Newbie Tank setup help..

Well you can't change this now, but I wouldn't of put live sand in and then put in freshwater and mixed the salt. I would think that would affect whatever is live in the sand.

Second did you just fill with tap water? If so you really should test your tap water when you get the test kits. If your tap water contains high nitrate, ammonia, phosphate, you will have a hard time getting those levels low as with every water change your putting in more. I recommend investing in an RO/DI filter.

Look on craigslist.com for live rock. I found a guy locally selling rock out of his established aquarium for $3 a pound. Cheaper than any of the stores and you don't have to worry about cycling it since its already in an established tank.

Otherwise if you buy the cured rock it will probably only have a slight spike as long as you get it home fast so theres not much die off. Uncured rock will take weeks to cycle as the bacteria has to multiply.

As a rule of thumb you want atleast 1 pound of rock per gallon of water. So you need alot more. Your better off getting most of it upfront so you don't have issues with an ammonia spike adding it later with livestock in the tank.

welcome to the saltyside. I would stop using tap water (assuming thats what you started out with) and buy ro/di water or get an ro/di unit for your tap water and use that instead of regular old tap. Phosphates and unwanted chemicals tend to be in tap water thus making algae bloom or leaching things like copper thus killing LR,LS, fish,inverts,coral Very bad stuff. Prime is an exellent product that I use for removing things like clorine, cloromines, and ammonia from tap water it even adds a slime coat (**** running out of the stuff) That does nothing but help the water column so you did good adding prime you could of just added two capfulls and not had to wait 10 min, As far as LR goes Cured LR is a lot better then uncured due to the fact that there is bacteria already established on it and it seeds things like baserock and sand making LS, buying "ls" is a waste in my opinion as the sand in the tank will eventually become LS the 15# you put in will start your cycle as there is always die off from the LR put into a new tank. Try getting LR that is covered in coraline algae or LR that has good size if you can pick your own dot it. Here is a pic of what LR is suppost to look like you can even order from these guys.

This is Indonesia LR.

SHK_ATK, is that how the rock looked when you got it? Where did you get it? It looks great... much better than what I got locally.

06scoob said:

Hello, new SW newbie here :help:
needing some insight from some of you Guru's

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somewhat a reef newb here too but these guys have helped a lot, here goes...

06scoob said:

Came home set the tank up poured in the live sand, filled with water, turned on pump, added salt over an hour, added "Prime" (the additave i got from the shop), slowly 1 cap full every 10 minutes.

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woulda pre mixed saltwater to keep from killing the live sand but good start from the sounds of it

06scoob said:

Cured Live Rock vs Uncured Live Rock : What is the difference.?

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uncured is typically fresh out of shipment, they ship in wet newspaper typically and the rock is full of both live and dead things, you need to give uncured a while to cycle and establish new live thingies. Cured typically sits in a tank at the LFS with flow and what have you along with other peices of live rock, since it's been cycling it's had more of a chance to leech the death off as well as get new live stuff from the surrounding rock and water. Some LFS cure with light and such so coralline algae is promoted. If you have time and patience, uncured is fine and seeding with a peice or two of cured doesnt hurt (I went 50/50).

06scoob said:

Question 2 : Is my cycle already going with the rock/sand i already have.?

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cycle will have been started but no way of telling where you are without testing. The rock looks good and it looks as though you got yourself a free coral (frogspawn perhaps?) as well!

from another newbie perspective I can point out the hot points that had me changing my tank here and there during setup, perhaps it will help you speed up your learning curve!

* Lighting, if you want corals clams or anemone pay attention to this one early on

* Calcium try to keep below 440 otherwise you risk precipitation, unless your testing calc and alk constantly and adjusting in a moments notice go real slow with any additives you may want to add to encourage coral and coralline algae growth, if you use a good salt with trace elements and such added you dont need to add so much other junk, the more established your tank gets over time the more impossible it gets to backtrack changes!

* everything should be done super slow, otherwise extra time, money, and stress is always spent..

* refugiums rock, I run a sump refugium and a canister filter. I removed the bio media and carbon from the canister and doubled up on foam as well as a phosphate remover. So long as I clean it every other week on schedule as I always have with my FW and brackish tanks I have no problems with it. If your tank is not plumbed for a sump you can do a hang on overflow or one of the aquafuge units (started with the aquafuge on my 20L, it did a decent job). .... in edit I see the sump at the back of the tank, and of course wet dry.... throw some chaetomorpha in there and your set!

* Never assume your tank is cycled the same day you get your first 0 ammo 0 trite whatever trate reading.... make sure ammo and nitrite stay at 0 for at least a few days or more! During cycling definately do water changes, try to keep the ammo around .25 and not much higher too much ammo can hinder the process and lengthen your cycle time.

* Get tests for phosphate, alkalinity, and calcium! dont worry about testing every day but do test often at first. I went from daily tests to now weekly on all but calcium. I test twice weekly as I am still adjusting my dosing schedules.

* Pay close attention to water flow, especially if your going for corals and a lot of coralline algae. Dosing something such as purple up will provide a nice tank cloud that you can watch to see where currents are and where they arent. You're going to want a powerhead or three!

* RO/DI water is one of the best things since sliced bread

* Salt creep is the work of the devil

06scoob said:

Could you or someone clarify weather or not I bought Cured or Uncured LR and what the difference is? sorry search function couldnt give me a litteral definition.

-Zack

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You'll be able to tell that better than us actually. Uncured means they didn't clean off any die off and you probably have a bad smell versus a saltwater smell.

THEJRC said:

During cycling definately do water changes, try to keep the ammo around .25 and not much higher too much ammo can hinder the process and lengthen your cycle time.

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I always thought that doing water changes during the cycle prolonged the cycling process. It was my understanding that the initial water change was to be done after the cycling process was completed in order to reduce the resulting concentration of NitrATES.