Bdonaldson
Aquarium Advice Addict
Hi everyone,
I have been a member on this forum for a while now I have freshwater planted tanks. 3 weeks ago I decided that I wanted to try a small reef tank so I setup a 4 gallon evolve tank and the guy at Petco which i was told is their saltwater tank expert. He said to use their natural sea water to start the tank and to get some RO water to top off with. He said that once I put my live sand and rock in that it should be ready in 2 weeks.
Based on the Petco expert's advice about the tank being ready in 2 weeks I ordered a Catalina goby, pistol shrimp, some hermit crabs, snails and 4 very small coral frags. I had the company deliver them on the 14th witch is when my tank was due to be ready. After the 2 weeks past the parameters on the 4 gallon were stable. Everything looked good to me. I did have to adjust the salinity down to 1.023. I acclimated the stock and added them to the tank.
I also ordered some other small frags from a guy on Aquabid. I have been emailing back and forth with this guy about my tank and he recommended that I start the tank over because my corals were not opening up. He stated that the zoanthids should open up by the second day of being in this tank. So he tells me to start the tank over because something is wrong with my tank. He didn't like the depth of my sand bed either witch was 4 inches. And that's only because that's the smallest bag of live sand that I could find. He tells me to get the reef salt by instant ocean and mix it with RO water which I have done. He doesn't want to ship the corals that I got from him until the zoanthids that I have open up. He says they are the best indicator of what's going on in the tank.
Since I had to start over I decided to upgrade to the evolve 8 gallon tank witch would resolve the issue of the sand bed being to deep. So I cleaned the new tank, took the critters out and put them into a one gallon tank with an air stone while I switch the sand and rock over to the new tank. I did that this morning. I cleaned the 4 gallon out and placed my critters in there until I can move them over to the new tank.
This Aquabid guy is telling me that reef tanks do not need to be cycled. Is this true? I had to cycle the 4 gallon based on what the guy from Petco told me. I wanted to check with you all before I did anything else. Sorry for the long post I wanted to give you the whole story.
Stock includes:
Catalina goby
pistol shrimp
some cleaners
4 coral frags
2 sand sifter snails
I have been a member on this forum for a while now I have freshwater planted tanks. 3 weeks ago I decided that I wanted to try a small reef tank so I setup a 4 gallon evolve tank and the guy at Petco which i was told is their saltwater tank expert. He said to use their natural sea water to start the tank and to get some RO water to top off with. He said that once I put my live sand and rock in that it should be ready in 2 weeks.
Based on the Petco expert's advice about the tank being ready in 2 weeks I ordered a Catalina goby, pistol shrimp, some hermit crabs, snails and 4 very small coral frags. I had the company deliver them on the 14th witch is when my tank was due to be ready. After the 2 weeks past the parameters on the 4 gallon were stable. Everything looked good to me. I did have to adjust the salinity down to 1.023. I acclimated the stock and added them to the tank.
I also ordered some other small frags from a guy on Aquabid. I have been emailing back and forth with this guy about my tank and he recommended that I start the tank over because my corals were not opening up. He stated that the zoanthids should open up by the second day of being in this tank. So he tells me to start the tank over because something is wrong with my tank. He didn't like the depth of my sand bed either witch was 4 inches. And that's only because that's the smallest bag of live sand that I could find. He tells me to get the reef salt by instant ocean and mix it with RO water which I have done. He doesn't want to ship the corals that I got from him until the zoanthids that I have open up. He says they are the best indicator of what's going on in the tank.
Since I had to start over I decided to upgrade to the evolve 8 gallon tank witch would resolve the issue of the sand bed being to deep. So I cleaned the new tank, took the critters out and put them into a one gallon tank with an air stone while I switch the sand and rock over to the new tank. I did that this morning. I cleaned the 4 gallon out and placed my critters in there until I can move them over to the new tank.
This Aquabid guy is telling me that reef tanks do not need to be cycled. Is this true? I had to cycle the 4 gallon based on what the guy from Petco told me. I wanted to check with you all before I did anything else. Sorry for the long post I wanted to give you the whole story.
Stock includes:
Catalina goby
pistol shrimp
some cleaners
4 coral frags
2 sand sifter snails