new aquarium cycled what to add

hi guys well ive got my new 4 x 2 x 2 foot aquarium cycled and full of live rock, its beeen cycling for over a month now and im beginning to try and figure out some ideas for some easy corals to add.

I'm new to the forums and im just trying to get my head around it all.
Anyone with anyone adivce would be awesome, im looking foreward to getting into the hobby more and mroe as my tank develops.

Am i best to buy the corals from pet stores or did i see somewhere that you can collect them or goon outings with out forum members to collect them>
??

thanks in advance for any replies!
callum

what corals you get depends on the lighting and flow you have in your tank. Good starter corals that are fairly tolerant are elegance corals, morphs, zoas, hammers and frogspawns, xenia.

What sort of lighting do you have? skimmer? how much flow?

If you go out collecting corals there are several things you need to be careful of such as where you collect (is it legal to collect there?) and do you know enough about the coral to recognize it and collect it properly? Not to mention care for it as it is adjusting to tank life/healing depending on how it was collected.

Hey callum.
Thats sound advice there,you could try some soft corals first like a small sarcophyton,they are easy in some light current and from mid way to near the top of your tank.
If you get any tubastrea like the sunburst, keep it out of the light,they do not like it in the light and lots small feeds for them.
All the brains and ackans are pretty tough,scolymia are not to bad as well,and heliofungia are pretty tough from my experience.
Leave the acroporas for a while, they can be more dodgy.
Good luck

Hi Callum.

Have you got zero nitrites after a good rise in them Callum?

If you have and the skimmer is doing it’s bit, you are ready to go, to some degree.

If you do not have a skimmer, than a serious algae scrubber does a far better job any way or you can rely on regular water changes from either Raby bay air sea rescue boat ramps or the ramp at the end of cleve point on the left at the top of the tide.

I would get a clean up crew going for your tank soon,a few snails at low tide and some local peppermint shrimps are good.

If you want some corals, pet super at Capalaba is trying to get its act together with corals now, pet city at mount gravatt has the biggest range and there is Rob Lowe at Alexandra hills, this is his web site link.
http://www.allmarinefish.com.au/store.php?cPath=2

The collecting trips so far in the collecting forum are by the aandtsociety,it’s a marine aquarium society that just runs the forum, only aandtsociety club members, not just forum members can be a part of the club collecting trips.

Firstly Callum the type of lighting you are using will have a large bearing on what corals will do well for you and positioning of certain corals at what height with what water current, these are things that should be worked out as well.

The others on here know more about shop bought corals than me for sure.

Most shop corals come from higher temps than our local waters are on average down here, my tanks are into winter temps at the moment, the heater is set to come on at 20c and the chiller is set to 25c,not good for some shop bought species.

The local peps and the latezonatus clowns I like do not do as well above 24c,so most varieties in the shops would not do well in my tank.

Dude you should get some zoas and morphs,they are awsome in colours and multiply fast if you look after them.
My fav are jardeni not to hard to keep either.
Kitiara brought up a good point with getting your flow right,make sure thats cool.
Do it right and it's an awsome hobby.

hi guys, well thanks alot for the advice,,,
after reading everything i think i might have to wait a while longer as i dont want to rush anything and beginning to see kind of a big build up for green algue...

im running two good sized powerheads which are circulating the water well in a circular motion around a formation of live rock in the middle of the tank,

im running a sunp underneath with a skimmer attached, its got a ventricle valve thats got an air pump attached, how wel its working or not im not too sure!!

can anyone help me with this one,,, im getting vey strong readings of phoshate in the tank when im doing good sized water changes 10% weekly and its not int he source water im using

im also not getting any nitrate reading or much nitrite reading,,

so maybe i was getting ahead of myself and i need to wait a while longer before adding livestock hey?

thanks for you help guys its invaluable! anyone locl fancy popping over to have a look feel welcome!

callum

p.s ill post pictures tonight

also is buying a clean up crewe off the local pet shop bascically the same as going down to the rock and mud flats at low tide and turning a rock over and collecting a few snails or are they any different?

The perception these days Callum is the live rock introduced has the bacteria on it and its up to you to encourage this bacterium to multiply.

I don’t do it that way these days exactly!

Hey I thought your tank was a 3 footer?

With the way of running your tank you are committed to, there has to be continually added rotting organic matter so the bacteria can feed upon it and convert to ammonia, than the next mutation converts to nitrite, than the next to nitrate and with in your live rock or in the substrate where very little oxygen is found, the converting of nitrate to nitrogen is done.

For your tank to mature there needs to be what is accounted for as time goes a long, fish food, fish waste, invert waste, all these activate the nitrite cycle.

What I do is get a stocking bag you use for washing them or similar and get a small hand full of marinara mix from woollies at Capalaba and hang it in your tank in the current for 6 or 8 days than through it all away, that will stimulate the ammonia production and than your nitrite cycle will flourish.

Ammonia will rise and than nitrite will rise and ammonia falls a little than nitrate will rise and once you watch the nitrite peek over some days or a week or two and than fall to 0 over a few days to a week, you are ready to do that big water change for the life to go in.

If you do not build up the bacteria in your tank on and in the live rock it won’t be there to convert your aquariums waste over time.


Do not do any water changes until your tank has gone through its nitrite cycle or you are removing valuable ammonia that’s needed to start the nitrite cycle.
Yes the shops sell more or less the same clean up crew you find down at the waters edge.

hi man the tank is a 4 footer how come you thought different??

ok that sounds like something i need t be doing tomorrow then,
should i get the clean up crewe in tomorrow as well or what

what will get rid of the green algue, or will than go automatically as the tank ages more?

You typed 3 by 2 by 2 here?
https://southeastqueenslandm.aforumfree.com/t911-beginner-started-new-tank-in-cleveland

No matter.
The algae is beneficial, it will absorb your phosphates to some degree and condition your water.

Once algae takes in something it is converted and is no longer that substance and if the algae dies it realeses good substances like amino acids and harmless carbons!

Later on you can deal with the levels of annoying gases/substances such as phosphate.

The only things annoyed by phosphates are mostly corals, so until you get them in there and expect good results, it’s fine!

Get those nitrites up to a good level for the bacterium explosion, if that doesn’t happen, your tank will fail, fast or slow, it will fail!


Try to imagine once your fish and inverts are in the tank they are putting out a level of 10 percent waste and you have matured enough bacteria to cope with 8 percent, that’s 2 percent of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, all killing your fish and inverts!

Your skimmer will get rid of a little of this but not that much, so your live rock has some work to do by housing bacteria that you have built up by feeding it ready to convert the tanks waste production before it kills your fish!

Ammonia harms all life in the aquarium, nitrite mainly harms fish, nitrate gets into the fish when they drink the water as the organ they have removes the salt, but not the other substances in the water, so the nitrate will kill off their organs over time and reduce vitamin and mineral absorbsion, the same in a fashion with the corals, but slower!

Phosphates will sicken corals, not much with fish really, than algae will flourish as they gorge on the phosphates and take over the sickened corals and cover them and finish them off by preventing light from getting to them.

Some phosphate test kits will register sulphur as phosphates at times, sulpher gas comes from your substrate if it is left to get rubbish in it.

Don’t worry about algae as your tank matures, worry about it later, especially when the lights go out and your tank has delicate life in there, it produces co2 once the light is not there to get photosynthesis going to make oxygen, because when the lights go out, the algae everywhere in your system makes co2 and ruins water quality, even the clades of algae that live the symbiotic life with in the corals cells.

ok so right now i need t be getting the amonia up so get the nitrites up,

and ill refer to the earlier comment of the marinara mix to do that

i did co insedently add a 100ml of stability by seachem that is supposed to add bacteria to the tank

Thats good,now feed that bacteria to build up the bacterium.
Oh and don't use a skimmer while maturing a tank!

ok kool, thanks mate ill let you know how i go.

When you seed external wet section filtration with bacteria you can complete a full mature in 10 days some times if some media is taken from some ones very mature system, live rock dependant forms of bio filtration will take considerably longer and be more unstable!

The thing is, live rock bio filtering is like the old under gravel styles of filtration in that you buy it all as a package and hope for the best.

They both work at a high level, for a while!

To make an old school trickle filter work well you need a good design and they were never designed properly in the first place, which is a shame, because if one is well designed it makes the live rock dependant form of bio filtering seem per thetic!

If you have a weir of some kind and a sump you can add forms of remote filtration to allow for the live rocks drawbacks over time.

Good luck with it, see yah.

liquidg wrote:
marinara mix from woollies at Capalaba
.

Can i just get in in this,why the marinara?
Most people just use some prawn heads.
Is the marinara better in some way?

The reason I use something like marinara is that it has varied life form parts in it.
There is fish meat, prawn, muscle, oyster, etc,these different meats and algae become different ammonias and than different nitrites and so on.

To accommodate this biological function you need to begin your bacterium with the ability to convert all forms of waste if possible or you will add life forms with no bacteria to cope with their varied waste and that will take a little time and they will suffer during that time and when fish stress, parasites get a foot hold!

From corals come their varied ammonia; from each meat eating fish comes a type of ammonia, from each algae eating fish comes a type of ammonia and so on it goes and if this isn’t allowed for you get what so many hobbyists get, an unprepared biological form of filtration.

The net these days is full of so many terms and opinions on things that are easier than is made out to be.

There was a club test done a lot of years back with all the gear, this was on a matured under gravel filter on a marine aquarium and the findings were there was very little bacteria actually in this gravel, many other life forms were found to be present doing the job you are told only bacteria carries out.

I have always based my maturing of biological filtration since than on that bases and in weeks, not months, my tanks are full and never look back!

The maturing of a marine aquarium is very complex with in the water collum and on any surface with in it as to what is going on in there, but once you try every thing possible and understand what you have done, its so easy to get a magnificent fool proof piece of the ocean in your home!

Ok makes sence.. So a good handful of marinara mix in a stocking for about a week right???

Small handfull different types of pieces,say a coffe cup amount in it and shake the bag in the water once or twice per day as well to get the varied types of pieces exposed to the oxygenated water as well and free it of the bacteria coating that will start to seal all those pieces together.

When you shake it some particles will come out into the water,thats fine!

Do not use a skimmer until nitrites are zero and maybe PH buff your tank during the process if you have high quality live rock,the Ph imbalance during this process may cause some ccoraline as such to suffer,personaly with good breaking surface tension actions with in your aqaurium the buffing is not essential and coraline comes back far better once your tank is stable any way.

6 or 7 days will do it,than test and watch the ammoinia and especialy the nitrites,personaly the only one to watch is the nitrites forget the rest,if they have happened,amonia was before it,when they happpen nitrates will follow it,no matter what!!!!

I concur on the marinara
It worked well for what I did with it
Smells a bit

hi guys, ive finished the live rock today and managed to get it looking quite good,
i think thats all im going to put in there for the moment,

i did get a clean up crewe consisting of 6 hermit crabs tht seems to be devouring the algue thats started to grow so im hoping that in a couple of days that should have cleared up some what!

interestingly enough, one of the pieces of live rock i got from all marinefish and corals in alex hills actually has three good sized corals growing on it which have opened up, luckily i put that piece reasonably close to the top of the tank, t just remains to bee seen as to wether it will survive or not??????

p.s how do i upload a picture to this thread??

Go to photobucket and get a free account on there.

http://photobucket.com/

Click on (sign up now)

Fill out everything, than click on (sign me up)

Once you have the page open you got click on (album options)

Than click on (upload photos and videos)

Than click on the big green button (select photos and video)

This will open up your computer to select where to take a photo from, I put mine on the desk top to take from there.

Click on the photo you want and than click on (open)

The photo will than load into your album on photobucket.

Click on view your album and sit your cursor on the photo, don’t click on it or it or it will open the photo, now some options come up, click on image code, it will show copied.

Than you go to your thread on the forum and where you type words in your thread right click (paste), that coding appears and once you click on send for your thread it becomes the photo on a forum and you can type a description before or after it, that’s up to you.

You can put the coding on a word sheet remembering it represents a photo and finish the whole thread words and pics and than (copy) and (paste) all of it into the thread and that’s it, all done!

If the hermits are the yellow claws,they are good red algae cleaners as well,plus when they eat algae they excrete waste,more to help build up youir bio filter as does anything dead and rotting or alive in your aquarium.

Awesome man.. Ill upload sone photos when i get rid of that bast#rd green algue bloom lol

p.s one of ny piece of live rock that i added on tuesdy has a rather large piece of coral growing on it. Pretty happy about that but im sure the high phosphate levela will kill it off hum..... Hope not

If it is an acro it may suffer a bit.

There used to be a form of activated carbon i used in the distant past called phosphate sponge,it worked well with the live rock bio filiering style i used back than.

If you are worried try the redsea NPX algae control gear,it is supposedly good.

do you know if there are any clean up crewes that will eat the algue off the sides of the tank,

have bought a phosban phosphate reactor and waiting for it to be delivered, any suggestions from anyone on what media to put in it, ive heard rowaphos or phosban are both good!

what is the phosphate sponge like and where would i add it??

The phosphate sponge is a very old name that may not exist any more; it was really only activated carbon grainuals that absorbs phosphates and other water-soluble substances and once it was full, so to speak, we would cook it again to reactivate it for more uses.

With that phosphate remover from back than, I would set up a bag of it in the rear where the water comes out of the tank to the sump so the water had to either pass through it or at least past it.

I can’t see much in the way of problem algae in your tank either, it looks okay.

The corals look like goniopora, a very hard coral to sustain over some months, but still it is something in the tank.

Just make sure your water can pass through what ever you intend on using to house your phosphate remover and you should be right.

Phosphates are not really an issue until your tank has cycled, there will be all kinds of things happening until that is achieved!