My First SW/Reef tank.... The journey has begun

bigbcop911 said:

Ok... I noticed there is a forum for "Newbies" and one for Reef tanks. Since I'm a "newbie" and I am attempting to put together a reef tank I wasn't too sure where the "right" place was to put this. So this is where it ended up. I'll start off by telling you all what it is I have and then everyone here who actually "knows" what they're doing (unlike me) can tell me what else I need or what I need to take back and upgrade. I've been researching this for about 6mos and now that I've started it I still feel lost.

<<We'll soon have you on the right tracks when you feel lost >>

Anyway, I am always open to constructive criticism or any ideas you all may have so please feel free to express concerns or thoughts.

My tank is 60gal (48"W/24"H). For lighting I have a Orbit 48" 96watt lighting system with one 96watt Sunpaq Dual Actinic (420NM+460NM) and one 96watt Sunpaq Dual Daylight (6,700k+10,000k) and three lunar lights. I have a Magnum 350 Deluxe convertible canister filtration system, a Sea Clone 100 protein skimmer, and a Hydor Koralia "3" circulation pump rated at 850gph.

<<Firstly, the seaclone is not a brill skimmer, and i would advise you to save some money up and buy yourself a good one when you can. Lights seem fine for most low to medium light requirement corals...You ideally want to double the ammount of flow in the tank (powerheads) as you want to be aiming around about 1500gph water flow in there>>

I started out with 20lbs of live sand and 40lbs of reg. sand along with about 20lbs of cured live rock. That's where I am right now. It's been up and running for a week now and everything seems to be running smoothly (knock really hard on wood).

<<I see your starting with a lower ammount than is normally recomended for a reef tank. The average to amin for is about 1 - 1.5lbs of live rock per gallon of tank water..Yes, at the moment you have the filter, but, in a reef tank, the live rock is the back bone which is the reef..So, i would recomend up the level of rock>>

Ok, as far as ammonia, rites, rates and all that fun stuff, below are the results as of about an hour ago:

pH 8.2
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Salinity is around 21ppt with a specific gravity of 1.023

<<I would say you need to add an ammonia source, either by the pure ammonia (yes, noted the part about the ammonia below) or by adding a medium raw shrimp or prawn, wrapped in panty-hoes, get that suspended in the tank and let it rot away...This will produce ammonia...When it reaches about 4 - 5ppm ammonia, remove it as its done its job>>

I added the live rock the 2nd day and my ammonia did increase to about .25 but I never saw it get higher than that.

<<See last note in red>>

I wasn't sure if this was enough of a ammonia spike to start the cycling process and was going to add some ammonia to the tank to see if it cleared up. Unfortunately I didn't have any ammonia, but my mother (god bless her), called and said she was stopping by to see her grandkids and offered to pick me up a bottle. well, the bottle stated it was clear ammonia, but further investigation revealed that it contained surfactants. Now I have read somewhere that this is not good. So, that idea took a dive... (dive as in didn't work, not dive like into the tank)... So at this point I'm wondering if this was enough or not... My understanding is that it should take 3 to 4 weeks for cycling to occur. Anywho, that's where I am right now so let the comments and suggestions start pouring in!! Oh, and I would throw a pic on here but didn't think anyone would really care too much about a couple pieces of rock.

Oh yeah, I have noticed what appears to be a reddish algae starting to develop on one of my rocks.:dance2:

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