Hello everyone I just ordered my first ever aquarium. It is a 24g aquapod. I was told by many this is the one to get because of better lighting. It is on the way. I am smart enough to read the directions and put it together. My question is what then. I need to know exactley what to do. What to test. What to buy to test. I am going to do sand and live rock. Clown or 2 will be a must when ready. I would like another fish and a cleanup crew. I would like maybe a shrimp. I just want to know step by step what to do exactly after getting it out of the box and setting it up. I have been reading for 3 days and still can't find what I am looking for. Please help me out. I am thinking tank bred o. clowns is this the best? I only want peaceful easy to take care of. I don't want to kill my fish, and I don't want any of my stuff to kill each other. Recommendations would be appreciated.
Please Help A Newbie
- Thread starter mcrbar910
- Start date
Agu
Premium Member
OK. Find out where you can get ro/di water.
1. Buy live aragonite sand if you can find it. Live rock at least. [I used dry bagged aragonite sand and live rock and it worked great.]
2. you may find putting eggcrate (that overhead lighting grid) down as a flooring before sand may stabilize your rocks better.] Cut it with dikes.
3. Mix your saltwater. A maxijet 900 with a 6 foot hose to use at need works great as a mixing and water-change pump. 1/2 cup per gallon of ro/di water will give you about 1.024 salinity, which is good. Test it to be sure: a refractometer is the most accurate, and fastest.
4. Fill your pod up to 4 inches with sand. Add a little salt water, add and arrange your rocks. Add more water. Do not pour: pump it in, with the hose end aimed at the side of the tank to prevent cavitation of the sand. It will be totally cloudy for days.
5. Turn on your heater and your pump. Rig a thermometer. Have two: they're unreliable as all getout, and your heater thermostat cannot be trusted. Do not use lids anywhere in the system. Heat is a killer.
6. Add 1 tiny pinch of Formula One flake food per day.
7. Wait a few days. After the water clears, test for nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia. Salifert is my test of choice. The strips are too vague. Keep testing every few days. Use this interval to research the fish you want and read up on tank chemistry.
8. Test until you see ammonia and nitrite and nitrate, and go on testing until it reads 0,0,0 respectively.
9. Let it go a few more days. Keep feeding your imaginary fish and keep testing. If it stays 0,0,0, you're ready for inverts.
10. Get one snail or hermit per gallon to clean up the algae. When you add livestock, put the bag in a bowl in the sink, draw off a cup of your salt water, diminish the water in the bag until it's about a cup, and mix the two over the space of an hour or two. Then net the critter in the bag and transfer him to your tank. This particularly goes with the shrimp. They're fragile.
11. Go on testing. Stop feeding: the algae should sustain the cleanup crew. If you stay 0,0,0, get your shrimp and wait a few days. When adding fishes, except for pairs, put them in singly and wait a week. Many reefers quarantine, ie, put them in an observation tank for a month before they go in, to be sure they're not carrying any disease. Be very selective with your fish. Get the fish store to feed them, make sure they're eating, find out what they're eating, and look for signs of disease: white spots, hollow belly, etc. You want fat and active, and don't get a fish if there's disease in the tank. Be extremely picky. Don't get fish from a chain store, if you'll take my advice. Find a good reef shop run by someone who knows what he's doing.
12. Tankbred clowns or nanofish are your best bet. Nanofish are an array of small, colorful and generally peaceful fishes, less aggressive than clowns: look at Foster and Smith's catalog for a sample of the type. Don't plan on an anemone for months. They're not something to have in a tank that's in the break-in period.
Test every few days, and you'll be also topping off with fresh ro/di water to maintain salinity against evaporation. Do a 10% water change with salt water every week. Keep a log book of your readings and anything you add, including when fish arrived, etc.
I hope this gives you something to go on.
1. Buy live aragonite sand if you can find it. Live rock at least. [I used dry bagged aragonite sand and live rock and it worked great.]
2. you may find putting eggcrate (that overhead lighting grid) down as a flooring before sand may stabilize your rocks better.] Cut it with dikes.
3. Mix your saltwater. A maxijet 900 with a 6 foot hose to use at need works great as a mixing and water-change pump. 1/2 cup per gallon of ro/di water will give you about 1.024 salinity, which is good. Test it to be sure: a refractometer is the most accurate, and fastest.
4. Fill your pod up to 4 inches with sand. Add a little salt water, add and arrange your rocks. Add more water. Do not pour: pump it in, with the hose end aimed at the side of the tank to prevent cavitation of the sand. It will be totally cloudy for days.
5. Turn on your heater and your pump. Rig a thermometer. Have two: they're unreliable as all getout, and your heater thermostat cannot be trusted. Do not use lids anywhere in the system. Heat is a killer.
6. Add 1 tiny pinch of Formula One flake food per day.
7. Wait a few days. After the water clears, test for nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia. Salifert is my test of choice. The strips are too vague. Keep testing every few days. Use this interval to research the fish you want and read up on tank chemistry.
8. Test until you see ammonia and nitrite and nitrate, and go on testing until it reads 0,0,0 respectively.
9. Let it go a few more days. Keep feeding your imaginary fish and keep testing. If it stays 0,0,0, you're ready for inverts.
10. Get one snail or hermit per gallon to clean up the algae. When you add livestock, put the bag in a bowl in the sink, draw off a cup of your salt water, diminish the water in the bag until it's about a cup, and mix the two over the space of an hour or two. Then net the critter in the bag and transfer him to your tank. This particularly goes with the shrimp. They're fragile.
11. Go on testing. Stop feeding: the algae should sustain the cleanup crew. If you stay 0,0,0, get your shrimp and wait a few days. When adding fishes, except for pairs, put them in singly and wait a week. Many reefers quarantine, ie, put them in an observation tank for a month before they go in, to be sure they're not carrying any disease. Be very selective with your fish. Get the fish store to feed them, make sure they're eating, find out what they're eating, and look for signs of disease: white spots, hollow belly, etc. You want fat and active, and don't get a fish if there's disease in the tank. Be extremely picky. Don't get fish from a chain store, if you'll take my advice. Find a good reef shop run by someone who knows what he's doing.
12. Tankbred clowns or nanofish are your best bet. Nanofish are an array of small, colorful and generally peaceful fishes, less aggressive than clowns: look at Foster and Smith's catalog for a sample of the type. Don't plan on an anemone for months. They're not something to have in a tank that's in the break-in period.
Test every few days, and you'll be also topping off with fresh ro/di water to maintain salinity against evaporation. Do a 10% water change with salt water every week. Keep a log book of your readings and anything you add, including when fish arrived, etc.
I hope this gives you something to go on.
Thank you sk8r I am printing out your advise and taking it with me to the lfs. I live over an hour from the best one here. (We live in the country) The kids and I are going to look at fish and rock for mothers day
We had looked a couple years ago and it looked like so much work and money. The pod has me feeling willing to try, but seeing the girl with the system crashing on the posts has me scared. I don't want to kill anything.
We had looked a couple years ago and it looked like so much work and money. The pod has me feeling willing to try, but seeing the girl with the system crashing on the posts has me scared. I don't want to kill anything.fantastic4
New member
spend the money and get Salifert tests, worth every penny.
Nitrate
Nitrite
Calcium (If you need kalk)
Phosphate
Go very slowly with live stock (resist urge to finish quickly)
Go VERY slowly. Read everything you can on this board.
Water changes
A great skimmer
and best lighting possible
Nitrate
Nitrite
Calcium (If you need kalk)
Phosphate
Go very slowly with live stock (resist urge to finish quickly)
Go VERY slowly. Read everything you can on this board.
Water changes
A great skimmer
and best lighting possible
hgbarwick
New member
Let your tank cycle till your waters perfect. Then get some crabs and snials. Then get a hardy fish like a clown fish. Do not rush things. I learned this that the hard way with my 90 gallon.. If you want a clown get a black percula. They are really cool fish. You also might want a bicolor blenny. Thier really cool to.
PowderBlue518
New member
Yes the biggest mistake that people make is not letting their tanks cycle and then wonder why there fish are dying. So as long as you wait long enough for your tank to cycle you should be ok. I let mine cycle for about 2-3 months with just live rock and sand.. But all tanks are different when it comes to cycle time.. But good luck with that, and hope all goes well. keep us posted...
Jill
Jill
Guys I am confused went to lfs and they are saying when tank comes put 24 gallon of salt in it even though only a couple inches of water. They said needs full salt period. Wait a day stir again. Then put in live sand wait a couple of days, test then put in live rock. Other places say put in live rock first and put sand over it to make rock steady????? Also I read to rinse salt and lfs said to get the bag of wet live salt and not rinse. Bag also says don't rinse. What do I do? Who do I believe?
Over time, the bacteria and good organims that you need to filter your water that make your live rock 'live' will eventually populate your sand as well. Therefore, many say it's a waste to spend the extra cash on live sand. You could do that, or just grab a cup of sand from someone's established tank and that will seed your sand a little quicker. Both ways will get your live sand bed up and running, and that will pair with your live rock to be one of your most important methods of filtration.
Everything Sk8r said is what you'll hear from most people. For the most part, trust what you hear on forums more than the LFS because the LFS is really just trying to get you to move the products in their store.
Another thing - at this point, you should not be concerned with fish. Once your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels are at 0, you'll eventually begin to see some algae growth, at which point you can add a clean-up crew. Turbo snails and margarita snails are great for cleaning up the rocks and the glass and whatevers atop the sandbed. Nassarius snails are a must have because they will not only cleanup the detritus (poop) buildup but they will also burrow themselves and sift the sand. Sifting of the sand is a must-have because without it, anaerobic pockets will form and those are a no-no in a fish tank. Stay away from sand-sifting stars, and many gobies/blennies that are known for sand-sifting. Although they will eat all of the bad stuff that builds up in the sandbed, they also eat the good stuff, which defeats the process of the sandbed in the first place. Stick to nassarius snails for a good stir up of your sandbed. For a 24g aquapod, which is the tank I'll soon have, you should be fine with about 3 or 4 large turbos, 10-12 margarita snails, and 20 or so nassarius snails, depending on the depth of your sandbed. Hermit crabs are great for cleanin up the tank as well, but many people don't like them as much because they will kill each other, as well as snails for their shells. I personally enjoy a nice array of diversity in my tanks, so I keep Turbo snails, margarita snails, nassarius snails, red leg hermits, blue leg hermits, and scarlet-leg hermits. Cleaner shrimp are a great part of the clean-up crew too because they scavenge on whatever they can find. They also eat a lot of the dead tissue and parasites of the skin of the fish, which in turn keeps them healthier.
Good luck with everything you research. If you don't believe me now, you'll soon learn that you should always questino everything you hear from someone at the LFS.
Everything Sk8r said is what you'll hear from most people. For the most part, trust what you hear on forums more than the LFS because the LFS is really just trying to get you to move the products in their store.
Another thing - at this point, you should not be concerned with fish. Once your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels are at 0, you'll eventually begin to see some algae growth, at which point you can add a clean-up crew. Turbo snails and margarita snails are great for cleaning up the rocks and the glass and whatevers atop the sandbed. Nassarius snails are a must have because they will not only cleanup the detritus (poop) buildup but they will also burrow themselves and sift the sand. Sifting of the sand is a must-have because without it, anaerobic pockets will form and those are a no-no in a fish tank. Stay away from sand-sifting stars, and many gobies/blennies that are known for sand-sifting. Although they will eat all of the bad stuff that builds up in the sandbed, they also eat the good stuff, which defeats the process of the sandbed in the first place. Stick to nassarius snails for a good stir up of your sandbed. For a 24g aquapod, which is the tank I'll soon have, you should be fine with about 3 or 4 large turbos, 10-12 margarita snails, and 20 or so nassarius snails, depending on the depth of your sandbed. Hermit crabs are great for cleanin up the tank as well, but many people don't like them as much because they will kill each other, as well as snails for their shells. I personally enjoy a nice array of diversity in my tanks, so I keep Turbo snails, margarita snails, nassarius snails, red leg hermits, blue leg hermits, and scarlet-leg hermits. Cleaner shrimp are a great part of the clean-up crew too because they scavenge on whatever they can find. They also eat a lot of the dead tissue and parasites of the skin of the fish, which in turn keeps them healthier.
Good luck with everything you research. If you don't believe me now, you'll soon learn that you should always questino everything you hear from someone at the LFS.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=7388402#post7388402
I got my tank and set it up tonight. Take a look.
I got my tank and set it up tonight. Take a look.
spf9992001
New member
Check out this thread over on nano-reef.com. Lots of good info on your tank. HTH
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=54602
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=54602
