New to Saltwate Aquarium in cycle for 1 week

[Rmckoy]

I’m now considering the possibility that the cool (ish) wet interior of the porous rock can sustain bacteria in a 20 minute boil, all thanks to my wife Absolutely no evidence of that though, just an observation, just like a lot of things.

I bet inside your kitchen smelled like a old fashioned family dinner

 

[Garf]

I bet inside your kitchen smelled like a old fashioned family dinner

She won’t be doing it again

 

[brandon429]

we had a guy put some wet reef rock cured into his closet on a folded up tarp for use later, and he mentioned it was still in his closet after about a month. I had him luckily agree to test it back in a quick setup test tank, and it flat out still moved ammonia in 24 hours so I agree to that above that some insults may not kill all the bacteria in and out...

desiccation takes a really long time and likely has to be outside in the heat to have quick effect

in a home, a closet cramped in and sitting on plastic matting the bacteria simply did not die, the emersion was not enough to cut through the insulation biofilms and kill the bacteria. its the longest emersion test I've seen, its somewhere in the middle of the microbiology of cycling thread. a month out of water/still oxidizes ammonia/very neat.

 

[jaychoudhary]

So I have added 1 clown fish yesterday and 2 very small corals. Now I can see very light green algae forming up on the aquarium glass.

 

[brandon429]

You’re at a cleaning crossroads now

full reefing underway, everyone usually either permits it and allows an ugly phase or they begin testing and response

I recommend neither

lift your rocks out, hold in the empty kitchen sink. Use a brush to brush off attachment growths, pour saltwater over them to rinse down the drain. You can begin using common peroxide on the after cleaned spots to burn off these cells, and help lessen regrowth

it will not undo your cycle on the rocks, it’s not strong enough but it will help burn these invaders


use a siphon hose on the sand to uptake the growths, manually force the tank clean. Specifically do not begin testing and responding to phosphate and nitrate, be physical, like a garden


you don’t get to stop manually gardening against dandelions until your fescue grass is so thick it chokes them out for you

when your rocks are all coralline, in three years, you get to work less. Specifically do not let your investment take an uglies phase just like you don’t let your lawn take one, to the disdain of all your neighbors, begin manual gardening-the price of using white rocks (even though it had bacteria and was live)

 

[brandon429]

You don’t get hands off cruise control until year three, expect busy weeks coming making the reef look correct vs wrecked with excuses


get a large Uv sterilizer and hook it up after you have manually cleaned the whole system, it cuts down work massively though and is the most helpful device you could opt for.

 

[jaychoudhary]

nothing on the rocks yet, I see light formation on glass .

 

[jaychoudhary]

And for uv light which one would you recommend and best place to hook them on

 

[brandon429]

i would still begin cleaning out all the proofing diatoms, those blanket your system and reduce surface area and they provide feed catch glue for detritus which then begins the feed green hair algae, within a week once lights are on


run lights very low power for a while to reduce uglies, even new corals will live just fine that way a long time. Too bright light / bug cause of uglies

 

[brandon429]

Get a turbo twist in tank Uv, or any other option one/ study how they connect it’s part of the various reefing tools people use

you can scrape glass with a razor blade glued into a split piece of wooden dowel, scrape down using it like a handle and clean glass, do big water changes to export what you scraped vs leave it in the tank

 

[jaychoudhary]

Back to shopping, ordering turbo twist 3x now .. Hope wife won't go crazy with spending ..

 

[Garf]

So I have added 1 clown fish yesterday and 2 very small corals. Now I can see very light green algae forming up on the aquarium glass.

I’d be getting snails, maybe an urchin. Let them do the work.

 

[brandon429]

Remember it doesn’t clean off the masses for you, it only zaps cells leftover in the water after you still do the manual cleaning but it will help slow grow back for sure. Not completely, but significantly

 

[14 foot reef]

I hate to be negative here, but I think this tank start is going to have a very small chance of thriving in the first couple of weeks, months, or possibly years. I would put the brakes on full hard stop and slow down this process. I thought a lot about posting this, but I think its best if you're prepared for some real surprises and let downs here. Please invest a lot of time in reading and watching videos from successful reefers and look towards the known mentors on this forum. Again, not trying to be negative, but I think in 6 months when we go back to this thread your probably gonna see this start was very off track and you've possibly went through some very very trying times, and probably a lot of mortality. Good luck, please take this with as much constructive criticism as possible. Good luck, I hope I'm completely wrong here.

 

[brandon429]

agreed on one point: fish disease preps skipped / disease will be a challenge but that’s 90% of everyone’s new reef here. My main goal is control over the system, ability to grow corals and prevent tank invasion issues


the recommends here run hundreds of nano reefs quite well / searchable threads exist for the handling of dry rock systems assertively vs passively / allowing wreckage of new systems

not learning passivity is the most important lesson


99% of reefers who can grow coral will skip disease preps on fish, they’ll learn eight months from now. No reason to have an invaded tank though, or fail to grow corals he can practice that part.

 

[jaychoudhary]

you all are awesome, information is knowledge and every feedback is appreciable. Nothing negative here

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey all, excited to be part of the community.

Please note, this is a repost as per a recommendation of starting a new thread.

I am starting with a new 60G setup, it is up 1 week up and running. Today I notice my live rock turning brown and sand turning brown too. I am assuming my sand is live sand as well. I think it's diatoms, however want to be sure and understand my next steps. I do not have any fish as of now, but was thinking to turbocharge cycling with turbo start 9000 today and add a clownfish tomorrow.

I have no water heater and have blue reef lights on schedule.

My readings yesterday

High Ph Range	7.4
Amonia	0.25
Nitrite	0 ppm
Nitrate	5

Keep it simple. UV wont do a think with existing and pre-existing organisms and often associated with new tanks. You are trying to establish bacteria/denitrifying bacteria and not ready to tank tank apart and make this a maintenance headache. Diatoms simply are a brown algae that typically appears in a tank that has just completed its cycle but they can also appear in an established tanks. They cover the sand, rock, pumps, glass, and most surfaces. Diatoms look ugly but in most cases are harmless so no need to panic when they appear.
Diatoms feed mainly off of silicates but also consume dissolved organic compounds, phosphate and nitrates. Tap water can contain silicates and if used will start a bloom if you use it to mix salt or to replace water that evaporated from the tank. Using water through a RODI unit is safest but you can still get a diatom bloom when using RODI if the cartridge that removes silicates is used up.
Diatoms are typically harmless to a captive reef and can be beaten once their food source is taken away. Once you put the end to the source, the outbreak should last a couple of weeks so just be patient and it will pass.

For major outbreaks you may want to consider the three day blackout. Diatoms are easily wiped from the glass with a mag float, a turkey baster or a toothbrush can access other areas of the tank. Be prepared for them to re-establish themselves quickly, they are likely to be able to resettle and have exponential growth rates.
To prevent their return, practice good aquarium husbandry by doing regular water changes, keep the substrate clean, don’t overfeed the fish, ensure your skimmer is running at an optimal level and rinse out filter socks and sponges on a regular basis.
Some cleaner crew to help control it are : Cerith snails, Nerite snails and Trochus snails and also Astraea snails are effective at removing diatoms.

 

[brandon429]

My advice for external cleaning of rocks never is accepted well by reef tank owners


I tried to sell him on rip cleaning his 14 foot reef tank he he / skeptical accepted

reef tank owners don’t do repair work threads for others, so what’s recommended seems crazy. If someone else’s reef gets wrecked with algae they don’t mind, their own tank runs fine or they found a way to beat it without doing work


but you can’t make a work thread off that, it’s luck. Effective work threads fixing tanks for others are physical vs luck


my approach isn’t ok with others getting advice that wrecks reefs, I have new tankers take physical responsibility for their system immediately. If your reef is wrecked, passivity caused it.


if your reef isn’t wrecked, resolve caused it. Work threads:

Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

Tank filled and was almost cloudless :D Turned on the klir roller and added a filter sock and it was clear in 2 hours. Made a makeshift frag rack as I cannot bring all rock back. Scrubbed each frag plug with a stainless steel brush or remounted depending how bad the plug was. Grabbed a couple...

www.reef2reef.com

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

gadgets and devices didn’t earn those results for others, nor luck. Command did it

my cleaning advice and gardening analogy is entry level steps to what we did above. Every invasion you’ll see in the tank except aiptasia is handled there

*for sure we would prefer less work methods but to assign that as best practices to others we need examples of what works for others in pattern, as work threads

 

[jaychoudhary]

Attaching some photos for clarity

 

[MikeCHI]

Algaebarn is great, so good choice there.

Since you bought wet liverock im guessing if it is corraline its because it grew at the LFS. Odds are it will just stay as-is for several months before the tank is ready to grow it.

UVs and other things are cool sure. By far, IMO, the easiest thing you can do out of the gates is leave the lights off and naturally light it with the room for a few months. Without coral there is really no reason to have the lights on. If you have company or something and want to show off the fish then just turn it on for that.

Again the "uglies" are inevitable, but every tank i left off for a couple months before lighting had about 80% less uglies to fight off