wet/drys

[border324]

hi i just got my new wet/dry filter today and my live rock on thursday.i am trying to cycle my tank with the live rock. i brushed off alot of the dead stuff on the rock with a brush and now theres more floating in my tank. i have my wet dry up and running but i dont see where it is a good mach. filter. i have a 55 galon saltwater tank. and i have a rio 17hs pump at 4 foot 850gph . how could i get the floating dead stuff out of my tank with out adding bad looking filters to the back of my tank? i hope you can understand this.
thanks
michael

Sounds Crazzy, but womens hose and a painted unscratched coat hanger works wonders.. makes a real fine skimmer net...

[border324]

lol i have a fish net. i use now. i was just wondering if there was a better way.
i have had my liverock in my tank now for 2 days and my ammo is off the charts 8.0 and my nitrites have not started to yet but i wanted to know is it time to do a 50% water change so stuff on my rock dont die that i want to keep?
thanks michael

[WarOrks15]

ya when i cycled with my live rock i did a 50% water change every other day. now that i am done with the cycle and put the lighing on it the rock i am vary happy that i did that. there is a ton of soft and sps growing all over.

[border324]

i am seeing alot of white film on the rocks now. will that go away or do i have to scrub them again?i just did a 25 % water change now i do another one here soon.
thanks
michael

[WarOrks15]

i would just let that grow. i took most of that off but i think it was stuff growing now. be sure to keep the light off in there so you do not get a ton of allege growing.

[border324]

i keep my temp at about 82 to speed die off. and my nitrites are about .25.
now i have a bunch of white film all over my rock and its really stinks bad the wife is getting mad.
during this cycling i cant keep my ph to stay at 8.2 its more like 7.8 or lower i add buffers. that works for about 3 hrs and then drops again.
i dont think the sudden rise and drop of ph can be good for the critters on the liverock can it?
thanks michael

[cmor1701d]

When your ammonia spiked at 8+ most if not all 'critters' died. You are going through the cycle, producing beneficial bacteria. After the cycle, as the rock matures you will start see an amazing amount of life coming back. I'm talking about months here, not days or weeks.

Doing water changes during the cycle period will lengthen the cycle time. The smell will go away.

Do you have any powerheads in there for increased water flow or just the return from the wet/dry?

[border324]

i have a water pump rated at about 750ghp at about 5 foothead height. . i have 2 power head in my tank at this time one a maxi-jet 1200 and a maxi-jet 900 for water movement. i guess theres no way to get around to saving the critters on the rock right. its ok i got time. not trying to rush things here. i made that mistake last time around. any more helpful suggestion would be greatfull.
thanks
michael

[WarOrks15]

well i would not say months to get stuff growing. my live rock just finished cycleing about 2 weeks ago and i got my lighing one week ago and i can see the rock change color. it when from a white yellow to a deep red. looks vary cool. but the soft corls that i got are makeing a little grow now.

[cmor1701d]

The coralline algae will start quickly if there was any on the rock or in the tank to seed it and there's enough light and the water quality is good. Then over time you will start to notice new things seemingly spring to life on the rock. New things popping up all the time. I still find new stuff on the rock that I put in 11 months ago. I can't wait to see what will start popping up when I get this new batch in the tank.

[border324]

cool so every thing could die now. and later down the road my critters and coralline algae will grow back. under the right lighting. i have read so many book these past weeks about light on reef systems. i am thinking about some vho lighting or power compacks. i here they do really good on reefs and you dont need the really expensive matel hilide set-ups. what do you think?
thanks
michael

[WarOrks15]

well on my tank i just have 2 PC. i really like the way it looks with both lights on. all the white in the fish and the shrimp have a nice "glow" to them. i payed 236 i think for my unit 192 watts and 3 moon lights all in one hood. so i guess that would be a no. but it all depends on what you want to grow in your tank

[cmor1701d]

cool so every thing could die now.

Well not everything. I was just moving some rock around inthe tub where it's curing and re-postioning the PH's. I saw the largest bristle worm I've ever seen retract into a rock.

As for your lighting, almost anything will work fine for a FO or FOwLR tank. NO, VHO, or PC are fine. MH would be inidcated if you wanted to go reef, but you would need to make other changes to do that (dumping the wet/dry).

[border324]

why dump the wet dry. i just spent like 400$ on it i wanted a reef set up. i thought a wet dry system was the way to go?
will it work?

[cmor1701d]

i thought a wet dry system was the way to go?

So did my friend. I've since dumped the bio balls and turned my wet/dry into a sump. I'm planing on removing it altogether and making a larger sump out of a 29 gal tank.

It's time to start reading the articles here and asking more questions.

If by reef you mean you want to add corals, etc. then the wet/dry should go unless you like doing constant maintenance and water changes. They are great at converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. They are referred to as nitrate factories. That's fine for FO but not for a reef aquarium. Reef systems should be reading 0 for NH3, NO2 and NO3.