IM nano 16

Pretty much I have the best boyfriend ever. After a mini melt down in my jbj nano I had a mini melt down haha. My boyfriend surprised me with a new tank and everything to set it up just to brighten my day. I've been looking at this tank for months so it was a nice surprise. Once it fully cycles I'll slowly acclimate my corals and fish over. The live rock and sand in the nano with all there hitch hickers will be added to the eel tanks and the tank is self will be turned into an experiment tank. Here's the progress so far

I really like the look better then the cube. Gallon wise there's only a 2 gl difference but space there's a big difference which I like. He picked this one up from Ryan at Aquatic Dreams for a reasonable price. He did get me an LED strip instead of the Skyyelight clamps but I'm not sure yet which ones I'll use. The clamps have blues and the strip is all whites. I guess I have a little bit of time to decide.

Thank, so question. This is the first tank I've set up on my own from scratch so I've never seen the cycling process happen. I've done much research, read forms on here, and talked to people. So I understand what had to happen, why it happens, and how it happens but I'm confused because I have yet to see much signs of cycling in my tank. It's only been running for a week so maybe it's still to soon? Maybe I'm missing a key element in the process? Walk through on how I set the tank up and what's been done so far. I used 20 lbs of live sand (yep in a bag haha) with its packet, 16 lbs of wet live rock from Ryan at aquatic dreams, 2 or so lbs of live rock from my boyfriend already established reef tank. I filled the back "heater" section with dry live rock rubble. I filed it with 2 gallons of reef water and the remaining pre-mixed salt again from Ryan. The next day I tested the water and the levels where: ph=7.4, ammonia= 0.50, nitrate= 0.50 and nitrate. The same Day I added 2 snails and 2 crabs (after talking to Ryan about cycling without fish). I only run my light for about 2hrs a day. It sat for 2 days then I left for the weekend fully expecting to come back to dead crabs and snails, and maybe some diatoms. But instead I came home to 2 live hermits,2 live snails, and white bugs on my glass. My water tonight test as so: ph=8.2, ammonia=0, nitrite=0, and nitrate=20. What am I missing? Is this normal?

overall it sounds pretty normal. I probably wouldnt have added any snails or crabs yet. I usually wait a few weeks when starting from scratch. I'll throw frozen shrimp in the tank first to spike the ammonia and that helps the rest of the bacteria cycle. as yours are still alive thats good. Your tank will still spike a little when you start adding fish and then the bacteria will catch up to that bioload if that makes sense. The diatoms will come. Sometimes they come right away but I've also set up tanks and never got the diatoms for a month or 2..   the bugs probably came from the LR which is good anything to help seed your tank is a good thing. I personally do not believe in cycling a tank without fish because the fish waste and the food that doesnt get eaten turns into the food for the bacteria. A tank is cycled once it has enough bacteria to handle the bioload. My new 8 gallon is "cycled" but I've only got one fish. Once I add another fish there is a good chance some of the parameters will spike for a few days and go through another little cycle.. There's my 2 cents on the whole process ;)

I'm not running them and I'm not sure if they both fit. I've been looking at the skimmer though

Edited by tink - October 27 2013 at 10:45am

A little up date, tank has been up and running for three months and many things have changed. After battling hydroids and isopods I'm finally free of the little buggers! This tank is now home to much of the coral my boyfriend and I enjoyed together in his 120. As for live stock I have a cardinal, mandarin goby, cryptic wrasse and one peppermint shrimp.