My First SW Tank - Build Thread

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Bri87swb said:
How long should I have the LR in the tank before I add fish? Also would a couple of clown fish make a good choice for my first fish?
Till your nh3/no2 readings are 0. Then I'd do a 50% pwc and make sure your no3 is at least below 20 ppm before adding fish.

Two clowns sound fine, what kind were you thinking about? The tank raised clowns are more hardy then wild caught.
 
Cured Fiji LR for $5.99 per lb

I purchased 30 lbs of Fiji LR rock for $5.99 per lbs. The tank now has 50lbs of rock total. Here's a couple of pics. Please let me know what you think. I tried to make lots of ledges and tunnels and not just a solid wall of rock.
 

Attachments

  • pc230002_192.jpg
    pc230002_192.jpg
    61.4 KB · Views: 26
  • pc230003_498.jpg
    pc230003_498.jpg
    56.6 KB · Views: 24
  • pc230004_199.jpg
    pc230004_199.jpg
    61.4 KB · Views: 22
  • pc230005_117.jpg
    pc230005_117.jpg
    59 KB · Views: 16
tecwzrd said:
Bri87swb said:
How long should I have the LR in the tank before I add fish? Also would a couple of clown fish make a good choice for my first fish?
Till your nh3/no2 readings are 0. Then I'd do a 50% pwc and make sure your no3 is at least below 20 ppm before adding fish.

Two clowns sound fine, what kind were you thinking about? The tank raised clowns are more hardy then wild caught.

My water parameters look great, so I'm going to add two percula clown fish which were tank raised. My family is very excited to add fish to the tank. I tested the water today and everything looks great! Wish us luck!
 
Good luck! Pics look great.
Remember to drip acclimate them for at least an hour.
 
if you can, go with ocellaris clown fish (false percula) they look very similar, but ocells are much easier to keep, especially if they're your first fish.

dont forget a good clean up crew, or all that uneatten food will build up ammonia
 
Well I purchased two ocellaris clown fish today. I floated their bags for 30 minutes and then drip acclimated them for 3 hours. They seem to be doing great!

When should I introduce a clean up crew? Do you wait for the first algea blume or should I do it now?
 
You can add them now, assuming your cycle is complete. I would start with a small number, since your tank is new. Maybe 20 snails or so, to start off.
 
Well I'm experiencing my first algea blume with a SW tank. It may be coincidental, but a day after I added my first fish and inverts to the tank algea started to grow. The brown algea is growing on everything. It looks like diatoms to me, but what do I know. I did a PWC today and plan to do one in a week. Anything else I should do? It's my understanding that it will go away on its own. Is this correct?
 
Back
Top Bottom