OB1's Nano Fusion 20

[Oceanbear1]

so here is my tank, its still cycling :mad3: I havent cycled a tank in ages and I forgot how annoying it it is. There I diatoms, cyno, and hair algae, but I can't put anything in there to take care of it because there i still readable ammonia. I got some free copepods today from great white aquatics, maybe they'll live. Out of curiosity, when I am ready to start buying some acros, are there any sps reefers in FOCO that regularly frag and sell their stuff?

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[SilverSurfer]

What light is that? Nice free pods gotta love it.

 

[Oceanbear1]

Its a 16k maxspect razor, I bought it lightly used, but I really like it

 

[Oceanbear1]

So I normally don't use a lot of chemicals, especially bacteria based ones, but I got a bottle of nite out II for a few bucks, and decided, what the hell, let's see what it does. I'll update to say if it has any effect, but I am not expecting much. I believe they use terrestrial bacteria, unlike dr. Tim's, who uses the marine bacteria. If I had to guess it will work in the short term, but the bacteria will not be able to live in the hypertonic environment, and won't last long term. Reviews say it gives the natural bacteria time to establish, while keeping ammonia and nitrite levels down. Currently I have pretty high
levels of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates. So I have bacteria present, just not in sufficient numbers.

 

[Oceanbear1]

Alright guys, I'm going to ask for your opinion. Ammonia is at zero, nitrites are getting there, and nitrate is EXTREMELY high. I'm talking like over 100 ppm. I'm not running a skimmer yet as I was planning to start low, but the nitrates clearly did not leave as nitrogen gas. Any suggestions?

 

[Shaunv]

Give it time.

 

[Oceanbear1]

Well, I mean, yeah of course I am going to do that, just in all my years I have never seen the nitrates jump this high. I usually consider myself a pretty knowledgable person in this field, this just confuses me.

 

[Oceanbear1]

So from my understanding of chemistry,nitrogen gas can only form on the rocks or substrate in low oxygen areas, and once it has become a soluble in the water column it can not escape through that method. That is why I am weirded out by the high nitrates. I understand the nitrogen cycle and know it takes time to build the bacterial colonies. This just is weird to me. I'm also not use to small tanks, in my internships and my personal life there were bigger tanks that I worked with. I'll give it time for sure, I just was wondering if there was something else I was missing.

 

[Shaunv]

Sorry if. I was short in my answer but it sounds like you are in the final stages of the cycle since ammonia turns to nitrites and then to nitrates. Test readings will be different for everyone during the cycle but yes, the nitrates can go sky high. Adding some beneficial bacteria can help speed things up. But really, time is all you need. It can take a month or more for the cycle to be completed once it starts but it can also take just a few days. When you started, did you use dry rock or live rock? How did you start your cycle? Did you add pure ammonia or some food source to start it? What are your other parameters at?

 

[Oceanbear1]

No you are fine, I just didn't want you to think I was an impatient newbie asking stupid question. To answer your question though, I used live rock from live aquaria, it was theoretically cured, but of course there was die off in shipment. There was no need to add anything, as there was plenty of food for the bacteria. At mid day pH seems to sit around 8.1. I need to set up my pH probe, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[Oceanbear1]

So here is a current pic of my tank, I can never get a very good picture. I have restarted my sps collection, and am currently searching for cool acros at affordable prices in Northern Colorado. Overall things are going well. I went on break and left my tank on auto pilot. Had a bit of an algae out break but everything is good now. I'm going to try to get a better balanced lighting sometime soonish.

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[Dr.DiSilicate]

Most of my corals are still small. I have a couple, we could work out something I'm sure. Maybe give us a couple easy ones to check how the tank is doing... I'm in Greeley.

 

[Oceanbear1]

Oh thanks! Didn't mean for this to sound like a wtb post, but if you have some frags you are looking to sell I will definitely take a look. Eventually I will post something in the selling forum. I always find I have a MUCH higher success rate with corals I buy in person than over the internet. I'm not sure why, other than just the added stress of shipping. I keep meaning to send Gonzo a message to ask to come look at his stalk, but I may wait a couple weeks

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

Get yourself some good lighting and we'll talk. Gonzo has a ton of stuff!

 

[Oceanbear1]

Oh I think there was a misunderstanding, I'm running a maxspect razor, my lighting is great for sps. What I meant earlier was that that I am going to try to get a better picture, because the color the tank is and the color the photo is do not match. I was just going to play with the color balance of the LEDs for picture taking

 

[sethsolomon]

Oh I think there was a misunderstanding, I'm running a maxspect razor, my lighting is great for sps. What I meant earlier was that that I am going to try to get a better picture, because the color the tank is and the color the photo is do not match. I was just going to play with the color balance of the LEDs for picture taking

+1 I can attest to this light. I have it on my 34.4g and it is pretty good for LED. I was keeping SPS that wouldnt color up in my 120g in there and they were rocking. But on a side note the 34g has been running for 2 years longer.

As for photos under LED lighting pick up your self a set of these. They help the white balance on the camera phones. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gel-Filters...s-Muti-tint-/261733446678?hash=item3cf0877416


Also, Mike PM incoming

 

[Oceanbear1]

Thanks for the reccomendation, I'll pick those up

 

[Oceanbear1]

Thanks for the recomendation, I'll pick those up

 

[Oceanbear1]

Recommendation, geese I can't type today

 

[Oceanbear1]

Well this morning my bubble tip apparently decided it was time to move and ran into the vortech. So that's a huge mess I get to clean up. Everything else seems fine and has polyp extension, but the water is pretty cloudy so I went and got 10 gallons to do a water change. The one part I hate about this hobby is the part where you just feel like you are burning money