Biocube 32 with sump - skip cycle?

[nickng]

small tube feather duster worm. Nice variety, a little sparkling and has red dots on it. Camera can’t really pick up the colors well.

 

[nickng]

Small Bristle worm and there are some spaghetti worms too

 

[nickng]

All these hitchhikers came out on the second night the rock was introduced to the tank.

 

[nickng]

2nd live rock with orange and red coralline. Circled the side wall showing the start of a mild ugly phase… some brown dust algae on the wall. This is on the 4th or 5th day of start of tank. GHA to appear soon and that’s the time to introduce clean up crew.
So to recap, tank started on 1st day with live sand and imaginarium brand ocean water. On second day ie 24 hrs later, 3 live rock introduced. At 48hrs hitchhikers and critters acclimatized and started moving around. At 72 to 96 hrs, brown dust algae on glass and some GHA starting to show appear

 

[nickng]

According to lfs manager, the diatoms started because there’s still minutiae silica in new tanks and in the live sand. It’s a good sign. But don’t let it get out of hand. Get some Astrea snails, turbo snails are best but told to hold off since they consume algae voraciously and will starve. Best not to feed animals much right now or else the GHA will grow exponentially. In total added 3 Astrea snails and one red leg hermit followed by a second hermit two days later.

 

[nickng]

By the way some of that green algae isn’t GHA. LFS guy told me it’s Bryopsis. It looks a bit like ferns. Usually snails won’t touch it. Some emerald crabs may eat it if desperate enough. The hermit crabs definitely won’t. The final solution ie going “thermo nuclear” is to use flucozade provided there’s no desirable macro algaes in the tank yet.
I got lucky, another fish store in a different town had some emerald crabs, the guys at that store were confident their emerald crabs will eat some-types of bryopsis. Got a male emerald crab and he did a great job.
1st pic is the third live rock used to jumpstart the tank. 2nd pic is the emerald crab

 

[nickng]

Bryopsis and GHA mowed down by the hermit crab, Astrea and emerald crab.

 

[nickng]

nice looking bubble algae with fluorescent orange spots one one of the live rock. Was told that some reefers like them and are slow growing. But advice I got was get rid of it as it’s better left to experienced reefers. It’s really slow growing though and those orange dots really fluoresce beautifully under blue spectrum. None of the clean up crew touched it, that includes the emerald crab. Strange! Anyone here can identify it?
I used a turkey baster to suck the entire thing out 2-3 weeks later

 

[nickng]

Six fish as well. I stopped almost two years ago at that number and it has worked out well.

Admittedly I did make two mistakes with my fish selection… Against sound advice and better judgment of my go to aquatics person at the local Petco I added two fish that were not compatible. Will reveal that later.
And wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving too. By the way I’m in Massachusetts, just outside Boston.

 

[nickng]

Around the 1.5 to 2 weeks after start of aquarium started seeing mustard colored growth on the top part of dry rock. Was told this is good sign. Tank is stable enough. Thought it was algae but learned that it’s actually a form of sponge. None of clean up crew touches it.
Colors don’t show up well in pictures. It’s more yellowish, think of mustard with some tinge of green

 

[nickng]

BTW sponge came from live rock. Also one other unconventional advice I got from my lfs, was there’s no need to invest right away in test kits like salifert if jump starting the tank with live rock. Just use the 6 in one tetra strips to check for nitrate to show around 10 to 20ppm consistent and absolutely nothing on the nitrite and pH doesn’t fluctuate. And measurement should be done an hour or two after lights come on and must be repeated at the same time in the morning. Do this for about the initial two to three weeks. Best if pH shows around 8 to 8.4
My tank stabilized at 8.2 ish

 

[nickng]

Around just after the 2nd week 1st fish added to tank. A diamond watchman goby. Funny thing about it was the lfs manager was on vacation when I got the fish. His expression when I told him I added that as my 1st fish is priceless. I got that disapproving look haha, until I told him I had the fish for a week plus and it’s eating frozen brine shrimp. He’s still reminding me that I should get a bigger tank at somepoint for the goby to grow to its true 5-6 inch size. Mines about 3 inches now. Fat and happy, in the tank for 5 months now.
Purple firefish(fully grown) added two weeks after the goby. No problem at all

 

[nickng]

just before adding the goby, I acquired an Apex jnr to monitor pH and temp. Apex showed ph of 8.05 before fish. And started dropping to 7.8 to 7.9 with goby and fire fish. Put it down to bacteria breaking down fish waste and excess fish food. I was feeding frozen brine shrimp heavily to make sure the goby didn’t starve.

 

[brandon429]

There's one small detail the lfs employee needs to know: petco live rock doesn't have dieoff when moved to a new tank, it's literally just instant skip cycle. The practice of skip cycling (with pet store cured rocks, not applicable to ocean rocks) doesn't have instances of failure they need to leave room for, moving rocks among tanks simply does not cause die off on cured- down rocks. You don't even have to take them home in water and they still won't die off... the way they pack them in damp bags is perfect for days of safe transport without losses.

The detail they missed was the importance of fallow and qt prep so petco fish don't bring in disease, the cycle was 0% risk. That's very nice rock they have for sure, tank looks great.

 

[nickng]

More pics of spongelike growth on top part of rock.

 

[nickng]

There's one small detail the lfs employee needs to know: petco live rock doesn't have dieoff when moved to a new tank, it's literally just instant skip cycle. The practice of skip cycling (with pet store cured rocks, not applicable to ocean rocks) doesn't have instances of failure they need to leave room for, moving rocks among tanks simply does not cause die off on cured- down rocks. You don't even have to take them home in water and they still won't die off... the way they pack them in damp bags is perfect for days of safe transport without losses.

The detail they missed was the importance of fallow and qt prep so petco fish don't bring in disease, the cycle was 0% risk. That's very nice rock they have for sure, tank looks great.

Hi Brandon, thanks for popping in. Glad you noticed this thread. I was skeptical of the instant cycle that lfs manager introduced, so I did some independent investigation and saw a thread you had on this topic. Gave me more confidence to try it. By the way, I missed out one important point, this Petco is a bit different, they actually have a coral frag tank and couple of fishes about 2-3 that they won’t sell!! They are the stores “mascot” residents and live in the frag tank. There’s a v old royal gramma. Also unlike other Petco, they actually have one wall tank display that has separate sump system for quarantine. All the fishes there have been quarantined.
Yes agreed that the life rock shouldn’t have die offs but being the newbie the lfs guy said it’s a precaution. His actual words were if he came over and help me setup tank, he said I can put fish in the next day

 

[Kate Vellis]

Actually use the extra parts to make a rack for media in the refugium in the sump. Will post more pics

Cool

 

[kevgib67]

Admittedly I did make two mistakes with my fish selection… Against sound advice and better judgment of my go to aquatics person at the local Petco I added two fish that were not compatible. Will reveal that later.
And wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving too. By the way I’m in Massachusetts, just outside Boston.

Ya, glad I stopped at 6 , my diamond watchman goby has more than doubled in size and is about 5” long. Eats like a pig, I’m pretty sure if I threw a meatball in it would devour it. Last time I was in Boston I was at the Garden for my father’s retirement party. I don’t know how people can drive in that city. I caught my first blue fish, 14 lbs on freshwater gear, off of Cape Cod. By the way, have you noticed people talk strange around Boston?

 

[nickng]

Ya, glad I stopped at 6 , my diamond watchman goby has more than doubled in size and is about 5” long. Eats like a pig, I’m pretty sure if I threw a meatball in it would devour it. Last time I was in Boston I was at the Garden for my father’s retirement party. I don’t know how people can drive in that city. I caught my first blue fish, 14 lbs on freshwater gear, off of Cape Cod. By the way, have you noticed people talk strange around Boston?

Haha…. driving in Boston is interesting too say the least. The “T” ie sort of an mis-mash subway and tram system contributes to the confusion as well. Well I live in the “villages” newton/waban that’s at the edge of Boston. Rarely go into Boston because of the stressful traffic. Oh do you mean the “Quincy” Irish accent? Or the Boston city area way of speaking.

 

[nickng]

A better pic of the goby and fire fish hanging out together. Goby keeps the sand pristine. The two fishes made a burrow home under the main rock