SUGGESTIONS ?

[ofisr]

Im new to the aquarium world, I recently started my first fish tank and started cycling. My tank is a 55gl acrylic tank I have 50lb of crushed coral some base rock and some fake coral pieces. For filtration I have a c-series marineland canister filter & a remora pro skimmer. I currently hace 2 chromis in there to begin the cycling which I just added last week. Any sugestion or advice will be greatly appreciated .:)


Thanks.

[rockethippo]

Take out the crushed coral and replace with carib sea araganite sugar sized sand. The crushed coral will trap food and poo and cause high nitrates in the future. I would take out the filter, leave the skimmer on, and put 55-75 pounds of live rock in there.

[rockethippo]

Actually, I would the skimmer off while cycling, then put it back on cycling. Using live rock as filtration in my opinion, is far better and easier than using external/canister filters. If you decide to not use live rock, get more canister/H.O.T. filters. To make sure the filters don't cause high nitrates, clean the pads/sponges in old tank water everytime you change the water. Replace the pads every two weeks, but slowly. For example if you have 2 filters, change the pads of one week and the other one the next week, so that each filter gets a different changing schedule and so that not all the filters are changed at once.