New saltwater tank and looking for some advice!!

[Aqua_woman]

Okay, so I just recently started my first saltwater aquarium. Its a 55 gallon, with protein skimmer, Magnum 350 filtration system, and no sump. I have a friend that I bought the setup from as he upgraded to a 210 gallon.

I set it up with live sand first, let that sit and settle, added 6 pieced of live rock and in the past week, finally bought some fish (lawnmower blenny, green clown goby, 2 yellow tail damsels and a pink pin urchin), CUC (10 blue legged hermits, 5 turbo snails, 2 emerald crabs, and pods), and coral (1 fragment of red polyp and 1 red mushroom). My coral is currently looking a little weak, and was bought from a LFS, but not a chain store. I am needing more live rock, but the LFS is outrageous in price.

What advice do you have for me to add to my aquarium and purchase live rock?

 

[Starchar]

Welcome to AA!

Just wondering. Did you start your tank and add fish a week later? Did your tank cycle?

As for live rock, if you have a few pieces of live rock that has some growth on it (coralline, etc) you can just purchase dry/base rock and it will become "live" in time. You really only need a couple pieces of live rock to seed your base rock, it will save you some money.

Of course the bigger question here is whether or not your tank cycled? Hopefully your friend helped with that.

 

[Josh1158]

I think you might have jumped the gun alittle. 6 pieces isn't enuff. Unless there huge. Your gona need to feed that lawnmower bleny too.

 

[mr_X]

How long was this total process?
Did you ever cycle the tank? This can take up to a month or more.
What lighting do you have over the tank, and what corals do you have currently?
What are you using for flow?
What are your current parameters?

 

[Aqua_woman]

The tank was set up for a few weeks before we added anything. The water and live rock all came from an already cycled tank.

 

[Aqua_woman]

I think you might have jumped the gun alittle. 6 pieces isn't enuff. Unless there huge. Your gona need to feed that lawnmower bleny too.

The pieces of rock were decent sized and picking up more today. The Blenny is actually doing great. We do supplement his food with brine shrimp, etc.

 

[Aqua_woman]

How long was this total process?
Did you ever cycle the tank? This can take up to a month or more.
What lighting do you have over the tank, and what corals do you have currently?
What are you using for flow?
What are your current parameters?

The lighting is 2 aclitic, 6 led, and 2 other white ones (not at home to give specifics.
The corals are 1 red mushroom coral and 1 fragment of a red polyp.

As in flow and parameters, might have to specify on that a little more since I am still a little unfamiliar with all of that.

 

[Scotty09]

He asking for salinity ammonia , nitrite , nitrate , ph , calcium , magnesium the works

 

[Aqua_woman]

He asking for salinity ammonia , nitrite , nitrate , ph , calcium , magnesium the works

Ahhh, gotcha. Salinity is 1.026, ammonia is 0, nitrite is normal, nitrate is a tad high, Ph is a tad low, calcium is 220, and the rest is normal. This happened after we added everything. Had water tested for us and bought everything today to fix the levels.

Not adding anything else anytime soon until we get water back to perfection......

 

[Leighton79]

Ahhh, gotcha. Salinity is 1.026, ammonia is 0, nitrite is normal, nitrate is a tad high, Ph is a tad low, calcium is 220, and the rest is normal. This happened after we added everything. Had water tested for us and bought everything today to fix the levels.

Not adding anything else anytime soon until we get water back to perfection......

What is normal nitrite? Your calcium isn't 220, if it is you must be using table salt.

 

[EriksFish315]

Normal nitrite is 0 and if I were you i would test the levels again and do it yourself.

 

[mr_X]

I would not add rock if you have livestock in the tank. It could cause an ammonia spike and kill things.

 

[Scotty09]

Calcium 220 that's very very low

 

[mr_X]

I don't think that's accurate either. There's barely anything in the tank to absorb whatever calcium came in with the salt mix.

 

[Aqua_woman]

Ok, update on tank, there are now 12 live rocks and I bought everything to test the water myself. Will update. But in the mean time, here are some photos now that I am home.....

 

[Scotty09]

I think u need to give ur tank time to mature needs some coraline algae

 

[Aqua_woman]

Salinity: 35ppt (1.026)
Calcium: 480mg/l
12/dKH
Nitrate (NO3) - 0
Phosphate- .25
Ammonia- 0
pH-8.2
Nitrite- 0

All tests are complete!!

 

[mr_X]

the tank needs no coralline algae to be healthy. What are those blue things however?
Just from the pictures I would suggest adding about twice the live rock and not adding any livestock until that rock has a chance to cycle. If you can't afford that i would cure rock in a separate container as you buy it.

 

[Scotty09]

I mean cycle I always make the mistake thinking coraline algae means it mature

 

[Aqua_woman]

We added some new coral today, and now just going to let the aquarium rest for a while. Thanks everyone.