New to Saltwater

[Joncelone]

The subject is true, but my background is pretty vast. I have raised Discus, freshwater everything almost and African Chiclids. I just got a 12 gallon nano with a heater, mature live sand, and a nano koralia (sp?). I also have some used water that was cycled, but I had to add in about 2 gallons of fresh to top it off.

The guy I bought the tank from was running this tank with the current water minus my 2 gallons for over 5 months already before I got it.

What do I need to do now??

1. I know I need some live rock. I'm going to go out and try to find some cheap ones.
2. I have a full test kit of almost everything from raising Discus, but I don't know what levels I need to keep everything at.

I have already met in person one member from this forum and I know you are all amazing people so I look very forward to responses!!

 

[bimmerzs]

Hi,

First measure/adjust the salinity of your water. :lol: Here is a lil' information for your reading pleasure. http://www.melevsreef.com/tanks.html

Cheers,

 

[Joncelone]

Thanks for the site link. I read it like a book .

I measured my Nitrites and they were 0.
I measured my Amonia(sp?) and it was 0.
I can't measure my Nitrates because I don't have that test so I plan on heading into a store to do that for now.

I am trying to measure my salinity with an $8 hydrometer I picked up at petsmart but it says it needs to sit in salt water for 24 hours before being able to measure properly.

It sounds a bit too good to be true, am I forgetting something?

 

[bimmerzs]

@Joncelone wrote:

Sounds good,

I suggest making an investment in a refractometer, much more accurate than a hydrometer. With the hydrometer make sure you tap it slightly in order to dislodge any bubbles from the swing arm, that will influence your reading's. I would get the, salinity checked at the lfs also while you are there also.

Cheers

 

[Joncelone]

So I had the score check my salinity and it was way too low. Then I finally added live rock today to my tank, measure the salinity myself about 8 hours later and it is too high. It spiked to about 1.027.

How can I get it back down and stable?

 

[lacybiker2000]

That is a small tank, a little goes a long way. My first SW was an 8 gal biocube, so I know where you are coming from. Try a small water change with fresh RO or RODI water. That should bring it down a little.

 

[bimmerzs]

@Joncelone wrote:

I would not make any adjustments based on a hydrometer, they can give you readings all over the place until you get used to using it. If you "must" use the hydrometer, take it to your lfs and have it "calibrated" against their refractometer. They basically will measure with both their device and your device, then mark(calibrate) yours. I suggest having them calibrate/mark 1.022, 1.023, 1.024, 1.025, 1.026 for you. If SG is truely at 1.027, that will not hurt anything at this point as that is only slightly high. The important part is getting a stable/reliable reading from your measuring device(another reason why a refractometer is recommended). Once you have reliable readings then your can add freshwater(ro/di) a lil' at a time to bring it within NSW range's.

Cheers,

 

[Joncelone]

Yeah, I'm going to get a refractometer with my next paycheck, the live rock put a nice sized hole in my pocket for now.

 

[bimmerzs]

@Joncelone wrote:

LR and quality used equipment can be found on the sell forum here. It will save you a ton of cash if you ask question on future equipment purchases. The best advice I can give you is to alway's do your own research and never take the advice of only one person. You will find that for every question, most everyone will have a different response....not that one is wrong or right as there are many ways to have a successful tank.....this is the number one reason why you need to do your own homework beforehand, so that you can form your own opinions and conclusions. There are many members in the FW area that would be glad to help you out if needed. :wink:

Cheers,

 

[Joncelone]

So, I'm been having a lot of patience and I am prepared to have even more, but how do I know when i'm ready for a fish?

I've been testing myself and taking my water to the local FS to test and they always say I'm very close to my numbers, but not there yet. I think the only thing that has been varying up and down is my salinity. With that being said, I have 2 crabs and 2 shrimp that are doing very well. Also, some of my live rock I bought used off of someone else and I can see stuff that has already grown on it and is not only surviving my tank, but spreading to my uncured, store-bought rock.

Am I headed in the right direction? Should I just keep doing what I'm doing??

 

[Jeff]

Yep - just keep it going. I find the most difficult things to control in small tanks is temperature and salinity. Always use ro/di water for mixing your saltwater and for top offs.

Since you already have the tank and have it started it narrows the question a bit but decide what you want to keep in this tank. That will determine what the next steps and purchases should be.

I strongly suggest going to our New to the Hobby section and reading the post about Mature Tanks. I'd also spend a lot of time on ReefCentral.com in the Newbie Corner by Waterkeeper and the feedback forum. I learned A LOT from that even before buying a tank.
The great folks here will answer most any question you can come up with. My first little piece of advise is to never make quick decisions and exercise extreme patience with wanting to make changes.
My second piece of advise to you because of your experience in the freshwater side of things is to forget 95% of everything you know about freshwater systems, filtration and maintenance - that's the tough part that will keep you from rebuying what you thought you needed and didn't work out.

Freshwater relys a lot on mechanical and chemical filtration and lighting isn't real important except for looks. In reefkeeping your main filtration is biological and from natural sources. It's a strange hurdle to overcome but at some point the light comes on and you go, "Ohhhh!"

 

[joelq]

I had done FW for several years before switching to SW almost a year ago. For the most part, I think I did a decent job of researching the differences and preparing for the switch, but the one thing I didn't realize was just how much more water I would lose from my SW tank due to evaporation per day.

With the combination of lights, more water flow and surface agitation, plus a sump and refugium underneath, I was losing about a gallon of water a day. With my FW, I could go a week maybe two and top-off manually, but with my SW, an auto top-off was a clear necessity from the get go.

 

[Joncelone]

Hey, I have two peppermint shrimp that have been running around in my tank for a week now and yesterday I thought one had died because I saw the shell of it floating around and I removed it from the tank.

Well come to find out this morning, it didn't die, it just molted and my 2nd shrimp had just molted as well. Should I continue to remove the molts from my tank or do they not bother anything in there?

 

[Jeff]

I remove them if I can get to them. There was one attached to some polyps that it didn't want to give up so I let them eat it. I seems it would be a calcium rich source of food to the crabs and clean up crew but that's just a guess.

 

[Joncelone]

That would be interesting to know dheer. I have two crabs in there right now as well.

Anyone have an answer to dheer's idea?

 

[Charlie]

I never remove them unless they get sucked up the side of a powerhead. I don't think there is a benefit really to keeping them there, nor does it harm anything....

 

[Jeff]

I also 'had' some carribean tree crabs. The books say to leave their molts so they can eat them for the calcium to help build their new carapice. So, I just thought sea creatures would somewhat operate the same.

 

[Joncelone]

Stick around tonight guys. I'm going to upload a couple pictures for identifying the things in my tank. I have some kind of incredibly small thing with three long and skinny legs crawling around everywhere and something that looks like an egg.

Pictures soon to come my friends.

 

[Jeff]

@Joncelone wrote:

That's the fun stuff - finding new and interesting little critters that you didn't put there intentionally - some good, some bad but always interesting.

 

[Joncelone]

Here are the pictures.

This is the thing with long little legs. There are tons of these in one of my rocks in the front, but I caught this one squirming around on my other rocks.

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This is the small spikey thing. It is tiny and black.

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This is the green egg looking thing.

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Any identifications??