sweetbriar15
Aquarium Advice Newbie
I am very new to salt-water, and have just set up my tank. It's been running for 2-3 weeks now. I started out with 5 damsels, and now I have one. So far the one that has been living has been doing well, it's been alone for about a week now. I just got my water tested, my pH is normal, my ammonia and nitrate are very high (as it is with new tanks), and my salinity is fine. So, here's my questions:
1. My dealer told me to do water changes once the aquarium gets 'established.' (as in levels of chemicals and bacteria correct- ammonia, nitrate, ect.) The dealer recomended 6 weeks of letting the aquarium run, and then doing water changes. Does this seem right?
2. When doing water changes, should you add some salt to your regular reverse-osmosis water, or just add regular reverse-osmosis water? I've been adding some regular reverse-osmosis water for when the water evaporates, and the salinity is going down.
3. How do the levels of salinity correspond with the temperature? Like, when the temp. is lower than it is supposed to be, is the salinty lower or higher than what it would be with a reg. temp.? If that's the case, then what's the temp. to salinity ratio? (How many degrees off affects the salinity to how much?) Sorry if I made this sound confusing. If I made it too confusing, just respond, and I'll try to make it more clear.
4. I have a lot of brown algea (sp?) in my tank, that I've been told are "diatoms." Should I clean them out when there are too many, or just let them stay there? Are they good for bio-filtration? When should they go away?
Sorry if I made this sound more confusing than it really is! I've attatched a picture of my 26 gal. tank and my damsel if you want to see.
Thanks,
Laurel
1. My dealer told me to do water changes once the aquarium gets 'established.' (as in levels of chemicals and bacteria correct- ammonia, nitrate, ect.) The dealer recomended 6 weeks of letting the aquarium run, and then doing water changes. Does this seem right?
2. When doing water changes, should you add some salt to your regular reverse-osmosis water, or just add regular reverse-osmosis water? I've been adding some regular reverse-osmosis water for when the water evaporates, and the salinity is going down.
3. How do the levels of salinity correspond with the temperature? Like, when the temp. is lower than it is supposed to be, is the salinty lower or higher than what it would be with a reg. temp.? If that's the case, then what's the temp. to salinity ratio? (How many degrees off affects the salinity to how much?) Sorry if I made this sound confusing. If I made it too confusing, just respond, and I'll try to make it more clear.
4. I have a lot of brown algea (sp?) in my tank, that I've been told are "diatoms." Should I clean them out when there are too many, or just let them stay there? Are they good for bio-filtration? When should they go away?
Sorry if I made this sound more confusing than it really is! I've attatched a picture of my 26 gal. tank and my damsel if you want to see.
Thanks,
Laurel