Vertex Bio-Pellets

[kattz]

Here's what I have in my 90g:

70 lbs live rock
40 lbs live sand  - was more but sand bed was too deep
anthelia (?)
xenia
several patches of zoanthids
hairy mushrooms
some other mushrooms - not sure of the name
1 aussie blasto frag
1 4" plate coral
1 large peach hammer
1 small green torch
1 goldenrod torch frag
1 branching hammer  - 10 heads
1 elephant ear
some star polyps
4 small blue-green chromis
1 lg chromis
1 tomini tang
1 melinaris wrasse
"Paco and the Mexican gang" - hermits, narissus snails, turbo snails
1 serpent star
1 blue star

40 gal sump.  The fuge is full of cheato, caleurpa (sp), live sand, and rubble.
4 filter socks
EV-180 skimmer
Mag 9.5 main pump
Calcium reactor is not online yet.

The tank is about done and is where I want it except for the addition of a green carpet anenome and a pair of maroon clowns, and one purple tang.  Some corals may come and go in the future, but the 3 ppm nitrates is to prep for the green carpet anenome.

I initially started increasing the bioload to kickstart the ammonia cycle, but there hasn't been squat happening.  I'm changing 25% of my water weekly.

[Blown76mav]

Just out of curiosity, how long should one wait?

I've been waiting for the ammonia spike for two months.  Nothing.  No nitrites, no ammonia, pH is rock steady...  If I wait, not sure what the sign is for "when the waiting's over".  I don't want the tank to crash any more than the next person, all I want is nitrates at 3 ppm or less.

I still consider my tank relatively young at 3 yrs old.  As I've stated before I don't dose anything unless its needed.  If my Alk or Ca is low I dose until it comes into what I want.  Even with as many corals as I have I have yet to feel the need for a Ca reactor, that is trouble in a bottle if you ask me.  I know a lot of people love the automated systems but if you put your trust into automation you may never know when something is wrong until its too late. We've all read the horror stories when a float valve sticks and the ATO goes wild or a Kalk reactor goes haywire.  I have too much invested in this to have something go wrong that isnt my fault.


Please understand I'm not trying to be down on you, I'm just trying to lookout for you.  Its easy to get excited and caught up in all the cool little gadgets this hobby has to offer and if your not careful you can nuke the tank in hours.

I was once told by a good friend, "Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby, but everything bad happens quickly"

[harleyrider]

I still consider my tank relatively young at 3 yrs old.  As I've stated before I don't dose anything unless its needed.  If my Alk or Ca is low I dose until it comes into what I want.  Even with as many corals as I have I have yet to feel the need for a Ca reactor, that is trouble in a bottle if you ask me.  I know a lot of people love the automated systems but if you put your trust into automation you may never know when something is wrong until its too late. We've all read the horror stories when a float valve sticks and the ATO goes wild or a Kalk reactor goes haywire.  I have too much invested in this to have something go wrong that isnt my fault.


Please understand I'm not trying to be down on you, I'm just trying to lookout for you.  Its easy to get excited and caught up in all the cool little gadgets this hobby has to offer and if your not careful you can nuke the tank in hours.

I was once told by a good friend, "Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby, but everything bad happens quickly"

I agree with this post 100%, about 99% of the tanks crashes you read about on here and other forums are from dosing one thing or another, vodka, vitamin c...etc.  What is so funny is you set and read the post and they say ( gosh i dont know what crashed my tank) then you have the ones thats smart enough to know what happened, its very sad and kinda pisses me off when people do this because corals and fish are precious cargo, and hate to see them wasted,  Glad for them that they have that kinda money to waste. This is not aimed at anyone, but if you do any research at all, you will see this... This is just my opinion....

[HUNGER]

I still consider my tank relatively young at 3 yrs old.  As I've stated before I don't dose anything unless its needed.  If my Alk or Ca is low I dose until it comes into what I want.  Even with as many corals as I have I have yet to feel the need for a Ca reactor, that is trouble in a bottle if you ask me.  I know a lot of people love the automated systems but if you put your trust into automation you may never know when something is wrong until its too late. We've all read the horror stories when a float valve sticks and the ATO goes wild or a Kalk reactor goes haywire.  I have too much invested in this to have something go wrong that isnt my fault.


Please understand I'm not trying to be down on you, I'm just trying to lookout for you.  Its easy to get excited and caught up in all the cool little gadgets this hobby has to offer and if your not careful you can nuke the tank in hours.

I was once told by a good friend, "Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby, but everything bad happens quickly"

well said

[kattz]

Just so everyone knows, I pulled this stuff out of my tank and reinstalled GFO about 4 days ago.  Although all of the parameters except nitrates remained at ideal levels, some strange stuff started happening to my stuff; i.e., rock turned white in spots, some of the hermit's shells turned white, and my plate coral started looking really wierd.  Corals looked tired, fish were OK.  Really scary stuff IMO.  Figured that maybe I learned a lesson to stop ##$!!&( with stuff, and concentrate on the basics.   I don't need to hear "told u so".

Kev

[lazylivin]

Adding some amino acids, doing a water change or some extra meaty feedings could help put back the stuff that got stripped out of the water.

[kattz]

Big water change today.  about 35%.