cycling new tank

[supafreak]

i'm setting up my 120ga tank. I used a bag of live sand, and lots of crushed coral, and had a tone of base rock. I added a few pieces of live rock from my smaller marine tank. I stole some filter media from my established tank, and also took some substrate from my cycled tank and put it in a baggy and stuck it in another filter. I did a partial water change from the established tank and put it in the new tank. I went out and got 4 damsels to do the rest of the work for me.

last night i noticed one of the damsels was not a good color of blue, but he was eating aggressively, so i turned out the light and went to bed. This morning he was no where to be found. I tore every piece of rock out of the tank looking for his dead body and finally found him stuck to the power head. Part of me wanted to leave him in there to speed up the process, but common sense prevailed, and i took him out, and did a small water change (7g)

I tested the water and got some numbers:
amonia-0.3
nitrite-0.5
ph-between 8.3-8.5
I understand in tanks with high ph, ammonia is much more toxic, and there fore this amount of ammonia could be a problem

my question is, are these conditions to blame for the death of my damsel? I know these guys are really hardy, and as someone has put it to me "can live in rootbeer" haha, or do you think that my power head is to blame? I really cant see a healthy fish getting stuck to the powerhead, but these are small lil buggers, so who knows?

finally, i was wondering if anyone had any advice on anything i might be missing in regards to cycling my tank? Have the measures i took to speed up the process reasonable, or a complete waste of my time? Anything that might speed up the process?

 

[steve r]

i am pretty new but i have learned from this forum that any ammonia can be toxic, and i think that is correct that the level of toxic ammonia does relate to the ph level.

i think you may be after the holy grail of tank cycling by looking for the faster way to do it. i believe fishless cycling is the prefered and more humane way to set up the tank.

just my thoughts. i have been wrong before

steve r

 

[supafreak]

but are damsels really fish? i alwayse thought they were little devils! haha, but seriously, ya maybe more humane, i'm just going on what the ifs recommended. I'm experienced with freshwater, and think that those products that you can buy to speed up the cycle are useless, and silly because the bacteria die due to lac on amonia! I tried for a month and a half to cycle my fw tank and fianlly got some fish in there and it completeed it's cycle in a few days, and i didn't loose anything. I'm not expecting the same in this tank, loosing no fish i mean, so we'll see. My main concern here is that i might not be covering all bases for cycling my tank, and i want to keep the spikes to as much af a minimum as possible, so any advice to that would be much apreciated. Do you guys think i should do daily water changes? Not sure really because the marine tank i have came to me already established, and we'v don't well with it, but i'v never had to go through the cycling of a marine tank. Is there anything different in regards to fresh water and marine cycling, or is it chemically the same?

 

[Salttanker]

Supafreak - You will get the same results using a piece or two of raw shrimp from the grocery. It's not as fun to watch, but it will let you know when the cycle is pretty much over. It is better than using a Damsel.

Mike

 

[SaltySteve]

My numbers are close to yours.
I have two Damsels doing very well!

 

[supafreak]

really? i'm sure mine will get worse as my cycle continues. As for the damsels, well, if i loose the others, then i will look into the coctail shrimp. thanks guys. Saltysteve, are you cycling a tank currently?

 

[SaltySteve]

Yes I am!
I am using Aroganite substrate LR and Coralife PC lights. Just added the clean up crew yesterday. Snails and crabs! Never cycled a tank before with LR, I really liked it. Had some help from the LFS as well, grabbed some of there water, media etc
Day 20 ! Ammonia is coming down, Nitrite is coming down and now today I see I have .20 Nitrate
Probably not quite over yet but I have what looks like a healthy Anemone growing :? Prolly just leave him for now LOL
Things are coming along well

 

[supafreak]

sounds good. Did you cycle with damsels? did you loose any? I don't want to add anything from my other tank until i know that everything is fine, especially my clean up crew because i know they can be more sensetive. I'll ride it out and hope for the best. I just have a regular marine glo florusant light on the tank right now, and a mh in the mail on the way. Havn't decided deffently on what i want for lighting, but the mh is going in the tank. Maybe another mh and a few just plain old marine glo bulbs....do you think that would be enough? it's 120g btw

 

[SaltySteve]

Very nice 120 Gallons, one day
According to my research MH is definitely very nice accompanied with Actinic. My first response was Marine Glo's are a different color spec compared to Actinic but perhaps another enthusiast should chime in. I have only just begun this hobby myself You sound like we have read the same material
Looking forward to seeing pictures of your tank!
Steve

 

[supafreak]

can someone explain what Actinic is?

I know that mh is blue spectrum, and i think i have the marine glo on my onther tank in white, and blue bulbs, but i don't know if that has much to do with the spectrum

 

[Iccemaan]

The blue bulbs you speak of may very well be your actinic lights. They look just like black light 9well pretty much) however cover the spectrum needed for most corals.

I think this is true..........