, then waiting for the population levels to balance themselves. Nice clean rock & substrate thats already doing well in another tank won't have the issues that new rock will. "Uncycled" rock will have a lot of things dying, resulting in the excess waste chems.

Same reason Premium Aquatic's rock, for example, does so well as long as you ship it overnight/2-day. Their rock all sits in big vats and is already cycling. Also, if the rock at your LFS has been sitting for a while, it's already cycling there as well, but then again, some LFS rock can be pretty barren of life...

You don't even need to use wastewater from other tanks. Just rock & some sand for great results.

zero186 · 04-08-2007, 12:35 PM

lol i have done it too with my 5.5 used curing rock and used sand and 50-50 new-old water it did it in about 6 days but my PH is low so i havent added and it feels werid too right now since it did it so fast

kyrie_eleison · 04-08-2007, 11:48 PM

The tank worked out nice. I added a maroon clownfish; which is doing very well despite being in such confined quarters. However, I don't think I'm going to add anything more to it. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of taking it down. The marooon clownfish (which in my opinion is the most beautiful of all the clownfish) did not do anything wrong to deserve to be placed in such a small tank and this idea was just done out of bordem.

I'm feeling very sorry for what I did and as soon as I figure out a decent home for this beautiful fish I'm going to send him there. 10 gallons is just too small; he's not a freshwater betta.

zero186 · 04-09-2007, 07:42 AM

there is other things you could get, but yea 10g is too small for a maroon clown .

we all have done something like that before, but as long as you realized it good job

kyrie_eleison · 04-09-2007, 02:23 PM

here's a picture of my buddy. He's actually very responsive to my presence and joy to watch.

jenajet · 04-12-2007, 05:19 AM

Love my maroons! They are the most social of my fish (at least that I can touch and not get stung). My first fish was a maroon(still have her 6 years later and recently found her a mate that she didn't try to kill). Maybe you can get a used setup to move him to.

kyrie_eleison · 04-12-2007, 11:06 AM

Actually, I'm starting a new 55 gallon system FOWLR. He'll be the first resident. The tank and stand/hood are used but still in good condition. I spent last week sanding the stand/hood down and varnishing/glossing it up nice. It's not a bad set up if I say so myself. Luckily it will have a sump system so there'll be more swimming room. 6 years huh? That's pretty good. I've read that maroon clownfish have impressive longevity records. I haven't had mine for too long but I'm sure he'll be fine in my care.

I think two nano-reefs are good enough. Besides, they're more work than they're worth.

kyrie_eleison · 04-20-2007, 11:00 AM

Finally! I finally got found a new home for him. He is now the proud resident of a 30 gallon FOWLR tank here at work. He appears to be pretty happy. So...it looks quite promising!