new marine setup

[OrionGirl]

To dose--get a bottle of ammonia (it's sold as a cleaner). Add to tank until test results show 1 ppm. The shrimp will add ammonia as well, but not in a controlled fashion--removing the rocks, well, no reason to do that, IMO.

If rock is uncured, it can be used to cycle a tank because there will be dead and dying organisms that will produce ammonia. How much ammonia they will produce varies, and testing to monitor the progress still needs to be done. If the live rock curing process only produces .5 ppm ammonia, the bacteria colonies that develop will be small, and unlikely to support much in the way of fish waste.

 

[janasleah]

I just tested the water on my tank...pH is 8.0, specific gravity at 1.024, ammonia still just a trace. It's been set up a week, lots of feather dusters, tons of amphipods running around (with green backs now, which I assume means they've been eating algae), a few bivalves here and there, couple of eensy snails, a few mystery critters. BTW, this is a MICRO reef tank...5 gallons. I know I'll catch some flak for a reef this small. My son really wanted the 12 gallon nanocube, but Santa couldn't quite swing it; this is the Eclipse 5 gallon hex with biowheel, compact flourescent, etc. I was hoping he'd settle for fw...but no....

I'm hesitant to add dead shrimp to this tank, because it won't take much to really change the water....any more advice? Just lots of patience?

Thanks!

 

[OrionGirl]

Just a small piece of shrimp wil work, as will adding some food. I'd go really, really slow in adding any fish. Small tanks are tough to keep stable--topoff for evaporation is a daily routine with my 10.

You might also want to remove the bio-wheel. While they are great in FW for bio-filtration, in SW setups they tend to increase salt creep and evaporation too much.

 

[janasleah]

Thanks for the advice...the bio-wheel thing is the sort of thing I don't know, because I've only had fw, although for a long time. My son has pointed out to me that the sand (aragonite) and lighter colored pieces of rock are being covered with brown stuff....I'm assuming this is diatoms and just new tank stuff. Is this a problem? We are planning to add one animal at a time after the tank cycles. I want to start with a hermit crab, maybe scarlet reef, maybe blue leg? They have some tiny ones at the lfs, which is a decent place. Then a snail or two, a few corals, maybe one goby sometime in the far future? Does that sound doable, if done slowly?

 

[bigboygaz]

help help help

i have trawled the net looking for some identification for this little critter , it slowly appeared in a hole in the live rock , popped out about 1cm overnight then when i got in from work it is lying on the bottom , its about the lenght of a matchstick , you help is much sought after
thanks

 

[Fish_First]

I couldn't help but notice in your first post you said a "few anemonies" your 15 gallon tank could only house one and they tend to sting corals and kill them... don't know if you really want that or not?