90 gal: Established 19th Feburary!

[Ratfish]

The set up process is finished. Got RO/DI water, live rock and sand, sump all plumbed. I filled it up so here is what it looks like. Still murky, but guess that's normal, its clearing slowly. Very few micro bubbles. Think salinity was about 1.024 or so. Have to wait and let it dilute more.

I learned an interesting thing with the plumbing on my own, I guess you want the flow from tank to sump to be stronger, right? It seemed to balance and equalize itself. I was worried about flooding but don't think I will have problems with that. I kept my plumbing simple.

Flow is holding steady at that top marker. Heating water to 76 for starters

I have about 60lbs dry rock and 44 lbs live rock. About 30lbs of sand, covers the bottom about an 1 1/2".

I'm thinking of using ammonia instead of shrimp to help cycle, more info on that would be great.

Also when should I test for the first time? I have a basic kit for ammonia and nitrates and ph.

Here was my original tank design. I stuck fairly closely to it. I plan on keeping things as simple as possible, that is my hope. Find out what the tank needs as I go along. Just glad its finally up and running!

 

[Chichas01]

Nice start. On beginning your cycle, just start feeding your tank. You don't have to use ammonia or a shrimp but you can. throw in some flake or pellet food or a little chunk form a frozen food cube. That will get things rolling.

 

[Peppie]

IMO you dont need to test your water for a least 4 weeks.

 

[Krish]

Nice start! When the water clears up you'll have to post another full tank shot. By the looks of it, it seems like you have a really nice aquascape hiding in there! Would love to see it when it clearly!!

Good luck with the setup!! What are your plans? Reef setup or FOWLR??

 

[eww]

I would test periodically (every few days) just to see what is happening. If you wait four weeks you may miss it and not know how strong of a cycle you went through.

I have to say you did a nice clean job on this from what we can see. Congrats and welcome to the club. One thing though.... MORE PICS!!!

 

[Ratfish]

I may test tonight just to know where I am starting at. I'm pretty good with excel so I'm sure I'll make some neat little graphs to help monitor over the course of weeks/months.

The majority of the cloudiness is gone, still some clearing up to do, but its going away quickly. I will have more pictures of my rock arangement soon.

My plan is to have a reef tank... eventually.

 

[Krish]

Nice!! Well if doesn't completely clear up it could be from tiny particles floating in the water so you can maybe run a polishing cartridge, filter sock etc to catch whatever is in the water column if it comes to that.


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[Ratfish]

My test results revealed:
pH 8.4
Ammonia .25ppm
NO2- 0ppm
NO3- 0ppm

So absolutely nothing really. The ammonia level may mean I am began the cycle but I will test on sunday to see if there is any change. I plan on adding perhaps a 1/4 ounce of ammonia once I see the levels rise on their own so I can boost the cycle, but not until I see change occur natural so not to have an off time double ammonia peak. Or I may do nothing. I am tempted to let it run natural. It's hard to be patient. Also hard to stare at rocks for a month.

I have an octopus hurricane (not hurricone) recurculating external skimmer I still need to set up. But I am still trying to figure out when to start it up. When I hit the NO2- phase? When my algaes creep? That would be nice to know.

 

[Ratfish]

Update: Things clearing up

Here is a clearer view of my aquascape....

Full view

There is still a lot of sediment on the rocks , lockline and korellias. Wondering if I should blow it off some how.

I'm thinking of blue for a backing. Black would seem too stark for my tastes.

Well, its all about waiting now... probably sit around and start naming my rocks.

 

[Jesse_emel]

An old turkey baster is good for blowing sediment off pocks and equipment. Looking good so far, keep the updates coming.

 

[user 26995]

Well, its all about waiting now... probably sit around and start naming my rocks.

LOL!!! Thats funny.

Have you picked out your favorite one yet?

Tank is looking great!!! Blue background will look really good. Cant wait to see livestock in there.
I hate waiting.

 

[Raamiah]

Waiting does suck but to speed things up even more I would suggest asking around for some sand from an established tank and maybe even some water. Those two really moved my tank from a long wait to a much shorter cycle.

 

[Krish]

I agree on getting some sand from an established tank as it will add some beneficial bacteria in there to jump start things. I wouldn't worry too much about tank water because really there isn't a whole lot of free floating bacteria in the water column to talk about. This is why a person can do a 100% water change on their tank and once the ph, salinity, temp etc all match up you won't shock your system at all because you would not have lost much significant bacteria to talk about at all.


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[jrgilles]

Grats on getting set up!

 

[Ratfish]

No real chemical change here a week in. I'm starting to think I should get some sand, not just for bacteria, but for other micro organisms. The middle section of my sump is going to be set up as a refugium so I wonder if I can put something in there like macro algae or should I still wait on that? I would like to establish a copepod population as soon as possible as I plan on getting a mandarin. But if I got sand from an established tank I believe that would go in the display, not in refugium.

Another question. We just lost power at my house, should be on by midnight. I was wondering if that will disturb the cycling process.... I know I'm going to need to invest in generator. at some point.

 

[Ratfish]

Good news: the siphon stop hole worked on my inlet tube from tank to sump.
Bad news: My return pump lockline was too low in the tank and I ended up with about 4 gallons on the floor.

Luckily I used to clean carpets for a living, sucked up most with my wet vac and have a fan blowing on the carpet. Still not the way I wanted to spend evening after work. I think I need to install a one direction valve on my return pipes. I would like to aim my lockline the way I need it, not an inch below water line after dumping water on the floor.

 

[user 26995]

You want to drill the siphon break holes in the top of the return lines above the surface of the water. That way when your return pump stops, the return line will suck air and break the siphon before it starts to reverse siphon.

 

[Ratfish]

Got some established sand from a friend's aquarium. Thanks! I can tell it's already helping.

Checked readings last night and Ammonia has gone from 0 to 0.5ppm, nitrites 0 to 0.25 , still no nitrates, pH has dropped a little from 8.4 to 8.2, so things are happening now.

I will have my external skimmer up and running soon. But since it sits outside the sump I am spending a lot of time in set up to ensure there are no leaks. I need to see if there is a pump smaller than the 250gal rated one to pump into my skimmer, the one I have right now is a little too stong. I want the tank to cycle a little more before running the skimmer. Is there a time in the cycle that is best to start skimming?

So maybe in two weeks I may be able to put critters in! The way I understand the cycle process I will see spikes in Ammonia to NO2- to NO3-, when they go back to near 0 the tank is ready for livestock. My question now is how high will the spikes be? Guess it can vary. I will monitor about every four to five days to check parameters to note changes.

 

[Ratfish]

So the external octopus skimmer is set up, after a few days of trouble shooting and leak testing. The external skimmer was part of the package (used, but good deal!) included with my tank set up. Not sure it would have been my first choice. The possibility for potential leaks still bothers me. The first power head (that feeds water to skimmer) I had was too strong, now the new one I got is a little weak... guess I can't win there. It's weak in the sense that it is hard to maintain a constant level. I'm not sure if that will be a problem or not. The bubble level seem suficient for popping nasties into the waste resivoir.

The nitrite levels are now up to .25, ammonia dropped to .25, ph holding at 8.2+, still no nitrates (changes more rapidly in a few days than I imagined, guess that would be bad for fishes and critters). Salinity holds fairly steady at 1.022, no matter my not so accurate estimations in adding water for new skimmer and top offs.

I currently have some algae growth on my top rocks, light yellowish-brown in color, thin layer and grubby looking, and some on my sand bed. The weird white fungus in my soon to be refugium rock was short lived. I still need a suitible light for down there.

Up, I got all the basics now up and running. I have to admit I am a little aprehensive and worrysome with all those whirling motors, lights, hundreds of pounds of water, all churning in my basement, just hoping I set it up alright. It will take me awhile to really trust the set up and know what could go wrong if it does and if some of my cruedly engineered fail safes will work. I tried to keep it basic and have no plans for add ons in the future.

Thanks for all the advice, I'll keep you posted in the future, hopefully with living things!