Couple newbie questions for 120g build in progress

Hey guys,

For those who haven't been following my build thread (link in sig), I'm in the process of setting up a 120g mixed reef. I've got 100lbs of dry rock curing in a tub in the garage. I'll be adding 50lbs of cherry primo deco rock from LiveRockNReef once the dry has cycled and leached all its' phosphates (probably another 3-4 weeks).

I'm also cycling a 20g QT tank with a TopFin 20 hang-on powerfilter. I dumped the carbon out of the filter cartridge and filled it with ceramic rings instead.

So I've got a couple questions I could use some help with. I've been cycling for a couple weeks now and it looks like it's winding down. See the test results below:


I cycled the QT tank with a single table shrimp which is still pretty intact at the bottom of the tank. I plan on testing the water a couple more times over the next week and if the NH4 and NO2 stay at 0, I'll call it cycled and order a few fish.

So my question is, should I leave the shrimp in there until I'm ready to add the fish? I assume I need to keep feeding all the lovely bacteria I've spent the last couple weeks growing right? Then, when I'm ready to add fish, I'll do a big water change to get rid of the NO3 and then pull the shrimp out and add the fish to start their QT time. Sound right? If so, how "big" should the water change be? Since the only living thing in the tank at the moment are the bacteria, any reason not to do 90% waterchange?

As for the dry rock... I'm cycling that tub with two table shrimp as well. They're buried down under the rock somewhere but I assume they're pretty intact as well. The dry rock seemed pretty low in phosphates to me at first... after a week in the water, the PO4 was only at 38ppb. I'm dosing with Lanthanum Chloride (LC) which is a phosphate remover which bonds with the phosphate in the water and causes it to percipitate. I'll keep dosing LC every few days until the tests show a consistent low reading (< 20 ppb) for a week straight. Once Phosphates stop rising, and NH4 and NO2 stay at 0, it will be ready for the display tank and I'll add the 50lbs of good live rock at that time.

So my question here is the same... do I leave the shrimp in the tank while I continue to try to leach the phosphates out of the rock? What I'm concerned about is, how do I know if the PO4 I'm measuring in the water column is coming from the rock or could the rotting shrimp be creating PO4 as well? I'm not sure if rotting shrimp even create phosphates or not? If they do though, I'd hate to think I'm leaching PO4 from the rocks when in fact all I'm doing is burning my Hanna checker reagents on rotting shrimp! LOL.

Finally, one more newbie question for everyone. When I'm ready to start aquascaping my tank, I've read that it's recommended that you add a piece of egg-crate to the entire floor of the empty tank, then add the rock, then the sand, then the water. Does everyone use the egg-create below their rock? I'm only planning on 120lbs of fairly fine sand (1-2" sandbed). I was thinking that if I do it in that order it could leave empty spots under the rock with no sand... just empty water. Is that a problem? The last thing I want is to see egg-crate poking through the ocean floor because my fighting conch or gobbie decided to go digging. ;D

Thanks in advance for the advice guys!

 

Skip the egg rate. I heard egg crate can leak phosphates. Just be careful when you scape. If your sand bed is deep enough you shouldn't have a problem. As far as the shrimp, I have no clue. I used Dr Tim's to cycle all 3 of my tanks.

 

A couple of things...

I think you can pull your shrimp. You've created enough ammonia to start the cycle. From here on out, you can ghost feed with a few pellets or flakes every couple of days. Be careful on your fish addition. You have a small bacteria population, and if you add a bunch of fish, you'll overload it and start a mini cycle. Add one fish at a time and only add one every 5-6 days. This will give your bacteria population time to grow and adapt to the increased bio load.

Regarding egg crate...

The main purpose of the egg crate is to distribute the weight of your rock evenly on the bottom glass. If you set the rock directly on the glass, you can get very high pressure points which may cause a crack. The egg crate spreads it out. I have about a 2" bed and haven't had it pop through, but I don't have any excavators either.

 

Thanks for the response guys... figures, first two responses in 5min and got two differing opinions on egg crate! LOL... gotta love this hobby! I've got a few weeks before i need to worry about it so I'll give it some time to get some more input.

Thanks HeiHei. I've got a seperate thread going on reviewing my stocking plans. http://www.3reef.com/forums/general...list-120g-high-advice-appreciated-145878.html

At the moment here's the current plan... after the rock has leached it's phosphates, and the cycle is complete I'll aquascape it, add the 50lbs of live rock, and add my clean up crew. I'll then let the tank sit wtih just the CUC for 2 weeks while my first batch of fish complete their time in QT.

In week 2 I'll add 4 Bartlett Anthias. Since I'm adding a harem, they all need to go in at one time and for the Anthias, they recommend adding them first to the tank so they get comfortable before adding any addtional fish. I'll then wait another 8 weeks before adding any more fish after that first batch.

I'll be QTing each batch of fish for 4-6 weeks before adding them to the display.

Does this sound reasonable?