[Cern]

Before you spend money on anything else get some more live rock. It's going to be a headache adding it slowly over time and create unneeded variables in your water chemistry. Right now just have patience and try and limit your spending to whats needed. Start reading about sumps/refugium and when you have the money to add one you can diy without killing your pocket.

good luck

[tomc1980]

Yeah sounds about like what they cost where i work elliot. Petco can be way over priced on alot of things.

[tomc1980]

Well it looks like my tank is doing pretty well and all the 10 lbs of base rock that i bough apears to have a pinkish purple algae growing on it now which if im not mistaken is coraline. Guess thats a pretty good sign.

[Gieke]

Originally Posted by Cern

Before you spend money on anything else get some more live rock. It's going to be a headache adding it slowly over time and create unneeded variables in your water chemistry. Right now just have patience and try and limit your spending to whats needed. Start reading about sumps/refugium and when you have the money to add one you can diy without killing your pocket.

good luck

Agreed, I am regreting that I didnt do this. I am picking up the rest of my LR from the LFS tomorrow, Prettymuch adding two weeks to the cycling process. Wish I would have bought it all at once.

[tomc1980]

Well it looks like my tank is beginning to cycle itself ammonia is .6 ppm nitrites .2ppm nitrate 20ppm and my ph is sitting a 8.3-8.4. with a specific gravity of 1.023. Got the hair algae under control for the most part and havent seen anymore bubble algae thankfully although most of my coraline has faded away that came in on my live rock. Its mostly light green now. I guess things are moving as they should if anyone sees anything that looks off please let me know. Oh keeping my water temp at a steady 76 degrees.

[tomc1980]

With my powerheads i have them in the back corners with the flow aimed that the front corner opposite them i was wondering if that will be a good setup?

[tomc1980]

Well looks like things are still going smoothly got some new coraline growth on some of my rock that i noticed today. Water parameters are ammonia .2 ppm nitrites 6ppm and nitrates 10 ppm salinity 1.023. So i guess its a good thing ive been noticing a slow drop in the ammonia lvls in my tank for the last few days. The skimmers also been doing its thing and pulling some nasty looking yellow crud from the tank. So all in all im pretty pleased.

[tomc1980]

Hey guys just an update on my new tank. Everythings going great in the tank now added a clean up crew to the tank yesterday and theyre cleaning up the glass pretty well for me. and my first fish cam out of quarantine today.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...quarium002.jpg

Here he is.

Also got a conch that likes to stay hid under the sand for the most part but he comes up to eat occasionally and managed to snap a pic of him before he burried himself again.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...quarium001.jpg

And here one of my shrimp thats on the clean up crew lol.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...quarium003.jpg

Water parameters are all still testing great and im having a blast with this tank although my wallets reeling in shock =p

[tomc1980]

Got my new t-5 lights today XD. Its a 4 bulb T5 with 2 10k daylight bulbs 54 watts each and 2 blue actinic lights. It also has built in moonlights and a cooling fan. Its like night and day compared to my 2 50/50 stip lights. The lights are made by nova could anyone give me any feedback on em seem like theyre well made. Ill post a new pic of my tank in a few cameras batteries are low

[dinor2]

I have the nova extreme pro system which are also t5's. I think the only difference is the wattage of bulbs and the individual reflectors but, I really like my light set. I've had it for about a month or two now.

Tank is coming along, good job taking it slow. My dt is just now 7 months and only have 2 fish with cuc! Patience seems to really pay off in this hobby, looking good!

[tomc1980]

Yeah i know the urge to go crazy and add alot of stuff is about to drive me crazy lol.

[dinor2]

Lol, I hear ya, freshwater was so forgiving, as long as we had the 55gal, throw 10 small fish in it at once! The great thing about corals though is you can add just about as many of those as you'd like because they won't recycle your tank! Just have to watch those calcium and alk levels! Come May, I should be done adding corals for a while! I can't wait! Can't we just skip March and April and do May?

[tomc1980]

Hehe tell me about it so much i want to do with my tank so few gallons of water to work with. Something tells me when the dollar a gallon sell goes on at work ill be buying a second tank XD. Certainly is an addictive hobby.