Cycling—Thoughts and Updates

The tank is cycling beautifully and I still haven't made any water changes. So far everything is smelling good which means that nothing is rotting. And that's a good thing. The hitchhiker snail and hermit crab are also alive and well, and signs of copepods and/or amphipods can be seen in a few places. That's also a good thing.

Topping off is a bitch. Basically, as water evaporates it leaves the salts behind so a tiny fall below the water line can make a big difference in a tank this size. This is remedied by constantly re-filling the tank with reverse osmosis water. Usually once in the morning and once at night. Specific gravity has been fairly constant although I feel that my hydrometer often lies. I should probably look into getting a refractometer which not only measures specific gravity accurately but also salinity in the water. Maybe someone reading this might be nice enough to get me one for Christmas. *cough*

The stock power filter that came with the kit seems a bit bleak. I'm afraid it might not be providing enough circulation in the tank although a lot of people have had good results with only the stock filter. I might look into adding a powerhead of some sort to help move around some of the water. Thoughts for the future while I'm cycling.

Setting Up the Tank—Hurry Up And Wait!

With all the equipment and supplies in place, the only thing I was missing was live rock which I was determined to find a good supply today so that I can setup the tank as soon as my homemade seawater was ready to use.

Last night I did some research online on local fish stores and I found one that I thought was worth visiting based on the costumer reviews that I read. The store is called Atlantis Tropical Fish & Aquariums. When I got there I was really impressed by the store and their wide selection of livestock. All their fish looked healthy and all their tanks were nice and clean. I made my way towards their corals/invertebrates area and was slightly disappointed when I couldn’t find any live rock stocked in any of their tanks.

So I asked one of the guys if they carried any live rock and was caught by surprise when I was escorted all the way to the back of the store into a storage room where they kept a vat full of rocks. I was elated by what I saw: mounds of cured Fiji live rock. They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes and all had good coloring and pleasant smell (unpleasant smelling live rock is usually a bad sign). The owner of the store himself even helped me pick out the rocks I need base on my project and was very helpful and friendly. He placed them in a styrofoam box and covered them with wet newspaper to prevent them from drying and to minimize die-off. I walked away with 6 lbs. of Fiji live rock (four rocks altogether) for $40. Not a bad price at all.

These are the four pieces of liverock I came home with:

Note the healthy coloring and the clusters of coralline algae.

I inspected the rocks carefully, removing any unwanted and dead pieces that could possibly rot in my tank. I gave them a good rinsing and prepared them for the tank. Aquascaping turned out to be a little difficult especially with such a small tank and I had to do this quickly as to not keep the rocks out of water for too long. Plus I think I took home one rock too many. Nonetheless I figured out the best configuration that created open areas between the rocks for good circulation as to avoid any dead spots.

Once I had the ideal configuration I filled the tank halfway with my seawater and added the live sand. I added the live sand after I laid out the live rock to make sure the rocks are grounded firmly on the tank floor. I used a small plastic cup to slowly add the sand around the rocks, making sure not to cover any part of the rocks which could clog up the rock and increase the die-off rate in my tank during the cycling period. This became even harder as the water became cloudy and I was literally working in the dark.

An hour later the tank started to clear up and have already found a couple of hitchhikers in my live rock—a hermit crab and a snail. This starts the cycling period which means I’ll have to wait before I can add anything in my tank. The bottle of Bacardi to the right will help me through this waiting period.

As far as cycling, most people turn off their lights and encourage die-off which is referred to as hard cycling. Since my live rocks are already cured, I don’t anticipate a large amount of die-off and decided to do a soft cycle with a 12-hour photoperiod each day. However I won’t be doing any water changes just yet and have decided to just let the ammonia spike up to speed up the nitrogen cycle. I will check my parameters halfway through the week and see where I’m at. For now, I shall wait.

The Preparation

First thing's first, I ran a water test on my tank. Filled it up with freshwater and I let it stand to check for leaks. This also gave me a chance to rinse the tank before setup.

Then I made seawater. I poured three gallons of drinking water into my 5 gallon bucket. The use of reverse osmosis/deionized water is important and can easily be bought at the store if you don't have one installed at home. I mixed in a bag of Oceanic Natural Sea Salt Mix pre-measured to make five gallons of seawater.

I did vigorous hand mixing before pouring in the other two gallons of water. I threw in the submersible powerhead to aerate and continue mixing the salt. Using the hydrometer, I adjusted the specific gravity to around 1.023 ppt (seawater ranges anywhere from 1.020 to 1.025 ppt. Reef tanks are usually maintained on the higher end between 1.023 and 1.025 ppt). Threw in the heater set at 80° F which is what I plan to set my tank at.

This helps to keep an even temperature on my water throughout the process and also to ensure that the hydrometer works fairly accurately, which can be a little off depending on fluctuation in temperature. Placed a lid over my bucket and I’m leaving it alone for 24 hours.

UPDATE: The heater and the powerhead are both in the bucket the entire time. The heater ensures that the temperature is stable and the powerhead helps to aerate the water and adds circulation to make sure the salt is completely dissolved.

The Fruitless Hunt For Live Rock

People who aren’t in the know often freak out when they hear the word live rock. The rock itself is not alive but is encrusted with various organisms that are beneficial to the reef aquarium. No two rocks are ever alike. Most of the time live rock comes directly from the ocean uncured and are teeming with organisms from corals to shrimps and crabs. These rocks must be put through a curing process to eliminate “die-off” from some of the organisms living on the rock that might not have survived the transfer from its original location to the tank. This curing process is a big part of the nitrogen cycle and must be completely done prior to adding any livestock. Cured live rock are also available as well as base rocks that have been seeded by placing them in mature tanks.

At first I thought about buying my live rock online through LiveAquaria.com (a fantastic site for marine supplies and livestock) but was wary about the type of rocks I would get. With a small tank to work with, I feel it’s important to be able to assess the rocks personally for optimal aquascaping. Another advantage to buying live rock locally is to minimize the amount of die-off in the process which drastically shortens cycling time.

I started my hunt for live rock locally and went to Trop-Aquarium, a local fish store (LFS) that I’ve used numerous times in the past. However I wasn’t impressed with their live rock which looked like massive lumps of potatoes with weird tumors and there were hardly any color on them. I asked the guy at the store if he had any smaller pieces as I’m trying to put together a nano tank. He told me no and proposed breaking one with a hammer into smaller pieces as a solution. I politely declined and walked away.

Then I remembered a co-worker telling me about this place that had saltwater fish and supplies so I thought it might be worth checking out. The store is called ATM II and it was tiny, and all his tanks were dirty. They didn’t even look like the kind of tanks you find in an aquarium shop. Instead, they looked like the kind of tanks you’d find in a Chinese supermarket with live fish for food. In all fairness, the shop keeper was nice and helpful and offered to part ways with some of his smaller liverock pieces after I told him about my project. However it seemed to me like his rocks were seeded which wouldn’t offer much diversity in organisms. Plus his tanks were dirty.

At this point I’m absolutely disappointed and my hunt today has been fruitless. Maybe I’m better of buying live rock online which would delay this project by a week.

Introduction

Lately I've been setting my eyes on these nano reefs that everyone's been doing and I've been dying to do one myself with complete envy. Most people who know me know that I'm a big fish freak so I've decided to get in touch with my inner geek this weekend. For those who don't know, a nano reef is a saltwater aquarium that's less than 15 gallons and fully sustained by live rock, corals and various invertebrates. These tanks can look absolutely stunning and can even look much bigger than they really are. Google the word "nano reef," click on Images and you'll see what I'm talking about.

After doing some research and talking to several people online, I've finally decided to take the plunge. I'm no stranger to keeping marine fish though it has been ten years since I've kept a saltwater tank (Good God, I'm old!). In the past I've kept mostly fish only tanks so keeping invertebrates and planning my tank around them is completely new to me.

Another factor I considered is overall aesthetics. While it's definitely easy (and cost-effective) to take any size tank and pick and choose your own components to go with it, you'll often end up with a Frankenstein tank with wires, sumps and crap dangling everywhere. I definitely didn't want that. On the other end, there are a lot of all-in-one tanks on the market with all the necessary equipment and component housed within the tank itself and packaged in a nice little cube. These types of tanks can be found at decent prices and can go way up depending on the type of lighting and extra features you want.

Since this is my first venture into the unknown, I didn't want to commit to an all-in-one setup just yet so I opted for something smaller. I found a good deal at Doctors Foster and Smith on a Picotope kit by JBJ. It’s much smaller than a nano—it’s a pico—and it's definitely small. I like that it's entirely made of glass with a bownfront and seamless corners for a nice panoramic view.


The kit comes with a 3 gallon glass tank, a modest 13gph power filter and a 9 watt 50/50 compact fluorescent lamp (half blue/half 10K). The tank all in all is very nicely designed but I’m also aware of the limitations the stock lighting presents. Obviously with a 9 watt 50/50 CF bulb my corals are limited to mushrooms, polyps (zoanthids) and various soft corals which are still some pretty good selections. And I probably won’t be able to keep fish in a tank this size.

I decided to document every step of this project to not only share with everyone who might be interested in setting one up themselves but also to share my experience and serve as a guide. Initially I wanted to post this blog on MySpace but decided it was probably far too nerdy to be on it. Plus with all the details and ongoing progress associated with this project, it ultimately deserves its own little place on the net.

Equipment

Here's a breakdown of the equipment and supplies, where I got them and how much I spent:

• JBJ Picotope 3 gallon tank ($37.99 at Doctors Foster and Smith)

About $100 worth of supplies from Petsmart:

• Oceanic Natural Sea Salt Mix (pre-measured to make 5 gallons)
• Hydrometer (for measuring specific gravity in saltwater)
• Hydor THEO 50W submersible heater and thermometer
• Top Fin generic submersible powerhead
• Red Sea Marine Lab master test kit (measures pH, alkalinity, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate)
• 6 lbs. Ocean Direct Caribbean live sand

Spent about $8 at Lowe's:

• 5 gallon bucket with lid
• (2) small graduated buckets (comes in handy when measuring water during water changes)

$5 at Von's:

• (5) 1 gallon drinking water (reverse osmosis/deionized NOT mineral water)

So far I've spent about $150 which is not too bad for the initial expense of gathering all the necessary supplies and equipment.