Excited. Moved July 4th, and set up my tank a few days later. Following the instructions on the salt (actually a bit less...they said 1/2 cup per gallon and I did about 1 3/4 cups per 4 gallons), my salinity was off the chart. Had to remove about 8 gallons and add fresh water to get it down to 1.025. Running over a week now with 30lbs of aragonite and about 2lbs of live rock from a couple of different stores. My homemade dead rock isn't ready yet. But, and this is the exciting part, after a week of feeding the tank to keep the ammonia between 1-2, I finally got my first nitrites reading! Yay! Keep up the feeding another week and hopefully will be cycled. Going away this weekend, then if I'm lucky the tank will be ready for my first live stock next week.
Noob turning fresh tank to reef
- Thread starter Oiler3535
- Start date
It's not what you buy---but how they grow. 5" to 12" adult size for a fish is not uncommon in this hobby. THink of a freshwater sunperch for one of the larger clowns...and they go up from there. Some are also speed swimmers (tangs) and need more room; others are highly territorial (damsels) and many need 100 gallons before they calm down. My advice is go for a mostly-invert and small coral tank at first, with a couple of fishes that stay tiny, under 3".
sde1500
Active member
Not sure all 4 cardinals will mix. I'd pick one or the other, then the rest of the fish should be just fine.
That's the plan. I'm just excited bc when I first got nitrites readings when I first did this tank 3.5 years ago, the tank was cycled less than a week later.
All fish I'm looking at are under 3". Going to start with a pair of Occellaris (sic), then depending on what I can get (live 90 minutes from fish store) and how good my parameters stay, I'll slowly add a Royal Gramma, Firefish, Tailspot Blenny, Banggai Cardinal, and PJ Cardinal. As I go I'll keep an eye online for a decent LED so I can slowly add some beginner corals (montipora, Xenia, green slimer, buttons, elegance, star polyps, Kenya tree, frog spawns, brains and mushrooms).
. Ammonia around 2, the Nitrites are the 3rd colour down, and the nitrates between the second and third. Yay! Cycling Ya, that's kind of what I thought. Was just hoping for magic before Friday as I'm going to be near my 'local' fish store then and would have loved to be able to buy my first fish. Store is 1:40 drive away and don't go often. One plus is that today the Nitrates are much higher and the Nitrites colour is noticeably less purple (though still lowest colour, getting close to being closer to penultimate).
Sorry for the noob questions, but the amount of information around is overwhelming. What parameters are important to regularly test for? To this point (no fish yet):
pH 8.2
Alk 13 drops kh
Salt 1.026
Ammonia <.25 (colour vision issues...can't tell if the yellow or first green)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10-20 (same colour issue, can't tell between the 2...will do 1/2 water change before adding fish to lower more)
What are pivotal parameters to measure for fish?
Which are pivotal once I add corals months from now?
pH 8.2
Alk 13 drops kh
Salt 1.026
Ammonia <.25 (colour vision issues...can't tell if the yellow or first green)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10-20 (same colour issue, can't tell between the 2...will do 1/2 water change before adding fish to lower more)
What are pivotal parameters to measure for fish?
Which are pivotal once I add corals months from now?
Thanks. Calcium I figured for corals. Magnesium I didn't. Thanks.
Got my first fish! Didn't have any ocelaris (figure getting my wife's Nemo fish would have made her less annoyed at me paying more attention to my new tank than her after moving lol...ah well). So got the aroyak Gramma. Looks amazing. Picked a corner and the only time it has been over 10 inches away has been when the Scarlett crab has come over. Didn't like that. Tried nosing it away to no avail. Then just pushed between the crab and the glass and waited for it to move. Highly entertaining. Already eating happily. Sees its reflection in the side glass and bonking the glass. Guess that's why only 1 per tank! Also got a few small mushroom frags (well, attached to old snail shells but I'll call them frags). Wasn't planning on getting corals already, but got almost free. I guess they're False Florida Ricordeas by the looks of my google search. Very sharp looking. One is all green, the other is green outside and orange inside.
Was an empty tank before it. Quarantine what from what? Also, zero chance my wife approves a second tank. I know I'd be better with one, just not possible ATM.
You'd be quarantining the gramma so you can treat it for anything it is carrying. Once ich is introduced to your display it's not easy to get rid of. You may get lucky but in my experience at least, most fish that are prone to ich will have symptoms showing within 2 weeks of purchase.
It would also be a good idea to add more rock to give the fish somewhere to take shelter. A fish with no place to hide will be stressed and be even more likely to succumb to parasites.
