Woo Hoo!

Looking at my tank this morning, I got pretty excited! It seems that my lr is beginning to get it's color back. I have an explosion of coralline developing on them. At least, that's what I think it is! My tank is three weeks old now.

My rock went through a couple of phases, and I think it is well on its way now. I ordered it online and it arrived in a strange fashion. I don't know how it is usually shipped, but mine arrived double bagged in the bottom of a box twice as big as i thought it would need. I was almost sick when I saw it. I figured that it would be broken into a million little pieces, cuz i didn't imagine that the shipping co. cared a lot.

My second concern was: if it was shipped in the bag like that, how massive is my die off going to be? I ordered uncured rock, hoping to get more diversity, plus it was cheaper and I was going to cycle my tank fishless. I opened my bag of rock, and was surprised. It was a little warm inside, but everything looked good. It smelled fresh, and didn't stink at all. There was less rubble than I was afraid I would find due to the way it was shipped. There was enough moisture in the bags that nothing was dry. It had really nice color too. In fact, I felt a moment of sadness because the rock had to have been beautiful in it's original enviroment.

Anyway, I swished it around in bucket of fresh saltwater, and stacked it in my tank. The color stuck around for a few days and then began to die off. Then my lr looked quite scary, almost whitish and chalky in places. I got about 5 lbs of tonga branch rock from a neighbour's tank that has been up and running for 8 months about a week and a half ago. It had a lot of purple and red on it. I think they were using "Purple Up" on a regular basis. Anyway for what its worth, I now am getting color.

On the downside, I have a brown "dusting" on my rocks and sand. The same thing happened in my freshwater tank when I set it up around Christmas. It lasted for about a month to varying degrees. Wasn't pretty, but it seemed to just run its course. The single snail that hitchhiked in on the tonga is having a heyday! I also noticed a brown slime on the top of some of my rocks too. Cyanobacteria? If so, what do I need to do? From what I have read about it here, increase water flow and less light, correct?

 

sounds awesome! My tank is just over 2 months old and I have started to see coraline growing on my back glass, very exciting!

 

RE: Whoo Hoo

Congrats!!!

Brown dusting just diatom algae...will pass. All tanks go thru periods of it.

Hermits will clean up fast.

Enjoy.