Sorry... Been spending a lot of time on my local club's forum and have forgotten to come here in a while. The tank took 65 excruciating days to finish cycling. The fuge is filled with chaeto and dragons breath that is going crazy, along with some pods that I got from reefs2go. I also had some other stuff from there on the same order but 8 of 14 inverts were doa and a lawnmower blenny died about 12 hrs after acclimatition to qt. 2 hermits and 4 nerites made it and are in the Dt doing well.
Feeling leery about online livestock now, I added 2 zebra turbos from a LFS to the DT that are doing great, and I picked up a great looking twospot bristletooth (aka blue eye tang) from the LFS that has been doing great in QT for 10 days now. The goal is to get him in to the DT about a week before MACNA and hope the family can keep him alive while I am gone.
6/28- Took a little break from waiting for the tank to cycle and went fishing with my Dad:
7/4- I got home and found that one of the stock 420/460 AquaticLife bulbs was out on the tank. The bulbs had a 60 day warranty and I had them for about 70. I went ahead and ordered a pair of ATI Blue Plus bulbs from BRS. I also emailed AquaticLife for the heck of it. They ended up sending me 2 replacement bulbs free of charge. So now I am running the 2 ATI bulbs and have 2 new and 1 slightly used AquaticLife as backups. Props to AquaticLife for great customer service.
7/8- I finished the canopy for the 20g QT and stained everything. The wife thought it looked so good, she asked me if I would set it up as a clown tank in her office. So... now I have a nano build going on with that and I need another QT.
7/9- Thinking that the DT could finish cycling any day, I was now in a hurry to find a replacement QT. My wife subscribes to a bunch of facebook garage sale sights so I told her to keep her eye out. An hour later she finds a stand for a 26g bowfront 10 minutes away for $20. I quickly remember that I had seen the tank for this stand on my local forums for $30. So... by the next evening the 2 were re-united and I had my final QT.
7/10- The QT didn't have a lid, and I didn't want its future residents jumping out on me. I made an egg crate cover for it.
7/13- Reef Octopus is creating some foam, there are diatoms growing, I added some Chaeto and Dragons Breath to the fuge, and it still hasn't finished cycling.
7/14- A shot with the ATI bulbs and a fake Jellyfish the daughter picked out.
7/16- BRS PH Probe died. A few emails and they sent me a free replacement. Two thumbs up for BRS. My daily Nitrite testing has depleated by reagent so I had to order some more. Tank still hasn't cycled.
7/24- Got some interesting algae growth... Maybe turf algae? Not sure but tank hasn't cycled.
7/25- Ready to give up. Tank will never cycle. Started an 8 day Seachem stability treatment. It is supposed to have marine bacterial spores and kick start a cycle. Don't expect much as it is just a hail mary pass.
8/2- Seachem Stability treatment complete. Tank hasn't cycled. Starting to see some Cyano.
8/3- Cyano went from a little to "I swear there are rocks and sand under all that dark red slime" in just 1 day. Vacuumed it all out and turned the lights out for 2 days.
8/6- Lights on for a day and so is Cyano. I do 10% water changes every other day, vacuuming out the new growth.
8/12- Still no completion to the cycle, but my daughter talks me in to buying a pair of zebra turbos for the tank.
Wow! Busy lil reefer or what? LOL sadly there is no cure for what ails you, highly contagious and pretty much fatal. My only suggestion for success is.....KISS KISS!!
Seriously I would check your test kit. Could be a bad one, or possibly reading it wrong.
Are you using RO/DI water?
You've done a wonderful job so far!! Your stand turned out awesome looking Good luck and keep us posted!!
8/13- Day 66. Tank cycle completes!!! Ammonia- 0, Nitrite- 0, Nitrate- .2
8/14- Got in on a Reef2go buy with a friend and ordered 8 snails, 6 hermits, and a lawnmower blenny.
8/16- Purchased a Twospot Bristletooth (AKA Blue Eye Tang) from a LFS. and added to the 26g QT. She had already completed a copper treatment at the store and i got to see her eat before I brought her home.
8/17- R2G order arrives. 4 of 8 snails and 4 of 6 hermits are DOA. Blenny comes in so little water, I use a red solo cup to acclimate him to the Biocube. The ordered also included a free 250 pod pack that i added to the fuge.
8/18- Blenny didn't make it through the night. the 4 snails and 2 hermits that arrived alive are doing well in the DT and the Tang is looking good and eating in the 26g QT.
8/22- Dragons breath and Chaeto are going crazy. Here are side by side pics showing 36 days of DB growth.
8/27- Pods are muliplying like crazy, If I were to guess, I would say that 250 turned into 4000 in just 10 days. I am sure the population will go way down once there are fish in the tank, but for now they are having the time of thier lives. I have even spotting them actively eating cyano.
8/28- Tang is still looking good and eating well in QT. Since she has already gone through a copper treatment, I decided to start her on a Prazipro prophylactic treatment. While many of my local fish friends think I am crazy to even QT the fish, I have read a bunch of articles by the pros that recommend a stay in QT with copper and prazipro for every new fish and I have decided to follow this course with all my fish.
8/30- While I am siphoning out cyano less often, it is still growing. I bit the bullet and combined group buy pricing and a $10 off coupon with BRS to order a BRS Dual reactor with MJ1200, 1/2 gallon of GFO, and a gallon of carbon. Death to red slime!!! I also added some ATI Aquablue Specials to get to free shipping and so I can get the stock Aquaticlife 10k bulbs moved to backup duty.
It is also Day 14 for the Tang in QT. She is very friendly and eats like a pig!
Wow! Busy lil reefer or what? LOL sadly there is no cure for what ails you, highly contagious and pretty much fatal. My only suggestion for success is.....KISS KISS!!
Seriously I would check your test kit. Could be a bad one, or possibly reading it wrong.
Are you using RO/DI water?
You've done a wonderful job so far!! Your stand turned out awesome looking Good luck and keep us posted!!
Thanks!
I was alternating between a Seachem nitrite test and an API multi-test strip for much of the time. They both showed nitrite at over 40 for 6 weeks. It then dropped to zero in about 4 days:
8/9- 40
8/10- 20
8/11- 10
8/12- 2.5
8/13- 0
that is one good looking tank. i cant wait to see it full of fish!
Thanks! The Bristletooth should move in in about 2 weeks. Fish 2 will likely be another 6-7 weeks after that, as I don't want to have a fish in QT for my wife to deal with while I am at MACNA. After that I hope to slip in to a 1 fish a month pattern. With my goal of 7-8 fish, it will be late spring before it is "full".
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Originally Posted by woods4542000
Good luck and keep us posted!!
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