Follow my Oceanic 144g half circle reef tanks progress. 
Enough Cycling already! :D
Posted 12/05/2011 at 12:15 PM by Aaarrrggg
Tags cycle
Well as you might have guessed by now, the Amm & Ni weren't 0 the next day.... nor the day after. In fact it ended up taking 3 days. I dutifully added more Ammonium Chloride... and again it took 3 days. Blurgh. 
I emailed Dr Tims customer service and they suggested the pH might be too low and to do a WC. I tested the pH and it was at 7.8 ...so I don't think that's the problem. Bah, I've waited over a month and cycled it 5 times, (which is 4 times more than people usually do!) ...I think it's time to say it's ready already!
I did a WC to help with nitrates (40 before change) and picked up 12 black foot trochus snails from the LFS (apparently they're self-righting ones, yay!) I was about to pop them in when I suddenly remembered I still had the temp set to 85°F! Oops... that was a close one!
Thankfully I have my little nano; so they all spent the night at a more barmy climate while the big tank cooled down.
I was busy most of today so I didn't get to add my little "canary" critters until this evening. I figured I'd add a small selection of CUC from my nano and see how they do. I grabbed 5 trochus snails, 3 nassarius, 1 nerite and 1 red leg hermit (if you follow [URL="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1972594"]my nano thread[/URL] you'll know him better as Robocop.) It's been a few hours and so far so good! I love how you can completely uproot a CUC member and they just get straight back to it in their new home.
I have an order coming on Thurs from [URL="http://www.ipsf.com/"]Indo-Pacific Sea Farms[/URL] for a bunch of reef detritivores which I'm unreasonably excited about. I mean, they're probably going to be so tiny that I can't even see what I've ordered, but I still can't wait! One problem with using mostly dry rock is you really do miss finding random critters. With this order I should be able to beef up my smaller CUC members; bristleworms, spaghetti worms and brittle-stars to name a few. I'll post more info about them when I can take some piccies of the delivery.
I'm also working with another local reefer to set up a remote ATO and automatic water-changer. More on that as it develops...!
I emailed Dr Tims customer service and they suggested the pH might be too low and to do a WC. I tested the pH and it was at 7.8 ...so I don't think that's the problem. Bah, I've waited over a month and cycled it 5 times, (which is 4 times more than people usually do!) ...I think it's time to say it's ready already!
I did a WC to help with nitrates (40 before change) and picked up 12 black foot trochus snails from the LFS (apparently they're self-righting ones, yay!) I was about to pop them in when I suddenly remembered I still had the temp set to 85°F! Oops... that was a close one!
Thankfully I have my little nano; so they all spent the night at a more barmy climate while the big tank cooled down.I was busy most of today so I didn't get to add my little "canary" critters until this evening. I figured I'd add a small selection of CUC from my nano and see how they do. I grabbed 5 trochus snails, 3 nassarius, 1 nerite and 1 red leg hermit (if you follow [URL="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1972594"]my nano thread[/URL] you'll know him better as Robocop.
) It's been a few hours and so far so good! I love how you can completely uproot a CUC member and they just get straight back to it in their new home.I have an order coming on Thurs from [URL="http://www.ipsf.com/"]Indo-Pacific Sea Farms[/URL] for a bunch of reef detritivores which I'm unreasonably excited about. I mean, they're probably going to be so tiny that I can't even see what I've ordered, but I still can't wait! One problem with using mostly dry rock is you really do miss finding random critters. With this order I should be able to beef up my smaller CUC members; bristleworms, spaghetti worms and brittle-stars to name a few. I'll post more info about them when I can take some piccies of the delivery.
I'm also working with another local reefer to set up a remote ATO and automatic water-changer. More on that as it develops...!
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