Hi! Brand new to this. My husband has had freshwater tanks before, but now we're venturing into saltwater. I do lots of research, and he gets stuff to actually work...we make a great team! <g>.
We are in the process of setting up our saltwater/reef tank. Right now we have:
75 gallon tank, with a sump (20 gallons, maybe? Not sure.). A protein skimmer that we haven't actually turned on yet. 80 lb sand. About 50 lb dead rock and 20 lb live rock. And a snail, which hitchhiker in with the live rock. (Its name is Waldo, since we keep looking for it and finding it all over the tank.)
We already have our RO/DI system up and running. We also have a Neptune Apex Lite, which is working, but we haven't figured out out how to configure it. We have LED lights.
The tank has been cycling for a few weeks. I checked the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite the other day, and they're all at 0. I'll check again at the end of next week; we're hoping to be able to start adding live stuff in then!
All I can say about this hobby so far is...WOW, there is a lot to learn!!
Laura