Small Reef Setup

[MikeP]

Geary - you are correct the system is going through a cycle and will eventually level out. You can do partial water changes to keep ammonia down and preserve more critters on the rock but you are on the right track. Once everything levels off I usually wait an additional week before adding any critters.

[kaiser]

That stuff may speed things up, but there is no such thing as an instant cycle.

[Instar]

Since you have uncured live rock, the Bacter Vital will help some but will probably be negligable. You still gotta go thru a good cycle time with uncured live rock. It would be different if the rock was fully cured or nearly so. The Aragalive is a great bacteria starter all by itself. All that die off will ramp up the Aragalive to do its job reasonably quikcly. Give it some time and as soon as the water clears and things are on the downward slide, you can start lightly feeding the critters and spores that lived thru it all that are still in the live rock with some live algae like DT's. There's also a good number of spores in the Aragalive that will become apparent over the next year. If you use Aragalive and fully (be sure its completely cured) cured live rock, you can add fish and things like mushrooms on day 2, but this does not apply to your situation. I am starting a 5 gallon mini bow tomorrow. It has a sterile sand and some water from a water change in there now. Tomorrow I'll add a cup of live sand (from an old tank with Aragalive), a rock and a couple shells from my reef (More bacteria), a mushroom, green stars (this also brings beneficial bacteria), a couple leaves of a macro (and even more beneficial bacteria come with this) and one juvenile clown fish. Then I'll add the Bacter Vital for the next three days. I'll observe for a week or two not missing a feeding of the fish and then take it all to its intended owner. Thats not instant, but, its pretty fast. I've done it many times. If you have never tried this, proceed carefully the first couple times. (If using live rock doing this, it must be fully cured or so close to it that no one could ever tell the difference.)

[Instar]

A power filter that size will help pick up some of the dead tissue off the curing rock right now. But, you don't want to run that too long as the rock clears up or it will start to pick up cool spores that will give you all kinds of little critters some day down the road.

[Instar]

Don't know what info you mom needs or could use, but, here's a few tidbits. Well, the live rock has to finish curing to proceed. If you used the Aragalive in your mom's tank, that and live rock is a great starter culture. Once things level out, if you want to see what will grow out of the live rock, you have to feed it and keep the water pristine so far as maintenance is concerned. No need to skim for about the first 4 months as you want to leave all the spores and bacteria in there unless you are not into that kind of thing. Probably won't skim that size tank anyway, will you? It can take a year or more for some things to show up. Others will come pretty quickly. Maybe even some annoying things. Of them, a mantis shrimp (though not too likely to survive if the rock was real nasty) and the other aiptasia anemones. If its not a species tank, either one of those shows up and it has to go. Then you may have a crab or two that makes it and some strange worms. Those bear careful attention until you see if they are going to kill everything in their path or eat only left over food. About half the ones I've had are a real pests, killing things and half bothered nothing at all. The toughest thing for nano tanks is solving the lighting issue. Water in a nano is easy even without skimmers and sumps cause all you gotta do is change half a gallon of water and thats 10% in a 5 gallon. You could easily do that every week if needed. You should be able to achieve 0 for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reasonably quickly with that sand in there. Once that happens, its safe to start adding fish and inverts, etc. suitable to that size tank and lighting. A 5 gallon tank can be a master piece if she takes her time with it and thinks things through. There is no substitute for researching everything before it goes in there. (9 times out of 10 the local fish store clerk is not a good reference for information research.) Don't waste time shopping at PetCo. Too expensive and seldom does anything live. Learn what a healthy fish looks like. They are fat, not thinned with a muscular ridge down the sides. Look head on at them. If their forehead is dented in on each side just above the eyes and on down the back, they are not doing well or not eating. Don't buy that one. Their bellies should be full, sort of rounded looking, not flat, concaved, or pinched. Buy a good book and check out the web sites about nano reefs.