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RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Fri, 30 May 2008 06:13:15 GMT

Happy Birthday Tony...how's the tank coming along?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

Johnston — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:56:00 GMT

Lookin' Good!

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:52:13 GMT

Looks good and no problem at all!

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:23:44 GMT

I just want to say thank you for all of your patience, honestly, without you guys, this would never be possible. You've been so helpful and so kind, I greatly appreciate it. You guys rock! Here's some better quality pictures from my digital camera. =)~

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:56:18 GMT

Here is an article written about general maintenance that should help some.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:34:53 GMT

Man, I didn't know... But they seem to be doing great. They're all swimming around and they did eat. Alright, so now I know I can't just do Water Changes like I use to do, what do I have to do differently now? thanks guys!

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:20:51 GMT

TonyC617 (5/13/2008)

So guys... I FINALLY GOT MY FISH!!! Im just leaving them in their baggies for 20 minutes. Should I just dump them in?

NO...don't dump them right in (but it sounds like I am too late). Here is a "how to acclimate" from Marine Depot Live. While some won't pertain to your case, much of the acclimation will be the same.

You will want to make sure the temperature and salt levels are the same before releasing them and do not add the water the fish came in into your tank (probably not a huge deal if you did it this time, but many store's water is not that high of quality and some put copper in their water).

The fish and shrimp look good though.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:53:10 GMT

All set guys! My fishies and shrimp are in and they're swimming! Altho my clown fish seems to swim in one spot... I ended up getting my clown fish of course, a peppermine shrimp and a royal dotty-back. Heres some pictures for now until I pull out my digital camera. My dottyback is very shy.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:23:11 GMT

So guys... I FINALLY GOT MY FISH!!! Im just leaving them in their baggies for 20 minutes. Should I just dump them in?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:15:14 GMT

Saaaweeeeet! Hopefully i'll get my fish this weekend then.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:52:17 GMT

IMO for a fish only system you are fine with a 20ppm reading for nitrates. Lower would be better, but that should be fine. More than likely if you were to take a reading from most LFS's their nitrates would probably be higher than that.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:25:32 GMT

Hey guys, just thought id post my latests test results. I just finished doing them about 15 mins ago.

PH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrie: 0
Nitrate: 20
Salanity: 1.022

It seems that the Nitrates never go down enough. Does Nitrates have to be at 0 too? I emailed a very good fish store called Tropical Aisle and they said that they would sell me a clownfish or 2 with the size of my tank. Where as Petco would refuse me. So at least I know I can get some fish... Should I work on getting the Nitrates down or is 20 not bad? Thanks guys!

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

Noctiluca — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:33:40 GMT

Hey Tony,

Looks great. I like the rock work and especially like the contour of the sand bed. The tank is clearing nicely and it loks like your patience paid off. Keep up the good work.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:35:39 GMT

Complete Tank Setup.

Left side of tank

And a little cave I built

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:40:57 GMT

Sounds good. Post some pictures once it clears up.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Tue, 06 May 2008 08:00:22 GMT

I did a 20% water change today and after about 2 hrs, finally aquascaped is finished. I ended up not using about 6lbs of rock. I used a kitchen scale to weigh it. So theres an estimated 14-15 lbs of live rock in the tank now. I moved the water pump to the other corner, that way I have my heater, filter, and pump all in the same corner. I like this, I never thought id get this far to be honest. But im wicked glad I did. And yes, im from Boston, haha. I'll do a water test when I get home from work and hopefully the water will clear enough so I can post pictures. The only thing that worries me is the dumb *** people at petco. I guess I have to lie to get my nemo cuz telling them I have a 10 gal tank, they're def. not gonna allow it. Idiots... I'm not getting him today, next week hopefully if the tests come back good. Well, i'll be posting my test results with some pix later on after work.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:38:16 GMT

TonyC617 (5/2/2008)

So I added my sand. I rinsed it out first like you guys said and of course, my tank is wicked cloudy.

You have to be from the Boston area..."wicked" seems to be most often used there (or at least when I lived there, LOL).

TonyC617 (5/2/2008)

So hopefully when I wake up in the morning, it will be less cloudy. When it gets nice and clear, ill take a picture and show you guys. Another thing, I should turn off my power head right? Or should I to let all the sand sit?

It may take a few days to clear, if you wanted to do a few small water changes along the way you could to speed up the process. You can shut off the powerhead for a little bit, but I would turn it back on before the tank clears otherwise you may find as soon as you turn it on you kick up some of the sand dust that had settled and the tank will be cloudy again.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:28:42 GMT

So I added my sand. I rinsed it out first like you guys said and of course, my tank is wicked cloudy. So hopefully when I wake up in the morning, it will be less cloudy. When it gets nice and clear, ill take a picture and show you guys. Another thing, I should turn off my power head right? Or should I to let all the sand sit?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

Noctiluca — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:53:27 GMT

Hey Tony,

Sounds like things are going good. Since you don't have a large quantity of sand I would agree with Keith and wash it. It will remove a lot of the dust that will eventually settle out. But if you don't wash it you will find that every time you get a fish or invert that disturbs the sand you will wind up with a cloud of dust for quite a while. Sounds like you're having a good time. Keep up the good work.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:15:45 GMT

It sounds like the tank is coming along nicely. When I ran my 10 gallon I did not use a skimmer on it, just made sure I did the weekly water changes so if you want to ditch the skimmer you could.

You should be able to start adding the sand it you wanted to. It will cause a sand storm in the tank and you may not be able to see through the tank for a little while. If you can give it a quick rinse (freshwater is fine) before adding it to the tank that will help out some. Don't forget to pull out some water before adding the sand to prevent the tank's water from overflowing.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:32:35 GMT

Well I did a 50% water change a few hours ago and did a weekly test. Here are the results.

Salanity: 1.021
PH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrie: 0
Nitrate: 40

Looks like my Nitrates when down from 160 to 40. But my protein skimmer broke while doing a water change. Do I really need it? I've had it since day one and nothing was ever collected. If I do weekly water changes, that should replace the need for a protein skimmer no? And also, I bought 15lbs of CaribSea Aragaonite Sand. After those results, Can I place the sand in the tank? It's just dry sand, not live sand. As for livestock. I most def. want a clownfish and probably have a hermit and shrimp. I think im actually keeping most of the live rock. I took each peice out and inspected it, a lot of them are very light pale green, while some otheres have dark maroon spots on them. (Carline Algea) I believe. That black mold I talked about, I tried scrubbing it off, and it became a lighter green, so I thought it might be some very dark green algea? Dunno if thats possible or not. But over all, I think my tank is almost ready for some live stock.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:18:11 GMT

As Tom mentioned by removing some of the rock you will lose a little bit of your biological filtration so just monitor the tank for a few days/weeks after removing and aquascaping (yes you can start aquascaping ).

You may find that you keep more of the rock than you were thinking once you start aquascaping the tank to your likes. But any rock you don't want/need, keep in a bucket of saltwater with at least a powerhead (a heater would be good also) until you sell it off, otherwise it will just be rock.

As far as the amount of rock people will use anywhere from 1/2 lb to 2 lbs of rock per gallon. So if you wanted to keep with the 20 lbs you can, but going down to 10 lbs would also be fine.

You can take the rock out during the aquascaping, it doesn't have to stay submerged the whole time.

So at this point I think you can add your sand, aquascape the tank and let it go for another week (wouldn't hurt to go two weeks either) to make sure you don't get any spikes in your levels. If after that time the ammonia and nitrite both stay at zero and the nitrate levels are under control you can add your first inhabitant.

Have you thought about what livestock you want to put in the tank yet?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:51:36 GMT

Well I have 20lbs of live rock in there right now, and I only need 10lbs right? My first order of live rock is pale green/yellow as my last order of live rock has many spots of maroon car. algea so I thought id keep the newer rocks. And they're cooler looking too.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

Noctiluca — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:27:13 GMT

Hey Tony,

From reading your posts I wasn't aware that you had added more live rock to your tank than you were planing on keeping. Removal of live rock is going to decrease your level of biological filtration. Just be aware of that. As far as resale of the rock as "live rock" you're going to have to keep it at least moist if not submerged in water, with nutrients, to keep the growth sustained. I would mostly be concerned at this point about lowering nitrates to an acceptable level and then slowly adding inhabitants while monitoring water parameters. Keep us posted on your progress

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:43:36 GMT

Alright guys, since my nitrites are at 0 and im workin on getting my nitrates down, can I start aquascaping? Like take out the live rocks I don't want in the tank. And can I just keep them in a bucket till I put em up on craigslist or get rid of em them? And would it be wise to do a test after a water change or would the readings not be accurate? And is it to take the rock out and scrub them? or do they need to be in the water at all times? Thanks guys, for the past 2 months, you've been so patient with me and I truly am thankful and greatful.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

Noctiluca — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:02:06 GMT

Hey Tony, As Keith stated nitrates are the end product of the bio cyclle occuring in your tank. They are way far less toxic than nitrites but at high levels can become toxic. We mostly rely on water change to remove the nitrates or at least reduce the concentration. Since your tank is only a 10 gal the dilution factor is very small. That's the reason water changes and monitoring water parameters is so important for sucess. Sounds like your'e off to a good start. Hope you are enjoying yourself. Keep us posted on progress.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 03:55:26 GMT

Nitrates will continually get produced (ammonia to nitrite to nitrate) so the nitrates will keeping rising and rising unless you do water changes or have other methods for reducing nitrates.

The greyish/blackish fuzz more than likely is a dead sponge or other organism. I would try to siphon it out when you do a water change.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:47:36 GMT

Hey guys, I just finished a complete test and here are my results.

PH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 160 (YIKES! I did a 20% water change so hopefully this will lower)

Salinity: 1.022

Looks like The Nitrites are gone, but im not sure why the Nitrates spiked up to 160. Ill be doing more water changes this week and hopefully that will lower it down. And by next week hopefully, I can add in my sand. I also noticed some mold growing on one of my rocks, is this normal? Its greyish/blackish fuzz. Thanks guys!

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:36:45 GMT

By spoiled or burned, do you mean they have a black soot look to them? If yes, you can take that piece out and scrub the area with a bristle brush (like a toothbrush or aquarium brush) to get rid of the area. It is probably from a sponge or some other organism that died there. Fairly normal for curing live rock.

Test results are looking good for the age of the tank. Once the nitrites are at zero, give it a week or so to make sure they stay there and you should be able to add your sand. Give it another week or two to make sure again the levels stay zero (for ammonia and nitrite) and you can add your first fish.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:20:36 GMT

Also forgot to mention that the newer rock I have seems to be growing more red coraline algea then the first. And some peices of rock look spoiled or burned... Hmph.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:15:22 GMT

I did about a 3 gallon water change today and my test results today were

Salanity - 1.023
PH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 1.0
Nitrate - 7.0

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:42:44 GMT

Are you getting any skimmate produced in the collection cup? How often are you doing water changes at this point? What are you latest test results?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

UrbanSage — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:23:00 GMT

Wow, what a cliffhanger when the dry (notsolive) rock showed up, having just read through the whole tread and seeing your anticipation and enthusiasm I was almost on my way to ship you some fresh rock myself
Very happy the rock that followed was much better.

It sounds like you are being taken care of. Patience is the best tool to begin the tank.

Keep posting

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:57:32 GMT

So i just realized that my protein skimmer hasn't done much ever since I added the live rock, whats up with that? is it not working properly?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:02:36 GMT

I do have a lot of live rock, dammmmmn! hahaha. Heres what my tank looks like now. lol.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:24:57 GMT

Wow...sounds like you are going to have plenty of liverock when you are done (especially if it keeps showing up, LOL). Yes go ahead and add it to the tank, you may end up having to sell off or trade off some of the rock eventually though.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:22:30 GMT

So I was getting ready for work and my door bell rings. I open the door and theres a package on my front porch. Its for me. I take it in and open it, not knowing what it was at all... Well I opened it and to my surprise, its another order of live rock. Should I just throw it in with the others I already have set up seeing as I dont have another holding tank. I know i'll have to start the cycling process all over again but thats cool with me. What do u guys think?

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

argi — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:21:28 GMT

The light pale green may simply be a type of coralline algae (most commonly it is purple, but green is also common). It is not a bad thing. Sounds like the tank is progressing nicely.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:32:55 GMT

Hey guys, just started noticing that my live rock is startin to turn a light pale green. Its not algea or anything like that, its the rock itself I believe. I did one water change and the water hasn't gotten yellow yet and that water change was thursday night I believe. I have tom. off and will do another water test. I'll post the results.

RE: 10 Gallon Tank

TonyC617 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:22:40 GMT

I dont think its because of a lack of water flow, because everything on the rocks are swaying back and forth but i could be wrong. It doesn't look like its gotten any worse, just staying the same. If it does begin to over populate, how would I go about getting rid of it?