My ocean at the end of the couch

[Ioncewaslegend]

Hey, all,

After several years being friends with someone in the hobby, my wife and I have finally decided to give it a try for ourselves. After doing a sizable amount of research, we finally got our tank started this past Sunday, 2/23/20. Specs so far:

Tank: Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion 20

Lighting: AI Prime 16 HD

Skimmer: EShopps Nano Skimmer (not yet placed)

ATO: Tunze Osmolator 3155 (not yet placed)

Aquascape: ~9 lbs of dry rock (received in a prior purchase), ~5 lbs CaribSea liferock shapes, ~4.5 lbs CaribSea liferock

Journal entry, 2/23/20

Picked up the tank, rock, and accessories. First thing my wife and I did was start to play around with the rock:

Followed the tried-and-true "take pictures of your aquascape so you don't forget a configuration you liked", then settled on a rough configuration...

That promptly got some minor adjustments when we actually got the rock placed in the tank.

20 lbs of live sand. Getting sand in the tank after the rock was a PITA, and we ended up kicking up a bunch of sand.

Stuff I learned:

• Sand is a pain, and doing this cleanly in an apartment is really, really difficult.
• Contrary to my gut feeling, I was advised to turn the filter on and told it would help the sand to settle down.
• Thermometers have a 'water level' line. Mine was higher than this. Fortunately, someone online pointed it out to me, and I got that corrected quickly.
• For the other molecular bio geeks impatient at the cycle time: there's actually a paper looking at the makeup of the microbiome (e.g., all the different bacteria) in a large saltwater tank; specifically, the Georgia Aquarium's Ocean Voyager exhibit!

At this point it was getting late, and my wife was not a fan of the 'shrimp in a sock' method proposed at the LFS, so we added the recommended amount of ammonia solution and the bacterial booster, then called it a night.

More to come!

 

[flsalty]

Looking good so far. I like the rock work.

This thread night interest you: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...ome-a-peer-reviewed-open-access-study.690285/

 

[Ioncewaslegend]

Looking good so far. I like the rock work.

This thread night interest you: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...ome-a-peer-reviewed-open-access-study.690285/

Oh, cool, thanks! It really does. I'm a molecular biologist by training (with a heaping dose of microbio tossed in there) so knowing more about what's going on in the tank will always have my interest.

 

[Ioncewaslegend]

Journal Entry Monday, 2/24

Nothing much exciting happened on Monday, just waited for the sand to settle - which it finally did!

Taken at 7 AM:

Taken at 7 PM:

Journal Entry Tuesday–Thursday, 2/25–2/26/20

Picked up two very important pieces of equipment: an AI Prime 16HD and a test kit (API Master Saltwater)!

Values that were tested 48 hours after starting the tank (2/25):

Ammonia: ~1 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

And, because it drives me bonkers not being able to plot a time course with multiple data points (thanks, science background!), I've tested once per day since.

Values 72 hours after starting the tank (2/26):

Ammonia: ~1 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

Values 96 hours after starting the tank (2/27):

Ammonia: ~0.50–1 ppm
Nitrite: ~0.25 ppm
Nitrate: ~10 ppm

Woo! The needle's moving!

 

[Ioncewaslegend]

Journal Entry Friday, 2/28/20

Performed another round of testing.

Values 5 days after starting the tank (2/28):

Ammonia: 0–0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 2–5 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm

The tank is chugging along; given the quickness of the cycle, here's hoping it'll complete and I'll be able to start adding livestock within the next several days!

 

[tupes]

Looking like you are off to a great start. Like the rockscape