My first reef (90g)

[Rikotek]

Hello to anyone who might read this.

I am excited to be starting my first reef aquarium after getting bored with freshwater.

Nothing much to report yet except that basic setup is complete
I have been lurking on these forums for a few months picking up very helpful information now and then, but this is a first post!

Equipment:

90g All Glass Aquarium without Sump (for now)

1X Seio M620 Powerhead for general circulation

Ehiem Canister Filter

2X Identical heaters of unknown wattage (but they do the trick)

54 watt (6 bulb) T5 Sun Systems TEK Light (Love it, was going to go Metal Halide but cost and heat were factors)

Unknown brand 6X1watt LED moonlight.
-----


That's it so far. Currently cycling the tank with a 12lbs piece of liverock to get the process started.

I am planning on buying a protien skimmer as soon as I finish buying more liverock (I hear you need roughly 1lb per gallon of saltwater, so its going to be a little while, stuff's expensive


Anyway, I don't expect too much in terms of comments, just wanted to say hi, get myself introduced to the forums and have somewhere to point in case someone asks about my tank situation.

Hello, cheers and wish me luck

Eric

[Murminator]

Good luck and welcome to the board

[robzilla]

welcome to canreef
keep us posted with progress

[woodcarver]

I find the details and progress of new set ups very informative and interesting ! Keep, the info. coming and if you can post some photo's even better ...............Thanks
...................Dave

[muck]

Welcome to the board Eric!!
Sounds like you are off to a good start. The Tek T5 setups are great lights.

[Rikotek]

Wow, thanks for the welcome

I have my first (albiet low quality) picture of my tank.
Still clearing out some of the murkiness and just letting the one piece of liverock start the cycle process. Will be buying more rock next month!



-Eric

[Rikotek]

Well, the tank has been cycling for about a week now, I decided to take my first batch of measurements to see how things are progressing.

Temperature: 76

Salinity: 1.025 (added some water just now, trying to get it back to 1.023)

pH: 7.5 - I am told that my pH should always be above 8.1 I don't know yet if this is something remedied by the cycling process or if there is some sort of pH adjustment chemical/proceedure I need to use. If anyone knows that would be great!

Ammonia - 0.04 - Looks safe to me. I figured there would be more Ammonia this early in the cycle process but I guess it's going along better than I thought.

Nitrite - 0.0

All in all it looks like the cycling is going well but it is going to take a while longer before I begin to introduce any livestock or anything like that. Picking up some more rock from a coworker who got out of the hobby a while back. I will work on adding that and aquascaping until all of my levels read safe.

-Eric

[BCOrchidGuy]

Wouldn't be a bad idea to measure your Calcium and your Alk, you'd have a better idea of what to do to adjust your pH. Read the chemicals sticky in the Reef section it will explain how to adjust each of your parameters safely. The staff put a lot of work into that stuff to make it easier for us so don't be afraid to use it.

Doug

[Rikotek]

Thanks for the advice BCOrchidGuy!
I didnt know about the chemicals sticky, it IS really useful.
I haven't gotten any test kits for alk or calcium, but the pH did manage to hit 8.5 which is nice.

Now for the bad news. I now have a small outbreak of Green Hair Algae in the tank. I caught it early enough so I am working with it now. Because I have no fish or snails or anything in the tank, I am simply performing regular water changes with store bought R.O water (to keep the phosphates down) and I have disabled my lights. I figure if there is no light for about a week, the GHA can't spread much more and if there are no phosphates to feed on then all the better.

All of my tests for pH, Amonia, Nitrate/Nitrite and Salinity are in the safe areas. I am going to introduce some herbivorous snails in a couple days. They should be able to eat at whatever GHA is left and I will slowly increase my photoperiod over the next week or so. If anyone can recommend a type of snail for this purpose I would really appreciate it.
I hear Turbo snails are good for this but I am not certain.

[mark]

Welcome fellow Edm reefer.

Not to push any one vendor but for inverts (and now more) Neals the guy.

http://216.187.96.54/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=57