Opinons..

[Quickcord]

My tank has been cycling with LR for 6 weeks now. My readings now are; Nitrite-0, Ph-8.2, Nitrate-40ppm, Ammonia-0. I did not start testing unit two weeks after adding the LR. Ammonia at its peak was .25ppm and currently Nitrate is at its peak(40ppm).

Should I do my first water change now to bring the Nitrates down and retest in 24hrs. or let it come down by itself?

The other questions I have are;
1. If I cannot run a sump would a HOB fuge be a good idea?

2. My sandbed is a little dirty from the LR debris, when I get the nitrate down shoud I get some sand stirring snails-Nassarius to clean it up or just try to siphon it out during the water change?

My sand was not "live" when I started and I do not feed the tank yet.

Thanks for the help.
Quickcord

[Shagsbeard]

I'd start doing water changes at about 5 gallons/week (assuming this is your 40). I'd also get a clean up crew started and start feeding the live rock... the critters in there need food too. Nitrate of 40 isn't a problem until you start getting into corals and what not. You could even add a fish or two at this point safely, but I'd let your clean up crew get established first.

[Quickcord]

Yes it is the 40 breeder. I do have some algea growing on the rocks and the hermits are feeding on that at the momment.

Any advice on the HOB fuge and sand debris?

Thanks again,
Quickcord

[sir_dudeguy]

ya i'd do a small water change and see what happens from there. 5 gallons like shags said would be good...then go from there depending on what the results are.

1. If I cannot run a sump would a HOB fuge be a good idea?

yes it would. I had one on my 55 and as soon as i can get another hob filter i'm gonna get another one because mine broke and fell off. But now that its gone, i do notice my nitrates seem to build up somewhat quicker, but while i had the chaeto in there, i always had 0 nitrates. Plus the hob fuge will greatly help your pod population (it did on my 55 anyways) but if you can swing it, even a 10 gallon fuge underneith would be good, even if you dont make it a sump...i've seen people who just make it a fuge only, no skimmer (that would take out the pods)

2. My sandbed is a little dirty from the LR debris, when I get the nitrate down shoud I get some sand stirring snails-Nassarius to clean it up or just try to siphon it out during the water change?

dont siphon the sand. That will pretty much take away anything beneficial in it and the sand would pretty much be starting from scratch. Just let your cleanup crew do the work. But nassarius snails wont clean the top layers of sand. They stay all the way uncer and get whatever gunk is down in there, but not actually the stuff on top. Get ceriths for that. They clean the sand, rocks, and even the glass and they do a very good job. But get a veriety of snails (not all at once tho) because each one eats a little different.

But what i did for my hob fuge was just get a somewhat large hob filter and put some live sand (about 2 inches) in the bottom of it and put a baseball sized piece of chaeto in there too. I put some rock rubble also. But i didnt do any of those mods that i see people doing...unless you count putting a piece of egg-crate over the return to keep the chaeto from flowing out of it.

[fsn77]

I'll echo starting a water change schedule. Around 4 - 5 gallons at a time should be good as you probably have < 35 gallons after the displacement of your rock / sand, depending on how much LR and sand you have.

Retesting your nitrates after any particular 10% water change isn't really going to benefit you much. If you're reading 40 ppm before the water change, a 10% water change will only bring that 40 ppm down to 36 ppm, and your test kit probably doesn't read in increments that small at that level. Once your rock and sand bed start processing the nitrates, they'll make a larger dent between water changes than the actual water change itself. Did you seed your sand bed with any sand from established tanks? If not, you may want to consider it to add some more bio-diversity to your system. A small scoop is all it takes to help jump start the sand bed in a new tank (this really applies if you're wanting a functional deep sand bed).

Any functioning refugium is better than no fuge at all.

Try to avoid siphoning the sand. It's better to build your clean-up crew around that need for removing debris on the sand bed and let them take care of it.

[TekCat]

Ok, here is my theory. After rock curing completed there are lots of nitrates (that were produced during cycle), and they are not going to go anywhere but fuel algea outbreaks. I say, after cycle perform huge (around 50%-75% water change) to export nitrates. After all without established denitrification they are there to stay. And that process is not there yet at full speed.

So, do one huge water change, and then establish regime 10% weekly or 20% bi-weekly.


Now to your explicit questions:

1) ditto what other said. Fuge is good!

2) if you are worrying about loosing all the bacteria that had colonized your sand bed. Do not worry. you could siphone junk in turns. Say, weekly siphone 1/4 of the sand. This way you get rid of all junk that fell from rocks, and while cleaning one area you keep other areas of sand full of bacteria. And in a week, just before you get to the next area, previous one will be alive again.

JMHO