Set up advice

[melosu58]

Welcome to AA. I would do as the others said and get good test kits and be testing for a cycle of some type. You`ll need much more LR and I would not add anymore fish for a while to see if your tank becomes stable. Hopefully if your temp and water parameters stabilize then you should be good for slowly adding some more livestock.

[Kurt_Nelson]

Originally Posted by land locked

...Don't trust your LFS!

A lot of times, the LFS gets a bad rap. I'd say listen to them, but don't take their word as Gospel. Over time, you'll figure out if they're just trying to sell you stuff, or truly help you out. I've got both kinds in my area, and I buy stuff from both of them. You just have to learn who to listen to and who not to!

[The Fish Pimp]

Okay folks here is what I done, Purchased a Fluval FX5 Canister filter (150 bux brand new thanks ebay). Stealth water heater so now my water is nice and warm now. My tank already came with live sand so no need to cycle it, being my water levels are about normal. Got my water tested and its good so I rearranged my rocks added another clown and a yellow tang fish. As far as my local fish dude I don't have any issues with his advice, being that so many people have so many different takes on SW setups. I like the fact that I can ask alot of questions and get advice that doesn't cost me anything. And the best thing is that he is not letting me experiment meaning hey buy this fish and then weeks later it dies and he sells me another one. I do appreciate all the advice that I am getting from everyone on AA so keep it up folks. Up next more Live rocks and then better lighting!

[yellowtangs]

Nice tank. I would never place a tank directly in front of a window. This will cause over heating on over cooling. It will cause you issues with Algae growth. You will need about 1.5 lbs of live rock per gallon of water. Also only keep 1 to 2 small fish in the tank until a full cycle has occured. Dont rush.....I would also consider removing the glass lids if at all possible.
Good luck!

[CluelessInNY]

I'm new to this hobby too. Why do you NEED 2 lbs of LR for every gallon? Can I just have a few lbs? Not because of the cost, but because I like the open water for my future clowns.
Also, I have a furious algae problem....does adding snails make sense?

[roka64]

Clueless, we'll help you on the algea issue in your other post. To answer your questions about 2Lbs per gallon. This is a great place for you beneficial bacteria to thrive. This bacteria converts ammonia (fish waste, left over rotting food) to nitrAtes. It also provides hiding places for new additions and current critters. If you have a low bioload, you really don't need to have that much rock. You will be surprised at how much LR you can get in there and make it look nice and uncrowded.
You can also have a little less LR of the rock is super porous.

[cmor1701d]

If you are depending on just LR and a skimmer for your filtration then then you need 1½ - 2 pounds of LR per gallon of tank capacity to give you the required biological filtration. This is a more passive (and natural) filtration method than that offered by cannisters and wet/dry systems. One of the benefits is lowered nitrates which is very important if you want to keep corals.

[The Fish Pimp]

My water is clearer than ever now since adding the Fluval filter. Added my clean up crew some turbo snails and a Diamond Watchman Goby. Don't have big issues with algea as I did before and my sand is nice and clean. The little that I get the snails are getting to it and they even cleaned up what I had on my rocks. Haven't decided on the skimmer as of yet, but I will post an updated pic shortly...