My nitrates are finally dropping!!!

[GaryZ]

This is very exciting. My tank is finally cycled. My nitrates are down. My skimmer is kicking butt since I modified it. Ammonia and nitrite are untraceable. My Miracle Mud is producing pods (I think thats what they are, little white organisms). Organisms are proliferating in my fuge. The brown diatoms are gone. I would really like to get my hands on a few mangroves, but its hard to whine about mangroves when people are losing everything they own in Florida. I think I'm almost ready to start adding some softies. Any suggestions on a nice hardy softie to start with?

[Reefland]

There are lots of good soft corals to start with. Common leathers are always great and I also like a nice mat of Green Star Polyps (Pachyclavularia spp.). Corallimorpharians are also good starters. Those are not the only ones though, just some very hardy suggestions.

[GaryZ]

I'm amazed at how much life is just "springing up" in my fuge. Inverts are popping up everyday. No way any of these things are hitchhikers either, they all look bran new. Absolutely amazing.

[Reefland]

You'd be surprised how many of them came in with your liverock. How much rock do you have and where did you get it? That's not to say you aren;t seeing some new life.

[GaryZ]

The liverock came from a relative from an established (poorly maintained) tank. I added a few rubble pieces here and there, so I suppose some of it could have come from that. Mosty Tonga Branch. But everything looks so small and new, like tiny little critters sifting through my fuge. I know that the little critters in my sump are coming directly from the Miracle Mud. The other stuff, though, I'm not so sure about.

All told, I have probably about 180lbs of rock.

[Reefland]

I bet a lot of it came from the liverock. These critters stay small so don't their their size tell their age. Either way it is really cool to watch all the life!

[GaryZ]

Interesting development. My banded coral shrimp has completely disappeared. No sign of it. No body, no body parts....nothing. Which is very odd since even after he molts, his skin(shell?) is always very easy to spot.

[Reefland]

Humm, that's no good. If you had high levels of nitrates when you added it this could be the problem, very intolerable of high nitrates as most inverts are.