OP
Andrew
訪客
Mmmmm, would this sound like an advertisement for the Carib-sea product I represent??? I hope not. Actually, the product you talked about can cycle the tank instantly without the side effect like most of the denitrifying bacteria on the market which would prolong the nitrite cycle. However, on the safer side, I would say you could basically cycle the tank in three days. That does not mean after three day you can put in 20 fish in a 4ft tank. You would still need to slowly adding the fish into the tank to properly increase the bacteria level. If you would like to keep delicate corals such as SPS corals, you still need to wait for about three to four months for everything to be in place, but it is better than the recommended time frame by most of the experienced hobbyists, which is 6 months to a year.
After you raise the temperature, let the tank water clear and have use products like Bionic to raise all the water parameter to the desirable level. You can start to add the animals into the tank safely. I currently do have the products in Taiwan for importer demonstration. I hope things would work out so many hobbyists could also easily enjoy the fun and happiness of the saltwater hobby without many of the current set backs caused by long cycling period, system instability of using other unreliable products.
How I did it was simple. At that time, I was switching from a 90-gallon tank to a 120-gallon tank. I decided that I would like to create a reef slope environment with DSB. Therefore most of the rocks I had at that time were not going to be used. The 90- gallon tank that I had for about 4 years was very mature. It consists of 180 lbs of live rock, two inches of oothlic size sand. I read an article at that time stating about the exhaustive sand bed of 4+ years could have detrimental effect by releasing harmful elements back into the water so I was not going to use this sand for my new tank. But since I will be using less live rock and have a larger tank to fulfill, I need to be concern about the sand bed. It needs to have enough bacteria to support the less live rock so all my animals would be transfer into the new tank safely without been stress by the excessive harmful nutrients (ammonia and nitrite).
Live sands are sold commonly from various online vendors and local LFS in the US. Live sands from the online vendors could be delivered to my door over night; the shipping is definitely expensive. Another thing is that when shipping the live sand, many of the lives in it (not the bacteria) could die and cause undesirable nutrients build up and pollute the sand so I did the research and have my eyes set on the Carib-sea water sealed package live sand. The reason why is simple. It is packaged with the shelf life of 12 months. It contains mostly the needed bacteria I need at that time for a fast cycle. The sand is aragonite, which could support the SPS I am transferring with dKH, strontium, and calcium. Finally, its fine size that helps the creation of the sand layers needed for the DSB and for viewing pleasure.
When the tank arrives, I rinse the tank thoroughly; I drain out all the water and prepare to set up the sand bed. My aiming depth is 7”. At that time, I only used 4 seal packaged live sand (80 lbs), one scoop of the old sand I had, and the rest I used the Carib-sea’s Fiji Pink Aragonite sand (12 bags of the 40 pounder). This is the regular dry sand without the “Live” part. The sand was washed two days prior. I lay the sand into the bottom of the tank and after reaching the desirable depth; I start to pour in RO water. I then add the salt into the tank and insert three 300W heaters to raise the temperature. It took 17 hours to raise the temperature to 82F. The water is cloudy at that time so I wait for it to settle for another day. When the water finally became clear, that is when I start to take down my old 90-gallon tank. I scoop a cup of the sand from my old tank, and then I add the packaged live sand into my new tank. I was prepared to wait another day or so to wait for the sand to settle down again but to my surprised the sand was so clean that when added into the tank, the tank water clarity was not affected at all. Just slightly foggy and it disappeared in few hours.
After adding the sand, I start to tear down my old tank totally. I removed all the corals, live rock and fish. I put them into a plastic container with few pieces of live rock and aerate the water with air pumps and heaters. I then started to design my rockwork. I left the corals and the fish in the container for another day. I tested the water next day morning? Everything is fine so I added the fish that day and at night, I added the corals. After the complete transfer, I use Bionic daily to maintain the desirable level and dose Kalkwasser every night to replace the evaporated water.
Two weeks later, I had my first algae cycle and then the cycle jumped into the third phase-Cyano bacteria. I had the Cyano everywhere and I removed the corals to my friends’ tanks. I left a few pieces of corals and all the fish in the tank because my friends’ tanks have no room for large Angelfish. I was really upset. I think this is also the time LTY came to my house and what he saw was the tank I described- Cyanobacteria everywhere. I tested the water but all parameter are in check (remember, I still have about 10 fish in my tank at that time). Just the continues growth of cyanobacteria. I used a Turbofolotor multi at that time and it just does not work. That is when I ordered the ETSS and got rid of that piece of junk.
Since all the parameter are in check, I slowly add all the corals back into my tank, and when the skimmer arrives after three weeks, my tank’s parameter were all fine just the crazy Cyano. All the fish are healthy and the corals are fine. One of my sea fan was totally covered with Cyano but it survived. I checked and checked to see what I did wrong and why the cyano took a toll on me. Now I know, I used about 12 bags of the 40lbs regular sand and only four bags of live sand. I add the animals in it too quickly, I have less live rock in the system and I did not give the bacteria time to repopulate. The large amount of fish and corals produced too much organic waste and the skimmer I had at the time was not able to handle the capacity. However, the live sand I added in did support all the animals I had and that was why I went through the algae cycling.
If I could have done it again, I would use at least 10 bags (200lbs) of the Live sand and 6 bags (240lbs) of the regular sand. If I did that and did not take down my 90-gallon tank that quickly? I would not have gone through the algae cycling. Two months into the new tank set up, I start to see the little tunnels and bubbles within my sand bed everywhere. It then started to have algae growing within the front glass under the sand bed. The skimmer was kicking ass and the Cyanobacteria were all gone. This is when I went to the local LFS and got me a nice piece of uncured live rock and a scoop of their detritus settle on the bottom of their live rock curing reservoir. I pour it in and placed the uncured live rock on the sand bed and two weeks later, my sand bed was kicking ass and the nitrate went down to undetectable level. HTH!
After you raise the temperature, let the tank water clear and have use products like Bionic to raise all the water parameter to the desirable level. You can start to add the animals into the tank safely. I currently do have the products in Taiwan for importer demonstration. I hope things would work out so many hobbyists could also easily enjoy the fun and happiness of the saltwater hobby without many of the current set backs caused by long cycling period, system instability of using other unreliable products.
How I did it was simple. At that time, I was switching from a 90-gallon tank to a 120-gallon tank. I decided that I would like to create a reef slope environment with DSB. Therefore most of the rocks I had at that time were not going to be used. The 90- gallon tank that I had for about 4 years was very mature. It consists of 180 lbs of live rock, two inches of oothlic size sand. I read an article at that time stating about the exhaustive sand bed of 4+ years could have detrimental effect by releasing harmful elements back into the water so I was not going to use this sand for my new tank. But since I will be using less live rock and have a larger tank to fulfill, I need to be concern about the sand bed. It needs to have enough bacteria to support the less live rock so all my animals would be transfer into the new tank safely without been stress by the excessive harmful nutrients (ammonia and nitrite).
Live sands are sold commonly from various online vendors and local LFS in the US. Live sands from the online vendors could be delivered to my door over night; the shipping is definitely expensive. Another thing is that when shipping the live sand, many of the lives in it (not the bacteria) could die and cause undesirable nutrients build up and pollute the sand so I did the research and have my eyes set on the Carib-sea water sealed package live sand. The reason why is simple. It is packaged with the shelf life of 12 months. It contains mostly the needed bacteria I need at that time for a fast cycle. The sand is aragonite, which could support the SPS I am transferring with dKH, strontium, and calcium. Finally, its fine size that helps the creation of the sand layers needed for the DSB and for viewing pleasure.
When the tank arrives, I rinse the tank thoroughly; I drain out all the water and prepare to set up the sand bed. My aiming depth is 7”. At that time, I only used 4 seal packaged live sand (80 lbs), one scoop of the old sand I had, and the rest I used the Carib-sea’s Fiji Pink Aragonite sand (12 bags of the 40 pounder). This is the regular dry sand without the “Live” part. The sand was washed two days prior. I lay the sand into the bottom of the tank and after reaching the desirable depth; I start to pour in RO water. I then add the salt into the tank and insert three 300W heaters to raise the temperature. It took 17 hours to raise the temperature to 82F. The water is cloudy at that time so I wait for it to settle for another day. When the water finally became clear, that is when I start to take down my old 90-gallon tank. I scoop a cup of the sand from my old tank, and then I add the packaged live sand into my new tank. I was prepared to wait another day or so to wait for the sand to settle down again but to my surprised the sand was so clean that when added into the tank, the tank water clarity was not affected at all. Just slightly foggy and it disappeared in few hours.
After adding the sand, I start to tear down my old tank totally. I removed all the corals, live rock and fish. I put them into a plastic container with few pieces of live rock and aerate the water with air pumps and heaters. I then started to design my rockwork. I left the corals and the fish in the container for another day. I tested the water next day morning? Everything is fine so I added the fish that day and at night, I added the corals. After the complete transfer, I use Bionic daily to maintain the desirable level and dose Kalkwasser every night to replace the evaporated water.
Two weeks later, I had my first algae cycle and then the cycle jumped into the third phase-Cyano bacteria. I had the Cyano everywhere and I removed the corals to my friends’ tanks. I left a few pieces of corals and all the fish in the tank because my friends’ tanks have no room for large Angelfish. I was really upset. I think this is also the time LTY came to my house and what he saw was the tank I described- Cyanobacteria everywhere. I tested the water but all parameter are in check (remember, I still have about 10 fish in my tank at that time). Just the continues growth of cyanobacteria. I used a Turbofolotor multi at that time and it just does not work. That is when I ordered the ETSS and got rid of that piece of junk.
Since all the parameter are in check, I slowly add all the corals back into my tank, and when the skimmer arrives after three weeks, my tank’s parameter were all fine just the crazy Cyano. All the fish are healthy and the corals are fine. One of my sea fan was totally covered with Cyano but it survived. I checked and checked to see what I did wrong and why the cyano took a toll on me. Now I know, I used about 12 bags of the 40lbs regular sand and only four bags of live sand. I add the animals in it too quickly, I have less live rock in the system and I did not give the bacteria time to repopulate. The large amount of fish and corals produced too much organic waste and the skimmer I had at the time was not able to handle the capacity. However, the live sand I added in did support all the animals I had and that was why I went through the algae cycling.
If I could have done it again, I would use at least 10 bags (200lbs) of the Live sand and 6 bags (240lbs) of the regular sand. If I did that and did not take down my 90-gallon tank that quickly? I would not have gone through the algae cycling. Two months into the new tank set up, I start to see the little tunnels and bubbles within my sand bed everywhere. It then started to have algae growing within the front glass under the sand bed. The skimmer was kicking ass and the Cyanobacteria were all gone. This is when I went to the local LFS and got me a nice piece of uncured live rock and a scoop of their detritus settle on the bottom of their live rock curing reservoir. I pour it in and placed the uncured live rock on the sand bed and two weeks later, my sand bed was kicking ass and the nitrate went down to undetectable level. HTH!