FarmerTy

Pics added: Frag tank Tub: Tank:

I got the VIP platinum card and they let you swim in the tanks at night with the fishes. They even supply goggles and a snorkel.

Hmmm.... maybe I'll wait. The last time I touched your tank, you had unsecured lines laying around and I knocked a line out. Not sure I want to be moving cables if you haven't decluttered yet and while you're out of town. It'll ruin my Saturday night party I'm throwing at your place if everyone comes over to wet floors and the smell of dead corals and fish.

Too foamy! I'd just adjust your skimmer and skim drier. Probably just new tank gunk in the water.

You got me... I was chewing Aleve like candy afterwards. I liked the doors like that, though they were pretty cool to just be able to slide in place like that.

Yeah, I went and helped a guy who bought a 300 gallon tank unload his tank when he got himself in trouble. [emoji23]

Nice!

What is this? I've never heard of it! Sounds pretty awesome! I guess you'll see me tonight for some of that CUC action.Also, can you tell me more about the VIP program? I didn't know you had one.

I think monkeys could program better than I can so don't give me too much credit. Most is borrowed code anyways.Want me to move your probes to the DT while you're gone?

I would consider that tank done. You would need a full glass pane replacement including reseal to properly fix it. Anything less would be putting yourself at risk for a blowout one day since the crack is located at the bottom. If you don't care about the risks associated and want to try to just stop the leak, you can always try sandwiching another pane of glass over it and using silicone to adhere it. It's like putting a bandaid on a crack on a dam though, temporary fix. Even more temporary, you can just try to silicone the heck out of it on the inside. It will not fix it structurally at all but may stop the drip.

Also, to answer your questions directly. 1) You will see an ammonia spike initially, then a nitrike spike following it as the ammonia gets converted, then finally a nitrate spike. When you have no detections of ammonia and nitrite, then your rock is cycled. Nitrate is irrelevant at this point even though you will have a higher concentration in the container as it is the end product. Technically, you could leave it even longer and allow for denitrifying bacteria (not to be confused with nitrifying bacteria) to eventually break down the nitrates but that requires sub-oxic areas to be in existence in your rock and I don't think that happens very quickly in newly cycled rock. That's why most just do a full water change afterwards to remove the nitrates from the water or if you are cycling in a different container, just move the rocks to the tank and leave the nitrate heavy water is behind as it does not bind to rock like phosphate does. 2) Yes, any nitrifying bacteria supplement is helpful to seed the rock or like others mentioned, you can place some other live rock in there and accomplish something similar. If you do seed it with bacteria in a bottle, make sure you follow instructions on the bottle, which usually mentions not running a skimmer for a few days to allow the bacteria time to establish itself or you risk skimming it all out. 3) Rock is safe to add when you cannot detect ammonia or nitrite anymore.

I should say I'm in the no skimmer camp for cycling rock as I prefer the organic material to stay in the water to breakdown and create more ammonia to feed the nitrifying bacteria but that's been one of those long debated topics that has people on one side or the other.

You're really looking at ammonia and nitrite to be zero guys, not nitrate. Once ammonia and nitrite hit zero, you've developed the proper nitrifying bacteria you need to start maintaining corals and fish. At that point, you'll have a higher concentration of nitrate in the cycling container as the nitrifying bacteria will have converted all the nitrite and ammonia to nitrates. Most will then move the rocks to the tank at this time. If you are cycling the rocks directly in the tank, then do a full water change to remove nitrates from the water and you should be fine to start SLOWLY adding livestock, allowing for the bacterial population to adjust after each livestock addition. Just to clarify, curing is mostly regarded as putting the rock in any type of water, RO or saltwater, and allowing for the dead organic material to break down and fall off the rock. Cycling is when you put it in saltwater and allow it to grow nitrifying bacteria by adding an ammonia source, whether directly or by the dieoff off the rock, to develop nitrifying bacteria to be able to support livestock. If the rock you got is truly dry, the purple coraline algae is already dead so I wouldn't concern yourself with preserving it. Honestly, I despise coraline but that's because it uptakes Mg, alk, and Ca and takes that away from my SPS and also scraping it off the glass is no fun either but that's a whole different subject. Some have mentioned potential phosphates leaching from the rock you have. As you have mentioned about the muriatic acid, the goal with the acid is to dissolve the first few millimeters of rock because if phosphate had bound itself to the rock, it will be in the first few millimetres. Dissolving it away will release the phosphate and allow you to remove it when you dispose of the acidic solution as well. Other ways to do that that have also been mentioned is to run GFO in a reactor in the cycling container to remove phosphates and allow the rock to leach any bound phosphates over time. This is not an immediate process but appears to occur quickly for the most part. Another method is doing Lanthanum chloride in a filter sock (10 micron filter or less) in the cycling container as it will rapidly remove phosphates as well. Soaking in RO can work too but is the least aggressive and slowest method of removing the bound phosphate. To cycle quicker, yes, you can use any type of bottled nitrifying bacteria to help jumpstart it.

Victoly, that CO2 meter look familiar? For the probes in the overflow, I was just thinking if you had any probe dependent programming, that the overflow would not be truly indicative of your tank conditions if the return flow ever ceased, but you are right, it would be a similar issue in the sump, though at least it would be a large volume of water and may give a reading closer to actual conditions then the finite amount in the overflow.

I wouldn't put the probes in the overflows. If there was ever a situation where the return pump stops, your pH reading would only be indicative of the pH in your overflows and would not represent the sump or display tank. That could cause some potential issues. If it were my tank, I would be less concerned with the amount of variance seen in the day and more focused on increasing the overall range. Hopefully the outdoor air aeration will help increase your overall range.

I didn't mention it but the GFO stopped tumbling again. That's the 2nd time in 5 weeks so my phosphate level has risen a bit and I'm back in the algae phase. How annoying! I stopped being so stingy with the flow to the reactor and this shouldn't happen again. I also saw my TDS jump to 1ppm 2 weeks ago and replaced all my filters and DI resin again. Should be good for another 6-8 months. Frag tank has finally stabilized and all parameters have been pretty stable. I think I've pulled out a lot of the phosphate from the rocks and hopefully I won't get too much leaching of phosphates any more. All fish in the tub are happy and healthy without a spot of ich or bacterial infection in sight. I've been mulling over working on my last batch of fish (powder blue tang, pyramid butterfly fish, Evansi anthias, and replacement wrasses), but I'm thinking I am just going to wait until the current stock goes into the tank after the 76 days and then QT the new batch afterwards. Running multiple tanks drove me nuts last time and probably lead to some potential contamination issues that got me ich again after ridding the system of it the first time.

Also got got my UV sterilizer mounted today. That thing is giant and is eating up a lot of my crawl space behind the tank but it's going to be totally worth it. Went from a large 57-watt UV sterilizer to a ridiculous 110-way UV sterilizer. Its about 3 feet wide... Half the tank! I still need to plumb it but it's nice just to have it at least in place for now. It will be fed by a Jaebo DCS12000 return pump placed behind the right rock structure and the return pipe will be fed behind the left rock structure with a perforated PVC pipe to distribute the return flow. The goal is to pull water from the bottom of the tank behind the rocks and returned at the bottom behind the rocks as well. It'll keep both areas less stagnant and if there is any ich at all in the system, the placement will be ideal to draw it into the sterilizer.

I put some in your vermicelli bowl today. You're welcome! [emoji4]

Figured it was about time to give the skimmer a good cleaning. Neck still nice and clean. I can't even remember when the last time I wiped anything down but it has to have been at least 7 months. Wow, what a miraculous sculpture of fish poop and uneaten food.

Man, you're the only guy I know Victoly that can get away with using the descriptor "fetal" in a post and it still read correctly. [emoji23]

I think you're the anomaly Gig'em. My house hovered around 600-800 ppm if I remember correctly. I'm sure it's a function of how airtight the house is as well as square footage... plus if your HVAC cycles in fresh air or not.

Use tapatalk.

My personal QT method: TTM for the first 12 days, swapping fish from one tank to another tank before 72 hrs has passed. Only thing I run is a heater and air pump with air stone. No equipment is transferred, just fish and as minimal water as I can move the fish with. Day 0: new tank, new water, new air stone, heater (separately cure dry live rock and cycle it with quick start bacteria in a brute trash can to use in the extended QT tank) Day 3: move all fish to new tank, new water, new air stone, different heater, add prazipro. Transfer as little water as possible and try not to scrape the bottom trying to catch the fish. Dry and clean the empty tank and equipment and leave it dry until the next transfer. Day 6: move all fish to new tank, new water, new air stone, different heater. Dry and clean empty tank and equipment and leave until next transfer Day 9: move all fish to new tank, new water, new air stone, different heater, add prazipro. Dry and clean the empty tank and equipment and leave it dry until the next transfer. Day 12: move all fish to extended QT tank for observation. Start regular water changes and keep an eye on ammonia levels. I add a skimmer and the live rock that I have been curing and cycling in the extended QT tank at this time. Make sure the rock was dry and completely dead before curing and cycling it for the QT tank. Unless you're treating a lot of fish, you usually don't even have to worry about ammonia in the TTM tanks since the water is new every 72 hrs. Do not ever go past 72 hours in any tank or you'll have to start over. If treating a lot of fish in TTM, I typically add Prime daily to neutralize ammonia buildup in the tank. This is only if I'm treating a lot of fish at once.

Hmmm, perhaps there just isn't as great of turnover in the first overflow that doesn't feed the skimmer to make as much of an impact on the pH of the tank, even with outside air being pumped in. I can see you feeding it into the skimmer chamber having a much greater effect on pH. That makes sense. I'm curious to see how long that indoor rated air pump will last you... especially in the heat of the summer.

Alright! The Skittles granulosa lives on!