- Your money is at zero
and your nitrites are at zero
now what?
(music)
Bonjour everybody
Matthew here, your BRS beginner guru
coming at you with episode 23 in the beginner
How To Guide
for saltwater aquariums and reef tanks
eight steps to complete
when the nitrogen cycle is done.
If you missed episodes 1 through 22,
we will put a link to the entire playlist below.
Let's get started with a quick review
and to answer the question
how do you know when the nitrogen cycle is complete?
Okay, if you want a super complete answer to that question
check out this video, which is
actually episode 18 in our series
we spent the entire video talking about
the nitrogen cycle
we'll also link it below.
So how do you know when the nitrogen cycle is complete?
Well, first your ammonia levels are going to go
up and up and up
and then come back down to zero.
And during that time
your nitrate levels will do the same
they will go up and up and up
and then they will return to zero.
Once your nitrite levels return back to zero
your cycle is complete.
Now you might be wondering what about my nitrate levels?
Shouldn't they also return to zero?
No, your cycle is done
when the nitrite levels are zero.
You will still have nitrates in your tank
but we'll talk about how to get rid of those shortly.
Step one, cleanup.
Now that the cycle is complete
let's get our hands dirty and get that tank clean because
we're about to perform a massive water change
so go ahead and start with scraping
all of your glass using your algae scraper.
And if you followed our advice
and left out your mechanical filtration
either your sponge or your filter sock,
now's a good time to put those back in
to capture all of that floating debris.
It's also a really good time to clean off your rock work
so go ahead and grab a Turkey Baster
and gently blast off your re frog.
Step two, perform a big water change.
With all of that gunk floating around your aquarium
It's a perfect time to do a water change.
So go ahead and gather all of your five gallon buckets
Or if you use a brute trashcan, get that gravel vacuum
and perform a somewhat large water change.
I would say anywhere from 25% to 50%.
Doing a large water change at this point
is really beneficial for removing nitrates
removing the triotus that's floating around
or that's gathered at the bottom of your tank.
And it's also a good opportunity
to replenish the major, minor and trace elements
before you add your first livestock.
Step three is start adding livestock.
Slowly though, okay?
Do it slow.
Okay, I get it.
Now that your tank is fully cycled
you have been patient up to this point
it's so tempting to go out and buy tons of fish and corals
and other inverts and just pack your tank
to the brim with livestock.
But I urge you and I beg you
resist that temptation.
The first thing I want you to do right now
if you haven't done it yet
do set up a quarantine tank
don't be one of those beginners that thinks
"Oh, I don't need a quarantine tank
I'll get lucky
It'll fine"
Be one of those beginners that sets themselves up
for success right now.
If you don't know how to set up a quarantine tank
we'll put links below
but you can also just stick with this series
because we're going to spend an entire video down the line
on how to set up a quarantine tank.
So you may be wondering why are we urging patience
when adding livestock
and then how many pieces of livestock,
how many fish can you add at once?
So while it's true that your tank is cycled.
When you add livestock
you will likely have a second mini cycle
and you might be wondering
"Wait, why would that be?
The cycles already done."
Well think about it like this,
your cycle can only be as robust
as the bio load that's in your tank.
And during your cycle
you may have just added ammonia chloride
or thrown in a piece of shrimp
or just fed your tank daily.
That's not a very big bio load.
So as soon as you start adding livestock
you are increasing the feedings
and you are increasing how much poop
is coming out of those fish
which means there's going to be more decaying matter
and more decaying matter is going to turn into ammonia
which means you need more beneficial bacteria than you
previously had to consume all of that new ammonia.
So we're urging you to go slowly
because when you add new fish
you're increasing that bio load
which means you need to give your beneficial bacteria
time to catch up and multiply
to be able to complete the cycle again.
If you go slowly, your second cycle
is not going to be anything drastic
but you will definitely notice your ammonia
and your nitrite creep up again
and we want to make sure we keep those levels low enough
so it doesn't stress out or kill your fish.
So how many fish would we recommend adding?
If you have a small tank, let's say somewhere between
10 and 30 gallons
we'd recommend adding somewhere between
two and four fish
and choose fish that are really, really hardy
that are known to acclimate well and be good for new tanks.
Things like damsels or clown fish.
Although honestly
I have found clown fish to be
the absolute best at doing this.
If you have a larger system, 50 gallons and up
obviously you can scale up how much livestock
you're adding accordingly.
Be sure to test your water frequently
during this time
especially for ammonia and nitrite.
Hopefully your beneficial bacteria
will be able to keep up
with the increased bio load.
But if you start to notice your ammonia levels
creep above 0.25
it's time to take action and perform a large water change to
bring those levels down to a safe number.
We definitely recommend waiting
to add corals until a later date,
so wait until that second mini cycle
is done and the tank is stabilized
before considering adding corals.
Step four, turn on those lights.
If you've followed our advice you probably left
your lights off up until this point
to not encourage nuisance algae growth.
So does this mean
that when you turn the lights on
you're going to start seeing
algae growing all over your tank?
Yes, absolutely.
But not to worry because we're going to be
adding a cleanup crew in a future video
that will help manage the algae explosion
that's about to occur in your tank.
And I know you probably have
a ton of questions about reef tank lighting
So stay tuned for episodes 25, 26 and 27
because we will go into extreme detail shortly.
Step five is to mentally prepare yourself
for diatoms.
They're coming.
If they're not there yet
they're on their way.
And they're about to make your tank look ugly.
No joke.
They're real.
Okay, seriously though.
There's no need to panic.
Your tank's going to get ugly and that's totally normal.
Diatoms come into every single tank
especially since you've increased the amount of livestock
and you turn your lights on
you have just fueled the algae craze
that's about to overtake your tank.
It's going to take a while
for that tank to settle in
and sometimes diatoms can come and go
for months at a time.
Honestly, I've had tanks that have been
established for a year and all of a sudden
I get a little diatom outbreak.
But not to worry, there are things
we're going to do shortly.
First of all
you're going to have to increase your maintenance schedule
just clean your glass a little bit more
maybe gravel back that sand bed a little bit more.
And then shortly, we're going to be adding
some cleanup crew members
which will help keep that clean
without having to get your hands in the tank.
So step six, guess what it is?
Guess what it is?
It's time to add a small cleanup crew.
If you add too many members
of a cleanup crew at the very beginning
there's probably not going to be enough food
for them all to survive.
You can always add more later.
So if you notice that you add a small cleanup crew
and they're just not being able
to keep up with the workload
you can add more to later time.
We're going to spend an entire video
discussing cleanup crews very shortly in the series.
But if you can't wait, Ryan made
a fantastic video all the way back in 2015
all about cleanup crews, check it out.
It's really good.
We'll put links to it below.
But without going into too much detail
if you're curious to know what cleanup crews
we add to our tanks at the beginning
it usually consists of a few snails
and a few hermit crabs.
There's two different kinds of snails out there
ones that eat algae and then
ones that burrow through your sand bed and eat the tritus.
And then for hermit crabs, we usually like to add
five or so of the really small hermit crabs
the red or the blue leg.
If you add in some algae eaters
and some detritivorous you'll probably have
your basis covered, starting out.
Step number seven, it's time to learn
some serious patience.
Things are going to go wrong.
You're going to have fish, get sick.
You're going to have inverts die.
You'll probably have some sort of
uncontrollable nuisance algae outbreak
that will make you want to tear
your hair out.
Take every failure as a learning opportunity.
But too many hobbyists quit during their first year
because they experienced failure.
But think about it.
They say that when learning a new skill
it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master it.
So why should any beginner think
that they are going to be a reef tank master
on their first go?
It's just not going to happen.
The only way you're going to fail in this hobby
is if you quit
and trust me
there are going to be days when you want to quit.
But if you can admit that you failed
then you can pick yourself back up
learn something and come back
to the hobby even stronger.
I have failed in this hobby
more than I have succeeded.
I have cracked and destroyed brand new tanks.
I have crashed tanks and I have walked away from tanks.
Don't make rash decisions.
If you notice a problem
and you don't know what to do
reach out to a fellow hobbyist
reach out to your local reef club
check out the forums
or call BRS customer service
because we are all here to help you succeed
in this hobby.
And we've arrived at our last step.
Step eight
establish a maintenance and testing regimen.
The time to start good saltwater aquarium habits
is now.
Commit yourself doing a 10% water change
every single week,
and to testing your water parameters
every single week.
Weekly water changes will help remove
unwanted things from your tank
while adding back in your major
minor and trace elements.
It's also a really good time
to algae scrape your glass
and to gravel vacuum your sand bed.
And not only that,
but it really gives you good contact time
with your tank
so you can notice things
before they turn into problems.
As you get to know your tank more
you're going to realize that there are things
that you need to test every week
and then things that you
probably don't need to test.
For example,
I usually test for ammonia and nitrite
when I'm starting out new tanks
but I almost never test them
in established tanks.
Other tanks
I test nitrate and phosphate every week
but I don't worry about calcium and alkalinity
because there aren't any corals in the tank.
So figure out what testing regimen
works well for you
and maybe start out testing a bit more
than you need to until you really get a good
sense of your tank
and then you can cut back as you go.
Well, that just about wraps up episode 22?
23?
23!
Stick with us because we still have over 20 episodes
more in this series.
You remember step two of this video?
Water changes?
Stay tuned because next week
episode 24 is all about water changes
and four methods for starting a siphon.
Well everybody, as always
thank you for watching.
Happy reefing
be well
and we'll see you next time.
(music)