test your water.
You should be at 1.024 to 1.026 salinity. If you do not have an ATO, this is a good time to get one going.
7.9 to 8.3 alkalinity. Don't obsess on ph: in a marine tank, your reliable quick-test for water quality is your alkalinity. PH is generally something you can ignore---unless you have mysterious problems. Alk is your primary test.
a pretty steady 78 to 80 temperature.
lights on timer of some sort, with dim light for an hour before the brights come up, and an hour after.
If you are going to have stony corals, you should also test magnesium and calcium, and it is NOT a bad thing for everybody to track, corals or not, because if these go down, they can take alkalinity down, and if alk goes down, fish can suffer severely. If your alk keeps diving, absolutely check your mg and cal, because that's likely the issue. Mg reading should be about 1350, or a bit higher; and if it falls below 1200, your alk will go down. Your calcium for a stony reef should ride around 420. If you are using fish-only salt, calcium will test low, and this is not a problem for a fish-only tank.
Everybody trying to manage an ATO and a skimmer for the first time tends to make some mistakes. There are a lot of moving parts, lots of ways to get the salinity off kilter, lots of ways to have a flood, and things just aren't intuitive.
Fish are IMHO more delicate than most corals. They're sensitive to ammonia, they startle, they jump, they fight, and they come in with parasites that won't respond to a simple dip. So expect that they're NOT the easiest thing you will do in this hobby. They're actually one of the hardest to manage and satisfy. Inverts are generally better-behaved and braver (or dimmer.) Corals tolerate conditions that might kill a fish...given the tricky problem of assuring you've given them the right light conditions and securing them so they don't land butter-side down on the sand, they're actually easier.
My ongoing advice is---take your time. Start your slice of ocean the way nature did it: bacteria, then inverts, THEN fish, and be sure to eliminate the parasites before you let them into your tank. Most fishy parasites do a portion of their life cycle IN THE SAND, so be sure they're clean.
Best advice I can give you: you've got your tank running. Test how well it's doing before you contemplate fish---and that includes watching that stability regarding the topoff; and learn to run your topoff and your skimmer before you get beyond invertebrates. I know most people are just overwhelmed with desire to have a fish asap, but first do those tests and have your tank and equipment in order to be sure your first fish lives.
You should be at 1.024 to 1.026 salinity. If you do not have an ATO, this is a good time to get one going.
7.9 to 8.3 alkalinity. Don't obsess on ph: in a marine tank, your reliable quick-test for water quality is your alkalinity. PH is generally something you can ignore---unless you have mysterious problems. Alk is your primary test.
a pretty steady 78 to 80 temperature.
lights on timer of some sort, with dim light for an hour before the brights come up, and an hour after.
If you are going to have stony corals, you should also test magnesium and calcium, and it is NOT a bad thing for everybody to track, corals or not, because if these go down, they can take alkalinity down, and if alk goes down, fish can suffer severely. If your alk keeps diving, absolutely check your mg and cal, because that's likely the issue. Mg reading should be about 1350, or a bit higher; and if it falls below 1200, your alk will go down. Your calcium for a stony reef should ride around 420. If you are using fish-only salt, calcium will test low, and this is not a problem for a fish-only tank.
Everybody trying to manage an ATO and a skimmer for the first time tends to make some mistakes. There are a lot of moving parts, lots of ways to get the salinity off kilter, lots of ways to have a flood, and things just aren't intuitive.
Fish are IMHO more delicate than most corals. They're sensitive to ammonia, they startle, they jump, they fight, and they come in with parasites that won't respond to a simple dip. So expect that they're NOT the easiest thing you will do in this hobby. They're actually one of the hardest to manage and satisfy. Inverts are generally better-behaved and braver (or dimmer.) Corals tolerate conditions that might kill a fish...given the tricky problem of assuring you've given them the right light conditions and securing them so they don't land butter-side down on the sand, they're actually easier.
My ongoing advice is---take your time. Start your slice of ocean the way nature did it: bacteria, then inverts, THEN fish, and be sure to eliminate the parasites before you let them into your tank. Most fishy parasites do a portion of their life cycle IN THE SAND, so be sure they're clean.
Best advice I can give you: you've got your tank running. Test how well it's doing before you contemplate fish---and that includes watching that stability regarding the topoff; and learn to run your topoff and your skimmer before you get beyond invertebrates. I know most people are just overwhelmed with desire to have a fish asap, but first do those tests and have your tank and equipment in order to be sure your first fish lives.
