High Tide Aquatics

Reef Hobbyist 40B

Additionally, there is only so much nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria your system can handle at a particular time and is contingent on how far you are in your cycle. Most bacterial supplements claim to have a complex blend of bacteria, but as far as cycling goes the two most important are Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. Nitrosomonas is responsible for converting ammonia into nitrites and Nitrobacter converts nitrite into nitrates. This is why you must add these supplements continuously, because depending on where you are in your cycle you may not have appropriate levels of Nh4 or N02 to support them. As far as other strains of microbacteria that "denitrify"...how are they to thrive without nitrates?...unless they lay dormant and are activated when the nitrates finally develop. This I do not know haha! All I do know is that these bacteria supplements are no miracle...just a booster. If bacterial diversity is what they claim then they should be more clear as to what strains they contain and what purpose they serve...I am very wary when something claims to be proprietary or complex haha. In short, these bacterias tend to proliferate on their own in due time...so I'd just wait it out...your patience will be rewarded. And yes...save your money for fish and coral!
Reef on bro!
Dan
 
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I’ve been Dosing 10ml of MicroBacter7 for the last 2 weeks & was maintaining ammonia at 4ppm.

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Yesterday I received my amazon order for Fritz & Prime. I decided to add Fritz9 only to have diverse strains of nitrifying bacteria (not to shorten the cycle time), and Seachem Prime was for my QT.

As per the Fritz9 instructions I had to empty the entire bottle into the tank (unlike MicroBacter that I dose everyday), so I added 80% to the DT & 20% to the sump.

I have to say it has a really foul smell, my entire apartment had it for couple of hours ;)

Since I added even more bacteria, I pushed up ammonia to 8ppm. Here’s the current water params:

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I'm going to continue dosing MicroBacter7 & ammonia for the next few weeks.
 
Your rockscape looks super cool, Navdeep! Compared with your 29 gallon, do you plan on stocking different things in this 40 gallon tank? Just curious how / why you decided on two small tanks rather than one large one?!
 
Thanks Geneva :)

The 29g was my first one and was setup with very less knowledge.. This 40B is a minor upgrade in trying to do it right...

I'll sure be getting some different livestock into this one + slowly move some good ones from my 29 too. Eventually planning to break that down and keep this one tank.
 
Today I received the plastic clamps ordered on ebay. This was for the return pump and possibly other tubes inside the sump (GFO, skimmer, etc).

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While I removed the return pump to attach the clamp, the tube connecting it was slimy and released lots of this slimy white flakes that shot up the return into the DT.

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It was a storm of these white slimy flakes and I was super panicked!! Immediately took the fish net and started scooping out as much as possible… Alternately I quickly washed my 29g tank’s HOB filter and put it on the DT with just the filter floss to remove the smaller white flakes. After almost 30-40 min most of it were gone…

Did some reading on a lot of forums and found out that its just bacterial build up in the inner walls of the tubes and very common in almost every system with plumbing. They’re harmless and will most likely break down or get collected in the filter sock over time.

Its going to continue shooting into the DT every time the return pump is turned off & back on, so the best solution is probably to hold the fish net at the return loc-line whenever the pump is restarted (will take away most of the flakes)

A quick google search “white flakes return reef” will give some insights…
 
You should see the inside of pvc pipes that have run on a tank for a fee years. Even with 4500gph running through one of the closed loop lines there was still a layer of hard buildup lining the pipes.

:) it seems over time anything that goes in the tank gets coated with some kind of slime or goop.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
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tygunn said:
You should see the inside of pvc pipes that have run on a tank for a fee years. Even with 4500gph running through one of the closed loop lines there was still a layer of hard buildup lining the pipes.

:) it seems over time anything that goes in the tank gets coated with some kind of slime or goop.
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That's why check valves don't work well in marine environs.
 
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Tested water today and here are the params

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Nitrates shot up to 20ppm which is sign of a good cycle (i hope), sure I'm going to let it cycle for few more weeks but my initial plan was to hold off on any water changes until the cycle completes but now I'm thinking a small water change would help keeping the nitrates down?
 
Its day 23… Decided to stop dosing Ammonia and let the Nitrites fall to 0.

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Later planning to check by dosing 4ppm Ammonia in the morning and see if Ammonia & Nitrites are 0 by EOD…

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i'm almost thinking your cycle is done already...

btw what site is that again? i had an account and was actively putting in my parameters, but i totally forgot it existed. planning to check it out again. something-something-my-reef-tank.my or something?
 
neuro said:
i'm almost thinking your cycle is done already...
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Yea, with constant MicroBacter & heavy dose Fritz9, it could be done... will confirm as soon as Nitrites drop to 0 and I run my 4ppm Ammonia test.

neuro said:
btw what site is that again? i had an account and was actively putting in my parameters, but i totally forgot it existed. planning to check it out again. something-something-my-reef-tank.my or something?
Click to expand...
Its AquaticLog.com very nice web app with a lot of features and a sick iPhone app. Planning to get the pro version soon...
 
Navdeep said:
Yea, with constant MicroBacter & heavy dose Fritz9, it could be done... will confirm as soon as Nitrites drop to 0 and I run my 4ppm Ammonia test.


Its AquaticLog.com very nice web app with a lot of features and a sick iPhone app. Planning to get the pro version soon...
Click to expand...

Interesting, looks like they changed their website and rebooted the entire website...
 
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Aquaticlog.com looks a while lot nicer that a soggy piece of paper that lives under the tank. I may have to look into that.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
Tested Nitrites today and it dropped from 5ppm to .25ppm in 36hrs (hope that's fast enough)

It's going to be 0 tomorrow and planning on a 25gal water change after which I'll add the clown pair.

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I recommend seeding a sponge filter in your sump. Get a air pump to drive it. Once the sponge filter is seeded you'll have all the good bacteria you need for your QT.
 
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Finally yesterday the cycle ended with 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites & 40ppm Nitrates. I planned on a 25gal water change but could only do a 15gal that brought the Nitrites down to 30ppm (going to make 2-3 more 15gal water changes within the next week).

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Acclimated the clown pair from my QT for about an hour and then moved them. Also dosed some Prime just to be safe.

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Using my old LED bar for now. Set the light cycle to 6hrs DT (evening) & 5hrs Sump (night).

Here’s my next steps:
  • Add some Cheato to my fuge
  • Ordered a small CUC from reefcleaners.org (mostly dwarf ceriths, some nerites, turbos & copepods), expecting the shipment by end of week
  • Move HOB skimmer from my 29g to the sump here
  • Order 1-2 more fish (Midas Blenny, 6 Line Wrasse, Diamond Goby, Neon Goby are on my list)
  • Need to swap my T5s with @euod to 36”
And here’s a video of the happy clowns :)

 
Nice looking fish!

If you have a cycled tank, I'd stop dosing Prime. There has to be ammonia to feed the bacteria. Seems like Prime might interfere with that.

Let us know how you make out with ReefCleaners.

Sixline's have a rep as trouble makers.
 
aqua-nut said:
Nice looking fish!
If you have a cycled tank, I'd stop dosing Prime. There has to be ammonia to feed the bacteria. Seems like Prime might interfere with that.
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Prime just changes the toxic ammonia to non-toxic (or less toxic) ammonium. The bacteria can use either form, so Prime shouldn't interfere with biological filtration. I would use it sparingly, but it shouldn't cause any problems in your reef tank. I typically add some when I put a washed filter sock in my tank, just in case I missed some bleach. There's a short explanation on their website under the "testing" question here: http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime.html
 
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