Alan's Rimless 75 build

[YHSublime]

Rock work is amazing. Build is amazing. This is a build that was going places from day one.

[AlanM]

Hah.  Thanks, Isaac, smallreef, monkiboy, and Boomer.  We'll see.  Right now the place it's going has 80 ppm nitrites. 8)

 

I recognize the feelings I'm feeling of wanting to do something but knowing all I can really do is wait.  It's not as intense, but it's similar to the first 4 days in the hospital with baby number 1 when his weight drops each day, and we're waiting for that first real poop and pee and for the weight to stop dropping so we can take him home.

[AlanM]

Signs of life!

 

Algae at least, heh. Darkish brown spots growing on formerly pure white rocks and fuzz on the rest. I assume it is the initial diatom bloom. Nitrites still too high for animal life, but I assume it can support algae.

 

Edit: I am taking Rob's advice about running a normal photo period, which I assume is driving some of the algae?

Edited August 5, 2013 by AlanM

[lnevo]

I left my lights running...too much to sit and look at a dark empty box...

[Orion]

Alan, it's looking great!

I ran a normal photoperiod on mine as well

[AlanM]

I swear I see a copepod or something on the glass too!  I can't believe that anything could be alive in there with 30-80ppm nitrite (accurate to my ability to distinguish the color purple from the color "slightly-less-purple").

 

Here are the dark brown spots on the tops of the rocks where it looks like burnt marshmallow.  I know it's old hat to everyone, but I'm kind of excited about my tank that it looks like something is happening that's supposed to happen (diatoms).

 

[monkiboy]

yay diatoms, haha!

[AlanM]

I definitely have copepods of some kind. Lots and lots of little guys on the glass even though I'm still at 30ppm nitrite with no real increase in nitrate so far. It's fun to see the seemingly spontaneous generation of life, heh.

[AlanM]

I'm unreasonably happy at the massive numbers of teensy white specs crawling all over my glass. Looks like it's snowing in my tank if you look closely.

[sachabballi reef]

When I started my very first tank (was a 92 corner) my husband thought i was off my rocker....I could sit for hours looking at a cycling tank watching the life unfold each day....lol. copepods etc were my addiction every night....I think I stopped watching all TV once that live rock went in....lol...the good old days....makes me nostalgic..

 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[ExoticReefCreations]

I saw the tank in person the other day, the entire set-up is Super clean and looks terrific! Cant wait to watch this tank mature!

[AlanM]

I saw the tank in person the other day, the entire set-up is Super clean and looks terrific! Cant wait to watch this tank mature!

Thanks, Richard. Hope I don't disappoint.

 

It's like sticking to a diet, you have to be accountable to a reef club who could demand FTS at any time in order to not get lazy and let the tank descend into a morass of algae coated glass and brown corals.

 

So it turns out that the folks counselling patience, Rob and Tom notable among them, were right. They must have done this before. My nitrites seem to be plummeting the last two days and are now around 5ppm. This is even with dosing 2ppm ammonia each day.

 

Now my 10 hour photo cycle is working at generating brown patches and stringy fuzz for a future cleanup crew to eat. At least I know the diy lights are apparently able to drive photosynthesis. 8)

[BowieReefer84]

10 hours is too long even once you get corals.  The best tanks I've seen only run lights 5-6 hours per day.

[AlanM]

10 hours is too long even once you get corals.  The best tanks I've seen only run lights 5-6 hours per day.

 

Orly? I had no idea it was that short. I do a 10 hour cycle on my planted freshwater tank. At that kind of photo period I would never get to see it with lights on.

[lnevo]

I run a roughly 10-12 hour period. Blue's only for an initial 2 hour then blue/white's for ~8 then blue only again for 2 hours. I don't see anything wrong with 10 hours.

[YHSublime]

Consider running a schedule when you're home. It's your box, you will want to watch it.

 

I recently learned at this past FFE that a lot of people do this. lights go on at 2pm, get home from work at 5pm, have a couple hours to watch the tank/enjoy the tank, blues, lights off.

[AlanM]

That sounds good to me.  Might try that.  I'll probably run around a 6 hour each day.  I don't mind getting some algae and diatoms in there at the moment.  It apparently is the natural cycle of these things when first setup.  Plus it will give the cleanup crew something to eat when I get back from vacation.

 

Nitrites are down to 1ppm even with dosing ammonium chloride up to 2ppm every morning, so I think the end is in site for the cycle.  I really didn't think these nitrites were going to go down so quickly and was getting a water change ready because people on other forums reported weeks and weeks at high nitrite, and then overnight they fell. 

 

I'm still not planning to put any fish into the tank until end of September, so I'll be at 2 months instead of zygote2k's 3-6 month mark.

[AlanM]

Nitrites are 0ppm, nitrates are only 1-2 so my crop of algae must have used up the stuff generated in the cycle.

 

Can anyone advise what these things are?  They are about 1mm from tip to tip.  Circular arrangement of 6-8 legs or something. Totally stationary as far as I can see, but they're spreading across the glass. 

 

 

There are also some bullet shaped little guys that creep with the front part of the bullet forward and are about 3mm long.  Any idea what those are?

 

Also I learned three new things today.

 

1) If you're doing a small water change and using a powerhead to move water from your sump to a floor drain, just because you turn the powerhead off, doesn't mean the water stops.  It will continue siphoning down the drain until the return pump section of the sump eventually goes dry. Doh.

 

2) If you're trying to dial in your skimmer so it doesn't gush, and you hook it up to a Davy Jones' Locker and count on the Apex to shut off a gusher that fills up the locker, it doesn't work unless the skimmer outlet is set to AUTO mode.  If it's set to ON, the skimmer will happily keep pumping water onto your floor.

 

3) After putting a water onto the floor because of number 2 above and emptying the locker and setting the outlet to AUTO mode now, if you don't put the sensor back into the locker after emptying it, the same thing will happen and you'll end up with water on the floor again.

Edited August 10, 2013 by AlanM

[lnevo]

Sounds like cuc time!

[AlanM]

Right, but I think I'll let it go for a while to see what dies off and what grows.  I think my two critters that I don't recognize are small hydroids and flatworms.  Nice that I have no livestock except for pods, but apparently already have hydroids and flatworms, heh.

[lnevo]

To each their own. I would just worry about maintaining that nice colony of bacteria you raised.

 

A CUC does a nice job continuing to produce waste for your bacteria and start managing whatever algae you've built up.

 

Obviously your cycle is not yet complete but the basic's are done.

[Origami]

Alan, they look like the hydroids that show up on glass in relatively new tanks. They typically disappear 3-4 weeks after you first see them.

 

The bullet shaped guys sound like some sort of copepod.

 

Neither is of concern.

[AlanM]

Thanks, Tom. 

 

It's cool to have the Apex going and be able to watch the pH changing because it makes it obvious that there are still things working themselves out in my new tank that are not included in the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate measurements.  My pH is cycling up and down with a period that changes without apparent correlation to photo period or temperature.  It's really interesting.  I'd like to wait for it to start doing something predictable before I start putting much life in there.

 

This is my pH the last few days of running lights from 9 to 2pm each day.  It's interesting to see this cycle that doesn't correlate to lights.  I did a 10% water change this morning at 10am to start using instant ocean instead of H2Ocean Pro Plus, so today's is kind of messed up.

 

Edited August 11, 2013 by AlanM

[monkiboy]

yeah, i agree with tom and yes, nothing to worry about at this stage. i'm really excited seeing your progress and hearing all the interesting news. i haven't set up a new tank in a while either, so i'm not too far behind you and look forward to your updates.

[Origami]

The diurnal pH swing will eventually correlate to the light cycle when its a fully populated reef tank. There may be something else going on right now. If the tank is not heavily stocked with photosynthetic life like corals, macro, etc. you won't see the swing towards positive pH because it's photosynthesis that normally causes the swing as it consumes CO2 and replaces it with O2.