New To Salt Water, Any Guidance is Awesome!

Hey Everyone, im new to the site, and the salt water game, sooo sorry for any noob questions in advance!

So I have a 10 gallon tank, Ive added sea salt (Instant Ocean Sea Salt) to the Ro water, my readings are 1.025-1.026 (Day 3 now) I have Reef sand down, (Aragonite) im using a Rio Nano Skimmer, thats pretty much all I have atm. My questions are:

When should I add live rock? and what is the difference between fiji rock and live rock? Priced differently, is the live rock better? I was looking to add about 11 pounds of which ever one I bought.

As of right now, I only have a gravity reader for the level of salt in the tank, should I buy a kit once I add the live rock?

Ive been reading a lot of protien skimmers? Do I need one of these? and Bio balls?

I was going to buy a T5 light, I forgot the name of the company and everything else, but tis about 149.99 I believe, Ill add the name to this post once I go back to the store.

And I know this is jumping the gun, but what kind of fish am I able to keep in this tank? I know its a touchy subject, and I have no intention of cramming fish into this tank, like one or two is perfect for me. Ive always wanted a clown.. is that okay?

Id was also going to get one of those red fire shrimp? I dont know the correct name..


I know this is a lot, im sorry, I just dont want to mess this up and end up killing anything especially.

 

Don't buy livestock until you get the three basic kits for cycling, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite. Live rock should help you cycle. also welcome to 3reef
sostoudt

 

Welcome to 3reef.

 

Welcome to 3 reef Reqf

fish - a pair of clowns - true or false percs would be OK in a 10 gallon IMO
a blood shrimp would also be fine

you have the Rio Nano skimmer? that is a protien skimmer so your OK with that

Live rock - comes from many different parts of the world with Fiji being one of them
Fiji rock is nice shaped and some say has more life forms on it , hence the premium price

you dont need it to be honest as some of those life forms are not want you want in your tank

base rock which is a lot cheaper, will become live rock once in your tank for a while
and the life form you get on it - bacteria , is exactly what you want

you need test kits for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate to start with,
you can add base rock now,
you could add live rock now if you wanted

if you go base rock, add a small prawn or shrimp from the fishmarket (dead) and allow that to rot in your tank
check for ammonia and Nitrite each week, once the ammonia and Nitrite have peaked and then got back to 0 , do a 10% water change, and then 1 week later you can add your CUC snails etc

lights, you do not need to run the lights for the period you are cycling ( getting the ammonia and nitrite up and then 0)


Hope that helps

Steve

 

Thankyou for the fast reply, I shall go get this tomorrow, Should i even test it now? or wait for the rock?

 

Hey steve thanks for the fast reply! So with the shrimp, If they dont have dead ones, should I just buy like live fresh water ones and let them die? Note these are very small too right, how big are the ones you were thinking of? Are they fresh or salt?
and should I get like a pound of two of live rock and the rest base? Someone suggested that up above,

sorry for all the questions steve,

thank you,
Larry

 

Thankyou for the super fast response, I will go get the kit tomorrow! ;D

 

frozen shrimp work great. all you need is something to start decomposing in your tank to start the cycle. peeing in your tank works too, although some find it interesting.

watch for false ends of cycles. some tanks will go to all 0s on the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels only to spike again a day or two later. not sure why this is, but be patient with setting it up and letting it do it's thing. It takes a long time for a tank to mature and be ready for some inhabitants. patience is the key in this hobby.

 

thank you! so frozen shrimp as in grocery store frozen shrimp? Should I just throw in acouple, and is this a one time thing? Yeah ill be sure to take my time with this one, and sorry for the questions, but what do I go when it starts to spike? Water changes right? or wait it out? sorry, really new to this.

 

It's important to mention a few more things;

Even though test kits are a must when taking care of corals, some are not really needed until you add corals. Adding corals, for some people, means waiting a few months until your tank starts stabilizing. In real life, some times this won't happen all that beautifully until after 6 months to 1 year. So that's a possibility.

The test kits you will need to cycle your tank are some of the mentioned above: Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate, but i think you can skip the Nitrite since once you test positive for Nitrate it means that your Nitrite is almost at or at 0. Calcium, magnesium, alkalinity and phosphate test kits can wait until you want to add some hard to keep corals like SPS or even clams. Of course, you need to make sure your parameters are fine before you add any coral or fish to the tank.

Buy a good salt mix. A good salt will go long ways and in a 10 gallon tank, you will most likely need to make 3/4 to 1 gallon of water change every 2 weeks or so. Some people do water changes monthly, bi-monthly and some don't do them at all, even though not changing water is frowned upon.

As far as the rocks.. I'm not really sure what the difference is. But I know what to look for in reef rock, and that is porosity. The more porous the rock, the more bacteria can live on its surface and this is beneficial to any tank. For a small tank like yours, I would recommend getting the smallest rocks possible, fist or half fist sized, this will allow you to aquascape better.

You may want to add a small sump/refugium in the future. A sump will expand your total water volume and so will a refugium, this will allow you to add 1 more fish and it will also be more forgiving with the chemistry, since smaller tanks are harder to control.

In the refugium, tiny crustaceans called copepods will start to procreate, and they become food for fish that are picky eaters. Copepods and a good clean up crew, conformed by snails, hermit crabs, etc are a great thing to have, since they will clean up the tank for you to some extent. Usually, sumps and fuge will be put together out of 1 long tank, with enough room to fit your equipment, like (but not limited, as we know) protein skimmer, heaters, media bags/reactors and a return pump.

Don't be shy and ask your questions. We want you to have a very nice reef tank!

Welcome again to 3reef.

- Mag.