water parameters and cycling

Beau is hosting the January Meeting this coming Saturday the 14th at 6PM.  It will be BYOB as well as a snack to share and raffle items are always welcome.  It has been requested that there be “NO SHOES” on the carpet due to it being a whitish color.

He doesn’t have a tank to view but we will have plenty to discuss in hopes that it will get the NEW YEAR off to a good start.  The annual membership fees are due, so now would be a good time to get them in to our Treasurer Stacey Hahn.   Fees are $20 per individual or $25 per family

Attendance was low at the election meeting in November and no votes were taken at December’s meeting so we have decided to take votes for anyone that didn’t get the opportunity in November and will be attending this meeting.  
We will add the votes to November’s ballots and the announcement will be made during the meeting so we can go forward.
NOMINATIONS:
President:  Jim & Nacho
V. President: Ed, Bo & Daniel Leigey
Treasurer: Stacey
Secretary: Carmen & Angie

Let’s hope the New Year brings new members, returning members and new ideas.  The club is always willing to take suggestions to get the most out of the hobby we all enjoy.

Please PM Nate C. by clicking here for directions if you are not a club member.  

Club members can click here to go to the club member only forum to get directions.

Hope to see you all there!

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[VickiG]

Ok, we've had water and LR in the tank for about 3 weeks now.  Added the clean up crew last Weds, 60 lbs more LR ("fully cured") on Friday.  Total LR is about 155 lbs - don't think we have room for much more.  Here are some water parameters:
 
date         pH        SG          Alk     PO4  
7/8          8.16      1.025      3.5       0.2    
7/16        8.19      1.024      3.6       0.5    
7/23        8.21      1.024      3.6       0.5    

date      NO2    NO3     NH3     O2      ORP      Ca
7/8        .35     2.5      0.28     6.5     133      600
7/16      .15      4.0      0.25    6.5     279      400
7/23      .07      5.0      0.25    4.0     374      350

OK, water temp is pretty stable at 78 with the chiller. ORP is coming up, nitrites are going down, nitrates and phos going up, no real change in ammonia.   Added some Purple Up today, which should increase the calcium (even though we don't have coral yet, we do have some coraline on the new rocks)  What should we be seeing now to know that we are actually 'cycling'?  

We do have some brown hairy algae on one rock that the snails and crabs don't seem to want to eat - should we try to remove it or leave it and hope they'll get hungry enough since most of the rest of the tank is pretty clean?  One of the new rocks put in on Friday has a couple strands of what looks like green grass - is that hair algae or something 'good'?  I obviously need a book on identifying algae!  Until then, what do you 'old timers' think of this and about our water parameters etc?  Should we do anything to create more of a cycle (adding nitrobactor starter etc?) or just sit back and be patient?  (Patience?  forget it - I want some fish in the darn tank NOW!!  - I've waited a year and a half already!! :lol: ).  

Will try to get some pictures soon.  In the meantime - what's next?  Looking for some advice.  Thanks everyone!

[Rico]

Vicky,

The drop in Nitrites and rise in Nitrates is a good sign of the cycling of the tank and the emergence of nitrifying bacteria (the good stuff).  Eventually the Nitrites will go to "0" and then the Nitrates will follow.  The normal cycle is that Ammonia changes to Nitrites, which changes to Nitrates which then change to Nitrogen and is expelled out as a gas (sometimes seen as tiny bubbles rising from a sand bed)

If this was my tank cycling, I would remove the rock that I could access and scrub the algae off that is not being eaten by janitors.  I would also have the UV turned on because agae spreads through spores in the water current to other locations in the tank, if you can kill any of it as it passes by the UV you will have that much less of a chance of more growing.  The same reasoning goes for scrubbing the stuff off the rocks in a bucket outside of the aquarium, you want to minimize the loose particles in the tank.  Especially now since you do not have any algae grazing fish (tangs) and the nutrients for algae are high right now since the tank is cycling and the natural bacterial filter is just getting established.

A little bit of prevention goes a long way to reduce the impact of a potential problem.

Rick

[angelscrx]

Ditto to everything Rick said.  Patience Newreefersan, ;-) Budda say good fish comes to those who bait! (or is it wait?)  

You are on the right track.  My tank is cycling almost identicle to yours except for all that ORP stuff!  I don't test for that, just the basics. Ammonia, alk, Phos, nitrates, temp, calcium, and salinity.

[Rico]

One other thing to add....

While cycling tanks and experiencing the algae blooms is why there is a need to really load up heavy on the janitors as that is when they are needed the most.  After a tank is up and running, other factors such as fish feeding off the rocks, coraline algae  and a well operating bacterialogical filter keep the algae under control so you don't need as many janitors.

Rick

[VickiG]

Angel & Rick - thank you both for taking the time to reply, educate, advise and encourage!  

Angel, FYI the ORP is read by our Aquacontroller.  It reads pH, temp, and ORP continually.  ORP is so complex - I understand some, but not all of it!  And, yes, I will try to be patient - but you know how very hard that is! :wink:

Rick, thanks for the good advice.  The algae is mostly on two rocks at the very bottom of the pile, so we can't really take it out and scrub it.  I actually wanted to take all the rock out and re-arrange it (and pin it) but Darrel didn't want to do that.  He thinks we have enough rock now (155 lbs), but I think we need a bit more - to me it is not as interesting of an aquascape as I had wanted - it is more like a 'pile of rocks', but it does have some nice caves and overhangs. I think it needs to be a bit taller overall - Darrel is concerned about piling it any higher.  I've attached some pictures.  What do you think?  FYI, the worst of the brown algae is on one rock that has a hole in the front and I did see an emerald crab finally living in that hole last night - I am hoping he will eat some of the algae.  (do they?) Prior to that, none of the janitors were working on that rock at all, but they have certainly cleaned up a lot of the brown algae elsewhere.

So, a couple more questions:  Turning on the UV is okay now?  I was concerned it would kill off the 'good' bacteria (we took your advice and added some bacteria starter) and any 'pods we may have (we also put some chaeto in the 'fuge).  If you are saying the benefit of algae control far outweighs whatever the UV might kill off, we'll go ahead and run that baby right away!   We are going to order more janitors too.  We had originally cut our order back due to 1) costs and 2) we didn't have any algae when we placed the order and were afraid too many snails etc might starve (boy did the algae situation change in a hurry).  So, what do you suggest we get for more janitors at this point?  More astreas, more hermits - from your original list for us, I'd assume.  Then, is there anything else that eats that brown algae?  Like a sea hare or nudibranch perhaps?  (Oh, Darrel wants to know if it is too soon to have any shrimp? (he enjoys watching them) - I thought it was too early until we get done cycling, but said I'd ask you.)  Any other suggestions you might have?  

Again, thank you both for your suggestions and sharing your knowledge. We appreciate it a lot!  

[Rico]

Vicky,

The pictures really help.

That brown algae you are seeing is called diatoms.  It nearly always appears when a tank first starts up and is caused & fed by silica in the water.

http://filaman.ifm-geomar.de/Glossary/Glossary.cfm?TermEnglish=diatoms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatom

They are usually cleaned up by the snails and wiping the glass/acrylic and brushing the rocks and collecting in the filter floss.  They will dissapear after all the silica in the water is consumed (a week or so).  Once they are gone they usually do not reappear unless you have a very large water change.  The RO/DI filters do not usually remove diatoms except for the Hi-Silica Kent Marine unit.  

If you are going to add more snails, I would shoot for at least 300 to 400 total.  I started my tanks with 600 astreas & 100 ceriths.  I beleive Les started his tank with at least that much if not more, (knowing Les, probably more).

Since your tank is showing the development of nitrifying bacteria by the change of nitrite to nitrate, you are on the way to completing the cycle and I would not be concerned with UV causing a problem.  When I cycled my last two systems I setup, I ran UV right from the start and had very little algae develop during the cycle process.  It did not seem to impact the development of the filter at all.

I would wait on the shrimp until the nitrite & nitrates dropped to near zero.

Rick

[VickiG]

Rick, thanks so much for the advice.  I'll read that info at the link you provided.    We'll wait on the shrimp. We'll get the UV running.  Should we be testing for silica?  Or will it matter once we get the diatoms cleared up?  We definitely don't have the RO/DI unit that you mention.  I will order more astreas and some more hermits (since we only got the scarlet legs, I'll get some blue legs this time too). Should we get anything other than the snails and hermits?   Thanks again!

[Les]

No comment!

[VickiG]

No comment!

Boy, if that doesn't sound presidential!  Maybe you are taking this president thing WAY too seriously!   :lol:

[Les]

I still have nothing to add!

[Rico]

Vicki

Don't worry about testing for silica, it will go away.

I would just get the astreas or cerith snails and forget the blue leg hermits since you have a great start on the scarlet hermits.

This is just normal cycling and all you can do is be patient.  Give it a couple of weeks and it will be great.

Rick

[VickiG]

Ok, thanks again Rick.  I am going to go ahead and place that Reeftopia order ASAP.  A bunch of astreas and ceriths, and some more scarlets since we've lost several of them it seems.  Thanks again.

[angelscrx]

Stay away from blue legs, they kill snails for their snails but mostly for the fun of it.  They are fine in the sump though.  Red legs are the best and I would definitely stock up on the sanils suggested here.

[VickiG]

I have heard that the blue legs like to kill your snails. I just have the scarlets right now.  But something is getting our snails anyway - maybe the emerald crabs?  So, I am getting more astreas, more ceriths and more scarlets for now.  Maybe some more nerites - has anyone had experience with the green nerites that Reeftopia now has?  

Thanks!

[psa]

I ordered some of the green nerites this last time just for fun.  I like to keep a lot of variety since I've noticed that they all have their favorite algae types and surfaces to clean.  The "green nerites" have been all over the tank, on and under the rocks, on the bottom, and on the glass.  I can't say how much they are cleaning off since the tank they're in is pretty clean at the moment, but they do get around.  They are a dark olive green, and although there is some striping it is so fine you'd need Rick's fancy magnifier doo-dad to see it well.  They came in just a bit smaller than the other nerites (which I like just for the pattern on their shell ) and more rounded on top.