New 120 gallon reef tank

[CarmieJo]

That is very cool about the neons! They are routinely being bred in captivity. Here is some info Marine Ornamental Fish & Invert Breeders Association • View forum - Elacatinus - Cleaner Gobies.

[Reefy Magreefy]

Cool site!

[Reefy Magreefy]

This is the tank at 6 months.



Left:



right:



Bonus picture of my silly urchin! See how he blends in! (obviously color blind)



PS: still working on that slime algae. Im probably gonna poison it

[CarmieJo]

What are the tank parameters? Please remind me, how much rock do you have?

[Reefy Magreefy]

tank is 120 gallons, probably 90 lbs live rock, 4 in sand bed

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 15-20

I am not sure how to bring the nitrates down, I am running a skimmer. Please help. Also, will this help kill my cyano? Other than that the tank is good.

[CarmieJo]

What is the bioload? What do you feed? How much and how often do you feed?

More rock will help because it gives you more area for denitrification. You could also add a remote deep sand bed which is basically a bucket of sand with relatively low flow over it. This article explains the cycle http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/co...t-Is-the-Cycle.

[Reefy Magreefy]

fish: one lined bristletooth tang, one yellow meringue wrasse, 1 neon goby, one clown, 7 chromis, and 3 barred gobies.

I feed cyclopeeze, mysis, brine, chopped shellfish. I am almost certain I do not overfeed, pluis I have quite a few nassarious snails to help with that.

How would I build a remote sand bed? How many more Lbs of live rock should I get, I should pre cycle it correct? I already have 15 lbs or so of marco rock that I could put it.

[CarmieJo]

If you were to add rock you should cure it even if it is base rock. I have not built a RDSB but essentially you take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with sand and pump a low flow of water over it. I know Bobby uses them, hopefully he will chime in here soon.

[lReef lKeeper]

as Cjo explained ... a RDSB is basically a 5g bucket filled within an inch or so of the top with a very slow {so slow that it doesnt disturb the surface of the sand(300gph or less)} flow across it. what the slow flow does is creates a lengthy contact time between the water and the denitrifying bacteria, thus reducing nitrates. PREFERABLY though, the LONGER the RDSB is, the better it will work because there is even more contact time between the water and the sand.

[lReef lKeeper]

you may also want to up the flow in the areas that the cyano is growing, flow seems to help dramatically.