90 gallon build

No...I think it was about 4-5 days in between.

 

I was sort of wondering if that's what was going on. Talked to the local store guy, who i'm buying the bulk of my stuff from and he told me there's a chance my tank might not cycle because the live rock he sold me has been in his live rock holding pen for about a year or so. It was pieces that were at the very bottom and he hasn't gotten any new live rock for about a month. I've been using Brightwell aquatics microbacter (i think thats the correct brand name). Ive been following dosing the directions on the bottle. Do it every morning and its been 11 days of using it. Is there any truth into the tank not cycling?

 

The only way a 90g tank would not cycle is if you started it with 90 lbs of cured rock/sand and cycled water from another tank. LFS are notorious for giving bad info remember they are in the selling business. If they really had your tank's best interest at heart they should sold you more base rock to go with your 25lbs of live rock. They also would not have sold you fish for at least 3-4 weeks. They would have told you to start your cycle with a frozen shrimp or some flake food. If I were you I'd take the fish back and ask them to hold them for you until your tank finishes it's cycle. I'm sure when I say this that many other reefers will chime in but your new critters are probably going to have a very tough time living through your cycle. Also don't rely on the LFS to test your water, buy some salifert test kits and monitor very closely. Things can and will go very bad very quickly as I'm sure you remember from your last tank.

 

I've been doing all the testing myself. The only thing I had them test was specific gravity with their refractometer just to make sure my hydrometer was getting the correct readings. I understand they are in it to make profit, but so far they've been pretty good about advice when I setting up everything. is there any truth in the microbacter dosing helping cycle a tank quickly? One of their customers who've I've met before told me he cycled his 125gal in a little under 2 weeks using the microbacter along with live rock. I was a little suspicious at first but I figured using the bacterial colonies and enzymes in the solution would def be a good thing to introduce.

 

I tested the chemicals again today and all are readying 0ppm, 8.0pH, and specific gravity is in between 1.025 and 1.026. I'm going to go with everyone's advice and wait for at least another 3 weeks before I add anymore fish to see if the tank cycles. But the next project will be to add an auto top-off system and finish painting the stand. Let me know if ya'll have any ideas about some projects I can do to improve the tank system, so I can stay busy and not think about adding fish haha 8)

 

It's been a little over a week since the last time i tested the chemicals. Did it today and the pH came up to 8.2, but the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are all still reading zero. The fish are showing now signs of ammonia poisoning. They are very active especially the yellow tang. He's pretty fun to watch him goof off around the tank. Oh I did add 30lbs of live rock/rubble to my sump and DT. I think I did that about week and half ago and the chemical are still reading this. I'm still using the microbacter. If the chemicals don't change come next friday, I'll probably introduce two fish in the tank.

 

Good job stepping back and being patient. There is the possibility the microbacter excellerated things but going slow now reaps benefits in the future.

 

So I did get a little impatient and yesterday I took a water sample to LFS and watched them do the chemicals with their test kit and they came up with the same results I had..soooo...I went ahead and bought a small sailfin tang. So far he's doing good. swimming around, eating. Him and the yellow kind of push each other around when I feed but other than that they keep to their own sides of the tank. here's a picture.

 

I've been meaning to update this thread so here's a quick one. I checked the chemicals again yesterday and they are all reading zero. Also last week I did a 25gallon water change. I have added a bi color blenny a little over a week ago along with some dry rock to build up more spaces for the fish. I also added nine snails to help clean up the algea. I have brown diatom algea everywhere. I put new GFO in a bag in the sump, hopefully that'll help. Yesterday I added a Niger Triggerfish and a hippo tang. I'm pretty much testing the limits on the number of tangs in my tank at this point. Pictures will go up soon. Oh and I bought two MPw 10's and have them synced and they are working like a charm. I want to get a third to put on the back wall of the tank to finish out the flow in there. Let me know what ya'll think so far and hopefully I'll have some pics put up this evening or tomorrow.

 

Finally updated with pictures

I've been getting sidetracked with work and other stuff, here are some updated pictures of my tank as of now. For about two weeks the tank looked really bad with brown algae growth carpeting everything including the sand bed, also the water turned a murky green. Ordered a BRS dual reactor and put GFO and carbon in their. Cleared up the water, but the algae kept getting worse. So I ordered a spectrapure 90gpd RO/DI unit and some phosphate sponge. I've been doing 15-20gallon water changes once a week while replacing the phosphate sponge every 2days. I don't have a phosphate kit, but I researched the local water utilities and even though my area has somewhat low TDS (40-60), the water does have a lot of silicate and phosphate. Don't know if the LFS has been changing out their filters as often as they should, so I went ahead and ordered the RO/DI unit so I could personally monitor everything. The algae isn't growing anymore, in some areas it is gone completely. been sucking out as much as possible when I do the water changes. Since the last update I have added a starfish, christmas favea, duncan coral, and a type of zoanthid polyp. oh and two cleaner shrimp. Took a chance with the shrimp because I do have a niger triggerfish in the tank, but so far the trigger doesn't bother them other than to get cleaned. check out the pictures and tell me what yall think. Also, any ideas or opinions about adding more fish, smaller schooling type fish?