Yep!!!!! Moved along pretty quickly like you said. I started cycling around November 22, with 30lbs of live sand, 7lbs of live rock, 15 lbs of base rock and 1 shrimp. Kept the lights off the whole time to keep algae at bay. Only thing I'm worried about is the pH is at 7.8 consistently (which may not be a bad thing), but I eventually want to put some corals in there and my research has been showing 8.2 to 8.5 to be more favorable. Been researching all the remedies but I'm gun shy on putting chemicals in the tank like Kent Superbuffer or Seachem Marine Buffer. My Alk is testing at 4.5-5.0 consistently. Any thoughts?
Tank Update: So look like I've had two casualties on the CUC. Two Astrea snails bit the dust and got cleaned up by the hermits. One of them got stuck in between some rocks and met his demise. The other....I think the hermits had it out for him. I won't be getting anymore of those Astrea since I have to spend so much time tipping them back over.
Also I have a question on flow. I woke up this morning and almost sh!t myself when I saw my clowns swimming funny and having a really hard time with the current. As you know I have a 20L with two Hydor Koralia 425s (one of each side, one blowing behind hte rocks and the other in front). Is this too much flow for them?
It's just the clowns! Mine did the same thing for a week and I was freaking out! It's just their behavior at first! Completely normal! It's not the flow. Mine swims around normal now with the same flow as before.
Hey Evansimp, what are you feeding your clowns? These guys are being extremely gun shy on San Francisco Brine Shrimp that I got from the LFS. :-(
Well I finally found a way to get these guys eating. Selcon and Garlic Extreme was all it too. Now these guys come flying up to the surface when I get near the tank. They are taking Brine, Flakes, and IO Marine Blend.
Had a stocking question though. Will a Six Line Wrasse be compatible with my two Occ Clowns?
Be careful with that garlic extreme. I tried garlic guard for a mandarin and got some hair algae. That stuff is pure liquid phosphate