Whats going on with my tank?

What started as a "YAY, I got my tank back up and running" thread is now a "Whats going on with my tank?" thread (which is why I decied to move it here). Anyways please scroll down for the info:
For those who don't know, my 90 gal Bow front sprung a leak on me last December and heres a list of what I went through just to get my tank back up and running:[/SIZE]
12/27- I noticed my tank started leaking around 11pm so I transferred all fishes and live rock into two 30 gallon rubber maid containers. I ended up finishing around 2am





1/10- Placed an order for the replacement tank with lfs. ETA 3-4 weeks 8)

2/3- New tank finally arrived but when it came down to fitting it into the stand, it wouldn't fit... The replacement tank was too "bowed" in the front and wouldn't want to sit in the stand. (I guess I ended up giving my lfs the wrong measurements from the old tank) but they helped me out and said that they could do some modifications to my existing stand.







2/18- The lfs builder came out and modified my stand to fit the new tank. (I was worried at first but when I saw the final result I was impressed!)






2/19- Painted the back of the tank Black, did all the plumbing, and performed a leak test using regular tap water. And after 1 week of running it, I found that there were NO LEAKS! ;D



2/25- Headed out to the north shore and pick up some white sand. I was skeptical at first using beach sand cause of how dirty everyone says it is but I was impressed on how nice, clean and fine the sand was out there. When I got home I ended up putting the sand in the tank and it didn't cloud the water up even a little bit. Then I also threw in some of the live rock to get the cycle process started.







Today I checked the water parameters to see where its at and everything was fine except for the Nitrate 5 ppm. Right now I think I'll wait another 2 weeks just to make sure I have no ammonia spikes before I transfer the fish back into the tank.



Man, its seem like its been a long time coming but I'm glad that I'm on my way to getting things back to normal.

 

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast lol. Looks like you are on the right track. Great job!

 

looking nice man i love bow fronts and that sand looks sweat nothing better than free sand lol

 

Glad you got everything back on track. Love the look of the bow. What are the dimensions?

 

I just about to buy some caribsea reef sand online but shipping 120lbs to Hawaii was gonna cost me an extra $140. The only down side to getting the free sand was that it was really heavy pulling it outta the water. I thought my arms were gonna fall off.

 

Thanks! Now I know how hard taking things slow really is in this hobby!

 

Thanks! Tank dimensions are 48 1/2 Width x 15 1/2 Deep x 25 1/2 Height

 

Too soon to tell?

It's been about 4 days now and the water parameters still hasnt changed yet.

I dont know if its too soon to tell but I was thinking that the 1 cube of brine shrimp i threw in there on the first day wasnt enough to get the cycle going so I'll either A) put a raw shrimp in there later on today or B) get a couple chromis' to get the cycle going?

Or is it possible with all that live sand and live rocks that it went through a mini cycle? What are some of your opinions?

 

I would guess mini cycle to know cycle at was needed for you BB to break down the cube of brine shrimp. Just guessing though.

 

Help needed!

About 4 days ago I added in 6 chromis' to see if my tank was cycled. They seemed healthy and eating like pigs up until last night when I got home from work I saw that there was only 2 fishes left. I search the tank and I found 1 dead laying on the sand and the other 3 fishes I can't find just yet... (I'll check the sump later to see if they got suck in)

So I checked my water parameters to see if anything spiked but they are still the same... Except now the nitrates are a little higher. (PH: 8.2, Ammonia: 0ppm, Nitrite: 0ppm, Nitrate: 20 and Temp: 79 degrees)

The only thing I did diffrently yesterday was turn off my lights cause of GHA and cyano spreading on my live rocks, but I don't think that should have an effect on the fishes.

Anyways, I can't quite figure out what happened to them and what stage my tank is in right now. Can anyone chime in on whats maybe going on with my tank?