cvcdrk's 29g Mini Reef

The t5 light wont be enough to keep SPS, nems or clams.

The metal halide light will let you keep lots things, that is the light I would purchase of the two options.

Have you checked out the marineland reefcapable LEDs?

cvcdrk said:

I'm leaning towards that one. My only price requirement was under $200 and that satisfies me.

Plus this way I KNOW it will be a quality light that will last. The only thing better would be finding an LED fixture with enough power and under $200 which I am still hoping for but don't think I will find it.

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yea leds are pricey if you want one thats gonna last you be ready to spend 300-400 bucks....go with the MH lol

little_fish said:

The t5 light wont be enough to keep SPS, nems or clams.

The metal halide light will let you keep lots things, that is the light I would purchase of the two options.

Have you checked out the marineland reefcapable LEDs?

Click to expand...

Can't find any ones sufficient enough and under $200. I prefer LEDs overall due to the low heat and the low power consumption but it's not worth $300 to me. If I could find a really good fixture with separate switches/plugs for different colors for under $250 I would probably bite the bullet but I've yet to find anything good.

I just checked on my dry rock package and they updated the delivery date to Saturday which sucks. :-/
I did some aquascaping this morning with the ~10lbs of live rock I have in there right now but the cycle is likely to last longer now that it will be three days before I get all the rock in there.
I don't have any table shrimp. I suppose I could go to the store and buy some but before I do...is there any other thing that I might have around the house that will kick up some ammonia readings and get the cycle going?

fish food

Don't have any of that yet either but I'll likely be at petco in the next few days so I'll pick up some cheap fish food and dump some in and see what happens. Thanks!

I used some tuna on my tank, but that was because I was having tuna for lunch that day. But in hindsight I wouldnt do that again because it was cooked tuna

Here's an updated pic of the new aquascape. Still have to wait a couple days to really finish that. Dry rock will be here Saturday.
The second pic is my current water temperature. I'm not pleased with it as it hasn't risen bove 75 degrees yet.

I am wondering if I should do anything about it, though, because I feel like if I get a metal halide/t5 lighting system like this:
Odyssea Metal Halide System

Then it will likely increase the temperature a few degrees anyway. Is this a safe bet?

your gonna need a better heater maybe 150 watts

I'm going to wait for now and see how it fairs. Next wednesday my mom is coming to isn't and I'm having her bring all my old saltwater equipment up. I'm not sure how big my heater is but hopefully its more than this one and I won't have to spend any money. haha

Ok so my delivery for today finally came. I installed a brand new Hydor Koralia 750gph circulation and wave pump. That brings the total circulation in my tank to 1079gph or about 37.2gph/g.

I have already noticed that it is kicking up a little more debris which should slowly filter out in the canister but this is nice because it allowed me to adjust the flow enough to make sure I don't have any glaring dead spots.

Also, as a free gift they included a sample of API pH 8.2 Stabilizer so I syphoned out some water into my bucket and mixed three scoops of that in there too and added just a touch of salt to raise it just a tiny bit (I know people talk about lower salinity in aquariums but it bothers me. The Ocean is 1.0265 that's what I want to be).

pH just measured (after 15 mins) 8.2 exactly. I'll test it two more times over the next ive hours or so to monitor.

Lastly, I am definitely noticing a thin white film on the inside of the glass. I have scrubbed it off a few imes thinking that it was just salt accumulation but it is more difficult than that to get off....what is this? Some sort of algae already? There's no lights on the aquarium...so it just receives ambient light right now.

Your pH was fine, and it wont be correct when you are cycling a tank anyways. Those pH buffers that they sell you are pretty much junk, they rapidly change the pH (which is bad for your livestock) and then it just goes back to where it was over the course of a few hours.

Plus, the pH will naturally change over the course of the day. As algae in the tank performs photosynthesis, they take up the CO2 in the water which decouples from water molecules (together the interact to form carbonic acid) which cause the pH to rise. The pH will naturally rise over the course of the day being highest right before the lights go off. Then when the lights go off, the CO2 is no longer being consumed so it stays in the water and interacts with the water to form carbonic acid, lowering the pH.

So its important to test the pH at the same time every day.

Everything I've read was that 7.9 was on the low end of the ideal spectrum. I am striving to have near-perfect water parameters.

low end is much better than making your pH fly up and down daily. And perfect is not a exact number, perfect is different for every tank, every ocean and every coral reef.

Well I won't add anymore. Fortunately there's nothing in the tank right now to be affected by a pH change. It's holding now at 8.1. Confirmed through three tests over the last 6 hours. But we will see how it stabilizes in the long-term over the next week or two.

So I tested twice today trying to spot the nitrogen cycle and I've been unsucsessful so far.
I added a bunch of fish flakes that came for free stuck to the tank when I bought it....they floated around for awhile but have completely settled down. This was about 8 hours ago.
I've seen no ammonia spike...

Water Parameters as of 10 mins ago:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
Nitrates: ~5ppm (this actually went down!)

So...any clue what this could mean? I guess I'm still waiting for the fish food to break down into ammonia, right?

Yes, if you are using flaked food you have to add quite a bit to get any quality cycle going.

cvcdrk said:

Well I won't add anymore. Fortunately there's nothing in the tank right now to be affected by a pH change. It's holding now at 8.1. Confirmed through three tests over the last 6 hours. But we will see how it stabilizes in the long-term over the next week or two.

So I tested twice today trying to spot the nitrogen cycle and I've been unsucsessful so far.
I added a bunch of fish flakes that came for free stuck to the tank when I bought it....they floated around for awhile but have completely settled down. This was about 8 hours ago.
I've seen no ammonia spike...

Water Parameters as of 10 mins ago:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
Nitrates: ~5ppm (this actually went down!)

So...any clue what this could mean? I guess I'm still waiting for the fish food to break down into ammonia, right?

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Dude be patient! Lol nothing good happens fast In this hobby, 2m go to the store buy a table shrimp for $1 drop it in there and just let it rot.... You can't rush these things.... We have all gone threw the boring cycling process

Oh I'm not chomping at the bit or anything...just wondering when to expect the ammonia levels to spike since I haven't seen it yet.

I didn't get the table shrimp I just used the fish flakes instead. I threw a bunch of it in there and it swirled for an hour or so and then settled down. little fish recommended fish food.

So at this point I'm just waiting for the food to break down into ammonia. I have no idea how long that would typically take. I just would really like to see an ammonia reading.

When it starts to rot the ammonia will go up, its probebly being a little slow because of the preservatives in the food. Dont worry it will spike :)

Kelz88 said:

When it starts to rot the ammonia will go up, its probebly being a little slow because of the preservatives in the food. Dont worry it will spike :)

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I give a thumbs up to Kelz88 :Cheers: