My 36gal journey

I am planning to test every other day for a bit to see if there is any change in the readings.

Thats all dry rock you started out with right? Add a pinch of flake or pellet food and you should see ammonia start to raise in a few days

I started with 25lbs dry rock and 20lbs of live sand for 1 week. Then I got and added about 12 lbs of live rock along with calerpa and chaeto in my fuge.

I went out today and got 6 hermit crabs and a Damsel.

My protein skimmer also arrived so I installed it into my sump and will be working on getting the adjustments complete.

The damsel has not come out of hiding yet but when it does I will grab a picture. I took out my DSLR today and got a few shots of the tank since I put the live rock in. They are not the best pictures but the reflection was a pain.. The tank will look quite different once I have the glass hood on. It is still a little bit dark as I have the black plastic hood. I am waiting for the glass to be delivered. I should have it on Thursday.

Try not to rush adding fish. Let the tank cycle on its own and then slowly add things

I took a few videos with the camera last night to show the tank with the lights on and with the blue lights on.

@ 11am

Temp 80
Phos - 0 - 0.25
NH3 - Above 0 below .25
PH - 8
NO3 - 0
NO2 - 0
Salinity - 1.025

Making some water tonight to add for evap.

The blue i likey. Do you have a lid or something over the tank?

Currently I have the black stock lid that came on the tank.. That is why the light is a bit dim and there are quite a few dark spots.. On Thursday my All Glass lid will be at the LFS for me.. I am also going to get a few more hermit crabs at that time.

Originally Posted by infamous6969

Live rock , calerpa (if that is how you spell it), and chaeto added this morning...

Lighting cycle is -
DT 2pm - 8pm (white)
DT 8pm - 10pm (moon)
Fuge 10pm - 8am
All off 8am - 2pm with minor sunlight

and we're making progress for sure!!!

Originally Posted by infamous6969

I am planning to test every other day for a bit to see if there is any change in the readings.

good plan buddy! ........how's the damsel doing? feeding it will help with the cycle .... looks like you got some xenia on that live rock eh? be careful with it as it tends to grow like weeds .....but still one of my fav corals - the pulsing is mesmerizing! ......love your rock work!

Originally Posted by Barbara

and we're making progress for sure!!!


good plan buddy! ........how's the damsel doing? feeding it will help with the cycle .... looks like you got some xenia on that live rock eh? be careful with it as it tends to grow like weeds .....but still one of my fav corals - the pulsing is mesmerizing! ......love your rock work!

The damsel is doing pretty good now.. Took about 30 hours for it to stop hiding all the time and it finally came out last night during feeding time and gobbled up all the food I gave it!! I am still unsure but am thinking about feeding once a day at night..

That is xenia on the rock. I picked that one because it had the xenia and some coraline on it. I figured if the xenia lives cool, if itdies then it will give me some die-off to help with the cycle.

Between being sick and school work I finally got around to taking my tank masurements again..


2/16 11am
Temp - 77.5
Salinity - 1.025
Po3 - .25 - .5
No3 - 0ppm
No2 - 0ppm
Nh3/Nh4 - 0ppm
Ph - 8

sorry to hear you weren't feeling well ......I hope you're feeling better now
glad you're keeping up with your tests though .....levels seem pretty good so far with it being so "young".....phosphates are a little high.....are you planning on keeping your temp lower?

Are you using anything to get your phosphates down? They are probably coming out of the rock and a little bit of GFO should take care of it.

Unfortunately I do not have the ability to keep the temp much lower. I am still looking into my options. Since the glass lid went on today I am going to see how it settles.

For the phosphates, I am not certain what to do for lowering them yet. I just took the measurements and haven't had time to think since after class last night. What should I use?

Today I got my hands on my all glass lid, 6 more hermit crabs, and some extra shells for them to move into.

You can use a few thing to lower phosphates. First you can use GFO Granular Ferric Oxide 1 lb you put it in something like this Reef Max 100 Media reactor and you run the water through it really slow. You can regenerate the media and reuse it so its not as expensive as it looks.

You can use this also SEA-187 Premium Aquatics - SEA-187 Aquarium Supplies This is about 4x less expensive but it also is about 4x lest effective. It and also be regenerated and reused but i dont know how many times.

Then there is this new method like this TLF-NPX2 Premium Aquatics - TLF-NPX2 Aquarium Supplies You put that in a different type of reactor and what happens is the pellets provide food for bacteria but the bacteria also need nitrates and phosphate to grow so they remove them from your water. This cant be reused because the bacteria actually eat the pellets so every 6 weeks or so you need to add more of them.

ii i we

Not sure what just happened..

I went to the lfs today and decided to grab what they use.. it was only a few bucks so I decided to try it. It was the API phos-something ... anyways I wll see how that is doing when I test again on Sunday...

My new curious thing is a yellow film which has developed on the silicone on either side of my refugium section in my sump. It is ONLY on the silicone and central to that chamber. Any ideas or would a picture be better?

The AIP stuff is the same as this SEA-187 Premium Aquatics - SEA-187 Aquarium Supplies should work for you

No idea what the yellow stuff is. If you wipe it does it come off?

The yellow... I tried lightly wiping it off with my finger and it did not come off. It is ONLY forming on the silicone. I used 100% silicone that is aquarium safe. It has started to show over the past 2 weeks. about 2 weeks after adding the algae and about 1/2 week after adding the damsel and crabs.






I am also trying to figure out what this is coming off my live rock and if I should clean it off the sand bed. It is not alive.. I have found that it appears as though there is some coral growth on the sand bed as well.





On the right edge of the rock on the left you can see a small bit of growth which appears to be some type of coral. I am not sure if it is the zania from the rock above or from the pods in the refugium.