Got Me My Marine Set Up Today Now Im Lost.

[mark7616]

Ok here goes i went out today and destroyed my bank account with a marine set up.

I bought:
1xaquamedic chromis tank
1x200w heater
1xthermometer
1xhydrometer
1xtest kit ph and no2
1xaquamedic ro unit
25gallons of ro water
1xbag of salt
1xbag of sand
and 25kg of cured rock.
Total £1005.18 didnt think it was to bad.

Now i got home set the tank up added sand and cured rock and water put all bits together hung lights from the ceiling but now im lost i was told i could start adding corals and some cleaner crew in a couple of days as my rock is already cured just keep an eye on the nitrites for the next 2 days if there ok i can start is this right?

Also tihs may sound dumb but how much salt do i put in ive put some in and my gravity reading is 1.0015 is this enough. Bit stuck on what to do now.

 

[SkiFletch]

yikes, 1.0015??? Thats WAY too low. Even 1.015 is way too low. You should be shooting for 1.026 if you want corals and 1.023 for fish only. Each brand of salt is different, but 1.026 is usually somewhere between 1/2 and 1 cup of salt mix per gallon. If I were you, I'd siphon off a gallon or two of water, add a cup or two of salt to it, mix it up and put it back into the tank. Repeat as necesasry to get up to 1.026. Don't add salt straight to the tank, cause it wont mix well. You have no livestock in there so at least you can make quick sg corrections without hurting things too much. You want to act fast though, cause you can start killing some of the life on your rock with such a low sg...

After you get your sg fixed, you play the waiting game. Check your ammonia nitrites and nitrates. When you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, less than 30 nitrates, and brown diatom algae begins forming, THEN you can add a cleanup crew. If your nitrates rise up too high perform water changes with proper sg (1.026) to bring them down, then add cleanup crew. During this waiting time and chemical measurement time, read up on some stickies, cause you've got a lot to learn

 

[jen20147]

Yeah you def. need to start reading. What kind of lighting do you have? It sounds like you have a 25 gallong aquarium right? Youll definately want to be patient and dont start stocking up on bunches of corals right away as a small setup like that is not very forgiving to mistakes. Good luck!