From: putzolu@toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (David Putzolu)
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria
Subject: Re: [M][B] Help & questions after 1st week cycling 1st tank
Date: 18 Nov 92 04:33:00 GMT
Followup-To: rec.aquaria
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis

In article <1992Nov16.012301.29973@rayssd.ssd.ray.com> rtc@sgfb.ssd.ray.com (Custer) writes:
>1) Do I have adequate lighting:
>	Moe says: "...Good lighting is important, a couple of 40 watt, full 
>                   spectrum florescent bulbs are fine as they help the fish do
>                   well and grow some good macro algae. The kind of lighting
>                   I am talking about here is not the little fixture that 
>                   comes with some commercial freshwater tanks and has one or 
>                   two 20 watt red/orange florescent tubes.  These may be fine
>                   for freshwater tanks, but they are inadequate for marine
>                   fish...."

With only this lamp you will probably not get a whole lot of
macroalgae (I didn't get any at all with 35W of lighting over a 40G)
but may get some green hair algae (oh joy!). I only got brown diatoms
and a few spots of greenish stuff. All of the fish I had
while I had said light seemed quite happy with it - they need the
light to see & to tell if it is day or night. More doesn't make a huge
difference to them. One thing I did find with increased lighting (and
lots of liverock with macroalgae as well) was a significant drop in
nitrates - which are now zero according to a LaMotte kit.

>2) Do I have good test kits ?
>   From the nearby aquariums I had the following to choose from:
>   - Aquarium pharmaceuticals Dry-Tab test kits, which I was told were for
>     both fresh and salt use and seemed to me to be less accurate.
I had these for a while. They were adequate, at best. If you are only
going to keep hardy fish like damsels, they should do fine. If you
want to keep semi-hardy fish, the SeaTest is probably OK. If you want
to go with delicate invertebrates, a highly accurate test like 
LaMotte, which will give you true, very accurate readings, is a must.

>   - Tetra marine test kits. Liquid reagents, a few color bars printed on the
>     outside of the box.  These seemed pretty cheesy and inaccurate.
Absolute crap. I tried the pH one. Once. The nearly full bottle is still sitting
in my fish junk bag.

>     I went with the SeaTest kits.  It has been a little difficult to read the
>     scales as the colors don't match exactly. I guess the idea is to find
>     the shade that sort of looks like the closest match.
>     The ranges are: NH4+-N 0 to 1.0 ppm
>                     NO2--N 0 to 1.0 and 1.0 to 10.0 ppm
>     I'm trying to plot the ammonia and nitrite curves as the tank cycles.  I
>     guess I'll have to dilute the input samples and multiply the readings as
>     the concentrations exceed the test ranges.  Anyway, are these good kits ?
>     Are there better ones ? In the same price range ? Do I need better ones ?
Sounds like these are good tests, although I have no personal
experience with them. I don't know the exact chemistry that this test
uses, so you may want to do one of the following:
1) Use distilled H2O when diluting, or 
2) user distilled, salted H2O. Why salted? The chemistry might be
altered by the presence/lack of salt. It would probably also be
worth it to test the water you use to mix with for pH and Nitrates - 
the water may be highly acidic/basic, which might be stressful for
fish.

>3) Disease already ?
Can't help you here, I've never had a disease in my salt tank 
(knock on wood).

>4) Do I have enough bio load to cycle this size tank correctly ?
I cycled my 40 with 4 small damsels, 6 for a 75 should be OK. 

>   The aquarium dealer (who has been exceptionally helpful) recommended six
>   Damsels for this purpose, here's the scoop so far ...
>
>   DAY    SG    pH    NH4+-N    NO2--N  TEMP
>    3    1.022  8.2                     79.5  
>    4 (added fish, began testing on day 7)
>    7    1.022        0.2 ppm
>    9    1.022        0.3 ppm    0.0ppm 78.5
>
>    Moe's graphs show ammonia up to 10.0 ppm by this time.  Do I need a larger
>    population to get the tank cycled in a reasonable time ?

Moe's graph is strictly a guideline. My ammonia has never topped
1 ppm. Ever. Nitrite reached 6 at peak, nitrate 120 (the wonder of
UGF) peak value. With very light feeding I was able to cycle my
tank in 17 days. Pure luck, and probably a rare thing that it 
happened so quickly. Just sit back & wait, it varies according
to its own schedule.

>5) How long can the filter stand a power failure ?
>   The biological section of the filter fills with water when the power fails.
>   Once it is established, how long can it remain submerged without damage ?
>   I may need to turn it off during the cycling process.  How long can I
>   safely leave it off even before the bacteria are fully established ?
I've read that the biofilter can last for up to 12 hours with lots
of luck. I've had mine off for up to three hours at a time & never
noticed a spike that seemed directly attributed to it (adding 50lbs
of liverock, on the other hand...)

| David M. A. Putzolu               | putzolu@cs.ucdavis.edu               |
| Senior, CS & Psych, U.C. Davis    | op disclaimer(opinion : ptr mine)    |
| "Put your hand on the TV screen and repeat after me: I do hereby promise |
| only to watch the Ren & Stimpy show,  to make underleg noises during the |
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Newsgroups: rec.aquaria