Newbie 14 gallon Bio cube

[liquidattitude]

Hello all,
I was told i need to start a thread on our tank and our progress as we learn what we are doing and how we set the tank up.
Here is picture of our tank. All that is in the tank is 20lbs of sand and 14lbs of Live rock. A friend with an established tank just brought us some live sand to add to ours and a sponge full of live bacteria to help us along.
Thanks in advance for suggestions and assistance.

 

[dixiegirl21191]

Very nice!

 

[Smitty]

Nice looking start up.

 

[little_fish]

looks good! Did you toss in some uncooked shrimp to get the cycle going?

 

[liquidattitude]

Little fish, do I still need to do that with the live rock and the donated live sand? I must of misunderstood something.
thanks
Kat

 

[little_fish]

yep! the live rock and live sand have bacteria on them, but you need to make sure you have enough to support fish. If you are lucky and already have lots of bacteria on your rocks and sand, you should have a short cycle.

 

[liquidattitude]

Gottcha! Somewhere I got the idea that the live rock was enough...I will get that going.
Thanks again,
Kat

 

[dixiegirl21191]

Little fish, I went to the lfs to get some lr the other day and I asked the guy about the shrimp thing and he said don't do that because it will throw my phosphates out of whack. Now I don't know what to do.

 

[little_fish]

No, your phosphates will be fine, and even if they did get a little out of whack, do water change and fix them.

 

[slwedge71]

Looks like a good start. Nice deep sand bed too. Good place for a pistol shrimp and goby :D

 

[liquidattitude]

ok- Little fish....raw, shrimp away.... so do i leave it there until it disintegrates? I only put one fatty shrimp in for 13.2 gallons. Is that enough to kick it into high gear? Hope so I would like to be at a point to add a fish sometime mid July.
The adventure begins...
Kat

 

[Kelz88]

Just take the shrimp out when your ammonia spikes. One shrimp should be enough.

 

[liquidattitude]

Thanks Kelz88. Should i be concerned at all about the number of the (white -5 legs-dot for a body) creatures that i am seeing? I turned on the light this morning and the rocks had about 20 of them. They scurried off into holes. I think little fish said they may be some kind of star(brittle?). Also i see something on the back of one of the rocks that i hope is something good. I will send pictures. Have a great day!

 

[liquidattitude]

little over 10 hours ago
Pre shrimp readings:
Temp:77
Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:20ppm

Current readings:
Temp 77
Ammonia:.50
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:.40 are we cycling? do i remove the shrimp now? or wait? till when?
Sorry for all the ?? first time for all this....really excited

 

[liquidattitude]

is this something good? just spotted it today, also i have a plethora of star ?? somethings

 

[little_fish]

and we are cycling!!!

And it looks like a sponge and perhaps a micro brittle star? Do they move around?

 

[liquidattitude]

There too many of those star things to count. They are quite active.

 

[little_fish]

then they are micro brittle stars, which are good guys! A great member of your CUC

 

[liquidattitude]

A sponge? I gotta go look that up.

 

[little_fish]

just a harmless filter feeder