Some Basic Questions

Hi All,

I have a 65 gallon tank that has been cycling for about 5 weeks. Everything seems to be almost ready to go.

I’m new to this whole thing and have a million questions to ask. Here are a few very basic questions before I start to add anything else. Sorry if I bore anyone with these newbie Q’s but I want to make sure I get it right.


1. I have read that the lights should be on for approx 12hrs a day. I have 2 lights, a 10000K 96W and a Actinic 96w (sort of blue colour). Should these be on together or at separate times?

2. What’s the best way to go about cleaning the gravel and how often should it be done?

3. I already have live rock but want to add some more. Is it OK to add or should it be quarantined first?

Any basic help you can provide would be great. Like I said, I want to make sure I get it right the first time.

 

Welcome to 3REEF!
Some people run there lights for as little as 5 hours a day some 12-14 hrs a day. you can run your lights together some people turn on the actinic first then a while later the add the 10000k then reverse this at the end of the day to simulate sunrise/ sunset. I am assuming that you are using power compacts. when I used them the cycle ran about 10 hours with the 1000k runing about 8 hours.

You can use a siphon to clean sand when you do a water change but how often you clean your sand depends on what kind of sand bed you are going for (how deep is your sand bed?) look at the articles about sand for more info.

You can add live rock when ever you want you should monitor your levels to tell when the tank has cycled however I would not add a large amount of uncured live rock once you have livestock in your tank.

If you add information about your tank in your signature people will be able to be of more help, You can find this under user cp

I would not add coral until you see Coraline algae start to grow on plastic.

 

i run my lights for about 8 hours a day and everything has been doing great for a year now.i would run them less, but then i wouldnt get much time to enjoy it after work.

You can add live rock but watch your nitrates and amonia levels in the begining.same thing goes with adding too many corals at once too early. i made the mistake 2 years ago of adding 19 corals at once and lost most of them and messed all my levels up.Dont be impatient, like most of us,or it will cost you big. Good Luck!

 

If you buy cured liverock that is shipped overnight or buy it locally there should be very little die off and you can add as much as you want. If you buy uncured liverock, it can be a pain to process, seperate tank, powerheads, changing water, monitoring ammonia, removing waste... get the drift

Jim

And yes, I run my actinic bulbs for a couple of hours then turn on the BRIGHT lights and reverse the process at night. Take your time and enjoy the ride!

 

Thanks guys, your a big help. I'm sure I'll have plenty more Questions to come