Salt Water Startup

[jason1985]

Tonight I added my live rock. Tell me what you think??? I will be going fish only for the first while and adding reef slowly.

[thincat]

Welcome, by coral do you mean Live Rock?
How large is your tank?
Do you have a pump or powerheads of any sort?
Is this the start of your "Cycle"?

[jason1985]

Originally Posted by thincat

Welcome, by coral do you mean Live Rock?
How large is your tank?
Do you have a pump or powerheads of any sort?
Is this the start of your "Cycle"?

25 Gallon!
Yes sorry i meant to say Live Rock. This is the start of my cycle. The substrate and salt have been going steady for a few days. All tests come back okay.

I have two powerheads but I'm yet to install them in the tank. I will do that tonight.

[InfernoST]

Are you using ammonia or shrimp?

[jason1985]

I will be going win shrimp. Tonight I think I might pull down off the live rock and re start to make it more open space. It took me close to an hour to make this setup last night ans stable, I thought it was looking nice. I'm really picky and I don't think I want to make it that high. I will remove some of the tuffa rock from the base and lay the live rock on the subsrate. As it lays right now there are open spots all over big enough to fit fish it's just hard to see with this picture. But like I said I am slowly going to work my way up to what I want this tank to be so if tonight I have a few hours on my hands I will pull down the live rock and create a new layout.

[jason1985]

Okay so I went home on my lunch and removed all the rock from my tank, hope to have time to set it back up tonight.

[thincat]

Be sure that your first layer of rock sits on the glass on the bottom of the tank. This will prevent "landslides" later on when you get fish or shrimp that like to dig. I hope you have the liverock in saltwater so as not to get anymore dieoff then nessasary.

[jason1985]

Ok so I removed all the Tufa Rock because it was just too **** hard to get my live rock stable. So right now I'm setup with 20lbs of Live Rock and all the rock is stable. The bottom peices are sitting on the glass.

Still a bad picture, but I'll have my digital cam back soon.. Love when people borrow things and forget to give them back.

There are holes all around so the fish can go hide and play.

[thominil]

Looks more open and better. Nice job!

[jason1985]

Originally Posted by thominil

Looks more open and better. Nice job!

Now it's time to pick out pick two fish to start off and maybe a few little creature for the sand/rocks.

[thominil]

Maybe a pair of clowns or a few clown gobies? After cycle is done of course.

[jason1985]

Yea I'll let it cycle for sure. I think I lost my hermit when I took the rock out of the water this afternoon, I heard him knocking around when I was putting the rock back in the tank but no sign of life... I have a few feather dusters popping up but not much else is happening in the tank. When I removed the rock I put them in salt water for 4 hours until I put them back in the tank.
Any suggestions how to bring the live rock back to life?

[thominil]

I bet if you wait a few days the hermit will turn up. Also, keep some extra shells in there for him.

[jason1985]

Originally Posted by thominil

I bet if you wait a few days the hermit will turn up. Also, keep some extra shells in there for him.

Well when I was putting the rock back in he was hidden in a hole. Tried to poke him a little but no sign of life.... Maybe he was taking a nap LOL

[thominil]

I'm sure the Live rock is fine. As long as it was still wet it is still live.

[jason1985]

Should I buy an anemone and maybe 2 clowns to start?

[InfernoST]

I would plan for the fish but pay more attention to the cycling of the tank and it's water parameters 1st.

[JustOneMore20]

Wait until the tank cycles to buy livestock. You have a ways to go before you can add fish or corals.

[severum mama]

You're a long way off from keeping an anemone. You'll need a mature tank for that. Also, it would appear that your lighting won't be sufficient.

[jason1985]

Alright well i'm here to gather the information. what type of lighting system do you recomend for my 24" tank? I was told that the Coralife t5 dual strips were good for Coral/Marine. Even though this is only a 25g tank this is pretty much my intro to the hobby. I do have funds set a side but I don't want to buy stuff that's not neccesary.

I will cycle the system for a good 10 days. As of now the test are coming back not too bad. The PH hasn't spiked since I introduced the live rock. its at 7.8 and the Hydrometer read is good.