Update: Nothing really major

My tank is going through a mini cycle, ammonia is somewhere between .25 and .5. Diatoms are gone, it has turned into hair algae. For the time being, I am just letting it grow. I am still trying to get some snails to breed from Reef Stewardship Foundation, so far no luck. I have tons of algae just waiting for a species or two.

I mentioned hair algae, but I also noticed corraline specks. They are growing on my powerhead, there are tiny specks. I have been scraping them off daily hoping to seed the rest of my tank with them, every day it grows back on the powerhead. So I am hoping to see spots of it all over the tank soon and hopefully it will start to compete a little bit with the other algae. At least it is a good sign that conditions will support corraline growth.

Anyway, let's see what is new? hmmm.

I have seen at least two different asterina starfish. One of them hitched a ride on my hermit crab for two days. And here is the odd part, the hermit has two really bright spots on its shell, I am not surfe if the starfish cleaned some of the gunk off of its shell or if it actually consumed some of the shell.

I have noticed several hairlike things coming out of the rocks, they seem to lasso some microscopic particle and then get reeled back in. They are vermetid snails, they are harmless filter feeders. Some people have had problems with them irritating their Zoanthids, but other than that they are harmless. I have noticed several small white feather duster things on the rock. I am not sure what these are yet, they could be colonial hydroids or feather dusters. They could even be Aiptasia for all I know, my philosophy for the time being is observe, and learn. If I observe something that is a nuisance I will find a natural means to deal with it. I also noticed three really tiny snails... at least I think they are snails. Their behavior was kind of odd, they would all connect to each other and roam around the rock. They are too small to really get any details, at this point all I know is they have snail like shells, and they are alive. I can not see enough details to make out any more than that. I hope they turn out to be interesting additions to the tank and are easy to breed and raise :).

I have decided that this tank will be a display, but I will focus on the breeding side. I hope to breed several types of snails, brittle stars, asterina stars, hair worms, spaghetti worms, bristle worms, Bangai Cardinal, False percula clownfish, maybe a type of goby. I also plan to have several species of Euphyllia coral. Frogspawn and torch coral at the very least. I would like most of my coral to be brooding coral. That would give me an ok chance to breed them.

So basically at the moment i am waiting for the cycle to finish, then I will add more live rock, and hopefully get my DIY live rock finished and cured so I can start adding coral. I know I am going a lot slower than most people would, but this is my first saltwater setup, I want to make sure everything is really stable so I do not kill off expensive livestock needlessly.

Update and first fish

I have noticed there are many bristleworms of all sizes living in my tank. There are thousands of copepods on the glass and sand. There are many amphipods living in the rock, they are growing and shedding. I see them moult quite often. The diatoms are almost gone, and there is a dusting of green algae on the glass, and quite a bit on the intake. I am still just letting it grow, it will balance in time. The coralline algae on the rocks has became a deeper purple color, so it seems healthy. There is no coralline growth on the glass as of yet. Altogether everything seems stable, ph still drops a little low, but I think with regular water changes it will balance. When I do a gallon water change ph is stable for a few days. I have been feeding my bristleworms with a piece of shrimp every now and then. The ammonia level has remained zero despite these feedings, so I decided the tank had cycled. I was doing some research on the web and found out that black mollies live in fresh, salt and brackish in their native habitat. So I decided to try one out as a test fish. I added the molly, ammonia rose to .5 overnight. Then it dropped to 0 in a few hours. So it appears that my tank is cycled, so I may start adding a few corals. I still need to finish my rock. I have made two rocks, and I am not too pleased . I am hoping with practice I can make decent looking rock, my first two attempts are not encouraging though.

A few days ago the hermit crab got really lethargic. He would not move, just kind of lay there. I was becoming concerned, then he started moving around a lot inside his shell. Then I saw his legs come off, I was really worried I thought he had died. Then a little while later, I saw him come back out, he was fine. He had moulted, and now he is a bright red color, he has been really active ever since. He climbs up on the rocks, and explores the entire tank. He cleans the algae off of the rock pretty good also.

The snail is active, he cleans the glass and the rock, of course they can not keep up. The tank is large for just a snail and hermit. I will be adding more snail soon. The molly is really active as well, she picks algae off of the glass and rock. She comes out and swims for a few hours, picking algae off the tank, and then hides unde the rock for a while.

It is very odd seeing a black molly and a live coral in the same tank. Mainly because you are so used to seeing them in fresh water.

Parameters are:

Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates 0 PH 8.2

As soon as I figure out how to stabilize my PH I will be ready to add coral. I will start doing a daily 1 gallon water change soon and see how that affects PH.

New Live Rock and First Coral

My tank has been up for about 2 weeks, it has 50 pounds of aragonite sand. I have two small pieces of live rock, each weighing about 4 pounds. I bought the second piece of rock today, it has a beautiful buttok polyp on it. I believe it is a protopalythoa sp. not sure, but I found a picture on the internet that looks an awful lot like it and that is what it was. My tank is not fully cycled, I went to buy a piece of live rock. I saw this live rock with the polyp attached and decided to take a chance. The owner of the store said that the rock was in his nano until he broke it down. He also told me that the polyp was on his first piece of live rock in the nano, so it has lived through one cycle. I hope it makes it through this one also.

Now, I know that i should have much more rock than I have in my tank. I need around 100 pounds of rock, but at $4.50 a pound I do not have the money to put that much rock in. I am considering DIY rock using cement, oyster shell, and rock salt. Until I decide whether to go this route or not I am adding a small piece of rock waiting for the ammonia and nitrites to go down, adding another small piece etc. I do not agree with adding all of the live rock at once, simply because that will cause an ammonia spike that very little can live through. I want as many critters to make it through the cycle as possible, so I am allowing the tank to cycle with each rock I add.

Anyway, I am excited about this new addition, with my first coral attached. The rock also has beautifull coraline growing on it, deep purple, red, light purple. It looks like three or four different types of coraline. I will be glad when that stuff starts growing on my tank instead of these dreaded diatoms.