[Gilraen Took]

I just got the lights last nigh, they're bright enough to light my entire room up! It's a 65 watt pc retro, and the lamp fits exactly over the top of my tank.

I put in about 10 lbs of base rock, 2 pounds of LR. I don't know how to describe it, but my completely dried out completely dead BR looks to have living purple stuff on it after a day>_> I'll take pics, but it isn't possible, right? Otherwise, I've got 3 small sponges that don't look like they'll make it, 4 feather dusters(just noticed one this morning, it's bright red!) and a few colours of coraline, burgandy, purple and green. Yay! Now to cycle it so I can put some live stuff in there. Met a guy the other night who is willing to give me some GS polyps, and possibly a mushroom. He also said he'd sell me some frags off of his zoas.

 

[dobejazz]

Congrats ! Now comes the hardest part waiting for the darn cycle

 

[110galreef]

Sounds good...what size tank? 20gallon?

 

[Gilraen Took]

I ended up going with my old 10 gallon tank. Kinda small, but it will work nicely I'm sure

Also, how often should I change water, when it gets to have a certain ammount of ammonia/nitra/ites, but what levels should I shoot to change the water at?

 

[110galreef]

Should never have amonia or trites. Some nitrates are not a big deal!

If you don't have a skimmer I's do 3-4 gallon WC every 2 weeks.
Skimmer then 3-4 gallons every 4 weeks!

 

[Gilraen Took]

I just meant when I was cycling it. I didn't want the cycle to take forever because I was overdoing it, yet didn't want to kill everything from underdoing it.

I think it's alright though. The tank was set up from scratch 2 nights ago(about 48 hours old) The water params:

spg 1.025
ph 7.9(a bit low though, right? Should I do anything about that?)
Ammonia about 1 ppm
nitrIte less than .5 ppm
nitrAte a bit over 5ppm
phosphate 0
alk 11
calcium 420 ppm

On a side note, I was messing around with my cheap crappy freshwater test kit before I took it to have it tested, the freshwater kit works perfectly>_>

Do you think the lights are bright enough? No other lights were on in my room when I took that picture.

Also, I've been looking at corals today. Figuring out what else I may want to keep. So far I'm still leaning towards having a tank full of zoos, and maybe a couple of shrooms. Other than that, would a fox coral or a candy cane be too large for a small tank like mine?

Last thought for the post: The store I've been going through sells corals for a nice low(around online) price, for some of the stuff they carry they beat the other stores in town by a bundle. An example, they've got purple mushrooms for about $10-20 for a rock with 10 or so on it, the others in town will sell that same rock for around $50! Plus they have really nice zoos for a really low price. I was asking for quotes, the most expensive piece that I liked was around $20, for a 5" piece of rock with at least 4 dozen polyps on it som green some red.

 

[110galreef]

The light should be good for most softies and some LPS...on my 10 gallon I have 2 65w PC....:dance: So the corals you listed will be fine and not to big

I have a little bit of everything in it, many of which you mentioned........here is a picture.

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85397&highlight=110galreef+read

or check thelink above for a bunch of macro shots of the corals in there!

Also I really don't test anything in my tanks other than salinity. I figure as long as my corals look happy and I am doin regular WC everything should be fine!

 

[Gilraen Took]

*shrugs* I figure I should check it for a bit after I add anything new, but I'll probably slip into the habbit I'm in with my fresh tanks, which is exactly what you seem to do

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/baserock1.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/baserock2.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/baserock3.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/baserock4.jpg

That's what my original BR looked like(pardon the crappy substrate, it's been changed out) The rocks I got are a piece that is off to the side of the big one and another that rests on it. It looks good so far. Also, the LFS with the good prices is holding my first piece of coral for me. It's a little tiny rock with about 10 zoo polyps on it, they're all tiny and he told me he'd sell it to me for a buck when the parameters get right Shouldn't be too long, I'm assuming? Since it's already getting some nitrate in it and that usually means that the ammonia is getting through the cycle, right? So that plus a couple of mushrooms, some GSPs and maybe a LPS or two. Should have a full tank without the fish even.

 

[jenajet]

Wow zoos for a buck! How a bout a fts of it up and running even if its just the rock?

 

[Gilraen Took]

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/Gilraen_Took/mytank.jpg

There it is, in a bad quality photo. Had to take it on my phone since my guy's camera is dead until he finds his battery charger The small piece of rock on top has at least 2 red feather dusters, purple and burgandy coralline on top, green on the bottom, the piece off to the side of the main structure is a dark red and has at least 4 feather dusters. I also have a couple of small pieces of LR on the substrate(probably going to put one in my fuge) one has green coralline and a bit of yellow encrusting sponge(no clue if that's living or dying>_>) the other has burgandy and green. Also, those spots on the sand are some crushed coral from an established tank and some shells I found on the bottom of the LR bin I was digging through the other day.

Yeah, mad good price on the zoos. The only bad thing is that they are TINY! Know those cheap bic pens that have the button on top where you can push the writing tip out? Even the biggest one of the polyps on it would fit its head on the top of that. I do love their prices though. The most expensive corals I was looking at from him(the 2 LPS) would be $20/$25.

 

[avalanche wolf]

D you have a reflector on your lights ? Didnt seem like it in the pic. Might help in diverting some more of that light into the tank.

 

[Gilraen Took]

Yeah, I've got a diverter. Or, rather that is the metal part that covers the light, right?

 

[Gilraen Took]

Do I really not need to worry about the nitrates? They're pretty high in there today, around 40 ppm(if I'm reading that right. between 20 and 80 '>_>) do I need to worry that they'll harm anything being that high or is that normal? Also, will they go down as the tank finishes cycling or do they only go down with water changes(and macro)?

Also, my lfs only really carries caulerpa. Would that be likely to be okay since it would be in such a small container that it'd not be able to grow for long before I cut it back?

 

[110galreef]

Nitrates not a big deal right now.......I wouldn't mess with the calp....
just let it cycles...........

 

[Gilraen Took]

It WILL keep cycling on its own, right? Other than the nitrates jumping up a bit the day before yesterday there really hasn't been any change in it at all. Today the parameters are just the same as they were then...

Oh, and the macro thing was just for later, when I get the fuge set up. I wouldn't get any now, and I think I'll stick with trying to get my lfs to order me some chaeto.

 

[storrisch]

yeah your nitrates are gonna sky rocket for a bit. The bacteria begin to break down the ammonia into nitrites and then into nitrates. There is nothing in your tank that will consume the nitrates for now. A refugium later on will help with the nitrate level and water changes are the only thing that will fully cut them out.

 

[Gilraen Took]

Okay, the ammonia has gone down a bit and I'm starting to get a green and brown algae bloom so much for it not moving^_^

 

[Gilraen Took]

When should I be making my next move with the tank? It's got close to nothing for ammonia levels and the other 2 are still sorta high. Also, the algae seems to be taking over(hence where my worrying begins ) and is covering a lot of my coralline. Should I leave it or do something else with it?

 

[storrisch]

the algae shows a step in the right direction. depending on how high the nitrates and nitrites are you might be able to add a few inverts to help keep the algae down.

 

[Gilraen Took]

Hm, as of this morning the ammonia was almost nothing, the trites are about .5 and the trates are around 40. And the algae is covering my tank... So could I get away with a couple of snails then, or should I wait it out a bit longer?