Kyle and Ashley's 75 gallon tank!

nice looking tank, please more pics

 

It looks like you could still add about 5 gallons to your tank, which should fix your salinity problem. Looking good so far.

 

Yeah, it isn't filled all the way yet, the water cant go into the overflow, because it isnt plumbed to the fuge yet. We are waiting for a plumbing kit to replace all the hard piping.

We tested the water today, I figured the nasty dirty sand and rock we bought used ( the lady didnt take the best care of thing, we think) would get our cycle started... The figures are as follows:

Ammonia:~.75ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate:80ppm
PH: ~8.1

The ammonia and Nitrates seem really High, should we go ahead and do a water change and try to clean some of that old junk out of the sand? Or should we just wait it out?

 

Wait it out. It would kind of defeat the purpose of the cycle if you a water change. Wait for the ammonia and nitrite spikes to 0 back out, then you can do a water change if you want.

 

I did about a 10% water change to try to clean out some of the nasty sand we bought. It was really disgusting. We tested the params beforehand, and the ammonia is down to about .5 ppm, nitrites at 0ish and nitrates at roughly 120.

I also arranged the rock yesterday, tried to give myself some good caves, as well as some flat spots to place corals later.

I just placed the order for our rodi filter through brs, and picked up a filter sock and mount to add to our fuge, as well. The plan is to clean out the disgusting fuge tomorrow, in preparation for mating the fuge and dt together thursday.

 

Here are a couple pics of progress. I've arranged the rock, and am pleased with it, for the most part. We just got the fuge plumbed in yesterday, they were running as two seperate tanks to keep the sand and rock viable. I also got a light in the fuge wednesday. Its been running for a bit over a week, and tonights tests show ammonia and nitrite at zero, and nitrates on the decline, down to 80 ppm.

I tossed the light up there just for the pics, we have been runnng it without light for time being.

 

You could do a water change to decrease your nitrates as well. Glad to hear everything is coming together for you.

 

Did about a 20% water chqnge today, nitrates still hovering arond 80. They cyano is growing well, and we have been leaving the fuge light on 24/7. We are aldo developing quite the aptasia problem.

The other thing I have been trying to figure out is the overflow plumbing. The water level in the overflow area rises and falls about every 1-2 seconds, causing this rather annoying rush of air through the anti siphon hole int the feed pipe. Any idea how to fix this? Its pretty loud and annoying.

Lastly, any ideas on how to clean the detritus that is covering everything in our fuge? I thought i was saving money by buying this lady's setup, but it is in such disrepair that i think ive caused myself more harm than good. Ive tried buying a smaller sand vaccuum, but it wasn't able to generate a strong enough siphon since the dsb of the fuge only sits 5 or so inches above the ground.

 

What kind of CuC do you have. This could really help you out if you don't already have a good crew yet.

 

We have seen a couple random snails that must have been hidden in the sand, but we havent purchased anything yet, we were waiting for our nitrates to drop. Im starting to think im in a hit of a catch 22 though.