Will this cycling process ever end!

ok. I got a very good pay check yesterday, and i'll be able to pay off my credit card some, so maybe i'll have it low enough to where i can buy my CUC. I'd rather stare at snails and stuff rather than rock at the moment, i've started to hate looking at the rock latley as that's all i've been doing this entire time.

 

Yes, I apologize. Nitrates at 0 is good for a fish only tank. I don't know about a reef tank.

 

yea, i'll be starting off with softies and lps. But i can't even get into corals yet as i still don't have my light, but in the future i do plan to do at least some sps

 

yea, hopefully they will take care of the diatoms that's starting to take over a large portion of my sandbed

 

Oh, the diatoms went insane in my tank at the beginning! I got some astrea snails which helped a lot. But it also just died off on it's own after about 3 weeks.

Let us know when you get some critters in there!

 

The diatoms will take care of themselves as your tank matures as long as you are not supplying silicates into your tank via tap water or new plastic items. Regular water changes will help lower your nitrates and help keep them at a reasonable level if you are not overfeeding or overstocking.

 

yea i have to pay off a few other bills before i can partially pay of my c.c. I would like to order from reefcleaners this weekend, but it all depends how high my c.c. is and i probably couldn't anyways as i think it's overnight shipping and with me workng and construction going on, i want to be there when they arrive. Slightly off topic, does anybody know if reefcleaners uses UPS or FedEx? I'm hoping it's UPS because with FedEx i can't sign for the package since i'm not 21, so i have to go to their store with one of my parents to sign the form. So i hate FedEx because of that so i'm hoping it will be UPS

 

yea haven't done any water changes yet, but i know i need to get my salanity down. When doing water changes, do you do it with ro/di freshwater, or ro/di saltwater?

 

I mix my RO water and salt together in a bucket, then use a power head to mix them for a day or two. I also have a heater in there, so the water is a stable temperature for a couple days.

If you need your salinity lowered, then use RO water without salt. Keep testing until it's the right reading, then you're good to go!

 

ok, i buy my water from the lfs. For the first few weeks i had been topping off with saltwater, not knowing at the time that salt does not evaporate. So once i learned your suppposed to top off with ro/di freshwater, i checked the salanity and it had risin from 1.023 to 1.028, and has been staying at 1.028, i want to do a water change to help lower i, but i don't think my tank is ready for a water change yet