I did not flame you. I was defending my position. I guess the problem with message boards is that one person method of writing seems totally appropriate to themselves but totally rude to someone else. I have this problem in my department all the time. One of my employees always sends out emails to the market stating certain things, however she does it in such a fashion as to completely mock the people she is sending the message to. Well, she doesn't mean it so I think when in doubt do not take anything personally unless they come out and say "The following is written to flame you" :)

My "Don't be rediculous" came from Perfect strangers. Anyone here old enough for that sitcom. It was supposed to be a humourous start. Oh well! Failed there.

Oh, and I don't think new sand would cause a spike.

Chris

Let me tell you right off that I'm not trying to flame you, but I'd like to offer an opinion. Okay?

There are many parameters that we don't typically test for such as calcium, magnesium, phosphate, silicates, and a whole whack of trace elements. The only way to make sure these are replenished is with frequent and regular water changes, imo. That's why I do weekly 10-15% water changes. I guess I'm a follower of the "a little at a time but on a timely basis" sort of thinker when it comes to w/c because there's no way in h*ll I'm going to be doing all that testing all the time. It's just way easier to change some water once a week than to test for all that stuff in the three very different tanks we have.

Yup. Good point. Everyone does things differently because we all have very different and unique reef setups.

Take care, and I hope you don't take my remarks as a flame, but as one opinion among many.

Can I play here too?? Sam, I agree....not sure how new sand will cause a spike. Also, if enough cured rock is placed in a 42g tank, I would feel adding fish to be a relatively safe act. I might not add 6, but I would have to see the tank/rock/etc to determine that.
I would also not add corals this soon, even with cured rock, although I think with proper knowledgeable monitoring, problems can be avoided.

Beverly, the people here are not so much flaming you, they're just passionate about caring about little fishies!
I agree that it is your tank and it's your decision what you'll put in it and when. You seem to have a plan in place to watch for problems and hopefully you won't have any. I think it is entirely likely you'll be OK. But please understand where the emotion comes from...it isn't hostility, it's concern for you, your tank, and the livestock in it. I think it's great so many people care.
Good luck!!

Beverly,

I agree with you 100%. I asked "Why do we do water chages?" a while back and they said to replenish your elements that your animals use up. Well if it isn't to remove deitrus (The sand bed should never be vacuumed) Then I am going to try with the old leave it alone method. My mineral replacement is very minimal for those three months as all I add back into the system is what is leaked out of the system in the form of salt creep. Very little, but still something. (I actually encourage salt creep) Now my setup is only going on 9 months, but I have never had anything die (Except a fish and overflow problem) Oh and of course a BTA I put in way to early. My soft corals get fragged quite often, snails reproduce like mad, and only recently had an issue with a Frogspawn coral. So other LPS are doing awesome.

I guess we find out in a few more years, how my experiment actually hold up.

That's cool. Didn't catch the association with Perfect Strangers. Never heard of that show so thought you were calling my post ridiculous.


Beverly, I for one would love to get updated if you ever see an ammonia spike of any sort. Would be good to know.

IMO, spikes occur when there is insufficient nitrifying bacteria to deal with fish waste, left over food, and stuff that's dying whether it's on rock or in the sandbed. The more "live" a sandbed is, the less likely a spike will occur because it'll be loaded with bacteria. That is, unless something in the sandbed is dying which the existing bacteria is unable to cope with. Does that make sense?

I think there would still be die off when you add live sand to a new system. That is why people say you can just add live sand to a new system to get the cycling started because there would be enough die off from the critters in the sand to start the bacteria process. Also, everytime you add a fish, you now no longer have enough bacteria to cope with the extra fish so a spike will occur again. By adding a lot of fish at the same time your spike will be more pronounced. The higher the spike, the greater the chance for stress and dead fish.

To remove detritus, I have a prefilter on my Hagen 802 powerhead and gently turkey baste the sandbed and live rock to get as much detritus into the water column as possible. I call the procedure "storming" as in what a bad day at sea might do to a natural reef. Anyway, once the tank clears, I remove the prefilter, take out the foam and rinse the living heck out of it. You'd be surprised how much crud is exported that way.

As a matter of fact, since our reef is so new and loaded with livestock already, I'm storming the 42 a couple of times a day. The foams come out pretty dirty so I know I'm reducing, though not totally eliminating, the chances of spikes of any kind.

What mineral replacements do you add back to your tank as your salinity rises? I add just enough RO water, which should have very little trace elements, to bring the salinity back down to what I consider normal which is about 1.025 at 78 F.

Well, I noticed that the greater amount of salt creep, the greater amount of new salt I can add back into the tank. My tank therefore always stays at 1.024. at exactly the same water volume. Top off water is all RO water.

The live sand would also come with nitrfying bacteria, so there may not be as big a spike as one might expect. Or there could be a larger spike too, depending on the system. If there was cured live rock in the tank, or an established sump or refugium, or even some macro-algae which lives off ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate - another byproduct of die-off - the spike would probably be smaller and may not be noticed at all.

BTW, we started the 42 with about 3" of sugar-sized Aragamax, which isn't live. Then we added salted, 78 F. RO water. Our RO unit doesn't remove all the ammonia from the tapwater here (which uses chloramine - a mixture of chlorine and 1 ppm+ ammonia that is more stable than chlorine alone). So when I added the RO to the sandbed, then tested it after the tank was almost full, there was no ammonia or nitrite in it. The sand had become live enough with bacteria in 3 days to deal with the ammonia and nitrite in the RO water. (Didn't test for nitrate, though.)

I'd have to say it would depend on the individual reef system, but in theory, I agree with you.