Albertan22's 120g Reef

Albertan22 · #1 09-17-2009, 06:35 PM

Well it's Day 14 of the cycle and time for an update. We've noticed an erruption of life in the tank as of late, lots of feather dusters and/or tube worms all over the rock. The sand seems filled with little worm trails and whatnot. We also noticed some type of pods racing around the glass of the DT for the first time last night. I can't seem to get a decent picture of any of these things, so no photo updates for now.

I'm also experiencing a diatom bloom right now. It's on all the rock that I bought partially cured, but not on any of the cured stuff and not much on the sand. There's also a bunch in the sump, and surprisingly even in the bottom part of my skimmer! I'm not too concerned about it right now as I understand it's just part of the cycle. I've been running phosban in a reactor and carbon passively in the sump, hopefully it goes away soon.

Speaking of the cycle, I seem to have experienced my ammonia spike. It was about 1.0 ppm on Sunday, and is now down to 0.25 ppm. Funny thing is, I also had a nitrite spike, but now it's not measureable anymore even though I'm still reading ammonia. I'm wondering if it's because some of the rock may still be curring? At this rate though, my DT will be cycled before my QT, which has been up and running a week longer. This is annoying because I would really like to get some fish into QT so I can have some fish in the DT by November! Alas patience is what this hobby is all about...

Albertan22 · #2 09-17-2009, 06:52 PM

Thanks for checking out my build and the advice Dez

I'm still trying to get that mantis out. Though I haven't been pursuing him that agressivly. I think it's time to step up my efforts though as I'll probably be ready to add some snails and cleanup crew to the tank in the comming weeks. I've been using mysis as bait and I swear that some have been eaten every morning after I set the trap. I think I need a bigger bottle as the neck of the small bottle I used isn't that far off the bottom when I cut it and flipped it around to build the trap.

NuraNori · #3 09-17-2009, 08:28 PM

I like your set up as well. Like the rock too.

I have an almost identical sump/fuge. Do you find you get bursts of micro bubbles? I'm trying to figure out if it's because I don't have the bubble wall on the fuge side or b/c air builds up in the elbows in the return line...or who knows...

Albertan22 · #4 09-17-2009, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NuraNori

I like your set up as well. Like the rock too.

I have an almost identical sump/fuge. Do you find you get bursts of micro bubbles? I'm trying to figure out if it's because I don't have the bubble wall on the fuge side or b/c air builds up in the elbows in the return line...or who knows...

I was having a problem where I would get a burst of violent bubbles on the fuge side while at the same time the level would drop in the overflow and the durso would make a sucking sound. I read on the durso website that this was likely due to the outlet being too far underwater, so I cut the pipe so that it was right at the water level. This didn't solve my problem so I decided to try drilling the air hole in my durso one size bigger. This solved my problem, but then my outlet kept making a lot of noise, so I put a 45 degree elbow on it so the outlet was just below the surface. This solved my noise problem.

I still get a lot of bubbles, but not large bursts that make noise. The bubbles don't make it to my pump either, which is nice. I think it's because I don't have a ton of flow moving my sump (about 550 gph).