Build in progress

Not sure what you mean by sea turd.

There are newer and more efficient alternatives to filtration, of course. I don't like a lot of tank equipment. Sumps tend to be noisy and can flood, not to mention the added maintenance and cost associated with setting one up. I've talked to many experts in the reefing business and the general consensus is that one could spend a small fortune to run a reefing tank or one could spend next to nothing and be just as successful. So this is a bit of an experiment. I'll have a bit of maintenance with gravel vacuuming and water changes. But I don't think it will be any more maintence than anyone else. I'll keep you all posted. I just finished painting the tank stand this morning and the Rock and substrate I ordered should be in soon. Just Rock, sand, and water to be added the comes the fun part of waiting for the cycle to end.

Proper maintenance being gravel vacuum?

The "wave" pump is just for added circulation it's not connected to a controller. I appreciate all the feedback and I'll post updates soon. Thanks

Feeling kind of bad.. All (with the exception of the tank) of the equipment I've purchased including the rock and sand have been online. I want to support the LFS in the area but **** if they aren't way more expensive. I'm comparing the exact same things, not just similar products. I guess I'll spend more money with them once I get to stocking the tank. Just a thought I wanted to share.

Yes it is a crushed coral substrate. I'm looking at softies and lps, maybe a Max of five fish plus a decent clean up crew. Seems like the cycle is moving along well (I think). My ammonia was 2ppm for two days and my nitrite was around .5ppm. I redosed ammonia yesterday because it dropped. Nitrite went up to about 2ppm and Nitrates are now 40ppm. Hopefully they will start dropping soon. I won't add any more ammonia. I'm not sure if I should do a water change yet or how high I should let the Nitrate go. Thanks

Thanks for easing my mind

I moved the power head again. This time to the left side wall. This should move water across the front and top of the rock work. The alge spread a little since yesterday but not too bad. We'll see.

Did a full water test this morning for. Ammonia dropped from 3ppm to around 0.25ppm, Nitrite still high at 5ppm and my pH went up from 8 to 8.2. I dont regularly test for pH as it's been steady at 8 so I was happy to see a rise. I'm guessing that because the Ammonia level went down my pH went up? My Nitrates are sky high 160ppm which is the max on the API kit. Not sure that's a good thing as my Nitrates are still high. I suspect as the anerobic bacteria are forming those will drop?

Start of day 13 and the diatoms are retreating. Looks like middle of day 12 their color faded from a dark rusty brown to very light brown and have gone away entirely from some areas. I removed the 528 gph wave pump and replaced it with a 660 on Friday. That may have had something to do the alge retreating. Because I'm still in the cycle process it's hard to know for sure. I had a pretty good weekend as far as scoring some new equipment. I picked up an 4 stage RODI unit for $30! Ordered new filters for it just to be safe, but I am super happy about that. I also got a refractometer for $15 and it's been such a great tool, the hydrometer was off enough to have potentially caused big problems down the road. I also bought an Inkbird thermostat for the heater, nice to have some simple automation/monitoring. That's the news for now.

Additionally, on Friday I added a dose of ammonia because I read that the bb may start to die off without a food source. Brought the level to 2ppm and it was gone (0 ppm) that same night. I didn't test for Nitrite as I know it's still super high. Thoughts on when I should test again?

Yeah I was pretty sure that was the risk. Too many conflicting ideas out there about the proper way to do a fishless cycle. Oh well nothing but time.

Not a bad idea. For now I think I'll just let it ride. I was going over my notes and noticed that before I added more ammonia I had a small, very small, decrease in Nitrite on day 9. Since it's only been 3 days since I added more ammonia I would hope to see the Nitrite begin to drop about week from today. I won't test again until then and I won't add anything else. I was thinking once the cycle is complete I would do a 5 gallon water change which is a bit over 10%. Should I do a larger change? Say 25% ?

Okay so ready for this? My rock was releasing a ton of bubbles last night. I tested for Nitrates and they were down to 40ppm! What!? They were 160ppm now they just dropped. I did the test three times and got the same result. My Nitrites are still high. My only guess as to why is that maybe the bit of alge on the rocks is processing the nitrate faster than the nitrobacter bacteria are. Any thoughts?