New tank setup, 2 days old

[Sir.Wallsey]

Hey guys, I'm real new here, and real new to marine aquariums,

I've just started a Jebo R632 120L (tall) tank, I've got 7.5kg of live rock in there,replaced the overhead 80L/hour filter with a 600L/hour aqua one external filter.

Current readings
Ph - 7.6
Ammonia - 0.25
Nitrate - little more that 0 (maybe 5.0?)
Nitrite - 0.50
Phosphate - 0.0

is that the sort of readings I should expect to see this early on? And would I be rit to guess that I want to get everything to 0 (except ph) before adding any coral or fish?

I have done some reading... But man it's a lot to take in! And I get side tracked when I come across something i don't know, I end up researching what it is and if I need to know this early on... (usually No!)

Thanks to all that can offer some advice :spin3:

[fishgate]

Your numbers are inline with mid-cycle however you should have 0 nitrates I think. Did you use tap-water? That would explain the high(er) nitrates. Also you don't have enough rock. Double it.

[Sir.Wallsey]

Yeah tap water was used to fill it, salinity is at about 1.020, I've got stress coat, and stress zyme in there also. I was worried that so much rock would fill the tank... I didn't realize how little space 7.5 kg of rock actually took up!

[Tristen]

I have about 23kg of rock and 20kg of sand in my 135L tank

[billdogg]

Because you have no fish yet, I would go ahead and bump the salinity up to the 1.024/.026 range. You can pretty much do it all at once. You are correct in thinking that the ammonia and Nitrites should be 0 before adding livestock. Nitrates should be as close to that as possible, but most systems will always have detectable Nitrates, so don't stress so much over that one. All living things require Phosphate for basic biological processes, so a reading of 0 is not really ideal, but you probably have a trace anyway.

Sounds like you are very much on the right track!

[ryan1985]

I have done some reading... But man it's a lot to take in! And I get side tracked when I come across something i don't know, I end up researching what it is and if I need to know this early on... (usually No!)

when i first started about 2 years ago i felt the same way - very overwhelmed. i'm still learning a lot, and thankfully have made few big mistakes (thus far) but my biggest piece of advice would be to take things slowly... don't look at successful reef tanks that may have taken years to build and assume you can do it over a weekend. trust me, i am as impatient as they come, so this was especially difficult for me, but it really is the best advice you can get.

also, don't be too easily steered by people who quickly tell you "the right way" or "the wrong way" to do something... sure, there are overwhelming "do's and "don'ts" in this hobby (general salinity level to keep, general temperature to keep, etc) but there are MANY different things that work for many different people, and if you try and listen to everyone at once you will drive yourself insane.

i know you're still new, but from looking at your initial post, the first "big improvement" i would make is switching from tap water to RO/DI water. you don't necessarily need to jump into it while you're still learning the basics, but i would highly recommend it before you put too much time or $ in livestock into a tank.

best of luck and welcome to the forum.

[Sir.Wallsey]

Thanks heaps guys, defiantly helps knowing there's support for new starters in reef aquariums, instead of a bunch of people saying "it's too hard, you're gunna fail, don't try blah blah blah"

And Ryan, it must be us kids from '85... I'm impatient too... But I do expect it to take a while...

Again, cheers

[Sir.Wallsey]

I'm at about a week on with the tank, and the water is getting a green tint to it... Is that normal? Or do I need to fix that?

[acrab78]

I would turn the lights off for a day and run them about 6 hrs a day while it finishes the cycle.

Add a pinch of fish food every other day or so to help the cycle along.

[Denzil]

I've been adding a cube of frozen food every other day to help my cycle. I used Dr. Tim's One and Only and I'm not quite sure if it actually helped or not, LoL.

[Sir.Wallsey]

On closer inspection... It's actually brown... Something about algae from the live rock?

[godsdoc]

In general I wouldn't worry about the algae since you are still cycling the aquarium but if it is brown it may be dead/dormant.
I agree that you should lessen the length the lights are on in hopes of lessening the chances that the algae would take hold and go crazy.

[Sir.Wallsey]

aaaaand i'm back... and boy did i have some problems... cycled the tank... that all went great, got everything down to 0 for a couple of weeks, added some morphs (some nice big greens) and here's where my life turned to hell... bloody snails! got some turbos to clean the glass for me (and they did... so bloody quickly) awesome... same time, added star polyps and a Leather Finger (came as a combo... and was probably not the best thing to start with) few weeks went by, that was all going great, decided it's time for some fish - folks decided they'd get me a couple of clowns for christmas... few days went by... noticed that they seemed to be "gasping" got them out as soon as i noticed it and put them in a container filled with water from the LFS... start searching the tank, and sure enough... turbo snail upside down stuck in the live rock... got it out... tank was stinking something horrible... did a massive water change... kept checking the tank and found another 3 dead... and guess what? yep... set the whole tank off & killed EVERYTHING... water change again... still no good, ammonia levels still too high... tried ammolock but i think by that time, it was too late.... removed 99% of the water, sifted the sand, (dead snails, dead bristle worms... bastards) refilled the tank with water from the LFS (tested water before adding... i just always do... (ya know, to be sure its good water going in) 100L of water in to the couple of litres left, test the water again... Ammonia @ 4.0 PPM... then 24 hours later, Ammonia @ 1.0 PPM by the 3rd day... no ammonia... awesome, expected to find nitrites... and guess what? none! Nitrates tho... were around the 20 ppm mark 25% water change, and couldn't measure any nitrates with my test kit (so test shows 0)

Now i'm back to trying to restock my tank... just picked up a bunch of small morphs (some singles to spread around the tank... blues, greens... and one red (i want more reds)) just trying to find somewhere i can get them cheap, or online or something...

[breck]

What killed the snails? Clowns doing ok now? I am just setting up my reef tank, so much to take in. Good luck!

[SKurj]

Look into a skimmer, perhaps hang on the back if you have no sump.

[Sir.Wallsey]

Breck, no idea what killed the snails... but was too late to save the clowns :( ammonia wrecked it all... lots of joy when it works out, but killed me when it all went wrong :(

[FTDelta]

I'm thinking tap water. Did you make the switch to using RO/DI water yet?

[Vin7250]

aaaaand i'm back... and boy did i have some problems... cycled the tank... that all went great, got everything down to 0 for a couple of weeks, added some morphs (some nice big greens) and here's where my life turned to hell... bloody snails! got some turbos to clean the glass for me (and they did... so bloody quickly) awesome... same time, added star polyps and a Leather Finger (came as a combo... and was probably not the best thing to start with) few weeks went by, that was all going great, decided it's time for some fish - folks decided they'd get me a couple of clowns for christmas....

so you have roughly 30 gallons of water volume and roughly 15 lbs of live rock....

you used tap water...
no mention of a sump, skimmer, or any power heads...
and you stocked pretty heavily after only a couple of weeks.

I hate to be a buzz kill but you should slow down. Nothing in this hobby works out fast.

What kind of test kits are you using? Are you sure they are accurate? You should probably at least double your LR and maybe even get a DSB or at least a few inches of sand in there. Sump? Do you have one? Its all about water volume, bio filtration, testing and time.

This time around I would just wait, wait and wait some more. Bring your water to the LFS to test for comparison to your kits. When your cycle is done and only when it is actually finished start very slowly. Clean up crew and then give the tank some time, then maybe one hardy fish and give the tank some time. Patience my good sir.

[Sir.Wallsey]

i used tap water to start, cycled the tank, waited a few weeks (well after i noticed hitchhikers that have come out to play), added the snails and started weekly water changes (about 10 or maybe 15%) using LFS water (pre-mixed apparently from the same water supplying their tanks) checking water with API test kits every couple of days (cos i still expect it to fluctuate a little) had a snail drop off the rocks with heaps of slime pouring out of it (took it out) next morning the stench was horrendous, it's a sumpless system, running a 1000LPH aqua one canister filter (with bio balls and noodles), 10kg of coral sand, 7.5KG of live rock. i'm waiting for the LFS to get more live rock, I ordered another 10kg last week (divers aren't diving at christmas)

[Slystone]

Sorry to hear about your crash. Did you quarantine your fish?

[BAGGERZ13]

What are all of your parameters? Since you had inverts in the tank I'm wondering if your salinity changed and killed off the inverts which would then spike your ammonia. And nothing will probably survive with high ammonia levels. What is your temperature? What are you using for power heads? How many of them?

[nickbuol]

I know that you THINK that you were taking it slow, but I will be blunt, you weren't. You started out at a good pace to make sure that things settled, but as mentioned, used tap water (which can be OK sometimes, but risky too), you were told to add more rock, but I don't think that you did, then just kept adding livestock with corals and fish in a short period of time. Everything died, so you started over and went with "a bunch of small morphs." Yikes. You should never add a "bunch" of any livestock to a tank, let alone a small one.

So do this (in addition to any other advice above).
Use RO/DI water
Double your live rock
Make sure that you have enough water flow. You have a filter rated at 5x the tank capacity, but some would say that you need more, or at least something to help make sure that 100% of the water is moving (no dead spots).

Ok so maybe that all has been said already.

But let me say this (which has already been said too). TAKE IT SLOW. You are NOT going slow enough for a small tank. You may think that you are, but you aren't. Heck, I've got a fully cycled 120 gallon (4 times the size of what you have) with 40 gallon sump, 160 pounds of cured live rock, 140 pounds of live sand, an oversized skimmer, pleanty of powerhead movement, a large pump for moving the water to/from the tank and sump, and I haven't bought a single bit of livestock yet. Yes, I am looking at a fairly empty tank because I have some work commitments (travel) coming up and want to make sure that I can be around for the livestock QT process and to monitor my DT. I *could* go ahead and toss in some clowns, firefish, CUC, etc and probably be able to manage it with that size, but I'm not going to. I want to see some fish swimming around, but would rather "feed" the tank to keep things bio-active and have an empty tank than rush it.

Oh, I do have some critters in there. The rock came from a fellow enthusiast who was getting out of the hobby, so it came with a small pod population, some small bristle worms, and 4 small mushrooms that all are thriving. I don't plan to keep any corals (outside of the mushrooms that came on the rock), but know from my own previous saltwater experience that in no time at all I will be enjoying some livestock in the tank. And if I bought it all at once, I wouldn't enjoy being able to go out a couple of times a year and get an addition to the tank. All of the "excitement" would be done early on. Not saying that sitting back and enjoying it isn't nice, but...

[wooden_reefer]

Hey guys, I'm real new here, and real new to marine aquariums,

I've just started a Jebo R632 120L (tall) tank, I've got 7.5kg of live rock in there,replaced the overhead 80L/hour filter with a 600L/hour aqua one external filter.

Current readings
Ph - 7.6
Ammonia - 0.25
Nitrate - little more that 0 (maybe 5.0?)
Nitrite - 0.50
Phosphate - 0.0

is that the sort of readings I should expect to see this early on? And would I be rit to guess that I want to get everything to 0 (except ph) before adding any coral or fish?

I have done some reading... But man it's a lot to take in! And I get side tracked when I come across something i don't know, I end up researching what it is and if I need to know this early on... (usually No!)

Thanks to all that can offer some advice :spin3:

Just two days and you want to see something very definite?

Check the ammonia after a few days. If it remains 0.25 or more you may not need to do much. If it drops to very low, you should add ammonia source.

As far as fish is concerned, the timing of the cycle with your tank DT here has to coincide with the conclusion of your QT. This is one thing you seen to not realize.

What is the cycling state of the medium you intend for QT?

For me, when I want to setup a tank with fish, the first thing I do is to cycle the medium for QT. The cycling of the DT can follow.

If your DT is already cycled before QT medium is, you can ghost feed the DT until the QT is done.