Reef-to-be (Warning: long post, lots of questions)

[Amethyst]

I am cycling a 10g tank with the hopes of adding a few corals at some point in the future. My reason for starting the tank now, however, is because I also hope to use this tank to raise brine shrimp, so at the moment any questions I have will be related to that.

The tank has been set up for 2-3 weeks, with 16# of Reef Subtrate (http://http://www.drsfostersmith.com...m?pcatid=16765) mixed with enough regular aquarium sand to make a sand bed about 2" inches thick in the front and 3 - 3.5" in the back. It is currently running with an Aqueon QuietFlow holding a filter sponge from another tank as media, and an Azoo 11 sponge filter with a Whisper 10 pump, both rated for 10g. Initially I was only using the Azoo for additional water movement, without the sponge. In addition to the substrate, the tank has 4 fake corals that were in another tank for a month or so (but freshwater, so not helping to boost the salt water bacteria needed, unless there is a bit of an overlap of bacteria), a chunk of lava rock which has been in various tanks over the last few years, most recently in my brackish tank, and several other rocks with relatively rough surfaces. There has been no light on the tank, other than ambient room light, except for a few days when the tank had brine shrimp in it, and that wasn't much, just a 25w incandescent mini spotlight. I haven't yet decided what to do for lighting in the future.

I put my colony of brine shrimp in it after it had been running for 1-2 weeks, and unfortunately they all died within a few days. They were being pulled into the intake on the HOB filter, and adding a prefilter sponge didn't help, because it still pulled them up against the sponge. So I turned off that filter and added the sponge to the Azoo filter. Didn't help, because, as I said, they all died within a few days. I did get several nets of them to feed my other tanks over that few days, so not a total loss. The best thing about adding the brine shrimp, however, was the huge addition of ammonia produced by their waste products and then the bodies of the dead guys. The ammonia went off the chart high.

So now, after at least a week of no brine shrimp and with me feeding the tank with a pinch of brine shrimp food or fish food every day, here are my stats for last Tuesday, 3/31/14:

Temp (F): 80
SG: 1.024-1.025
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: .25 - .50 ppm
Nitrite: still off the chart
Nitrate: 5 - 10 ppm
Phosphate: 1 – 2.5
KH: 12

and today, 4/6/14:

Temp (F): 80
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: <.25
Nitrite: ≥6.0
Nitrate: 5 - 10 ppm
Phosphate: ≤ .25
KH: 10

As you can see, the ammonia is almost gone - still a tinge of color change in the test tube, but not as much as to reflect .25ppm, and the nitrite is still very high, measuring at 6 or more ppm. The contents of the water plus Nitrite reagent in the test tube is a noticeably lighter, more transparent color than it was, so it does seem to be coming down. Nitrate has stayed about the same, and pH seems to be pretty stable so far.

Questions: Should I expect nitrate to go up and then back down like the ammonia and nitrite? If so, how far back down does it need to come? Is it's current level of 5-10 ppm OK in the long run?

Phosphates - Not sure what caused the higher phosphate reading last week, but it has definitely come down since then. Tested the phosphates on my tap water tonight, and none showed up at all, which was good news. Should it be 0 eventually, and if so, how do I go about that other than using a phosphate lowering supplement? I have some liquid stuff that brings down phosphates in my other tanks, but don't know if it's good for salt water tank.

KH: I think it was 8 or 9 when I first tested it a couple of weeks ago, but not sure because I didn't write it down. Not sure why it was up to 12, or what has brought it down to 10. I know the final "OK" level will depend on stocking, and I'm not planning on doing any stocking yet, but should I be concerned that it went up and is heading back down? Is this normal for a cycling saltwater tank? KH on the tap water runs about 5-6, by the way.

I know I can't add any corals (or fish, but I'm not planning on adding fish anyway) until the nitrite is down to 0 and nitrate does whatever it's going to do before stabilizing. What about other things, like macroalgae and cleaner snails? Should I wait for the cycle to complete before adding those, or can they go in sooner? Since the substrate is pretty chunky rather than all sand, do I need/want sand sifting snails, or not?

Live rock/dry "live" rock/other rock: I will be building up my rockwork before adding corals. I've done lots of reading about live rock versus dry rock, and have found listings for "dry live rock" on various sites. It seems to me that I need at least some actual live rock that has the various coralline algaes, tiny crustaceans, etc., that tend to come with the live rock. I can get it locally (from the pet store that takes my young adult livebearers when they are big enough to sell) but they charge $7.99/# which seems high to me, based on what I've seen advertised on the internet. I live within a half-hour or so of the Puget Sound, which is, of course, salt water. Would it be good, bad, or neutral to go to the shore and pick up a few rocks from the water's edge? Would that rock have any of the good critters and/or coralline algae, even though the water is much colder here than around reefs? If I get some of the dry rock available from various places, that isn't going to lead to the development of the algaes and other critters without at least some live rock to seed it, right?

If I were to add live rock from whatever source to my tank now, would it restart the cycle? I know that it tends to have a die-off during shipping if obtained from farther away, but what if I got it from a local store or the beach itself and kept it in salt water until I get home with it, a matter of a half-hour or less?

And, last but not least, does anybody have any ideas how to filter a tank without killing a brine shrimp colony by sucking them up into the impeller or sucking them up against a sponge hard enough to damage them? I was wondering if mechanical filtration is necessary at all, and I know the live substrate/live rock is the biological filter, along with macros to keep other algae from growing and to help consume whatever remaining nitrates are in the tank after cycling. I have AquaClear HOB filters on several of my other tanks, and I always find multiple snails in every part of the filter when I do a water change; I've found live fish fry (guppies and platys) in the main body of the filters as well. I usually set the flow at the lower rate, thereby causing some of the water to bypass the impeller, and I assume that is why the snails and fry haven't been chopped up on the way through. This leads me to think that brine shrimp would also survive the trip. If I used an AquaClear filter without the filter sponge, and something inside the tank to give good water flow in other parts of the tank, would that be sufficient for filtering once I add macros and corals?

I'm sure I have lots more questions, but this is enough for now.

[thegrun]

Lava rock (the minerals inside it) has caused major problems in saltwater tanks, I would remove it.
In most tanks the nitrates will not drop on their own, you need to make large water changes to bring them down. The acceptable levels of nitrates depend on what you plan on keeping. For fish anything under 20 ppm is okay other than it would promote algae growth. For easy to care for corals I would try to keep it at or under 5ppm. More sensitive corals should have very close to zero nitrates.
You really should be using RO/DI water or distilled water for your tank, the use of tap water is a long term time bomb.
I wouldn't waste the time to test for alkalinity, calcium or magnesium during the cycle. Ammonia and nitrites are going to skew the test results.
Wait for the cycle to complete before adding any livestock, ammonia and to a lesser extent nitrites are killers.
When the cycle completes I would add sand sifting snail along with other varieties of snails. The use of rubble in the sand may eventually cause you issues with nitrates as detritus gets stuck where the CUC can't get to it. That is why most of us only use sand and not even crushed coral.
I would not collect rock from the Sound. Beyond the legality issues, anything in a cold water climate is going to die in our tropical tanks due to heat issues. The rock would also not be porous enough.
It is difficult to predict if adding more live rock will start a cycle or not, it all depends upon how much die off you have. The safest way to go is to cycle it in a separate container if you don't want to risk starting over.
Try to limit your posts to one or two questions in the future, you will get better and quicker responses to several single question post rather than one multi-question post.

[Amethyst]

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it. I'll remove the lava rock - I put it in mostly because it was the most porous rock I have on hand, but I don't want problems from it.

So, to clarify, you're saying wait till the nitrites disappear before adding cleaning crew snails, right? How about macroalgae?

[Crooked Reef]

Ammonia and nitrites will kill livestock. Definitely wait on any of that stuff. Unfortunately I don't know enough about brine to give you advice on filtering them. I have only ever seem them in a barebottom tank or a 2 liter bottle. I don't know of any filters that won't pull them into them and destroy the shrimp though. You can try an air stone but the way they shed their shells as they grow, with no mechanical filtration I think you may be fighting a losing battle here. They shells are going to get trapped in your rock, substrate and whatever else is in there and foul the water. I know they float but if the eggs hatch in the substrate and rocks the shells have nowhere to go, especially without a filter or pump. With that many decaying shells and no filtration or flow I don't really know of any corals that will survive in there.

Just out of curiosity I expect you are using the API test kits. They are known to give false readings of .25 ppm ammonia when no ammonia is present. I am not saying that you don't have any ammonia, but you may not at this point.

[Amethyst]

Yes, I'm using an API test kit. I've noticed on this site and I think on 3reef (I've recently joined both and sometimes can't remember where I've seen something) that many seem to have problems with API test kits. Another forum I'm on, ultimatebettas.com, recommends it all the time and it is what most of us on that site are using. Interesting. Perhaps some of the more specialized tests are less accurate? In addition to the complete test kit - pH, high pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate - I also have the API tests for copper, KH and GH. I have a phosphate kit, but it's a different brand. I believe I will need to get some more specific to reefs, but haven't bothered yet, since I'm still cycling. What other tests will I need, and what brand do you recommend?

As for the API tests I own - I've used them for years with my freshwater and brackish tanks, and the same bottles of reagents show no ammonia in any of my other tanks, so I'm thinking mine is accurate. I have replaced the ammonia test reagents once, and I never noticed a problem with the first bottles, either. I've also recently purchased back-ups for nitrite and nitrate, as those from the original kit are getting low, but haven't opened them yet.

I hear you about the potential problems with shells getting caught in rockwork, etc, and causing fouling. Would cleaner snails take care of these? I will be getting a CUC once I'm cycled. Also, I do plan on having, at the very least, pumps/powerheads for water movement. Hopefully that will help. Maybe I'll have to give up on the idea of raising brine shrimp in a reef tank or any kind of filtered and cycled tank. I'm not quite ready to admit defeat yet, though.

[Amethyst]

I forgot to mention that I took the lava rock out of the tank, gave it a good wash, and put it back into a freshwater tank.

I saw a post somewhere (not sure if it was here or another site) where someone had made and HOB refugium from an AquaClear, adding macroalgae, etc., to the filter body, and I'm thinking of doing this for my mini-reef. I have AquaClear filters on several of my tanks, and always find lots of snails throughout the filter. I've even found fish fry in the main body of the filter, and since they were guppies and/or platys, I know they got sucked up live, not as eggs. They were still alive and apparently doing well, and continued to be healthy after moving them from the filter back into the tank. Therefore I have reason to think that any brine shrimp sucked into an AquaClear filter would survive the trip, as long as I took the filter sponge out. Any thoughts on going this route on my new reef-to-be?

[Secondsbest]

For the brine shrimp, a BB tank with a bubble filter,our a 2 liter bottle is the way to go. I'm not sure if you can easily build a system that works with live rock, sand, and brine shrimp.

[Crooked Reef]

For a reef test kit after cycle you need calcium, magnesium, kh, nitrate, and phosphate. Ammonia and nitrite should be on hand, but once you are fully cycled and established don't really need to be tested all that often. Basically only if you have a death or something looks off with the tank. Once established you can test for ph if you wish but I haven't for years. The reason is that if your magnesium, calcium and kh are in the proper place them your ph is naturally buffered to the correct level. Also it can fluctuate with light cycles in your tank so you may test every morning right after the lights turn on and think you have a ph issue when truthfully your ph is fine in an hour or two. If you have a sump the light fluctuation can be battled by having a sump light on a reverse photo period.

The API ammonia kit comes with two cards, one for saltwater and one for freshwater. I would still use it for the simple fact that you don't want any ammonia or nitrite in the tank at all so if it shows up you still have to finish a cycle. When it disappears completely, or in the case of ammonia with that kit consistently gives the same slight reading then your cycle is done. Again once you are established you won't check this all that often anyway. My personal opinion is that the ammonia test was made for freshwater and API discovered that it works for salt as well and market it that way. Basically it works for saltwater but it is designed for freshwater so it isn't as accurate for salt.

As far as brands look at Red Sea, salifert or elos. Just search them. You will get people who have their favorite brands. I would save your money and use your current kits for now until you are ready to attempt reef

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Crooked Reef

For a reef test kit after cycle you need calcium, magnesium, kh, nitrate, and phosphate. Ammonia and nitrite should be on hand, but once you are fully cycled and established don't really need to be tested all that often.

As far as brands look at Red Sea, salifert or elos. Just search them. You will get people who have their favorite brands. I would save your money and use your current kits for now until you are ready to attempt reef

So it sounds like I'll need to add tests for calcium and magnesium down the road. I have the rest of what you mentioned.

Thanks for the assistance!