Hello everyone

[AdamHorton]

Hello, my name is Adam and I'm from Ohio, USA. I've been keeping fish for about a year and a half seriously, and I've just started a page on my website with details about my aquariums:

Adam's FLog

Any advice or comments are welcome. You can either post them here or send me E-mail (a link is on the aquarium page). Thanks!

-Adam Horton

 

[jessicasmarine]

Welcome to AA, interesting link

 

[CementShoes]

Thank God the fish are small and the tank large. At least the pollution will be diluted over many gallons and give them a chance a survival, with or without impairment.

You have not skipped the cycle, simply diluted because of the large amount of water. The bacteria will grow to support the life within thus your 'spike' may be small, again due to dilution and the small/few specimens in the tank.

Those pics don't look like 50 lbs of LR and if your sump is really 5-10 gallons you may have some filtration issues down the road.

Good luck with it though. You're the poster child for recommending getting a super large tank to start.. It helps.. you and the livestock.

 

[AdamHorton]

CementShoes-

That's the first thing I've heard that's made any sense, that cycle has been diluted and not skipped. I have a question then, what will happen when I start to add more livestock to the tank? My guess is that I may see another diluted cycle while the amount of bacteria of each kind increases in number to support more ammonia waste from more fish. I do have a wet-dry filter, though (there's a picture of it towards the bottom of the FLog link), and I've heard that those often house too much of that kind of bacteria, resulting in higher nitrate levels. I want to start adding a few corals and anemones soon, as well as maybe a few more and larger fish in the future -- will this diluted cycle cause any complications when that happens?

I'm pretty sure it's 50 pounds of live rock, since that's what I paid for, though it really doesn't look like much in that huge tank... I want to add a refugium down the road, but it's not entirely clear how I should do it with my filter setup as it is.

Again, thanks for your help.

-Adam

 

[melosu58]

You should not even think about corals till your tank has matured and is stable.That means 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and low nitrates with 0 being the goal. When I say stable I mean it has to stay that way and not have swings of those parameters.

 

[AdamHorton]

It's been more than 4 weeks since I've had any significant readings (above 0) in any of those. Nitrate has been constantly zero, Nitrite has been 0 for a couple of weeks and very low (0.05 ppm) before that, Ammonia has been between the two lowest colors on my color card (0.25 ppm and 0) and getting closer to zero every time. I still plan on waiting a week or two (minimum) to get one anemone for my clownfish, should I wait longer?

 

[CementShoes]

Add slowly, though i would expect you'd see nothing more than a blip on the a/n/n readings because of the size. I would worry more when you go to add more LR. Cure it well.. YOURSELF.. even if you buy 'cured' rock. Put 50-100lbs of non cured/partially cured rock in there and your dilution advantage comes to an end.

 

[melosu58]

An anenome needs to be in a mature tank of at least 6-9 months old. They can not handle swings in the tank.

 

[AdamHorton]

Silly question: suppose some day I had a whole bunch of live rock, and a lovely, beautiful reef on top of it. How much live rock would you say makes enough "filter media" for me to take out the wet/dry filter I have and replace it with, maybe a refugium or something, without sending the whole ecosystem down the toilet?

I know some people use only live rock for filtration and it works, but how much live rock would I need to do that in a 150 gallon tank?

 

[mdaniel2882]

You need to wait, read a lot of the articles posted, and wait some more. I think that you will see that most of the people that have SW tanks waited at least a couple of weeks before adding ANY fish and you have 8.

I would do a 50% water change if I saw ANY NH4OH in my tank.

That is a very nice setup you have. I would start with 150 lbs of live rock for a 150 gal tank

The cardinal rule of SW aquaria

The only thing that happens fast in a SW world is a tank crash. GO SLOW!!!

 

[rive1404]

When you add LR you may experience a mini cycle, or even another full cycle. Look for cured LR to minimize the die off. I'd hold off on adding anything else.

Take it nice and easy, Adam. After adding LR just keep reading on AA for a while and watch your params. It'd be much less stressful for you to do so while there aren't hundreds of dollars of coral in the tank.

Most importantly: ENJOY! Take this time to make future plans for corals and fish and research each one's individual needs. You'll be that much more prepared when the time comes.

 

[AdamHorton]

Well the only thing I'm planning on adding to the tank any time soon is more live rock, and maybe more fish at about the same pace I am now, which isn't terribly much. It looks like Yipes will have to wait for his anemone.

I don't plan on putting anything other than cured LR into the tank of course, but cured LR sure is expensive around here. The best price I can find is $6.50/lb.

I guess I'll start a new thread about LR since it doesn't really fit in here.