My Dirt Cheap 40 gallon build thread!

tagging along on this one.

 

I'm sure it will be a sweet tank /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif Can I just say how impressed I am with the cleanliness of your garage floor?!

 

Looks like your off to a good start Bob! That skimmer looks familiar. LOL

 

i want to hear/see more about that drain. looks like a toilet brush holder

 

you know now that you mention it.

 

Where in the world did you get that cube for under 300? Nice looking start.

 

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Hell yeah man, looking good! I like the drain you got going on. Just blow a few hundred bucks on an LED system, quit worrying about the budget! lol You know you want to!

 

Yep, went to a frag auction in your garage, I remember it went on for over 3 hours, lol!  That food looked really good by the end /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/plain.gif  I remember your other tank in your living room still, I think I have some of the ricordia from that tank- can't kill it /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/plain.gif 

 

I like the keg fridge in the background!

 

Looking good dude. Yeah you're going to need to ride it out unfortunately. You can expedite the process by a little bit with the addition of some bacterial additives like micro bacter 7, or probio. In order to build robust communities of nitrifying bacteria, you should add some fuel, something like a cocktail shrimp to just sit in there and decay. That will make your ammonia go up further, but it will acclimate your system to significant amounts of waste input. Remember, once it has cycled you don't want it to cycle again a second time upon the introduction of fish just because there's not enough bacteria to handle more waste input.

There is usually actually several diminishing peaks of ammonia after the initial peak, (although few tests can resolve them accurately) what happens is the bacteria reproduce by fission, and they keep reproducing as long as there is food, eventually they overshoot the amount of food by 2x, and subsequently the colony crashes---> dying bacteria turns into food for surviving cells, and the fission begins again, and bust---->boom---->bust....and eventually equilibrium. Again, this boom and bust cycle just can't be resolved by common test kits. The same happens with nitrite. Not that any of this is practical information, but worth thinking about. I enjoy the critical thinking and appreciate the microbial dynamics of these little systems, god damn remarkable I tell ya!

Hang in there, you'll get through it.

 

Skimmer yes, lights...keeping them off will diminish algae growth, so probably not a bad idea. In fact, probably a good idea, if you think about it diatoms, coccolithophores, dinoflagellates, and cyano bacteria are all capable of fixing nitrogen and you don't want them being the dominant nitrifying bacteria in the system! haha. Cooking the rocks should put a good dent in the process, by cooking you can remove excess decaying material and thus not achieve an astronomically high ammonia peak. However if you only peak at .25 you will want to add a bit more fuel. Personally I would like to see a peak of ~1ppm. So keep your eye on it and make changes as necessary.