Hello !!

Hello and Good Morning all,

I currently am cycling a 29 gallon biocube, while I await christmas and the arrival of my 75 gallon tank. I have kept most fish types including a fish only marine setup before. With all the new approaches to reef keeping I figured I would try my hand at a reef setup again.

My tank is cycling well at the moment, just playing the waiting game now for the cycle to spike and complete before I look at adding my first inhabitants.
My one concern so far is I appear to be losing saline content in my water, that and the biocube protein skimmer does not produce a nice thick brown sludge yet... I am thinking this is due to the tank still being early in its cycle and thus not much to skim out so far.

I will hopefully post a picture of my tank later today. Thanks and happy reefing !!

Any thoughts comments are much appreciated.

 

Hello and welcome aboard Sounds like your doing great so far. I wouldn't run my skimmer during cycling though.

 

Welcome to 3reef!

You shouldn't be getting much sludge from the protein skimmer. In fact, some here would say not to even run it during your cycle. (I do/don't depending on what's in the tank while cycling.)

As far as losing salinity... the only idea I have might be that you are wet skimming a lot and dumping the cup out and then topping off the tank with freshwater. Could this be?

 

Welcome!!
I agree, no skimmer and no carbon during the cycle. But throw a small bit of frozen shrimp in there... That will help out a bit more in your cycle process.

Few other things, keep the biocube lights off during the cycle. Not only will this help with the life time of your lights - but the bio cubes have a history of poor ballast life. If this is your first bio-cube, you might want to go ahead and read up on adding some air circulation cause these things get hot!

Enjoy and welcome aboard!

-fritts

 

Thanks for the feed back, ok I will turn the skimmer off while its cycling. I added a piece of fresh shrimp last thursday when I setup the tank. I have not had to add that much water and the salinity has only dropped off since i added in some additional rock last night it. I am cycling with the lights off to avoid any unwanted algae developing on the live rock.

 

Awesome!
Your well under-way and things seem good. The salinity issue:
Nothing in your system should be causing a loss of salt unless there is a leak somewhere and you are replacing water loss with fresh water. OR - your reading is incorrect cause of hardware malfunction. Use another meter or check for a leak (look for salt at the base of the tank or at the back) . One thing I noticed is that water was splashing a lot in the back of mine and I was just refilling it with ro/di water when in fact I was too losing salinity. Now, I keep the rear chambers filled at all times and there is no splash and no loss.


-fritts

 

Yea I thought that too, So I went out and brought a second hydrometer. At this time I have a red sea hydrometer hanging inside the tank to give me constant information. This was how i noticed it dropped last night when i added my final 5 pieces of live rock that had just finished curing. So i took reading from both and confirmed salinity had dropped from 1.021 to 1.020, at this time its hovering around 1.020. I have had to do very little top off since i started running it which has suprised me given the issues I have read about. Not sure if this is just me but it also looks like they corrected the flow between chamber 1 and chamber 2 which during my research seemed to be an issue for some people. Only major top off i had to do was when i added the live rock and had to syphon off some water last weekend, even then after that salinity was still fine. I have another 5 gallons of water heated and aerated in my 10 gallon quarantine tank I have setup so I can do a partial water change if needed, I am rather loathe to do so until the weekend as I wanted to just let it continue cycling.

 

I would strongly suggest a refractometer for measuring your salt content. It'll save you headaches in the long run. I've had good luck with ones on ebay.

Were the live rock curing in a lower salinity bath? If so, perhaps all the lower salinity saltwater in the rock pores brought down the salinity in your tank. It wouldn't take all that much to lower the specific gravity in a 29gal tank by 0.001. The other thing that could affect that measurement on a hydrometer is the temperature of the water. Perhaps the rock caused the water temp to change. Having said all that, I wouldn't trust a hydrometer to tell me accurately when a 0.001 change in specific gravity occurred.

 

Welcome to 3reef!

 

Nope, I cured them in a reef salt mix heated to 78 with a small pump and with a gravity of 1.021. I learned from mistakes the last time i setup a marine tank NOT to attempt mixing the water in said tank . A side note I am using instant oceans reef mix and while its setup my carbonate hardness great, my dkh levels fine and calcium levels are all where i wish them to be. I do find its a bugger to mix it never seems to quite dissolve right. I have 5 food grade pails that I have reserved just for water mixing a side perk of another hobby of mine beer making The other half is wondering how long before I take over the whole house with assorted tanks and equipment

The salinity issue is a real puzzle as I cant think why it would drop off so far, I have checked for leaks and excessive splashing and I don't think that's the issue. I am wondering if maybe the rock could be absorbing salt, its your standard fare fiji cultured rock. The cube was more saline than the mix in my 10 gallon so maybe that's it. It seems to be holding now if i see it drop below 1.021 I think I will do a five gallon change unless anyone advises against that.