My First Tank! 29 gal BioCube

I am fighting my patience egarly!....lol I dont have a heater as of yet. I wanted to see what the temp gets to with the lights. I am getting my test kit today so i will fanlally be able to test the levels and see where they are at after 4 days. I will post that later tonight.

Thanks for the advice!

 

Lol. We all fight our patience!

You're on the right track. Depending on your area you most likely will still need a heater

 

I think i will too. The Tank was "out of commission" for about 2 weeks. The live rock was kept in a salwater bucket. It has some Coral on it but, i am pretty sure it is not going to come back. alot of it it white.. I want to let it cycle for about a month, or at least that is what was suggested to me. I will see later what the levels are at.

 

I used to use t5's but now I like the leds, I went with a retrofit for the hood. There are all kind of leds out there now or even combo led and t5's.
personally I prefer leds but there are allot of people that still use t5's and have awesome tanks.

 

Here it is my first test! The tank is on its 4th day of cycle.

pH = 8.0
Ammonia = 1.0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 8.0

Do these number look normal for just starting it out?

 

I am surprised your nitrates are so high. Did you start with live rock? Are you using RO/DI water?

 

The rock was live. The tank was out of commission for about 3 weeks. The rock sat in a 5 gallon bucket with the aquarium water that was drained from the tank. I am not sure what RO/DI water is. My brother in law help me set it up last saturday. We used water from the tap, and added Prime to it. Using Red Sea Coral salt. I added the Stibility liquid tonight.

 

Ultimately what you want is to use only RO/DI water. Reverse Osmosis and deionized is what you'll use to top off for water loss secondary to evaporation (you should be doing this daily) and water changes. You can buy RO/DI bottled water at most grocery stores, also from the local fish store. You can also purchase a RO/DI filter system, when able.

You can use Distilled bottled water as well, but not preferred, but I use it in a pinch.

Just pick up a couple gallon jugs from walmart or a grocery store as needed for now.

 

I hae been using the tap water for a top off due to evaporation so far, I will make sure and get some water from Walmart tomorrow!
Thanks!

 

I vote for the ai prime as well. Great light for the dollar. I have one over my 34g cube mixed Lps/sps reef and I'm am happy as can be.