Tank Journal Archive

[mcclown]

So, it's hit...the cycle has kicked off.

I added some more live rock at the weekend and the missus did some aquascaping, so we have something that looks a bit different now. I also added a Tunze Nanostream 6040, behind the rockwork as I wanted a bit more flow (expensive weekend :-/ )

We also added some rock to the sump and our pistol shrimp...well he still seems to like hanging out on the pump, so I've given up...that's just where he's gonna live now.

Now, adding all this live rock to the tank has kicked off an ammonia spike...so maybe we're finally seeing the cycle we either missed, or that didn't occur before. Two days after putting the rock in I'm seeing

Ammonia 1.0 (toxic ammonia 0.023ppm)
Nitrite 0.1
Nitrate 5
pH 7.6

The pH has tanked, from a pretty steady state of 8.0, for the last few weeks. Is that to be expected with the ammonia//nitrite spikes?

I know we're going to lose some of our hitch-hikers but if I do some water changes, during the cycle, will that give them a better chance? Any recommendations on how much/how often? Or should I just leave it to run it's course?

 

[Sam Parker]

I have one question - is your skimmer a little deep in the water? Looks like it should be sitting about 8-10cm higher?

 

[mcclown]

@Sam Parker it's a Tunze 9004, they sit pretty low down, into the water. I don't think I've got the it adjusted quite right yet, I need to bring it up about 1cm, I think, as currently I've got the air intake closed almost all the way off. It is pulling out some pretty nasty yellow/brown gunk, so it seems to be working, a bit, at least.

Here's an picture of one I found online, as an example.

 

[Sam Parker]

@Sam Parker it's a Tunze 9004, they sit pretty low down, into the water. I don't think I've got the it adjusted quite right yet, I need to bring it up about 1cm, I think, as currently I've got the air intake closed almost all the way off. It is pulling out some pretty nasty yellow/brown gunk, so it seems to be working, a bit, at least.

yeah the pic you've showed looks to be heaps higher than yours? You want the water level up about a centimeter off the bottom of the grill. Yours looks to be completely over the grill?

 

[mcclown]

@Sam Parker....I see what you mean. I'd been kind of ingnoring it, since it was almost doing its job. Thanks. I'll take a bit of time to adjust the height tomorrow. That would probably explain why it is being hard to tune right

 

[Sam Parker]

I only say this as I have the bigger brother (9012) and it worked much much better when I dropped the water level to the base of the inlet (you actually want it to almost siphon the water from that intake)

 

[mcclown]

@Sam Parker I adjusted it at the weekend, it running better now. Thanks

The cycle is almost over now, ammonia is down to 0 again and nitrite back down to 0.1. I suppose I'll have to find some CUC at the weekend.

 

[Sam Parker]

Can you actually see the water siphoning down the intake? That is when they are perfect (in my opinion)