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MicroBacter7 is a nitrifying bacteria that you dose to your tank. It's the stuff that will be the major part of you biological filter later on down the line. Ammonia is very toxic to fish and everything else and the mb7 is the bacteria that converts the ammonia into less toxic things. It's like the stuff that live in the live rock that cleans your water... I am not a scientist hehehe, perhaps someone else can explain that better. I just know that I have use it to over come the nuisance bacteria like cyano and dinos that love to hop into the mix when you start a new tank. Bacteria WILL happen no matter what, that's what happens with a decomposing shrimp. MB7 just assures it's a good one that will sustain the bio filter once your tank cycles and you add live things. Hope that made since
Heidi

 

Nice tank and scape.
Good job.

 

Day 5, 4th day with shrimps in tank

Ammonia = .25-.5 ppm closer to .5
Nitrite = 0
NItrate = 0
Ph = 8

 

Turns out the two pieces of live rock we purchased to help seed the other rock had a hitchhiker on them. So my tank passed a milestone with out my knowledge of it.

The First Coral! A green star polyp

 

How is the coral holding up man?

 

looks good so far. i wouldn't worry about cal, mag and alk (unless you run into PH issues) until you start adding corals......or corals other than the GSP.

 

UPDATE

Well after watching multiple shrimp decay and produce minimal ammonia levels, It was to disappointing to wait for nothing. So I went to the local ace hardware and picked up some ammonia hydroxide. I was a bit nervous using this source of ammonia but I wasnt seeing any results from the shrimp. I added roughly 20ml to my tank and measured ammonia about 30 mins later. 30 mins after dosing the ammonia level was around 8ppm, higher than I was shooting for but not to bad. Next morning the water was all cloudy and the gsp looked like it was suffering.

Anyways..

Day 15, 30 hours after introducing pure ammonia

Ammonia: 5-6 ppm
Nitrite: .5 ppm, first measurable amount!
Nitrate: 20 ppm
Ph: 7.6, early morning before lights.

 

Also, alot of the rocks are starting to have little light pink spots appear on them. I tried to rub it off with my finger and its clinging pretty strongly. I want to believe its coraline, but it seems to early for that. What else could it be?

 

I'm not going to lie man... I'm going to be super pissed if you're growing coraline already, and I'm still not. Haha.

Has the cloudiness of the water gone away since you added that ammonia?

 

While going through the cycle it could be coralline coming off the LR it turns pinkish as it dies or goes away. If you keep your Ca and ALK coralline will be growing like crazy i try to scrape most of mine off when just adds to the problem lol

If you are seeing Nirates and Nitrites your are part way through the cycle then time to start adding stuff YAY!!! lol