Newbie aquarium question

I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!

Your tank is cycling...if you're seriously going to get into this hobby
one thing you need to learn up front is patience. Nothing happens
overnight.

You rock takes months to cure. You should not have changed your water at
all yet.
Do you have a protein skimmer ? While you're curing rock you should be
running a
protein skimmer 24/7 7 days a week. Smells good I bet : )


wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!

I would do water changes if it is real high in ammonia or
nitrite, in order to preserve the life on the rock.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



TheRock wrote on 1/13/2007 7:17 AM:
Your tank is cycling...if you're seriously going to get into this hobby
one thing you need to learn up front is patience. Nothing happens
overnight.

You rock takes months to cure. You should not have changed your water at
all yet.
Do you have a protein skimmer ? While you're curing rock you should be
running a
protein skimmer 24/7 7 days a week. Smells good I bet : )


wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!

Tristan wrote: much toxic rubbish and vomit it in rec.ponds wher ehe hunts
old ladies. Roy "Tristan" Hauerdon't like his own medicine.Ah
CArol.......looks like there is some retailiation against yu for
your mess your making. Folks are only going to take this crap you
create and distribute for so long without payback...Seems its
started........Sure can not blame a darn thing on any0one but your
self and your socks can yu carol? Nice try at disruption of the
various groups but you stlil get a failing grade......your days are
numbered so yu may as well go allout and enjoy doing what you do best
as soon it will be no more. You'l lbe here all by yourself and
others willmove on with a different nym and let you set here being the
the dumbass that you are.
bye bye CArol bye bye carol........the light on the center stage is
getting close to being turned off.

Isn't high ammonia part of the cycle ?
Don't you need it to cycle ? If you dilute the tank with water aren't you
just
removing bacteria that moves the cycle along and prolonging cycle time ?

I only ask because I didn't do it that way and I had plenty of pods and
worms
after the cycle.


"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
link.net...
I would do water changes if it is real high in ammonia or nitrite, in order
to preserve the life on the rock.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



TheRock wrote on 1/13/2007 7:17 AM:
Your tank is cycling...if you're seriously going to get into this hobby
one thing you need to learn up front is patience. Nothing happens
overnight.

You rock takes months to cure. You should not have changed your water at
all yet.
Do you have a protein skimmer ? While you're curing rock you should be
running a
protein skimmer 24/7 7 days a week. Smells good I bet : )


wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!

TheRock wrote:
Isn't high ammonia part of the cycle ?

Sort of. Ammonia serves as food for the first of the nitrifying bacteria you
want to develop.

Don't you need it to cycle ? If you dilute the tank with water aren't you
just
removing bacteria that moves the cycle along and prolonging cycle time ?

No, you aren't removing bacteria; for the most part, they live in the substrate
and live rock. You're removing ammonia. The fact that there is a high ammonia
level is proof that you don't have a large enough bacteria population to eat it
all. If you leave the levels as they are, the population will gradually grow
large enough to transform all of the ammonia to nitrites. Then the population
will starve and decline to whatever level can survive on the ammonia normally
introduced as urine and decay products.

If you run a 50% water change, you will remove half the ammonia. That's still
more than the existing bacteria population can handle, but the population won't
have to grow as much to reach a level large enough to transform all of the
ammonia to nitrites. Your tank will actually cycle more rapidly.

The same is true of nitrites, when the cycle reaches that point.

George Patterson
Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are.

TheRock wrote:

Isn't high ammonia part of the cycle ?

Yes. Full cycle with a deep sand bed would be:
ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-nitrite-nitrous oxide-nitrogen

Don't you need it to cycle ? If you dilute the tank with water aren't you
just
removing bacteria that moves the cycle along and prolonging cycle time ?

depends.If the ammonia spike TOO high, bacteria will die.

When I started up my first tank (which wasn't that long ago) my ammonia
never got above 0.3 mg/ml. But I "cheated" - tank was initially filled
with "live" water, "live" sand, and I added a cup of crap out of one of
the LFS sumps to innoculate things (I use quotes around "live" water and
sand, since I question how live it can be after sitting in a sealed
containber for months. it WILL have active bacrteria spores in it, tho,
which DOES help)

I only ask because I didn't do it that way and I had plenty of pods and
worms
after the cycle.

Pods and worms are pretty hardy. Pods can take a LOT of abuse, from what
I have heard. (I had a pod "cultures" going for a while - water would
get just plain NASTY, with ammonia readings of like .6 or .8 range, and
pods were just fine with it) I think you would have had plenty of both
(pods and worms) no matter which way you went.

Bacteria in the water is not very efficient. Bacteria
attached with water flowing across it is much more
efficient. For nitrification, the more surface area you
have for bacteria to grow and the more water flow you have
the better your biological filtration. You can actually
reduce ammonia levels simply by increasing water flow.
However, with live rock, increased water flow can also
increase ammonia levels. This is because if you have a
substantial amount of die off it gets more oxygenated
water and thus is less anaerobic. But even so it is better
to have more water flow to save the inhabitants, One can
also aerate the water to help drive off ammonia. It will
create salt creep, but since it's just temporary for
cycling purposes, it's not so bad. And by all means do
water changes to keep levels from getting too high.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



TheRock wrote on 1/14/2007 10:13 AM:
Isn't high ammonia part of the cycle ?
Don't you need it to cycle ? If you dilute the tank with water aren't you
just
removing bacteria that moves the cycle along and prolonging cycle time ?

I only ask because I didn't do it that way and I had plenty of pods and
worms
after the cycle.


"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
link.net...
I would do water changes if it is real high in ammonia or nitrite, in order
to preserve the life on the rock.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



TheRock wrote on 1/13/2007 7:17 AM:
Your tank is cycling...if you're seriously going to get into this hobby
one thing you need to learn up front is patience. Nothing happens
overnight.

You rock takes months to cure. You should not have changed your water at
all yet.
Do you have a protein skimmer ? While you're curing rock you should be
running a
protein skimmer 24/7 7 days a week. Smells good I bet : )


wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!

Yes I have a 24x7 protein skimmer and the first 2 days it collects some
dark green junk water in it that I poured down the toilet.

I paniclly changed water 100% last week but today the yellow tint stuff
came back! The live rocks are now covered with some yellow stuff that I
don't know the name.

Is this all normal? This time I didnt do water change but use some
bathtissue to wipe the yellow tint off the acrylic. It is better than
last week but I am still worried. Is this normal? The substrate are
covered with brown stuff too.

Thanks!


TheRock wrote:
Your tank is cycling...if you're seriously going to get into this hobby
one thing you need to learn up front is patience. Nothing happens
overnight.

You rock takes months to cure. You should not have changed your water at
all yet.
Do you have a protein skimmer ? While you're curing rock you should be
running a
protein skimmer 24/7 7 days a week. Smells good I bet : )


wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!

One more thing I forgot to mention: The aquarium has 2 2x65w compact
fluorescent lights that are blue and white. I alternate them during the
day to simulate morning/day/evening and turned lights off in the night.


Also, last night I added some B-IONIC calcium (both No1 and No2) to
improve the calcium level for the live rocks. Would this have anythign
to do with the yellow stuff? Or is it just a coincidence?

wrote:
Yes I have a 24x7 protein skimmer and the first 2 days it collects some
dark green junk water in it that I poured down the toilet.

I paniclly changed water 100% last week but today the yellow tint stuff
came back! The live rocks are now covered with some yellow stuff that I
don't know the name.

Is this all normal? This time I didnt do water change but use some
bathtissue to wipe the yellow tint off the acrylic. It is better than
last week but I am still worried. Is this normal? The substrate are
covered with brown stuff too.

Thanks!


TheRock wrote:
Your tank is cycling...if you're seriously going to get into this hobby
one thing you need to learn up front is patience. Nothing happens
overnight.

You rock takes months to cure. You should not have changed your water at
all yet.
Do you have a protein skimmer ? While you're curing rock you should be
running a
protein skimmer 24/7 7 days a week. Smells good I bet : )


wrote in message
ups.com...
I just bought a 25gallon aquarium about a week ago and put the substate
and live rock in it. I haven't put coral and fish in and today I
suddenly found the water turned yellow!

I have pumps (Rio 800) running and using Biological filter calls.. What
do you guys think the problem come from? I changed water (about 60%
change) today but still feel water is yellow. What do you think? Shall
I do a complete water change?

Thanks!