HeulittSalmi's JBJ 30r Tank

[Brew12]

It possible there's enough bacteria in there to process ammonia but there is other considerations like higher alk form the dry rock.

Agreed. There is much more to getting a tank ready than having it be able to process ammonia. Cycling is just one step a tank needs to go through before it is ready to add fish or inverts.

Likely because nothing has broken down enough in the four days to be read on a test imo.
I'd wager there a pretty good amount of nitrites if not ammonia in the next several days. And nitrates at the end of next week.

Agreed. If there is no ammonia and no nitrates then there hasn't been enough ammonia generated to be detected by hobbyist level test kits for the water volume in the system.

With having added "a few pellets and some frozen food" it may take longer depending on how much frozen was added. I played around with flake and a pinch of flake will generate measurable ammonia in a cup of heated tank water in a few hours. I gave up on pellets after 2 days. I would imagine the frozen is pretty close to flake. Keep in mind that this was 1 cup of water. If it were in a 20 gallon system it would have taken days to be measurable.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

No, I have few concerns really as far as cycling save doing it too fast. I personally don't think there's enough time at This point For the organics to have broken down to levels detectable by our kits yet.

It possible there's enough bacteria in there to process ammonia but there is other considerations like higher alk form the dry rock.

My self, organics ammonia etc aside would still wait a month or close to it before doing any thing. It seems to be what scientis do.

Likely because nothing has broken down enough in the four days to be read on a test imo.
I'd wager there a pretty good amount of nitrites if not ammonia in the next several days. And nitrates at the end of next week.

Agreed. There is much more to getting a tank ready than having it be able to process ammonia. Cycling is just one step a tank needs to go through before it is ready to add fish or inverts.


Agreed. If there is no ammonia and no nitrates then there hasn't been enough ammonia generated to be detected by hobbyist level test kits for the water volume in the system.

With having added "a few pellets and some frozen food" it may take longer depending on how much frozen was added. I played around with flake and a pinch of flake will generate measurable ammonia in a cup of heated tank water in a few hours. I gave up on pellets after 2 days. I would imagine the frozen is pretty close to flake. Keep in mind that this was 1 cup of water. If it were in a 20 gallon system it would have taken days to be measurable.

Okay, I see what you guys are saying and I am all for taking it slow, but @Brew12 you said that there probably isnt enough to be detectable by a hobbyist level test kit, but thats what detected it a few days ago. So should I just assume those few test were kind of "outliers" or a weird spike? I guess I am just sort of confused because for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates to be present and then just disappear for no reason doesnt make sense to me. It would make sense if I did a water change or if I had some Macro Algae in the tank, but i just have rock and sand.

 

[Brew12]

Okay, I see what you guys are saying and I am all for taking it slow, but @Brew12 you said that there probably isnt enough to be detectable by a hobbyist level test kit, but thats what detected it a few days ago. So should I just assume those few test were kind of "outliers" or a weird spike? I guess I am just sort of confused because for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates to be present and then just disappear for no reason doesnt make sense to me. It would make sense if I did a water change or if I had some Macro Algae in the tank, but i just have rock and sand.

I would suspect that you have some sort of testing error. There are chemical reactions that can take place to cause false positive readings for low levels of these substances. This is the most likely possibility in my opinion. Unless you are doing something to remove the nitrates, those should always go up when cycling your tank.

 

[Reef man 89]

I have the fusion 40 and one thing I can't stand is its almost impossible to fully clean the rear chambers. But besides that I love it.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

I have the fusion 40 and one thing I can't stand is its almost impossible to fully clean the rear chambers. But besides that I love it.

I ran into this issue on my Nuvo 10. What I usually will do is when I go for a water change I'll siphon out the water from the back then when thats empty go to the display. I never knew how much nastiness settled back there until I started to do that.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

So while I am still waiting for the last few days of the cycle to complete I thought I would add some photos of some frags I have won on @HighTideCoral's auction FaceBook Page. to give you reference this is about $360 of auction wins. I think I have photos of about 15-18 of my 20 wins.

 

[Whisnantrider]

Very nice [emoji106]

 

[HeulittSalmi]

Very nice [emoji106]

Thanks! It means a lot, I have followed your build since the beginning and I am jealous of some of your live stock and set up in general. Absolutely jaw dropping.

 

[Whisnantrider]

I have these and man do they pop you will love them. I think they are called pink zippers but honestly I'm not good with all the names

I used to have these but somewhere along the last several years they disappeared. I always liked them.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

I have these and man do they pop you will love them. I think they are called pink zippers but honestly I'm not good with all the names

I used to have these but somewhere along the last several years they disappeared. I always liked them.

If they start growing like crazy in my tank I could send you some if you want? And I think they are as well, but I have never really been too concerned with names. It's nice to know but when I go to 3 different LFS's and see the same Zoas with three different names its just kind of eh. I think too many people get caught up on the names where it kind of ruins the fun. I made a post on my local reefing forums/FaceBook pages and all I got were DM's along the lines of "Hey whatre the names of those zoas" "if those are "blahblahblah" zoas you can sell them and make money". Im just focused on what looks cool to me and what will thrive in my tank.

 

[Whisnantrider]

I agree. I like the approach of my favorite lfs here. People who don't know him come in and are like what are these called, he responds with $29.99 or whatever the price is lol.

I would def be down for some swapping once you get things going I have several garf, banzai frags I am growing when/if you get ready for sps

 

[HeulittSalmi]

I agree. I like the approach of my favorite lfs here. People who don't know him come in and are like what are these called, he responds with $29.99 or whatever the price is lol.

I would def be down for some swapping once you get things going I have several garf, banzai frags I am growing when/if you get ready for sps

Hahaha I might have to start using that. And that'd be awesome. I just started my adventures with sps with a few frags one of my buddies gave to me, one of them did super super well for the first week and then out of no where it started to die, but I moved it and I think I can start helping it recover.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

So I get paid this weekend so I am thinking about picking up some Rossmont movers and then possibly next paycheck I'll pick up the Waver. Meanwhile I am still working on the stand so hopefully when I get the Waver, I have some where nice to mount it. I am still hesitant if I want to mount all of my controllers, or well, future controllers, somewhere where they are always visible or underneath in the sump area.

 

[Brew12]

So I get paid this weekend so I am thinking about picking up some Rossmont movers and then possibly next paycheck I'll pick up the Waver. Meanwhile I am still working on the stand so hopefully when I get the Waver, I have some where nice to mount it. I am still hesitant if I want to mount all of my controllers, or well, future controllers, somewhere where they are always visible or underneath in the sump area.

Just as an FYI, those Rossmonts can be noisy.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

Just as an FYI, those Rossmonts can be noisy.

I've witnessed this first hand, but out of the8-10 tanks I've seen with them, only 1 tank had a decent amount of noise. I am not too worried. Even if they do make noise its a great price for two pumps, the price of the controller is the only thing that irks me at the moment. Selling two pumps for 90-100 in total but 200 for a waver...

 

[Fishninja]

Following along!

 

[HeulittSalmi]

Following along!

Awesome! I should have some updates shortly.

As of right now I am currently in talks with a local reefer for a used Apex Classic, it includes 2 EB8s, a WXM module, a lunar module, a breakout box, the lab grade ph probe, temp probe, and of course the other standard apex modules. He is only asking $400 and it was only used for about a year. Hopefully I can snag it, if not I might buy an Apex JR. On top of that I am still working on the underside of the stand for as of now, its only the core structure and a painted top. Just dealing with the money issues unfortunately.

 

[HeulittSalmi]

So as of last night I feel as though my cycle is done. Ammonia was undetectable, undetectable nitrites, and my nitrates were reading 5ppm. My alk was a little higher than I'd like at 7.8, I am hoping to drop down to around 6.9-7 but thats just preference. While I was at the shop getting the test done, I talked with the only distributor of @Aquaforest in Arizona, so today I think I will be looking up their line of products and the possibly of switching from Red Sea over to AF.

As for now, I am still waiting on EcoTechs customer support to help me set up my XR15. I had taken about an hour and a half last night to set up a custom schedule and their website froze and kicked me out, and now I cant do anything with the light. It sucks because right now AZ is in PT and I dont get off of work until 5, but EcoTechs Customer Support closes at 5 EST. So Im S.O.L. until I have a week day off and can call in.

 

[Whisnantrider]

So as of last night I feel as though my cycle is done. Ammonia was undetectable, undetectable nitrites, and my nitrates were reading 5ppm. My alk was a little higher than I'd like at 7.8, I am hoping to drop down to around 6.9-7 but thats just preference. While I was at the shop getting the test done, I talked with the only distributor of @Aquaforest in Arizona, so today I think I will be looking up their line of products and the possibly of switching from Red Sea over to AF.

As for now, I am still waiting on EcoTechs customer support to help me set up my XR15. I had taken about an hour and a half last night to set up a custom schedule and their website froze and kicked me out, and now I cant do anything with the light. It sucks because right now AZ is in PT and I dont get off of work until 5, but EcoTechs Customer Support closes at 5 EST. So Im S.O.L. until I have a week day off and can call in.

What are you having trouble with? I used the ecosmartlive site when I had radions and it did take a few min to figure out but I finally settled on running a coral lab schedule that I modified the sunrise and sunset on

 

[HeulittSalmi]

What are you having trouble with? I used the ecosmartlive site when I had radions and it did take a few min to figure out but I finally settled on running a coral lab schedule that I modified the sunrise and sunset on

So I've found my issue, I had an antivirus on my computer was prohibiting the EcoSmart Live Controller from working. So I finally shut that down, and got to work around 7 pm when I got home. However, it's 9:45 right now and I programmed half of my AI Schedule into my Radion, then I realized well my AI goes up to 116%, that's not going to work, so then I subtracted 30% from those above 100%. That made the tank darker when it should've been getting brighter. So I said screw it. I set up all 40 time points and gave up around 9. Took a shower to relax, and here I am now. Im thinking I'll do 60% of the power on the AI Prime color settings, but have a higher intensity. So now I'm feeling like I'm back in grade school figuring out what percent 79 is of 120 and so on for about 7 colors in 40 different time points. Anyone want to do this for me haha?