My first Salt water tank

Update on my Water Parameters.

Thursday 19-06-08

KH - 12
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - <0.3mg/L
Nitrates - 5mg/L

Friday 20-06-08

KH - 12
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - <0.3mg/L
Nitrates - 5mg/L

Today 21-06-08

KH - 12
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - <0.3mg/L
Nitrates - 5mg/L

There has been no change to my water parameter's since Monday.:thumbup:

Can this be possible? Tank has been cycling for 15 Day's. Will maybe add some snails today or tomorrow.
 
Thanks Jaquesb

Im using the Sera Test Kits. The lowest the Nitrites can go is less than 0.3mg. Compared to the Colour chart on the Nitrite Test kit my water is even lighter than the colour chart.
 
Update.

I got two Turbo Snails on Saturday afternoon. All seem to be fine with them.:)


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Latest Pictures!

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Two Snails and Tube Worm

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Tube Worm

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Update on my Water Parameters.

Thursday 19-06-08

KH - 12
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - <0.3mg/L
Nitrates - 5mg/L

Friday 20-06-08

KH - 12
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - <0.3mg/L
Nitrates - 5mg/L

Today 21-06-08

KH - 12
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - <0.3mg/L
Nitrates - 5mg/L

There has been no change to my water parameter's since Monday.:thumbup:

Can this be possible? Tank has been cycling for 15 Day's. Will maybe add some snails today or tomorrow.

Al: Slow down I see you making the same mistake as me, My water levels now seem v good, I was using seachem stabilty. Thought it was safe to add livestock ???? Dont do it, you do not have enough maturity in your tank at the moment, adding any LS now with just make you system unstable, please do not listen to advise of your LFS, i've burnt my fingers ...

My nitrates when added livestock was 0.5 mg/L, had a fatality and checked my water seen nitrates = 20mg/L

I think with my loss I'm going to take it slow ....
 
some very good reading: Copied from Mashrie's post, I found it useful

Eric Borneman(I always read this when i think i rush stuff:)) :

Tank maturity seems to be even more of an issue without the sand bed. The sand bed just takes some time to get enough nutrients in it to sustain populations and stratify into somewhat stable communities and become functional. So, here's the tank reason, and then I'll blow into some ecology for you. When you get a tank, you start with no populations of anything. You get live rock to form the basis of the biodiversity - and remember that virtually everything is moderated by bacteria and photosynthesis in our tanks. So liverock is the substrate for all this stuff, and also has a lot of life on it. How much depends on a lot of things.

Mostly, marine animals and plants don’t like to be out of water for a day at a time...much less the many days to sometimes a week that often happens. So, assuming you are not using existing rock form a tank, or the well-treated aquacultured stuff, you have live rock that is either relatively free of anything alive to begin with, or you have live rock with a few stragglers and a whole lot of stuff dying or about to die because it won’t survive in the tank. Some, if not most, rock exporters have a “curing process” that gets rid of a lot of the life to begin with and some of this is to keep it from dying and fouling further, but some of it would have lived if treated more carefully.

From the moment you start, you are in the negative. Corallines will be dying, sponges, dead worms and crustaceans and echinoids and bivalves, many of which are in the rock and you won't ever see. Not to mention the algae, cyanobacteria, and bacteria, most of which is dehydrated, dead or dying, and will decompose. This is where the existing bacteria get kick started. Bacteria grow really fast, and so they are able to grow to levels that are capable of uptaking nitrogen within...well, the cycling time of a few weeks to a month or so. The “started bacteria” products give me a chuckle. Anyone with a passing knowledge of microbiology would realize that for a product to contain live bacteria in a medium that sustains it would quickly turn into a nearly solid mass of bacteria, and if the medium is such that it keeps them inactive, then the amount of bacteria in a bottle is like adding a grain of salt to the ocean compared to what is going to happen quickly in a tank with live rock in it.

However, if you realize the doubling time of these bugs, you would know that in a month, you should have a tank packed full of bacteria and no room for water. That means something is killing or eating bacteria. Also realize that if you have a tank with constant decomposition happening at a rate high enough to spike ammonia off the scale, you have a lot of bacteria food...way more than you will when things stop dying off and decomposing. So, bacterial growth may have caught up with the level of nitrogen being produced, but things are still dying...you just test zero for ammonia because there are enough bacteria present to keep up with the nitrogen being released by the dying stuff. It does not necessarily mean things are finished decomposing or that ammonia is not being produced.

Now, if things are decomposing, they are releasing more than ammonia. Guess what dead sponges release? All their toxic metabolites. Guess what else? All their natural antibiotic compounds which prevents some microbes from doing very well. Same with the algae, the inverts, the cyano, the dinoflagellates, etc. They all produce things that can be toxic – and sometimes toxic to things we want, and sometimes to things we don’t want. So, let's just figure this death and decomposition is going take a while.

OK, so now we have a tank packed with some kinds of bacteria, probably not much of others. Eventually the death stops. Now, what happens to all that biomass of bacteria without a food source? They die. Some continue on at an equilibrium level with the amount of nutrients available. And, denitrification is a slow process. Guess what else? Bacteria also have antibiotics, toxins, etc. all released when they die. But, the die-off is slow, relative to the loss of nutrients, and there is already a huge population, and yet you never test ammonia. "The water tests fine.” But, all these swings are happening. Swings of death, followed by growth until limited, then death again, then nutrients available for growth, and then limitation and death. But, every time, they get less and less, but they keep happening – even in mature tanks. Eventually, they slow and stabilize.

What's left? A tank with limited denitrification (because its slow and aerobic things happen fast) and a whole lot of other stuff in the water. Who comes to the rescue and thrives during these cycles? The next fastest growing groups...cyanobacteria, single celled algae, protists, ciliates, etc. Then they do their little cycle thing. And then the turf algae take advantage of the nutrients (the hair algae stage). Turfs get mowed down by all the little amphipods that are suddenly springing up cause they have a food source. Maybe you've bought some snails by now, too, or a fish. And the fish dies, of course, because it may not have ammonia to contend with, but is has water filled with things we can't and don't test for...plus, beginning aquarists usually skimp on lights and pumps initially, and haven't figured out that alkalinity test, so pH and O2 are probably swinging wildly at this point.

So, the algae successions kick in, and eventually you have a good algal biomass that handles nitrogen, produces oxygen through photosynthesis, takes up the metabolic CO2 of all the other heterotrophs you can’t see, the bacteria have long settled in and also deal with nutrients, and the aquarium keeper has probably stopped adding fish for a spell because they keep dying. Maybe they started to visit boards and read books and get the knack of the tank a bit. They have probably also added a bunch of fix-it-quick chemicals that didn’t help any, either. Also, they are probably scared to add corals that would actually help with the photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, or they have packed in corals that aren't tolerant of those conditions.

About a year into it, the sand bed is productive and has stratified, water quality is stable, and the aquarist has bought a few more powerheads, understands water quality a bit, corallines and algae, if not corals and other things are photosynthesizing well, and the tank is "mature." That's when fish stop dying when you buy them (at least the cyanide free ones) and corals start to live and grow and I stop getting posts about "I just bought a coral and its dying and my tank is two months old" and they start actually answering some questions here and there instead of just asking questions (though we should all always be asking questions, if not only to ourselves!).

So, ecologically, this is successional population dynamics. Its normal, and it happens when there is a hurricane or a fire, or whatever. In nature though, you have pioneer species that are eventually replaced by climax communities. We usually try and stock immediately with climax species. And find it doesn't always work.

Now, the "too mature" system is the old tank syndrome. Happens in nature, too. That whole forest fire reinvigorating the system is true. Equally true on coral reefs where the intermediate disturbance hypothesis is the running thought on why coral reefs maintain very high diversity...they are stable, but not too stable, and require storms, but not catastrophic ones....predation, but not a giant blanket of crown of thorns, mass bleaching, or loss of key herbivores.

This goes to show what good approximations these tanks are of mini-ecosystems. Things happen much faster in tanks, but what do you expect given the bioload per unit area. So, our climax community happens in a couple years rather than a couple of centuries. Thing is, I am fully convinced that intermediate tank disturbance would prevent old tank syndrome.

My advice on starting tanks is to plan the habitat you want. Find the animals and corals you like. Learn about the tiny area of the reef you will try and recreate, and do not try to make a whole coral reef in one tank. Then, purchase the equipment required to emulate that environment. Then, add the appropriate types of substrate (sand, rubble, rock, whatever) and wait long after “your tank water tests fine” before you add fish and corals. First, add herbivores and maintain water quality. Water changes, carbon, skimming, alkalinity, calcium. Keep the water of high quality, even for things you can’t test for. Wait a few months and enjoy the growth that will happen. Then, add some of the species that you plan to keep….invertebrates and corals. They help create the environment, and also photosynthesize, add biodiversity, stabilize nutrients, etc. Then….then….add fish. The fish will have a reef as their new home. They won’t be stressed by this variable bouilllabaise of water and a strange habitat that keeps changing as things are added or die. They will have a stable tank with real habitat, and then the original concept you imagined will have happened.
 
Thanks Sammy. I dont intend to put in any fish very soon. Will see how everything is in two weeks time.

Did you add any fish?
 
added a cleaner shrimp and all my water test was fine, lost him 3 days later :(
 
Many thanks for that piece of quoted information Sammy. It is actually one of the best pieces of information that I have read so far, for a new marine keeper. And I think that this little bit of info, can actually save SO MUCH marine life from dying, and help newbie's understand exactly what it is they are actually doing, when setting up a marine reef tank!

Thanks again!
 
Al - the nano is starting to look really nice. BUT - it really pays to be patient.... You can start looking for dwarf hermits crabs to add - they are part of the "algae eaters" and "clean-up crew" brigade.... They will start already removing detritus in the tank - to ensure that this does not keep on accumulating... :)
 
Thanks Guy's.

I will probably only put in a cleanner shrimp in two weeks time.
 
Hi Al, nice meeting you in SAM's the other day ? So did you purchase anything ? Any luck with the snails ??? I've had some bad luck and maybe you can benifit from this info ???

Checked this morning my Clownie was nowhere to be found, went to work thinking I've a nessie in my tank lurking somewhere ????? eventually found him in my last compartment at the bottom ????? Heaven alone knows how he ended up there ??? probably jumped over ???

I'm now going to add some egg crate to hopefully prevent this catastrophy again ???

I was a mission to remove him, had to remove the UV steriliser + the pump to get to the bottom ???

:(
 
Yeah! it was good meeting you too at Sams. I bought some Fiji Live Rock that came in on Wednesday.

I didnt have any luck with the snails :( , My Salinity was way too high. My Hydrometer reading was completely out. It was showing btw 1024 and 1026, Sams checked it out and it was 1030. took them out yesterday.

However there was some light at the end of the tunnel. My Tube worm is looking lovely. He hardly came out until i got my Salinity right on Wednesday, he hardly goes into his Tube now. :)

Will see how things go, will may add some Clowns next week end. That will be after 4 weeks of cycling.

Where do you by the egg crate? I will prob need to cover the back chamber's.
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Thanks Mekaeel. I totally agree with you.

I will need to save up for a Refractrometer.

How much did you pay for one? I heard its about R400 - R600.
 
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