Started My 1ST Tank - TODAY!!

[me-n-my-fish]

Mimzy--
Glad to see you are happy about your tank!! You are well on your way to a wondurful tank!! Just be careful, and keep going the way you are. When you start adding critters and such, add one, then wait a while (week) so that your tank can ajust to the increased bio-load. Don't do like i did way back when, and once the cycle gets done, try to buy all the critters and such at once. Makes it real hard on your tank. Just a couple, here and there, until you reach the capacity of your tank.
I am with Scotts on this one, so jealous. I did both feet and wallet thing.
Just remeber, if your not sure, ask, we are glad to help!!!

 

[mimzy]

Thanx Me-n-my-fish - and you too, Scott!!
... I'm tryin 2 do this right from the begining! (which is why I've been bothering you all so much

they already know me by name at the bookstore near me) I think I'm going to add the bumble-bee snails first. if 5 at a time safe for them? Theyre so small, but I don't want to overload anything....
Anyhow, I've got a ways to go before I can do that.
Ok, so I did aother test...
salinity; 34
SG; between 1.025 & 1.026
ammonia; .25
nitrate: 20
nitrite; 4.0
hardness; 250
alkalinity; FINALY got a reading this time - 300... high? low? :notsure:
pH; 8.4
temp; 80
Plus, took another close look (or 50) at the tank, and found more pods!! I Looked riiiight at the border of the substrate, and there they were, 3 of them, just a-rushin' up and down the acrylic. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!! :jumping: :jumping: :jumping:

 

[f1shman]

lol your so funny. yes cleaning crew is fine, doesn't really matter how many of them you add at once, they create very little waste and clean a lot

 

[sinner's girl]

just make sure the members of your clean up crew all get along and won't each other. and don't get too many snails unless you can somehow feed them.
Some shrimp like to eat other shrimp. We got three different kinds from here... 1 Coral Banded Shrimp, 10 Peppermint and 1 Camelback Shrimp. First the Coral Banded Shrimp ate all the peppermint shrimp (but not before the peppermints ate those things...forget what they are called), then the Camelback ate the Coral Banded Shrimp. After that, the Camelback lived for about a year.
My choc star liked to play a fun game called, knock the snails off the glass. He'd knocked them off, then wait for them to die and suck the heads. This was esp fun when we won't home to move the snail.
My two stars get along find (brittle and serpent). I love those guys. I don't know where you're getting your crew from but I bought mine from swf.com in Dec 2001! And with the exception of me trying to kill them, the stars are still alive and well (well, one is, the other is trying to die on, but that's some other problem).
hydrometer - the instant ocean kind, too, just like everyone said I should. Nice and easy to read.
Really? easy to read? I can't get that thing to work, but it's not instant ocean...Coral life deep six, that's all they had. How do I make the bubbles go away? I can't get a reading. (sorry to hijack) My old one, (which I broke the other night) never gave me trouble, I put in the tank, fill it with water and I got a reading....this one gives me bubbles!

 

[mimzy]

OK, here are the latest readings...
salinity; 37
SG: 1.027
these went up quite a bit - think it's evaporation. So I took out about a half gallon and added fresh RO water... I'll test tommorrow afternoon to confirm that these have gone back to normal.
amonia; 0 ....my first zero reading!! According to my chart, it peaked on day 2 with a reading of 3.0 (I've been testing every other day, but had to skip yesterday b/c of my fishook ordeal...see my post in the Fish Photography section) I hope I'm not being mislead by my test strips...
nitrate; 20
nitrite; 1.0 ...this peaked on day 4 with a reading of 5.0...can it be? so soon? both ammonia AND nitrite peaked already?? :jumping: :jumping:
hardness; 425 (why am I testing for this? It's a square on the test strip, so I read/reccord it every day...but it doesnt isolate any nutrient in particular....)
alkalinity; 300 - my best guess, the color of my results is different from the colors on the interpretation sheet)
pH; 8.4 ...this has gone unchanged since the very begining
temp; 78.5 - my temp has been consistantly between 78-80 degrees... I'm afraid to heat the water...might take it up too high...what do you all think? :notsure:
In other news, I see more and more pods on the acrylic every day...I can't see them on the rocks, but they're all over the front/sides of the tank. I am soooo exited for my 'trates to stabilize...then I can get a crew to clean 'em up!!!
I tried to propagate my coraline by scraping it off of a few places on the rock and spreading the bits throughout my tank...but there's no new growth and it's 3 days later. Hhhm, am I being impatient, or did my experiment fail?
Thank you all for reading...I know this site isn't meant to be a live journal, but it's so much simpler keeping all the info in one place and not creating 80bajillion new posts. You've all been so helpful and patient - thank you again!!!

 

[exile415]

MIMZY, You seem soooo happy and excited. I can't wait to see the pictures when this tank is done.

 

[mimzy]

LoL - thanx Exile! quite frankly...I can't wait to see it either!!!! Here I sit, daydreaming of my first addition.... 5 bubmle bee snails.... and then 2 sexy shrimp the next week..and then the next week perhaps a fire shrimp... and then 2 perculas!!! :joy:
But in the meantime...how do my readings look?

 

[kdfrosty]

I might consider adding more of a cleanup crew than just 5 Bumble bees. Your salinty looks a little bit high. You're topping off with FW, right? It seems that it's been going up??
Anyways, I love your enthusiasm!!! Good stuff.

 

[lil gobie]

tank looks very nice mimzy o and keep up the good work

 

[mimzy]

Yay! Thanx all :joy:
KD- my cleanup crew is EVENTUALLY going to include 5 bumble bees, 2 sexy shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, a feather duster and 2 blue legged hermits... but I didn't want to add them all at once so as not to start off another cycle... am I perhaps being too cautious? Should I indeed add them all at once? Hhhm... :thinking:
Oh, and as for today's readings...salinity is back down since I took out half a gallon of the tank water and added RO in its place
salinity; 34
SG; 1.026
ammonia; .25 ...hhm..climbing back up again...
nitrate; 40 ...also back up
nitrite; 1.0
hardness; 425
alkalinity - still no good reading. need to get test kit just for this
pH; 8.4, as always
temp; 79
I added a bit of RO water after testing today...the hydrometer takes out a good amount of water and I need to replace it somehow - ud be suprised how much difference a few ounces makes in a 12 gallon! Since I'm still trying to get the salinity down a bit, I'm only using RO - no mixed saltwater. I'll test again this evening to see if it's gone down any more.
As for the elevated trates & ammonia...perhaps I had a false spike and the worst isn't nearly over yet? :scared:
How long should a cycle last in a 12 gallon? I must say I WAS taken aback at how quickly everything cycled as per yesterday's readings - this makes much more sense.
Plus...everything in the tank looks rather brown today... the white live rock has turned fuzzy dirty brown, and there's a rusty dust - like film on the lace rock. Is it diatoms??
Is anyone else excited to see diatoms?? :jumping: :jumping: I shall take a picture...
Oh so many questions. Thank you all for your help and patience... I feel like I've got a whole troop of guardian angels looking out for me!
OK...took pix of the brown stuff.. hope you can see 'em, the lighting isn't the best. thanx!!

 

[mimzy]

bump....
do those picks look like diatoms to anyone whos seen 'em before? :thinking:

 

[kdfrosty]

I'm looking at your pics on a laptop, and that stuff (diatoms, I suppose) looks purple. Is it just me, or do other people see that too?
Anyways, it seems like your salinity has gotten in check, but that the cycle isn't really complete or has restarted. Are you still feeding the tank? One of the most toxic things to fix is ammonia...more than nitrates, nitrites (in mild cases), a small swing in pH, lotsa stuff. Get that ammonia to 0 before furhter additions.
When my cycle was complete, I did a water change and added a cleanup crew. I added a whole cleanup crew (5 Mexican Turbos, 5 bumblebees, 10 Nassarius, 10 scarlet hermits, emeral crab) all at once. I did, however, have live rock and diatoms for the cleanup crew to munch on. I would be careful adding shrimp or feather dusters too early. I didnt even really feed the cleanup crew or tank for about three weeks until I got my first fish. I did, however, suffer a few cleanup crew casualties (a couple of hermits and a snail), but this is to be expected.
Keep doing regular water tests. Watch for all levels (Ammonia/Nitrites) to hit 0, with some nitrates still remaining. At this point do a 20-25% water change. Doesnt sound like your quite ready for a cleanup crew yet, but that's just my opinion. I know you probably hate to hear that as much as I hate to say it.

 

[mimzy]

LoL, KD, thanx 4 all the info - I'm actually happy to be testing and just watching my LR and whatever pods I've got in there (of which there are bajillions!!)... I'm a little hesitant to get other critters..this is my first SW tank and I want to get things right.
I'm going to wait a while (prob about 7 days) after all my parameters reach the apropriate levels before I get critters...just in case the cycle jumps again. I'm really scared to kill things... I'd like to wait as long as possible.
Thanx for looking at my pix... the stuff might look purple b/c the lighting on my camera is out od whack - and also b/c the background of the tank is purple... The stuff I'm wonderingabout it brown and fuzzy - I didn't notice any purple hue to it in the pix...maybe I need to highlight the parts I'm looking at in the pix... I'll set about doing that. Thank you thank you!