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- Jun 24, 2019
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Hello! I belong to other fish forums that are not centered around salt as that was never my thing. Recently had a change of heart so decided to join here! Hope to learn a lot from the forum!
I havent kept fish in a long while, mostly due to moving around a lot with college. I am in a semi-permanent spot now so I decided to set another tank up! I was never really into salt but thought it would be fun to try, and boy was I right! I am loving how involved everything is, checking salinity, hardness, ect. I set up a 10 gallon I had in storage. This set up is just for practicing with the new equipment and testing the water parameters. When I get a better feel for how everything works, I am going to move to a bigger aquarium. I have a 180 in storage but want to stay in the 75 gallon range. I am using an RO/DI water system to create the water then adding Instant Ocean mix. Awesome seeing the 0ppm TDS reading! Got the salinity to hold at 1.024, dKH at 11 and pH at 8.3, which I am happy with. The temperature is steady at 80F. Added a couple pieces of liverock to get everything started. Liverock had a few hitchhikers, looks like turbo snails and some type of crab. Also noticed some worm looking guys on the rock this morning. Very strange not being able to ID! Ammonia reading 0.25ppm nitrite and nitrate 0ppm, hoping the liverock helps cycle faster.
Like I said, I am brand new to salt so still learning a lot everyday! Would love to hear any feedback. I bought some ammonium chloride to help cycle faster, would this help at all? Or is the live rock sufficient? Also having a problem with the sand, its so fine its constantly being blown around. Recommendations on good sand?
Thanks for the help!

I havent kept fish in a long while, mostly due to moving around a lot with college. I am in a semi-permanent spot now so I decided to set another tank up! I was never really into salt but thought it would be fun to try, and boy was I right! I am loving how involved everything is, checking salinity, hardness, ect. I set up a 10 gallon I had in storage. This set up is just for practicing with the new equipment and testing the water parameters. When I get a better feel for how everything works, I am going to move to a bigger aquarium. I have a 180 in storage but want to stay in the 75 gallon range. I am using an RO/DI water system to create the water then adding Instant Ocean mix. Awesome seeing the 0ppm TDS reading! Got the salinity to hold at 1.024, dKH at 11 and pH at 8.3, which I am happy with. The temperature is steady at 80F. Added a couple pieces of liverock to get everything started. Liverock had a few hitchhikers, looks like turbo snails and some type of crab. Also noticed some worm looking guys on the rock this morning. Very strange not being able to ID! Ammonia reading 0.25ppm nitrite and nitrate 0ppm, hoping the liverock helps cycle faster.
Like I said, I am brand new to salt so still learning a lot everyday! Would love to hear any feedback. I bought some ammonium chloride to help cycle faster, would this help at all? Or is the live rock sufficient? Also having a problem with the sand, its so fine its constantly being blown around. Recommendations on good sand?
Thanks for the help!

