Rgwiz11

Hey Laura, some things have come up after work today, and I'm not entirely sure I'll be over to pick up the biocube. I'm trying to work some magic so I can get out early, which, if that is the case, it won't be a problem. Otherwise, I'll have to wait until Thursday to grab it.

Hey Brian, Welcome to the hobby! Never feel bad about asking "newbie" questions, everyone started out knowing nothing at some point As far as "salt content spiking" I'm assuming that you mean that your salinity went up. If that's the case, it is more than likely caused by water evaporating from your tank. Something a lot of people don't think about or notice when they are starting out is how much water evaporates out of a tank on a daily basis. In my 75g, it's fairly normal to get about a gallon of water evaporating every 1 - 1 1/2 days. To top off the tank, make sure you are adding fresh water to it, and not more salt water. Salt doesn't evaporate, just the water does. For adding livestock, most everyone will tell you to start from the bottom of the food chain and move up. It sounds like you have some algae growing in your tank, so it may be OK to add some snails and/or hermits to start feeding on your algae. They will help clean up your tank and you shouldn't need to move your rock out and clean it with a toothbrush. Just remember, add slowly. Start out with only a handful of critters and make sure that the bacteria in your tank can keep up with them before you add more. Your bacteria will break down the waste created by anything you add, and if you overwhelm it your tank could crash. Do some research to see what critters eat the algae that you'd like to remove. Also, just because you find something that says a certain snail will eat x-type of algae, doesn't mean that it is always the case. Anyway, best advice I've gotten with my tank so far is to start slow, and don't rush anything. That includes cycling, adding livestock, and anything else. Hope that helps.

I was thinking of getting some pulsing xenia, but after reading all these stories, I'm starting to question it.

@Roberts, To answer one of your questions, I think it is very viable for a "newbie" to purchase a complete system. IMO, I think you are less likely to kill something off with a mature system that has been running for a while than if you try to set something up on your own. With that said, however, I think you learn much more by doing it yourself and seeing how things progress. I'm sure you could learn the same things with an established system, just a matter of what you prefer I guess.

ugh...all these FPS players I never liked them, probably because I'm never any good at them gDUBizzy on XBLive, but usually playing Street Fighter 4 or Dragon Age

Found 2 of these guys as HH's in my 75g. Both of them lurk in the shadowy areas of the tank

picked up a ginormous crab and some chromis tonight

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that claim. Spitting cobras do the same thing, but the eyesight of the cobra is awful. Researchers still don't know how exactly they know where to spit their venom but get it near they eyes/mouth of the victim with something like 85% accuracy.

My roommate and I should be joining in on the fun. Looking forward to meeting everyone

captive bred that eat pellets!!

183 / Duval?!? We are practically neighbors I'm at 183 / Braker. Anyway, welcome to the site!

I have a Koralia 5 (1650gph) on one end of my tank and a Koralia 4 (1200gph) on the other end. It's a 75 gallon, and flow looks good to me. I'm not growing anything particularly difficult yet, but the corals I do have are doing well. From what I've been reading, most people worry about "flow" in their tank when they really are talking about the velocity of the water moving. They are two different things. If you're worried that the K4 is just too powerful, put some nylon over it, or break up the direct flow with some rock-scaping. IMO, it's seems better to have too much flow and adjust from there, than not enough

Here's what happened with my 75g. It's not a 55, so I'm sure your times will be different. Also, all tanks aren't going to go through their cycles the same way and in the same amount of time. With that disclaimer out of the way ... 75g tank arrived, we filled with water and sand (didn't use live sand). At this point we also added a phosphate filter to get those nasties out of the water. Took about 4-5 days for the water to clear up, at this point we tested our salinity and made sure it was where we wanted it. I wouldn't think you would want to test the salinity with the sand still in solution as that can mess you up big time, especially if you use a hydrometer. We added one ~15lb piece of LR to start seeding the sand. Gave the tank about a week and tested our parameters. Everything was through the roof But, this is to be expected as you're going to have some material dying off the LR you put in and it will take time for the bacteria to catch up and "de-nitrify" it. After two weeks, we found a great deal on some LR and put in another ~100lbs of it. This put our cycle into overdrive. There was a HUGE ammonia spike about 3 days after we put it in, but we quickly saw those levels begin to drop as our bacteria was developing. We continued to watch our levels closely and saw the regular dips and rises in our levels. Finally, after another 2 weeks our levels were starting to maintain themselves. Ammonia was staying at zero, nitrites were at zero, nitrates were holding steady (~40ppm). Time for our first water change! We did a 20% water change and tested our parameters again 2 days after. Ammonia still at zero, Nitrites still at zero, Nitrates down to ~20ppm. That's where I'm at with the tank currently, so the cycle isn't completely done yet, but it's getting there. Total time from when I put my first piece of live rock in to this point has been about 4 weeks. We are planning another water change this weekend, so long as our parameters stay near where they are at to help bring that nitrate level down further. Then we'll be putting in the CUC. As I said, though, each tank is going to be different. A co-worker of my roommate started his new tank the same time we started ours and he is still having trouble getting his parameters where he needs them to be. On average, I'd say you'll be looking at anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 weeks minimum, but I'm no expert Just keep testing the water and watching those numbers.

If only my tank was ready

I've read you can superglue the tube openings and they'll die off.

I'm sure if it got really bothersome, you could find 55g plastic drums. I've seen them floating around for $30-40 before. Otherwise, I've never automated anything before, so I'm no help as far as commenting goes

I didn't think clowns liked condys ?

Is that over the period of one day mcallahan? Also, how did you get the measurements to make the graph?

Good Video Nice to see some of the effort put in by these companies and a "behind the scenes" look at where our stuff comes from. I'm wondering if the methylene blue the soak them in causes any side-effects that have to be overcome before they ship the livestock. I know that stuff can turn urine blue, and I'd freak out a little bit if one of my fish was leaking something like that

Happy Mole Day to any fellow science teachers out there ...and everyone else too!

I've been reading that the Star Polyps are only aggressive if stuff isn't growing around them, if that is the case, can the be "sequestered" using other corals to kind of box them in? Not that I don't like the little fellas, but I like other stuff too

My roommate and I were filling up our 75g we got on craigslist. I had mentioned that I hoped the stand held together as we were dumping our 50th or so gallon into the tank. No sooner than I said that, we heard "creeeeaaaak." Turned out to be a branch of a tree that snapped outside our apartment, but it gave us both a good scare

Thanks alex Aptasia is the one thing we have looked at pictures of because we have heard so much about it and read a lot about people trying to avoid it. But, because a lot of the pictures are so varied of what it actually looks like, it became a running joke in our apartment to refer to everything we saw growing as Aptasia. "Look at the size of that aptasia," or "Ooooo, we had another aptasia outbreak on that rock." Finally, I figured the best place to figure out what the stuff really was would be to post it here. My roommate and I plan to do a water change this weekend and continue to watch our parameters. If everything is staying A-OK, we plan to add our first group of cleaners (5 hermits, 10 snails, and a pepp) in about two weeks. We are still debating about whether or not to put in a yellowtail damsel at the same time or wait to see how the cleaners do first.

Thanks for the info everyone! After seeing some pictures of the Kenya Tree Coral, I definitely think that is what I have. Also, good to know that we didn't have an outbreak of something bad. Ammonia and Nitrites have been at or near 0 for a week now. Getting closer to the time we can add some livestock...on purpose this time. Very exciting

Many Thanks Hamp!