lastlight's 225

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by lastlight

That's what I'll tell my dealer. I'll keep you posted haha.

You just have no idea what to say when you've got no place for a 'MORE PICS' do you? No shortage of those in this thread cowboy.

Nicely said chief.

[Delphinus]

Ani! Ani! Mesa lika new rock! Allsa so sparkly glowy!!! Oooh! Ahhhh!!!

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

[lastlight]

Haha. Tony's been a little TOO close to some bad diapers today.

So I went out and picked up the Elos nitrite. What a JOKE.

For starters it comes with a 5mL syringe. I fill it twice carefully and put it in the 10 mL glass vial. The water was like 3mL over the 10 mL mark on the vial if you trusted those markings. Then I go to put the included stopper into the vial. It's way too big. Doubt it's even the right one so I used my thumb.

Honestly if I pay a premium I want to feel GOOD about it.

Good news is the test actually did something. It appears that my 'trites are at around 0.35 (middle of two pink bands). Now I have something to measure and watch fall to 0. Woohoo.

Was I supposed to like...add a dead shrimp or anything? I sort of thought the dry rock would have plenty of crap in it to feed bacteria. Anyone?

[TheMikey]

If you're using dry rock alone, I was under the assumption that all the goodies that trigger a cycle are dead and long gone. That you have to season your tank with something. Maybe someone can spare you a little chunk of live rock? Additionally you can also go with the shrimp method. Raw shrimp will deteriorate and kick off the proper bacteria. No idea how long it's going to take though.

Don't do the damsel method though...

Incidently, how long are you going to cycle for? Or, if I can be more specific, how long are you going to wait after your params hit zero to add livestock?

[lastlight]

Yes I do have a few pounds of live rock from a couple LFS in the tank as well.

Once nitrites hit zero I'll see what nitrates look like. I don't plan to add a huge clean up crew. How long I wait before adding fish remains to be seen. Once nitrites are zero and I've done a few waterchanges it's going to be pretty tough to resist adding SOMETHING.

[Delphinus]

Elos aren't TOO bad - their main advantage is "ease of use" (although I suppose that's a bit subjective). Don't listen at all to the 10ml mark on the test tube, that's complete fiction. Also (as you sort of figured out for yourself already), DON'T use the cap. I have broken so many test tubes trying to put on the cap, or take it off, that it's not even funny. Those test tubes break if you so much as look at them wrong.

if you ask me, cycling is a bit of an art. The problem is that adding something like shrimp (or even household ammonia) and then leaving it, is that it's an addition of the catalyst; but then as it's used up, it isn't replaced, which tends to pull the bacterial numbers back down. In "real life" it tends to be a little more steady state and thus you get the population numbers to be constant.

But in this case I think you're better off to let the grunge from the rock to cycle out before you really push forward because that has to be fairly gross stuff in there if you even found a dead fish it it (). I'd probably want to let that cycle out and then and a bunch more live rock in the sump and then maybe some hermits or something and see how that goes. The more I think about it, the more I realize I kind of have no idea what to suggest on how to manage the cycle properly when starting a tank from scratch like this.

[lastlight]

Yeah I pulled that redish piece of tissue off the shelf last night. It wasn't a fish but looked like some sort of clam bits or something. I don't know enough to say. And I thought this rock would have all sorts of stuff dying and falling to the sand but my sandbed is pristine, the water nearly crystal clear and my skimmate after getting darker is slowly getting lighter and producing less. Hell even the stink I thought was the tank...it was a load of laundry my wife forgot in the washing machine. Putting my nose above the tank...the smell is barely noticeable.

Since there is nothing really living in the tank I'm thinking I'm only going to get so much bacterial action in there. Depends what is in all that rock and I'm suspecting the rock isn't that gross after all. When nitrites hit zero...if I add nothing to the tank won't the bacteria populations actually start decreasing with nothing new to eat?

[Lance]

Maybe try one of those cycling products like "Cycle".

[lastlight]

If Ammonia and nitrite are zero and nitrates aren't too high what is actually BAD about adding a fish and letting the bacteria adjust accordingly? There will certainly be some bacteria and a single fish would be pretty light biologically speaking?

I thought that Cycle stuff was for freshwater lol.