The "Cycle" seems to be done Whats next?

[Neo_Ta]

I filled the tank 12/23 and added a 2 raw shrimps to start the cycle of my 90 gal. Which gave me reading of Amonnia, Nitrites and Nitrates.
Of cousre I used RO/DI water.
On Jan. 3 I added the live rock which made the readings shoot up. ammonia=40 Nitrites=30 Nitrites=40 these were the highs.
On Jan. 8 all readings have dropped to zero.
Calcium 440
Alkalinty=7
pH=8.3
salinity=1.023
temp= 77
So everything looks good. Right?
So now it looks like the algaes are starting to show up.
Oh, the phosphates also tested 0 from the start.
In a way I'm gald because it seams to be holding down the southdown sand a little as I couldn't even think about moving things around without creatinga sandstorm.
There is some not alot ( less than I was expecting) algae on the sandbed. I suppose this is a diatom type (still learning) and a little on the live rocks which also have some bubble algae and some macro algaes on them.
So my question is what next?
Do I add snails and or crabs? I think I do but how many there isn't alot of algae and I don't want them to starve.
Do I also add Macro algae to the refugium now? I was going to use the spaghetti type because my LFS carries this type. And if so should I add some sort of Iron supplement as it currently is 0 with the test kit.
I'm sorry for the long post I just want to get this exactly right.

Also if anyone in the Staten Island, Brooklyn, New Jersey area is willing to trade me a scoopfull of there sand to help me create a diverse sandbed I'd greatly apreciate it.

Don

[ahhdui]

After a major cycle like that, you might want to do a water change to reduce the nitrate. Once that's done, you can slowly add your livestocks.

--Tony

[Russ]

Yeah, I'd do a 50% water change to purge any remain nitrates. Go ahead and add macro to your refugium ASAP. Spagetti is good, but the more types of macro you have in there the better.

You might still want to wait another week to be safe. Inverts are very sensitive. I'd stay away from crabs personally. When you add inverts, be sure to acclimate them SLOWLY (four to six hours, using a SLOW drip) to your tank water... This mean you should keep an eye on the water temp in the acclimation vessel, and adjust as necessary to the main display tank's temp (over six hours your acclimation vessel will lose heat. The single biggest reason why inverts die is because their acclimation period was too slow or wasn't done correctly.

Check out IPSF or Dr. Mac for invert packages.

Be wary of adding too much bio-load all at once (i.e., don't add too many fishes at one time)... Maybe start with a couple of clownfish, because they're fairly hardy and attractive.

[Pomacanthus1]

Your S.G. and temp are a bit low. They should be at about 1.025 and 82. This article (www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1997/nov/features/1/default.asp) by Dr. Ron will explain everything.

What kind of skimmer do you have? A good skimmer is very effective at removing the nutrients that cause algae, and so will a DSB when it becomes mature (at least 6 months). Water changes would also be a good idea at your tank's stage.

I would recommend against any and all crabs and hermits. IME even the least aggressive of the hermts will kill snails for their shells. Real crabs are even worse. Snails are very peacefull, and do a much better joib at controling algae and wastes. www.etropicals.com has a great deal where you can order anything you want and how much of it, and if the total is $60 or over, shipping is free. I was very pleased with my clean-up crew from them.

Cerith, trochus, fighting conchs and nassarius snails are my favorites. They are long-lived in our tanks, and may even reproduce. How many of each is best depends on your tank size.

[Neo_Ta]

Thanks Guys.
I still had readings of zero across the board (Nitrite, Ammon., Nitrate) so i did a 10% water change only. I also raised the SG to 1.024 and the temp is 78 at night and 79.5 or so during the day.
I have a TurboFloater 1000 skimmer I know its not the greatest but it seems to work pretty good. It was skimming out some light brome stuff up to about yesterday morning since it really isn't producing much, this was about 24 hours after the water change and about 12 hours after the addition of the livestock below.

I went to the LFS and bought 10 Turbo snails, 1 emerald crab ( I guess this was my first mistake) and 1 bag of spaggetti algae. I thought I'd try the crab to eat the bubble algae. The snails are cleaning up the rocks and one ventured onto the glass but nobody seems to be eating anything of the sandbed. Will the snails eventually eat that also? I know I need more but I wanted to go slow so nothing starved or died.

The calcium and alkalinity issue is definatly a learning experiance. I'm dosing Kalk and the levels seem to have topped out at 440ppm and alk.=130 mg/l. It could be my test kit a Hagen or I think it just takes practice to do it just right.

[Russ]

Conversion for alk: [50 mg/l = 1 meq/l]

Your tank's alk = 130 mg/l = 2.6 meq/l (7.4 dKH). Natural sea water has alkalinity of 2.9 meq/l (8 dKH). However, most authors recommend keeping alk at slightly elevated levels: 3.2 to 4.5 meq/l (9-12 dKH). So if I were you, I'd ad some baking soda or other buffer to raise my alk a little. Also, with higher Alk, your pH will be more stable.

You're Ca level is in the okay range. At a minimum it should be >400ppm, but most author's recommend levels >450pm.

IMHO, you tank temp is still a little low. In the past, temps around 78 degrees were the norm. Now most people, myself included, keep their reef tanks in the 80-82 degree range.

Turbos are okay... I don't like them really, because they can't right themselves when you fall over on their backs (and thus, they wind up dying before I can find them). Do you have nassarious snails in your sand bed? How about a sea serpent? They'll stir around the DSB.

From http://bonsai_reef.tripod.com/faq.html:

Clean-up Crew

I am a firm believer of a diverse clean-up crew. They will help reduce maintenance on the tank. The basic is hermit crabs. Normally, you can find blue leg hermit crabs at most LFS (live fish stores), however, these guys are really aggressive and have a tendency to kill off smaller snails. I recommend scarlet hermit crabs. They are less aggressive towards snails.

For algae snails I recommend trocus, astrea, margarita, and cerith snails. Turbo snails look like a bread bun. They grow large and knock stuff over. Trocus and astrea snails look like cone shaped snails. They grow to about 1.5" in diameter and do well on short hair algae. Margarita snails are about 1/2" in diameter and are great on film algae. They are also smaller than trocus and astrea so can get into tight places without knocking things over. Cerith are the smallest being cone shaped and growing to about 1/2" long but 1/4" wide. They can get in really tight places. Blue leg hermit crabs tend to prey on the margarita and cerith snails.

For turning over the DSB I recommend nass|arious snails. They live in the sandbed by burying themselves. When they smell food they unearth themselves. This helps transport detritus to the lower layers of the sandbed.

Serpent stars and cleaner shrimp also have an important part. They generally scavenge around the rock for food missed by the fish and also eat fish poop. Cleaner shrimp help clean parasites off of fish.

Some like to get sea urchins. They are excellent scavengers, however, they will eat coralline algae (desirable purple algae) when hungry enough and tend to pick up corals and rocks and drop them haphazardly around the tank.

[Neo_Ta]

Russ,
Thankyou for taking the time to help me out.
I actually have some Reef buffer allready that I havn't used yet, so I'll be doing that tonight.
I also really appreciate the conversion factor for mg/l to dKH.
I'll bring the temp up to 79 with the lights off so that way it will go to about 81.5 when they are on.
I'll do just like you said. I'll be placing an order tonight.