Hi
My 5 in 1 test strips read as follows below. What should they be sitting on when my tank has finished going through it's cycle?

GH 120
KH120
PH 7.5
NO2 0
NO3 0

The last two are cycle related, and are fine. Ammonia reading?
pH is a little low, but nothing to freak about. However, I don't think anyone trusts the test strips. I could check with my kits sometime Monday if you want.

That would be awesome Barry! Hopefully the weather will be nice too. Go watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLRubZGWXiY&NR=1 How many gallons do you think that is? Makes me want to be a fish haha :D

The API amonia kit said mine was at 0.50

Well, if you have ammonia you are definitely not through the cycle... and if your nitrate is truly at or near zero, that indicates that you are just getting started. :sad:

I did a short video of my tank tonight. The water is pretty clear except for a little dusty looking film on the surface of the water. I think I need more flow to the surface. Need one more Korilia maybe a 3 to aim at the top of the tank.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ChRtg75GBc8...</param><param (http://www.youtube.com/v/ChRtg75GBc8&hl=en&fs=1%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam)

It's ok I dont mind waiting, just hope I have done everything right so far!

. However, I don't think anyone trusts the test strips..

Agreed 100%... Might aswell take a sip of the water and a guess at what the levels are by taste..

Agreed 100%... Might aswell take a sip of the water and a guess at what the levels are by taste..



I thought everyone did it this way!


Saw the vid, you are off to a nice start. I like the room divider look, you get SO MUCH MORE VIEWING SPACE.

Great aquascaping to, you should help out some of our other members.....

Thank you :) I had a ball decorating with the rock & would love to set up another one just to do it again lol. I would love to help anybody with the aquascaping! so if anyone gets bored with it or needs a hand let me know :)
I feel a little lost with the more complicated stuff involved with the water though & especially the skimmer. We have been having war all day. I think I get it set right & then it floods again. I wish there was some happy medium there but it's from one extreme to another for some reason arrrr :(

What kind of skimmer?

I see you have an overflow, that should take care of any surface skimming you need, unless you're talking about some collecting at the far end of the tank......

I suggested that she get the test strips so that she could see the different stages of the cycle as they happened for perhaps a better understanding. Once it cycled I would help her get respectable test kits and help her with accurate testing once it became of any significant importance.

The skimmer is going to be hard to adjust as there is no bioload in the tank at all. I fdid place some water and rock from my system to maybe help a littlew with the cycling.

Jody turn the skimmer off if it is hard to regulate. You have nothing to skim since you used 99.999 percent base rock. There is no die off or fish poop or many if any organic compounds to remove.

I might just do that :) One min it's doing ok & the next it's too much & the cup fills up with water really fast. The live rock you gave me is doing great :)

Just watch the ammonia and then the nitrites and then the nitrates with the test strips and learn, don't concern yourself with the other parameters right now and when you see the nitrates appear give me a call and I will test for ammonia and the other parameters as I have those kits and no need for you to buy right now.

I sure will David :)

Hey
My NH3/NH4 color card is saying 0.25 today. Does that mean it's dropping?

Yep. If you haven't seen Nitrite climb yet, it is about to start. Then the same pattern will happen with Nitrate. At that point you do a water change and you are ready to start slowly adding livestock (when Nitrite is zero).

ok, I am officially color blind lol .... it's at 1.0

Hey
My NH3/NH4 color card is saying 0.25 today. Does that mean it's dropping?

On an API test, they almost always show 0.25 (or more) even if there's no ammonia.

Those strips sound like they are for freshwater (GH is a freshwater parameter). pH of 7.5 is way too low for a marine tank (but I doubt the accuracy).

One of the best investments you can make is a quality test kit. Seachem, Salifert - you'll pay a bit more but it's worth it to know what is *really* going on in your tank.

Jenn

Man, when I set up my first reef, a 120, I bought 150 lbs of cured figi off another ARC member, aquascaped, and started putting SPS in there.
I didn't cycle the tank. I guess I was lucky enough there wasn't a lot of dieoff on the rock I bought and enough good bacteria to take care of any ammonia. But the livestock was very light for the first couple weeks.

The figi was out of water (wet newspaper) for about 4-6 hours.
Dave

Like I said earlier just use the strips to watch and learn as they actually do a decent job of showing you the different stages of the cycle, not the actual levels of ammonia ,nitrite or nitrate or any of the others either. When you see the nitrates appear give me a call and I will set you up with the actual test kits.