New tank questions?

[milhous3er]

Bought a API saltwater master test kit today. Along with some cycle, one of those mag-floats and Phosguard to help eliminate the silicates in my tank. Hoping to post some test results tomorrow !!

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Kurt, He gave me a murky/sandy bag of water that came out of his sump that he uses for the tanks.

Most of the beneficial bacteria is living on the rocks, sand, and glass, and not in the water itself. There is no such thing as "cycled water".

I was just going to add a couple hermit crabs. Would that be a ammonia source ??

No... by ammonia source I meant something that would rot and create ammonia. Most common suggestion here is to use a raw shrimp from the grocery store. You can also use fish food.

 

[milhous3er]

Test Results

Kurt, its hard to explain what he gave to me in that bag. It had alot of particles/debris floating in it. It wasn't substrate (or enough of it collected for me to see it) but it didn't look like plain water either. I was thinking of doing the fish food method to start my cycling.

Since I didn't have an ammonia source I guess my test results are null and void. Well here they are if it matters...

PH- 8.0
Ammonia- 0ppm
Nitrite- 0 ppm
Nitrate- 10ppm (right around that 5-10 ppm color)

Salinity from a hydrometer- 1.022
Temp- 79-80

 

[milhous3er]

Picked up a sea-clone protein skimmer today !! Pretty excited to get it in my tank !! Can I remove my hang on filter now that I have a protein skimmer ??

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Hmmm. Sounds like an interesting bag of "stuff" you got. The fact that you have nitrates at this point give you three possibilities...

1. The nitrates are the end-product of your cycle
2. The nitrates were in your source water to start with
3. The nitrates came in with the bag of mystery stuff from the LFS

Just to be safe and know where you're at, if it was me, I'd throw an ammonia source in there and look for either ammonia/nitrites or an increase in nitrates. If you see ammonia/nitrites, then you aren't fully cycled yet. An increase in nitrates (assuming it isn't coming in from top-off water, etc) would imply the tank is cycled.

Regarding the hang-on-back filter... a protein skimmer and a HOB filter serve two totally different functions. One doesn't replace the other. A skimmer removes dissolved organics from the water before they can break down into nitrates. A HOB filter mechanically removes the big chunks, and can also be used as a place to put chemical filtration products like carbon, synthetic resins, etc. Many folks don't run any type of HOB filters on their tanks, but it all depends on how you use it.

 

[milhous3er]

I've been using the HOB filter pretty much as flow in my tank. I did put the phosguard bag into one of the holding chambers in the filter. So I can just drop some flake food in the tank and check on it later on in the week ??


That mystery bag was very exciting to pour into a tank. When the owner of the LFS tells me my tank has been professionally cycled and will act like a 2 year old cycled tank, I was ear to ear grinning !!

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

I'd check on it daily, but that's just me.

 

[milhous3er]

Ok !!! Thanks for all your help !! Hopefully I'll have some results here soon. I don't mind waiting...

I did notice some apistasia on one of my rocks though, and a small snail was on the glass last night. He must have been a hitchiker !!

 

[eatsomepopcorn]

Congrats.

 

[milhous3er]

Scratch the Seaclone 100 skimmer because it didn't come with all the parts (air valve was missing) and got the Coralife super skimmer 65. Drove about 25 minutes to find another store that had more skimmers to choose from. They seemed pretty sold on the quality of this skimmer and preferred it over the Seaclone.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Hmm. You didn't happen to look into the reviews on the Super Skimmer, did you? Might want to do some researching on THAT one before you take it out of the box!

 

[milhous3er]

Well Kurt thats the thing. Almost every skimmer that I looked at in my price range has some great reviews and some poor reviews. Is there anything that you know about this particular skimmer ??


Well after trying to place it in my tank, its way too big !!! It doesn't even fit in my tank with the glass canopy on !! Sooo I guess i'm taking this one back..

Test results I did today:

PH- 8
Ammonia- 0ppm
Nitrite- 0ppm
Nitrate- 10ppm

So nothing has changed in my tank as of 5/4. Placed fish flakes in tank on same day.
I did notice my snail thats in my tank found a new shell somewhere. Either he had a growth spurt, or there was another one in there. He went from a small white shell, to a coraline crusted shell. Oh well, i'll take it !!

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Well Kurt thats the thing. Almost every skimmer that I looked at in my price range has some great reviews and some poor reviews. Is there anything that you know about this particular skimmer ??...

I have no experience with that particular skimmer. But it seems that when looking at folks' reviews and writeups there is definitely a trend toward "suckiness" when it comes to the Seaclones and the Super Skimmers. Yeah... there are always good and bad reviews for everything, but eventually as you read enough of them you start to see some common issues. I just had to kind of chuckle because I know that you replaced a Seaclone that you mentioned you hadn't researched enough about, and you replaced it with the SuperSkimmer - which also suffers a bad reputation.

So what is your price range? I don't have any experience with in-sump skimmers, but I know other folks seem to be highly recommending the Reef Octopus series these days. Skimmers are like lighting, in my opinion - you get what you pay for. That's not to say that more money equals better, but it does mean that cheap doesn't mean good.

Sounds like a blessing in disguise that the skimmer didn't fit for you. And you thought this hobby was easy and relaxing?!

 

[milhous3er]

Well the seaclone had a missing part, so thats the reason why i returned that. My price range was around 150 or so. The skimmes that you mentioned, do they have a hang on back model ?? I don't have a sump, so I can't used it that way. I've been in this hobby before, getting out around 4 years ago. My tank was only 12 gallons so I didn't need a skimmer. I appreciate your input on helping me find a good skimmer. Hopfully i'll find one that does the trick.

Thanks again, Jason

 

[milhous3er]

So i'm at work now (where I do most of my SW research and reading) and I found this-

Reef Octopus BH-100F. It is only 3" deep so i'm sure I can get it into my tank. It got really good reviews from what I can read so far.

 

[jeffwisely]

hey thats good just don't ever get another seaclone. unless you are using it as a sump then they work fine. if you want an HOB skimmer look at the CPR bak pac they have great reviews and from what i hear there one of the best

 

[milhous3er]

Thanks for the input. Like you said they do have great reviews. Both are relatively the same size.

 

[milhous3er]

Purchased this CPR BAK PAK 2 skimmer after some thinking and reading the reviews. Both this and the Octopus BH100F had very good reviews. I like this because of the filtration thats in the skimmer, hopefully that means I can take my HOB filter off. What I did like about the Octopus was it had an extra resevoir where I could have hid my heater. Oh well, both are better than the Coralife and the Seaclone.

 

[milhous3er]

Some new LR I added yesterday-

Side view-

What my tank looked like before adding LR-

 

[milhous3er]

Someone got a 96watt compact flourescent lighting system today !!! Any guessers ??