The cloudiness in the tank has cleared up so I snapped a pic with the blue bulbs on. They come on an hour earlier than the whites and stay on for an hour after the whites go off.
Here is the current state of the sump. You can see that the skimmer is producing a decent amount of foam. From the skimmer section it goes down my media rack section. Currently there is just some filter floss on top, but soon I will add a Chemi-pure elite bag below that. From there it flows out the bottom and in to a chamber where I added some rubble from my the sump of my big tank (I haven't decided if I will fill it to the top with rubble, or if I will add a light and some chaeto). From the rubble chamber, the water overflows into the return section with heater. I never fixed the broken tooth on that overflow. I will fix it if I decide to add chaeto to the rubble section.
Cycling- I dosed a small amount of ammonia on day one to get things going. I got a couple free bottles of MicroBactor7 at MACNA, so I am giving it a try as well. The Ammonia alert shows that ammonia is still high, but I am already testing a 2 mg/l of nitrites in just 5 days of running. Between the use of rubble from my established system and the MB7, I am hopefully it will not be a long cycle.
The Clowns- They have now been in QT for 2 weeks and are doing well. The like mysis most, but will take the IO Marine Chips too. I have tried some flake that free from MACNA, but they don't seem interested in it at this time.
Day 9-Ammonia is all gone and the nitrites are now way up. Diatoms are out in force. The temperature gets up near 80 by the end of each day's light cycle. I ordered a little hang on fan made by Zoo Med and plan to control it with my AC3 to keep the temps between 78 and 79. I am still dosing MicroBactor7 daily and I am ghost feeding i bit of mysis shrimp every other day.
Clown update- They have completed their 2 rounds of Prazipro in the QT. The plan was to treat them with copper next, but I have changed my mind on that. After lots of reading, I see that Brooklynella is the biggest concern for clowns and the consensus is that it can not be treated with copper. I have chosen to go with Mardel QuICK Cure. It is supposed to work on ick (like copper), but it is Formalin based (known to treat Brook). The treatment only lasts 3 days, and after that I will just leave the clowns in QT until the tank has cycled.
Small update... I added a small bag of Chemi-pure elite to the media rack in the sump today.
Unrelated note... As part of the same order I got a Reef Gently Acclimate Pro. I had wanted one as soon as I saw their video on it, and although I haven't used it yet, the build quality and features have so far exceeded my high expectations. I can't wait to give it a try. I am a little surprised by how small it is. If It works as good as it looks, I may add the XL version to my wish list.
Day 16, the tank has cycled. It was a nasty mess in there. I did a 15% water change and sucked out the worst of the GHA and Cyano. I didn't think to take a pre-cleaning pic, but below is the after cleaning pic. still nasty looking, but not as nasty. I also added a single head of candy cane that I had in the sump of my big tank. Not sure when I will add the clowns. They have gone through all the QT treatment I had planned, but I just hate putting them in there during this nasty time.
GHA and Cyno are not normal parts of the cycle. High nutrient levels and low flow would be my first guess.
I see you have a skimmer. It looks like the collection cups is filled with water. Correct?
Live your rock work
GHA and Cyno are not normal parts of the cycle. High nutrient levels and low flow would be my first guess.
I see you have a skimmer. It looks like the collection cups is filled with water. Correct?
Live your rock work
The GHA and Cyano likely came over from the rubble I used to seed the tank. It was out of the fuge of my big tank, which went through a really bad GHA and Cyano bout most of August. GFO has knocked out 95% of it, but there is still a little present. I suspect there was some traces of it on the rubble, and the new Marco rock is probably feeding it by leaching phosphates in to the water. I am hoping that the Chemi-pure elite will help with that, but it was only added less than a week ago.
The skimmer cup fills fast with yellow water (needs to be dumped every 3rd day currently). I keep adjusting it each time I dump it and getting slightly longer run times, but it still hasn't gotten anywhere near the dark skimate I get from my big tank.
8 little red legged reef hermits moved from the invert QT into the clown tank yesterday. They seem to like it and are busy cleaning things up in there.
While still present, the cyano has been reduced significantly. I added a little bit of GFO in a media bag to the sump today and hopefully it will wipe out the last of it. More importantly, I decided the tank was ready for the clowns and moved them over this morning. They seem to dig their new tank.
ATO- I got an Aquahub ATO kit and an aqualifter in the mail yesterday. I got it all assembled last night and it was a little more involved than I expected. I haven't actually installed it, as I am still deciding where I want to mount the project box and pump. I also have a BRS space-saver jug that I picked up in a group buy that will act as the ATO reservoir.
Lighting- I ordered new bulbs last week to replace the cheap ones that came with the light fixture. I ordered 2 ATI Blue+, 1 ATI Aquablue special, and 1 ATI Coral+. I was informed that the Coral+ was out of stock, but the others arrived yesterday. I went ahead and installed the 2 Blue+, but will wait for the Coral+ to get here before installing the Aquablue. They share a ballast so It seemed to make sense to install them together.
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There's nothing like being a Reefer!
Originally Posted by MizTanks
