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Hi opae ula related I'm no scientist unless 'mad scientist' counts
back in the dark ages before computers I had a black and white dark room and used to photograph Diatoms with the microscopes develop the film then print the photo's but as we came into the didgital age the chemicals for black and white became harder and harder to get so I gave over and now just make up slides of Foraminifer and shells from beach sand http://www.fernwood-nursery.co.uk/sand/danny.htm
15mm circle

well you need to photograph opae ula larvae etc.....

my light and bulb arrived stays cool to the touch so set it on the tank lid cut from,a food safe, plastic storage box lid I've taken the foam filter out and replaced it with a fine air stone, and moved the heater to horizontal at the back. The light's on a timer with a 12hrs cycle next is to make a box to hide the Rats nest of wires
I've a TDS meter from when I made Colloidal silver the LFS RO water reads 002 ppm (the house water 70ppm) I bought an hygrometer so 2.5gm Tropic Marin sea salt in 1ltr RO water gave SG 1.003, put one of my Marrimo moss balls in, seems to like it so I'll put the other in and slowly raise the SG next is to add salt to the tank and play with the test kit not shure when to add the 'quick start' ?

As soon as you have water and salt mixed get adding the quick start

I was going to add the marine salt premixed with RO water to fill the tank
does the quick start Bacteria need food i.e. Ammonia to start the cycle, few drops then test
though I cann't find a small amount of pure Ammonia, how about Spirulina let it decay watch for Ammonia spike the Nitrite then hopefully
Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate ? (low)

Either way will be fine, mixing before hand will make the salt dissolve quicker, if you add the salt direct to the tank with water and rocks in already it can lay on the sand in a sort of mat or get in between the rocks and take longer to dissolve.

You can get the cycle going but you will have to keep feeding it, I’d personally just set it up and get the tank temp up to 22deg C or slightly higher... dump in the QuickStart and get the lights on to grow some algae and leave it at that for a few weeks.


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OK Dumb question if the RO water's so 'pure' where's the Algae going to appear from ? is there anywhere to get some as a starter ?

i assume from spores or dirt that falls in the tank, it does need a food source but the crap in your substrate and rocks will no doubt kick things off.

with 195gm of Tropic Marin salt added the tanks at SG 1012 and a steady 72*F so added 5ml of Quick Start.
I've some Ammonium Chloride in the post, after some of thats in (5.25ml) I'll start the Ammonia and Nitrite testing.
Getting there

Just been given a piece of Coral, brought it to boil in RO water gave it a good scrub, dried it out on the stove top then soaked overnight in SG 1.012 water and added it to the tank, that should be the PH buffer sorted ? Added x10 drops of Ammonium Chloride to the tank, gave it a couple of hours, then did an API Ammonia test reading :- 2ppm will check tomorrow and see if it's dropping