The Project: Waterbox 60.2 Marine Plus

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S.Pepper

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Okay, I changed my rock structure up a little. Deciding whether to glue/epoxy or not. The structure is solid as a rock. It literally will not move front to back or sideways. The highest rock in the back corner and the archway up front I may use a little epoxy. I have a few small rocks that I may add before filling, but other than that I am going to leave it alone for now. I am thinking of adding a frag rack or two later.

20191017_150039.jpg 20191017_150024.jpg
 
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S.Pepper

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I never glued any of mine , I don’t like doing it as you never know what the flow will do, how it will push the sand and normally moving the rock around can help with that. Looks good!
Thx, Shaggy. I was thinking the same thing. Just wanted to hear what others were doing/thinking. It's obviously going to look a whole lot different once you add corals and they've had a year or more to grow.
 
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Couple days worth of numbers. Started cycle on Monday

10/26/2019
Ammonia: .8
Nitrite: .2
Nitrate: 2
Added 2.5 mls of ammonia chloride

10/27/2019
Ammonia: 1.2
Nitrite: .5
Nitrate 5
Salinity: 35ppt
Alk: 11.2
 
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S.Pepper

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Ammonia stayed the same and nitrite went to 1. I added 2.5mls of ammonia, which is staying consistent at every other day.

Ammonia: 1.2
Nitrite: 1
PH: 8

P.S. I decided to try my Spyglass Internal Reactor with a 1/2 cup of ROX carbon for 12 hours to see how it worked and to clear up the water a little. I was watching a utube reefer who has 2 very successful tanks and he said it wouldn't affect the cycling. Still, I decided to take it down until it has fully cycled.
 
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Readings today and no ammonia added.

Ammonia: 2.0
Nitrite: 1.0
PH: 8.0
Alk: 7.3 (I believe my last Alk test was done improperly. This is more like it.)
 
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Today's readings with 2.5 mls of ammonia added

Ammonia: 1.2
Nitrite: 1.0 (max test number on chart)
Nitrate: 20
Salinity: 35ppt
PH: 8.0
Alk: 7.3
Cal: 440
Mag: 1400
 
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Today's readings:

Ammonia: 1.2
Nitrites: 1 (but that's the maximum Red Sea shows--but if it could more, it would be)
Nitrates: 50
 

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Okay, I changed my rock structure up a little. Deciding whether to glue/epoxy or not. The structure is solid as a rock. It literally will not move front to back or sideways. The highest rock in the back corner and the archway up front I may use a little epoxy. I have a few small rocks that I may add before filling, but other than that I am going to leave it alone for now. I am thinking of adding a frag rack or two late

I like to glue a couple frag plugs on the bottom of my rocks to support them up since I’ve always got a goby/shrimp pair. It gives them a nice shelter that won’t collapse or move around when you’re putting things on the top of the rocks. You don’t see the plugs with the sand bed in place. It’s just easier to do before the fish are in.

Looking good so far!
 

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Well done. If I may suggest, use the calibration solution for calibrating your refractometer not the RO/DI water. You are trying to calibrate at what it should read not zero. The difference between 0 and 35 allows for too much of a margin of error.
Also, I just read that you think that you are possibly cycled at the moment. I would be suspicious that that would be possible to be completely cycled in two weeks. I would, If I were you, let it run another week at the very least and add a small bit of flake/pellet food. If you have been running your protein skimmer during the cycling process this would starve your bacteria colonies that you are trying to establish by stripping nutrients. To give you perspective, I let my rock cure in vats for just under 4 months. After 6 weeks I added my CUC and did a water change of 50%. Every couple of days I would add the smallest pinch of food to keep the bacteria going and every two weeks 50% water changes. I did not do the bacteria in a bottle route and I know that this is a viable option to kick-start the cycling but nothing beats taking this slow. I have not had a single issue with nuisance algae, dyno or cyano outbreaks, ever. I did have a small turf algae patch after 8 months introduced by myself accidentally but used Vibrante and that kicked it no problem. I would make sure that the skimmer is off, feed the tank for a week or two and keep the lights off and add a CUC before or just after adding fish. Test often with high-quality test kits and move forward slower than you think you need to. Love the aquascape BTW!
 
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