Hi all,
I wonder if you could advise on some specific questions. I am back in the hobby after 5 years and my first foray was a bit of a disaster, with a cobbled together tank and too little knowledge and patience.
I now have a new Reefer xl 200 which is on day 3 of the Dr Tim’s fishless cycle. I have 40lbs of Caribsea Arag Alive live sand and 40lbs of Caribsea life rock, have the skimmer off and filter sock out. For good measure on day 1 I added 60ml of Dr Tim’s One and Only bacteria to give more of a kick start. I added 120 drops of the Dr Tim’s ammonium chloride and checked my levels after 3 hours, added another 30 drops of AC and measured levels again 3 hours later to get to 2 ppm. All good so far.
Day 2 I checked all water parameters and had ph at 8 still, ammonia at 2 ppm, nitrite at 0 and nitrate at between 5 and 10 - I guessed around 7.5 as it was pretty much between colours on the chart.
Day 3 - ph 8, ammonia 2, nitrite 0 and nitrate slightly lower at around 5.
My questions are:
Does this seem normal so far? I am surprised to see nitrate readings without having seen any nitrite. Maybe because of all the bacteria in the rock, sand and added in the One and Only it’s working super efficiently in turning the NO2 to NO3 so I haven’t seen the former...yet.
Should I now put the filter sock back in place as the bacteria are hopefully established - it’s been over 48 hours since I removed it
Should I run the skimmer to start breaking it in or will this affect the cycling process?
I’m running a subdued lighting schedule on the ReefLED 90 - I know any light may encourage algae but I figure it’s probably coming at some point anyway so the tank may as well look nice while it’s cycling. Is that Reasonable thinking?
At what point can I add Copepods? I’d like to encourage as much biodiversity in the tank as possible and while there is no wildlife in there I thought they’d have a better chance to start a reproducing colony.
Apologies if I’m repeating things resolved on previous threads. I’ve searched around and read quite a bit but I couldn’t find clear answers to my specific queries.
Many thanks for any advice in advance, and because we all like a tank picture here’s mine...
I wonder if you could advise on some specific questions. I am back in the hobby after 5 years and my first foray was a bit of a disaster, with a cobbled together tank and too little knowledge and patience.
I now have a new Reefer xl 200 which is on day 3 of the Dr Tim’s fishless cycle. I have 40lbs of Caribsea Arag Alive live sand and 40lbs of Caribsea life rock, have the skimmer off and filter sock out. For good measure on day 1 I added 60ml of Dr Tim’s One and Only bacteria to give more of a kick start. I added 120 drops of the Dr Tim’s ammonium chloride and checked my levels after 3 hours, added another 30 drops of AC and measured levels again 3 hours later to get to 2 ppm. All good so far.
Day 2 I checked all water parameters and had ph at 8 still, ammonia at 2 ppm, nitrite at 0 and nitrate at between 5 and 10 - I guessed around 7.5 as it was pretty much between colours on the chart.
Day 3 - ph 8, ammonia 2, nitrite 0 and nitrate slightly lower at around 5.
My questions are:
Does this seem normal so far? I am surprised to see nitrate readings without having seen any nitrite. Maybe because of all the bacteria in the rock, sand and added in the One and Only it’s working super efficiently in turning the NO2 to NO3 so I haven’t seen the former...yet.
Should I now put the filter sock back in place as the bacteria are hopefully established - it’s been over 48 hours since I removed it
Should I run the skimmer to start breaking it in or will this affect the cycling process?
I’m running a subdued lighting schedule on the ReefLED 90 - I know any light may encourage algae but I figure it’s probably coming at some point anyway so the tank may as well look nice while it’s cycling. Is that Reasonable thinking?
At what point can I add Copepods? I’d like to encourage as much biodiversity in the tank as possible and while there is no wildlife in there I thought they’d have a better chance to start a reproducing colony.
Apologies if I’m repeating things resolved on previous threads. I’ve searched around and read quite a bit but I couldn’t find clear answers to my specific queries.
Many thanks for any advice in advance, and because we all like a tank picture here’s mine...