[swinginbeef]

First timer, so take it easy. I'm trying to go slow, but I'm always open for questions, comments, advice and encouragement!

Chose the AP12 since it comes stock with 4.5 watts per gallon and it was cheap. Got it home and set up.


Bought RO water (at the grocery store), salt, sand, rock, and other misc equipment. I put in 3 gallons of saltwater and roughly half of the 20 pound bag of sand. Then I placed all of the rock that I bought in (19.5 pounds) and then filled it the rest of the way with saltwater. Replaced the pump with MJ900. Turned on the pump.


Waited for it to settle and clear a bit. Once it settled enough that I could halfway see what was going on in there, I rearranged the rock to how it is now.


Now it's been about 2 days and it's cleared out.





That's where I'm at. I haven't tested water but I've got a hydrometer/thermometer inside the tank for now and it says I'm between 1.024 and 1.025 and somewhere between 79 and 82 degrees (I'll upgrade to digital before too long). I'll probably check the water in a week or two and then again a couple weeks after that. So now it's the waiting game... I'm hoping to start adding livestock before the kids go back to school in the middle of August?

Thoughts on anything so far? My only thought is that it might be slightly too much rock? There is still enough room for swimming ( i believe) and there is a ton of surface area to cover with various things. With all the displacement from the rock and sand I bet there is less than 9-10 gallons of water so I'm probably sitting on 2+ pounds per gallon of rock PLUS probably 1 pound per gallon of sand! If it's not aesthetically displeasing and there is still room for swimming, can you have TOO MUCH rock/sand??

I also cut the vinyl backing off of the second chamber and want to do a refugium back there after the cycle is through, so if I decide to take some rock out and re-rearrange the rock, I can bust up some of it for rubble in the back.

Another thing I'm wondering is about this Hydorflow thing I added. The waves are pretty nice but I'm not convinced that it's flowing well enough that I'm getting enough movement everywhere, especially on the far left side and in the corner directly beneath it. The rock is stacked pretty high on that left side so it's blocking alot of flow and the way the Hydor is shaped it doesn't really seem to move much water in that back corner by the filter inlets. ANd I have NO idea how to get any kind of flow in the corner directly beneath the outlet?

Just wanted to share and get a little feedback.

Joe

[mtfabel]

Looking real good there. Keep up the good work and keep the pics coming.

[glampka]

Nice looking cube Joe. I have 1 of those flow deflectors in my 30 as well. I'm guessing it's not helping much with flow behind the rocks since it ends up being so long. Take a look at Sanjay's post about Having Jack of RB to help him. He shows a spray bar you could use for the cube.

[emccullough1]

I like it a lot. Go ahead and test your water you may get a suprise. My 10 gal cycled in 6 days. you get a lot of good bactera with your LR and LS and watch for littel criters. It is fun to see all the hichhikers. Im new also but gust love it 4 more days and my tank will be up for a month and I have had real good luck . Have You been through the brown algy blume yet?

Ps sory about the spelling old hillbilly here. and dont wory about your flow now you may find you need some calmer spots for some of your corals. I know I'm looking all over my tank for them.

[swinginbeef]

I'm not quite as worried about flow anymore. Last night I decided that my sandbed was a little shallow in spots, especially where the flow was highest, so I dumped in about 5-6 more pounds of sand. In the cloudy storm that occured after I dumped it in, I could see the actual flow 10,000 times better and it's flowing alot better than I thought. I just couldn't see it in the clear water. The back and left side are definitely 'lower flow' areas but they are far from stagnant.

[emothman]

Looks good, my 10 gallon also did the nitrogen cycle in only a few days. I am biting at the bit to add more and more. Slow down Eric. I love it.

[swinginbeef]

I see what you guys were saying about there being alot of bacteria, etc in the live rock and sand. On Saturday night about midnight (while I should have been sleeping but instead I was staring lovingly at a bunch of rocks soaking in some water!), I dropped in half of a cocktail shrimp to "feed the cycle". I looked for the shrimp piece last night about midnight again after getting home and it's gone! There is no evidence that a piece of shrimp was ever there. I figured it would take a little bit of time to rot away, but I guess not. No clean up crew, just live sand and live rock. Mother Nature is a pretty amazing woman!

[glampka]

You better take a good look around. I can't imagine it would be totally gone. If it sank to the bottom, you might have a hitch hiker that snapped it up. Possible the flow may have pushed it somewhere you can't see if too.

[swinginbeef]

I was just home for lunch and looked all around and found just a little bit of skin. And believe me, I Searched!! I took a baster and blew out every little spot of that tank. I haven't found anything like crabs or shrimp but I've got hundreds (maybe more) of little white or clear bugs running around, smaller than a grain of sand.

[Krazy]

your rockwork looks SWEET !!!

[swinginbeef]

as of today, everything has been running for 1 week so I decided to test my water for the first time. Here's what I saw:

Temp: 81°F
SG: 1.024
pH: 8.0
Alk: 2.8ish
Ammonia: <0.25 but >0
Nitrite: 0.2
Nitrate: between 50 and 250

I'm using a RedSea 5 in 1 kit. The Nitrate card gave a 'High Range' and 'Low Range' number which I don't fully understand, but that 50-250 range that I tested in was the worst on the card so I can take a hint!

I now see more clearly that my cycle is nowhere near over. My question is when should I start doing water changes? Do I wait until the cycle zeros itself out or should I go ahead and start with a gallon or two every week? Also with my Nitrate being so high, would now be a good time to fire up the makeshift refugium in the rear compartments to start getting rid of some of that or will natural algae growth take it down with the cleanup crew coming in later to mow down the algae? Right now the only filter I've got is the sponge in the intake chamber, which I'm cleaning about every day.

Thanks in advance.

[glampka]

Don't do water changes until the cycle is over otherwise you'll just be extending the length of time it takes to complete it. You could fire up the refugium now, it'll help reduce your nitrates.

[swinginbeef]

a couple days ago, I built and added a spraybar made from about $5 worth of supplies from Lowes. I used the pump that came stock with my tank to run it. It required no mods to the tank itself, the hose goes over the wall and the lid still closes.

Gotta love the brown crud and hair algae springing up everywhere!

[swinginbeef]

Then yesterday evening, I saw something in the spraybar. It turned out to be a Mantis Shrimp. So it looks like Glampka was right in post #8 (above) about having a hitchhiker probably helping that piece of shrimp disappear!! Thanks to my $5 spraybar, I avoided what probably would have turned into an expensive, frustrating problem. I had no idea he was in there.





I took a cup of water to the LFS for a water test and put him in there. They appologized and appologized and for my troubles and since the water test came back good, gave me a small cleanup crew of 2 reef crabs, 2 margarita snails and 2 astrea snail free of charge. I acclimated them and they are now doing their thing. I also bought another 4 pound piece of cured live rock to break up into rubble for the refugium mod in chambers 2 and 3, but it was such a cool rock I put it in the tank and busted up a rock I had in there that was a little more plain.

I looked at the tank this morning and the crabs and snails are doing quite a job of clearing the algae, but they still have a ways to go! I'll try to get some pictures at lunchtime.

[Krazy]

Hey that was cool of them to give ya a lil clean-up-crew for the mantis

you cant beat that !!!!

I love how the coraline algae is green on your rock, looks pretty cool !!!

[cappy290]

Tank is looking good so far keep up the good work...

[fishguy]

what is a spray bar? ive never heard of that

[swinginbeef]

spray bar is a tube or pipe with several little holes in it hooked up to a powerhead blowing water through the paip and shooting it out of all the little holes.

[fishguy]

oo i dont call mine that neither does the lfs they call it a water disperser which is what it is but ive never heard it called a spray bar

[fishguy]

how did you catch the mantis?

[swinginbeef]

it crawled into one of the holes of the water disperser (spray bar) and then couldn't get out. I took the whole spray bar out of the tank and took the pictures to verify that is what it was and then poured it out.

[Kimjo1]

Hi, I would suggest a spray bar too. Prety simple make yourself. I bought a 306 PH yesterday and a replacement spraybar from my LFS and cut it to fit. (total cost 25.00) As you can see you cant see it from the front of the tank and it sits in the far rear corner of the tank hidden by rock. With all that rock you have I wouldnt worry about seeing it. The less "dead" spots the better in the tank.

from the side

from the front.

GL and more pics please. =)

[swinginbeef]

not much to add, just an "18 days in" set of pics






The rock in the second pic is by far the best rock for bringing along hitchhikers. It's got a ton of little featherdusters and a couple patches of some other plant (lower right).

Another question, the algae growing on that top rock, will it go away on it's own or will I have to get it out of there some other way. It's kinda pretty right now but it was only a few days ago that it didn't even exist!! I was hoping my crabs would mow it down and keep it in check but that's not happening yet. I'm also hoping that once I get cheato in my fuge that it will out compete this from getting the nitrates that it needs to grow??

[swinginbeef]

I also bought some live rock rubble and a light for a make shift refugium on two of the back chambers. I cut away the black backing. I found a small light to promote growth and clipped it on to the wires for the lights. I've ordered some Cheatomorpha macro algae to place back there. I'll get a couple more pic once the cheato arrives.





quite a bit of light reflects off of the back glass and lights the wall behind the tank and reflects around, so I still need to figure out something to keep that to a minimum. I'm concidering something as ghetto as hanging a shoebox over it!! The light has a 9watt 6500°K bulb so it doesn't really put out much heat so I don't think that would be much of an issue?

[liveal7]

How about a piece of black heavy weight cloth? Just a suggestion.
LIV