10g Reef Log

[Mugglenut88]

Hiiiii everyone! Ummm extreme newby here. For a school project im getting some corals over the weekend for a tank at school...and I needed to house them at home for awhile, because the school isnt open. I wanted to do this right and decided to keep the tank going even after I bring the corals to school...thus making this my first real reef tank! Well...Im excited lol

I just threw some old rocks and a shell in there for now, I will be adding more, So no worries on how it looks just yet.

Anywhoo. Just a few parameters:

Salinity: 1.021
pH: 7.3
Alk: ~130

I just wanted to ask what else I should check prior to adding anything else in. I plan on getting Nitrate/ite, calcium tests tomorrow....Please let me know what the next step should be. Sorry for the newbyness lol

 

[golf4lyfe]

Is the rock in there live rock, if not I would add around 10 pounds to it

 

[MrMexReefer]

The pH needs to be adjusted. How long has the tank been up?

 

[Spartan9576]

PH very low, what type of substate do got in there?

Spartan

 

[MrMexReefer]

yea... if ur having problems keeping pH where it should be, look into a crushed coral substrate. Worked for me... I eventually swapped it out for a 1" sand bed.

 

[Mugglenut88]

The substrate is just sand, and a bit of crushed up shells. The tank has only been up for a week.

 

[MrMexReefer]

you might want to wait for the tank to cycle before you start adding corals to it.. or fish for that matter. It took 3 weeks for my tank to cycle. Did you use live sand? If you add some live rock to your tank, it will speed up the cycling process.

 

[LionfishFinatic]

I hope thos aren't the lights you are going to use to house the corals in..... PH really low, needt to cycle longer, maybe ask a fellow reefer or your LFS for some established live sand, get some more live rock and you should be good. How long do you have to hold them and when does the school open? agree with everything ^^^.

 

[Mugglenut88]

Im getting home hermits, snails and liverock on monday/tuesday. Then later in the week maybe add some small fish to get the cycle going. I added bacteria too..

 

[jun_celis]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8760232#post8760232 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LionfishFinatic
I hope thos aren't the lights you are going to use to house the corals in..... PH really low, needt to cycle longer, maybe ask a fellow reefer or your LFS for some established live sand, get some more live rock and you should be good. How long do you have to hold them and when does the school open? agree with everything ^^^.

Yep, those looked just like my old 19watts flourescent bulbs. Please don't use that if your going to house any kinds of corals. I don't even think that it's gonna work for mushrooms. Do some more research before you continue. It looks good so far except for the PH and lighting.