KoNP
New Member
So the things I'd ordered arrived in the mail the other day, after spending a couple of hours tinkering with the salinity, getting the powerhead and filter set up, washing the substrate to get the scummy crap out and whatnot, the tank was up and running. Added some Cycle as well to kickstart the process.
Yesterday afternoon I went and bought a chunk of live rock from the aquarium store and plunked it in. 24 hours later and not only has it already got little things growing on it, but my ammonia and nitrite are at 0, and my nitrate is somewhere between 5 and 10ppm, and the pH is about 8.2.
So I'd say it's going well.
Here are some pics:
The chunk of rock I got weighed 4 kilograms, cost me $72 bucks which I wasn't quite expecting. I wanted more but this will suffice for now. The powerhead was smaller than I expected but it still seems to make decent currents and turbulence. The substrate is fantastic, with chunks of crushed coral and tiny shells and stuff in it. Filter is decent too, set it up with the spray bar at the water's surface to create surface turbulence.
Here you can see the water has some decent surface currents.
I've got a little brown guy growing just left of centre, and some little red things growing on top - neither of them were there when I got the rock only yesterday. Guess the Cycle worked
-EDIT-
I just went and had a closer look at my tank - I found a long thin worm thing, he was white at his front section, shaded towards black toward his "tail" with a thin red line running down the middle, and he was buried in the sand.
Also, there's a tiny (couple of mm across) black-and-white speckled thing that looks vaguely like a starfish with two long arms and one tiny short one. There's also all sorts of cool little things sprouting off the rock I hadn't noticed before.
Are these going to stick around or are they going to get wiped out in a cycle? The nitrates are still reading at around 10ppm with 0 on ammonia and nitrite, so either I managed to somehow fluke the right water conditions or...
-EDIT EDIT-
Ok so this rock is TEEMING with life. I've since found 2 small crabs, a snail, a feather duster, a couple of brown soft thingies, a whole bunch of white frondy stuff on the back of it, a ton of worms... I think I've gotten myself a good piece of rock here.
Yesterday afternoon I went and bought a chunk of live rock from the aquarium store and plunked it in. 24 hours later and not only has it already got little things growing on it, but my ammonia and nitrite are at 0, and my nitrate is somewhere between 5 and 10ppm, and the pH is about 8.2.
So I'd say it's going well.
Here are some pics:
The chunk of rock I got weighed 4 kilograms, cost me $72 bucks which I wasn't quite expecting. I wanted more but this will suffice for now. The powerhead was smaller than I expected but it still seems to make decent currents and turbulence. The substrate is fantastic, with chunks of crushed coral and tiny shells and stuff in it. Filter is decent too, set it up with the spray bar at the water's surface to create surface turbulence.
Here you can see the water has some decent surface currents.
I've got a little brown guy growing just left of centre, and some little red things growing on top - neither of them were there when I got the rock only yesterday. Guess the Cycle worked
-EDIT-
I just went and had a closer look at my tank - I found a long thin worm thing, he was white at his front section, shaded towards black toward his "tail" with a thin red line running down the middle, and he was buried in the sand.
Also, there's a tiny (couple of mm across) black-and-white speckled thing that looks vaguely like a starfish with two long arms and one tiny short one. There's also all sorts of cool little things sprouting off the rock I hadn't noticed before.
Are these going to stick around or are they going to get wiped out in a cycle? The nitrates are still reading at around 10ppm with 0 on ammonia and nitrite, so either I managed to somehow fluke the right water conditions or...
-EDIT EDIT-
Ok so this rock is TEEMING with life. I've since found 2 small crabs, a snail, a feather duster, a couple of brown soft thingies, a whole bunch of white frondy stuff on the back of it, a ton of worms... I think I've gotten myself a good piece of rock here.
