So, this tank was purchased with the intention of being a coral QT tank. But as these things go, its gotten a little more complicated than originally planned.
Tank is a Petco 10g special, came with heater, Whisper 10 HOB filter and a hood with LEDs.
20lbs of Caribsea Argalive Black Hawaiian sand
20+lbs of dry 'live' rock from Neptune
Salt is Red Sea Coral Pro. Mixed at 1.026 and it has quite high parameters. Initial testing (with my new fancy test kits) came up with Mag@1400, Cal@489 and Alk@12.54 which matched what Red Sea listed on the tub.
Water is RO/DI from a hodgepod of several used units I purchased. Ending up with a 6 stage filter. 1 sediment, 2 carbon with the 2nd being a special chloramine filter, the RO and a 2 stage DI with the 2nd being a silica buster. Water from the tap is low 40tds.
I tossed in a little sand, laid in the base rocks making sure they went past the sand and onto the glass, placed the rest of the rock then tossed in the remaining sand. Water was siphoned into the tank then the last bit was poured in from the bucket. I only used about 6.5-7g of SW.
While at Petsmart a few week prior, I spotted a Fluval C2 in tank filter that was marked down and thought it was a neat idea. Bought it but when it came time to use it, I found out that I had too much rock and sand. The filter took up almost all the empty space I had left. So I took out the Biomax media and threw on the Whisper 10 running only the Biomax, no carbon.
To start the cycle, I purchased a bottle of Janitorial Ammonia from Ace Hardware. Dosed it to 4ppm, waited an hr then poured in a large bottle of Bio-Spira. I had bought the large bottle thinking I could save most of it for when I cycled the 40g but the instructions said to use the whole bottle so in it went.
At that point, I hooked up the Seneye sensor hooked up to a laptop. The little chip it uses to sense ammonia and ph needed to be soaked for 48hrs before it could get accurate readings so I installed it and left it in the tank.
No lights, just the AC10 running and a Tunze 6015 Nano powerhead I got with the 40g tank. Lots of flow with the Tunze, it was blowing sand out of the far corner and into the front area, I had to angle it upwards a little to break up the flow.
24hrs later, the Seneye showed a 3ppm reading. A Salifert test confirmed it together with a 0.1ppm Nitrite test result.
48hrs later, Seneye shows a 0.003ppm reading. Salifert test was <0.25. Nitrite was 0, Nitrate was 4ppm with Red Sea test kit.
Left it running for 3 days and the readings stayed pretty consistent.
5 days later, I did a 50% WC.
Tank is a Petco 10g special, came with heater, Whisper 10 HOB filter and a hood with LEDs.
20lbs of Caribsea Argalive Black Hawaiian sand
20+lbs of dry 'live' rock from Neptune
Salt is Red Sea Coral Pro. Mixed at 1.026 and it has quite high parameters. Initial testing (with my new fancy test kits) came up with Mag@1400, Cal@489 and Alk@12.54 which matched what Red Sea listed on the tub.
Water is RO/DI from a hodgepod of several used units I purchased. Ending up with a 6 stage filter. 1 sediment, 2 carbon with the 2nd being a special chloramine filter, the RO and a 2 stage DI with the 2nd being a silica buster. Water from the tap is low 40tds.
I tossed in a little sand, laid in the base rocks making sure they went past the sand and onto the glass, placed the rest of the rock then tossed in the remaining sand. Water was siphoned into the tank then the last bit was poured in from the bucket. I only used about 6.5-7g of SW.
While at Petsmart a few week prior, I spotted a Fluval C2 in tank filter that was marked down and thought it was a neat idea. Bought it but when it came time to use it, I found out that I had too much rock and sand. The filter took up almost all the empty space I had left. So I took out the Biomax media and threw on the Whisper 10 running only the Biomax, no carbon.
To start the cycle, I purchased a bottle of Janitorial Ammonia from Ace Hardware. Dosed it to 4ppm, waited an hr then poured in a large bottle of Bio-Spira. I had bought the large bottle thinking I could save most of it for when I cycled the 40g but the instructions said to use the whole bottle so in it went.
At that point, I hooked up the Seneye sensor hooked up to a laptop. The little chip it uses to sense ammonia and ph needed to be soaked for 48hrs before it could get accurate readings so I installed it and left it in the tank.
No lights, just the AC10 running and a Tunze 6015 Nano powerhead I got with the 40g tank. Lots of flow with the Tunze, it was blowing sand out of the far corner and into the front area, I had to angle it upwards a little to break up the flow.
24hrs later, the Seneye showed a 3ppm reading. A Salifert test confirmed it together with a 0.1ppm Nitrite test result.
48hrs later, Seneye shows a 0.003ppm reading. Salifert test was <0.25. Nitrite was 0, Nitrate was 4ppm with Red Sea test kit.
Left it running for 3 days and the readings stayed pretty consistent.
5 days later, I did a 50% WC.
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