Dead Rock or Fish?

I have a 75g tank with 20g sump. I have not added water yet. I have 60lbs of CaribSea Aragamax Select sand, 30lbs of their Araganite Seaflor Special Grade Reef Sand, and 5lbs of their Ocean Direct Caribbean Live sand. I have about 75lbs of rock that was pulled from the LFS tank and left in a box that was dry when I got it and has been kept dry since.

I have a 4oz bottle of Aquacleanse(no access to RODI water) to treat my tap water before I mix in the salt.

I bought a 2oz and 4oz bottle of One and Only because the dealer didn't have the size I needed in one bottle.

Now, after saying all of that, come my question(s). Is the 5lbs of live sand and the 75lbs of dry rock enough to cycle with One and Only, or should I add a Clown or 2? Or should I wait to add the Live Sand until after cycle. Will that rock be fine the way it is, or will it negatively effect the One and Only?

I know this may be a lot to tell and ask at once, but I'd like to get this right the first time.

Thanx in advance.

 

Hello - thanks for post -

Neither of these are needed to cycle the tank. The bacteria in One & Only will colonize the coral substrate but the sand may be too fine and packs tightly so the bacteria don't grow on it much (meaning deep into the sand - this does depend on the type of sand).

It seems like your live rock was in a tank (the LFS) and now has been dry - that means there is probably a fair amount of dead organic material on the rock and once you put that in the tank this may cause a small bacteria bloom - cloudy water - for a few days. Same with the live sand - it also has a lot of organics in it.

Here is what I suggest:

Set-up the tank -- sand, rock etc. Fill with water and get filter going.
Run the system for a few days to see if it turns cloudy. Run you skimmer to get the organics out.

After a few more days - check the ammonia and nitrite and now add the One & Only. If all is good then add a few fish -- a clown or two is fine.

You should be good to go

 

The only filtration I have is the rocks and the sand. I have a skimmer as well and I will put some chaeto in the sump fuge. I also should have noted that my sand bed will only 1-1.5" deep in the DT. It will be a little deeper in the fuge area of the sump.

 

This should be ok depending on the fish/coral load. When you add the one and only turn the skimmer off for 48 hours - which is why I said to run it first and clean out any organics before adding the one and only

 

Is there a certain cloudiness or lack of to look for while running the skimmer and a certain ammonia and nitrite level before adding the One and Only?

 

It is best to add the O&O before there is any ammonia and nitrite. If the ammonia/nitrite are above 5 mg/L-N then you need to do a water change before adding the O&O.

Turn the skimmer off is just a precaution so that the majority of the O&O will have a chance to stick to some surface rather then get removed by the PS. If you water is crystal clear after 24 hours you can turn the PS back on.

 

Any particular test kit that you would recommend to test the ammo/trites with?

 

The salifert work pretty good but you have to realize that the kit is measuring the ion form on nitrite and ammonia. The popular API kits are ok but my experience with their ammonia kit is that it will almost always read about 0.25 from a saltwater sample.

Use the kits are guidelines not absolute values and the best thing is to stick with a kit and write down what the reading are that way you can compare and know that "hey, this ammonia test is a lot greener than 2 days ago" so you know something is up

 

I will be using the API - Saltwater Master Test Kit. This kit calls out ammonia as NH3/NH4+. Is this correct? It measures ammonia in ppm, and claims that ppm is equal to mg/L. Is this correct? Is there a conversion that I should use to make sure of the ammonia content in my DT?

I just want to make sure I'm getting a correct reading and that when I put the O&O in, it will be the right time.

 

The API kit also measures in the ion form. ppm is pretty close to mg/L but neither tells you whether the results are for the ion form or as nitrogen.

Here is a table with the conversions. For ammonia divide your reading by 1.2, for nitrite divide by 3.3 and nitrate 4.4 to get everything into the nitrogen base



Cheers