[bobo62]

Hi people
After wanting to have a salt water Aquarium for years have finaly taken the plunge and set one up it's 4' long 18" wide. It's been set up for nine weeks now and have just added an emerald crab and three small hermit's. Not sure how long to leave it before adding shrimps and fish, been reading books but getting slightly confused, also not sure how often to do water changes as the water samples are all ok at the moment would appericiate any advice. Thanks

[pogodzib]

Welcome to RB Bev! Usually somewhere around 6 weeks, +/- 2, a tank is ready to start to slowly add fish. Testing for nitrites and nitrates is the only way to know for sure. It is recommended to change a minimum of 10% of the water per month, with people that are heavy feeders or overstock their tank often needing to do 10% water changes every week to keep their water quality up. For me, I understock my tanks and use good skimmers with plenty of live rock so 10% every month is more than enough for me. Again, the only way to know for sure how often and large of water changes you need to do is to test your water quality on a regular basis.

[Grym]

Also it takes a year or so for a tank to settle in. Prior to that you will have some blooms as conditions and nutrients change. Like a hair algae bloom around four months. Just go slow adding your new friends and they will thank you.

[bobo62]

Thanks for that at the moment all the water test's are where they suppose to be. The live rock we added actualy came from an old display tank so it is already showing some interesting items e.g a musscle, what look like small shrimps and some what look like small anenomes. We did water testing every day for the first two weeks now we do temp and gravity check once a day and all the other test's once a week, the tank didn't ever seem to have a high ammonia buld up like i expected it to when it was first set up.