Eclipse 30 Gall.. Cycling..

[schweetpup4u]

hey! this isnt my first SW tank, but i messed up the first time, and that was a while back.. my tank is 30 gallons, and i just mixed the water in it yesterday, its mostly clear now, and it has one powerhead, and 10 lbs of white sand in the bottom.. i was told by the petshop that starfish would cycle my tank ok.. so i got a chocolate chip starfish.. and he hasnt moved from the spot he dropped at since i put him in there... what should i do? how long should my tank stay cycling before i put anything else? i am wanting a coral beauty and a clownfish and maybe some damsels. what should i fo ext? what are ideal water paremeters? this is not going to be a reef tank, because i only have regular flourescent lighting..

 

[carrie1429]

Inverts are not the best thing to cycle a tank with, how did you accumulate the star? Your tank should take from 3 weeks to a month before the cycle may be finished. I would only add more stuff in your tank after the cycle. You could have a clown and a coral beauty but you'll want to add the CB after you tank is more established like 5 months old. Also I wouldn't have any damsels. They are very territorial and will not go good with a clown in a 30 gal. In a 30gal you can't have many fish, probably just the clown and CB IMO. Your water parameters should be: Ph: 8.0-8.4, Nitrite: 0, Nitrate: 0-10, Ammonia: 0 Calcium: 400-500.

 

[carrie1429]

One more thing I forgot to add, you should also use live rock. LR will help a lot with the cycle and help out a lot with the biological filteration.
BTW welcome to the board

 

[fshhub]

I hate to put it this way, butthat is right, inverts are not a good way to cycle a tank, they don't give off nearly enough(if any)bioload to start the cycle, the only thing that may help, is a death, in where the decompositon would start it for you. and stars more than likely will not survive this, so chances are that it may help out.
AS for your fish selection,
As for the time frame, it is anybody's guess, test your water, it will tell you when it is ready.
And if you would like a littel advice, then wait on the dwarf angel, for several months(minimum 6).
IMO, a CB and a clown, along with one or 2 other small fish is plenty for that tank. maybe even pusihing it with that much.
CArrie gave some good advice ont he use of LR

 

[bdubbya]

In addition to lr you might want to make your sand bed a deep sand bed (dsb). Having one of these is a great addition to an aquarium for biological filtration in addition to the lr.
A dsb is between 4" to 6" deep. Traditionally people use just plain aragonite sand for the first three to four inches then put a layer of live sand on top of the dead sand. You can also seed the dsb with organisms from the lr. This will take a little longer, but it usually takes a few months for your dsb to reach full performance.
Another thing you might want to look into is a protien skimmer. I also have an eclipse hood and the only way to get a skimmer on is to cut a hole in the side or back of it. I have a sea clone skimmer in case you are curious and it works well.
As far a fish go I like your choices, but would have to agree with carrie1429 about the damsels. I currently have one I am taking back to my lfs. Unfortunately you can't always trust what the lfs tells you. That is why it is a good idea to get a good book and read it front to back, and to use this message board to your advantage. I personally don't buy anything until I've ran a search on this message board, and if you can't find anything using that there is usually someone here willing to help. Well I hope I've helped. Good luck.

 

[bdubbya]

Almost forgot to tell you I like royal grammas and black cap basslets they are pretty cool fish and should work in that size aquarium, but not together they are both basslets and will fight to the death. HTH.

 

[jhead]

I setup my 30 a couple months ago. I used 3"+ of a very fine white reef sand, I was told the finer the sand the thinner the DSB could be, and about 30 lbs of Figi base rock to start. I let that go for a couple of days to clear out the clouds. Then I put in two blue damsels, in the hopes they would pair up, now I have one damsel. Anyway after a couple of weeks I started to noticed bubbles in my sandbed. This was my first sign that the cycle was starting to move. I swapped the lighting on my system of a 192w of PC lighting and I had a diatom bloom for about three or four days. I picked up a cleaning up crew and they knocked it out in no time. My rocks looked good again after about a week. By this time my DSB had started forming different layers of smaller bubbles. My DSB was really starting to cook. But by far and away the two best things I did came next. I found a local source for some pre-cured Fiji LR at $3/lb delivered to my door. I also got the guy to bring me a cup of live sand from his nano. I put the 20 lbs of LR he bought in the tank and added about another 10 lbs of my base rock and I'm letting that simmer. I was expecting some die off and an ammonia spike after I added the rock but it been a week or so I everything is testing fine. I'm having a little algae bloom but, I don't mind right now. I'm trying to get my base rock re-seeded so I'm more worried about the rock than the fish right now. Plus the LR gave me a few pods and polyps to stare at. Good high quality LR is your best answer, hand picked if possible. I figure in about 3 month or so I'll start adding a little more bio-life. But for now it's fun just watching the rock grow and looking for new worm tracks. (Am I sick or is this normal?)
I have seen other post that will frown what I about to say but, hey IWFM. I use a skimmer on my reef 24/7 365. It is a SeaClone HOT skimmer and it's not the best, but it does what I need it to. Basically that is - it takes a lot of the nasty stuff out of the water, and it keeps the surface scum to a minimum. Some people advise not to use a skimmer on a new tank, but my water was starting to look soupy and the skimmer cleared it right up. It was my best equipment purchase to date.
On personal note I'd take the starfish back to the LFS add tell the guy that he must have been mistaken to think you could cycle a tank with it. As far as fish go, get some that you like but that are not overly expensive. Becaue, if the ammonia spike doesn't get them the nitrate spike might. The reason I say get something that you like is he might be like my damsel, and you can't get him out without destroving you tank. (But I like the damsel so it was cool with me)
Good luck and welcome aboard.
And remimber nothing happens fast in a reef tank but disaster!!!!

 

[bdubbya]

Instead of replacing the starfish with another cheap fish, just let your tank finish it's cycle. A couple of weeks after the cycle is complete start to add fish slowly. Like jhead said the fish you buy might make it, but then again they might not. So just eliminate the risk and let your tank mature a bit. HTH.

 

[schweetpup4u]

thats for the quick, imformative replies, guys.. im used to a slow moving message board.. hee hee.. anyways.. i think my lil starfish guy is dying... im sure this will give off some bacteria.. should i leave it, get it out, or what? im not planning on having any coral lighting, so wouldent the LR 's coraline just decompose, making my nitrates rocket? or would most of it stay, and only a lil more than normal dieoff as expected? how deep should my DSB be? its only about an inch.. it is 10 lbs, of the fine coral reef sand. After my tank is mostly completed its cycle, i will probably get a clownfish to keep my eyes occupied so i wont have to try to fascinate myself with algae growing on the rocks.. aftually, i find myself here staring at the bubbles flowing in from my powerheads quite often. or the lil sand bubbles from some of the unsettled sand float around on bottom.. heehee i will wait on the Coral beauty for at least 5 months.. i will robably get it for my birthday ( march) every birthday, i get my mom to take me to the pet shop and get pets and pet supplies for the rest of my zoo... so i should just leave the starfish to cycle, or get something else, and if so.. what?

 

[schweetpup4u]

o have been thinking of adding a Royal Gramma .. are they hardy? should i add it or the clown fish first, or at the same time? i know some people after they have their SW fish being acclimated to the water temp through the bag, after that, they add 2 cups of the tanks water into the bags to get the fish/ inverts addapted to the salinity in the water.. do any ofyall do that/ heard of it/thinks it helps any? i want a royal Gramma, a clownfish, a coral beauty, starfish, few camel back shrimp, Live rock, a DSB few blue legged hermits, emerald crab, peppermint shrimp and some turbo snails and a pencil sea urchin.. is this too much or would they all get along? what do you think..

 

[bdubbya]

I think that with your current lighting you won't lose any coraline. I have an eclipse 37 gallon and I'm getting new spots of coraline. I would leave the starfish in there he will get your cycle started. I would say that your stocking list looks good, the only thing about the pencil urchin is that they sometimes will eat your coraline. And yes acclimation is very important especially for your inverts. I acclimate my inverts for a couple of hours, because they are very sensitive to ph and salinity. I personally would get the clown fish first, wait a couple of weeks, and then get the royal gramma. Your sand bed should be 4 to 6 inches. There is a formula that you use to figure how much sand you will need, but I don't know it. My 37 has the same dimensions as a 29 and I have around 80 pounds of sand. HTH.

 

[schweetpup4u]

thanks so much.. that is good to know about my lighting.. hee.. do you think it is strong enough for a few feather dusters? there isnt any good live rock in any pet shops around here, so i will probably order some from this website sometime soon. but i guess i'll pick me up a few lbs of it to finish cycling my tank. i guess i can do without the pencil urchin, but i know that starfish eat the pincushion urchins, but will the pincushion urchins eat coraline algae? are scarlet or blue legged hermits better at eating hair algae? wich are best overall?

 

[bdubbya]

Feather dusters don't need lots of light. They are what's called a filter feeder. Their "feathers" direct the micro organisms and such to their mouth. I believe you have to spot feed them something like marine snow with something like a turkey baster. I'm not positive about this, but I think that all urchins will eat coraline, but I could be wrong on this. Maybe you LFS will be able to help. As far as crabs most will eat it, but my little guy's weren't interested, so I got an emerald crab and he took care of it for me. Anther way to deal with an algea outbreak is to cut down on feeding or making sure you use RO/DI water. Most of the time hair algea is caused from excess nutrients in the water. HTH.

 

[schweetpup4u]

i got some "caribi Sand" araglive sand. it is 20 lbs, came in a bag with water.. said to be Live sand. i uno, but i bought it, and it was $30.00 and i bout a piece of small live rock to help with the cycle ( $4.00) its a beautiful piece, it is covered with purple and blueish green coraline, and a small piece of coral.. heee anyways.. im letting my LR acclimate, and my tank is a bit cloudy from the sand.. im waiting on it to clear.. im not sure about the coral beauty, i hear they are hard to keep alive. so im going to think about that. one.. if i dont get it, what are good alternatives?

 

[bdubbya]

I would think that as long as you wait at least six months before introducing it it should be okay. Just be sure you levels are steady and I think you will be good.
Another fish that I like is the firefish goby. It's a pretty cool lookin' fish. Another option is to get a mated pair of clowns. HTH.

 

[schweetpup4u]

Thanks. I am really looking forawrd to getting some bubble coral. They need medium light, right? what kind of bulbs would i need for my eclipse? how much would it cost? how often would i have to replace the bulbs? what kind of other coral would a bubble coral not attack? how long should i let my tank mature with all the live rock and live sand before adding any coral/ feather dusters? how long should i wait to add any inverts? ( sorry so many questions, i just want to do this reef right the first time..)

 

[bdubbya]

Click on this link to look at a VHO ballast kit.
http://www.hellolights.com/vhoballastkits.htm
IMO the most important thing in keeping a salt tank is to make sure your levels don't fluctuate much. Which is why you want to take it slow. As for as adding invertibrates I just added mine after the cycle had completed. You will have a diatom bloom at the end of the cycle (brown algea) that's when I started to add my clean up crew. The best thing I can tell you is to go buy a book to read while your tank is cycling. The one I have is called "The Simple Guide to Marine Aquariums" by Jeffery Kurtz. It's a pretty good book to get you started. Just remember "Go slow, let it grow". HTH