Finally got a tank

[cactusreef]

Hey everyone. I’ve been watching reef YouTube videos for years and finally just pulled the trigger on a tank. I got a 24 gallon Red Sea peninsula. I am one week into my cycle. I dosed ammonia with my starting bacteria and have some bio balls in the filter. I got saltwater from my LFS and it’s reading around 30ppt. Is this normal? Should I increase my salinity by topping off with saltwater? Here are my current parameters:
Ph. 7.9
N2. 1
N3. 2.5
A. .75

Also should ph rise naturally with cycle or do I need to do something about that?

 

[Fish Fan]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

#WelcometoR2R

Congrats on the new tank!

Don't worry about the pH, it does fluctuate when the tank is new and cycling, but many successful reefs run at about 7.8 or so without problems. Many successful reefers don't bother to test pH at all. If you're growing corals professionally or competitively, then maybe you'd want to chase a higher pH, but for most hobbyists it's not worth it. That said, making sure you system has good gas exchange (oxygen in and carbon dioxide out) can help keep your pH up. Carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid in the water that lowers pH, so ensuring that the CO2 leaves your tank will help keep the pH up.

The 30 ppt salinity is a little low, but that actually helps the initial nitrogen cycle proceed a bit faster because the bacteria can grow more easily at the lower salinity. But you really want that up to 35 ppt if you have plans to keep corals. A easy way to up your salinity would be to top off evaporated freshwater temporarily with saltwater until you reach your desired salinity. Because you have no real livestock in the tank yet, you *could* simply add some salt to your tank, but that's not something you should ever do once you get livestock.

Otherwise, looks like your cycle is progressing well. How high did the ammonia concentration get when you first added it? If you got it up to about 2.0 ppm, simply wait for that to go down to nearly zero, and you should be good to start to slowly stock with some hardy livestock. There's no reason to test for or be concerned with nitrite, it is 100% non toxic in saltwater tanks (unlike in freshwater tanks).

I hope that helps and please post back with any further questions, I'm sure someone will be able to help you

Good luck!

 

[mcarroll]

Hey everyone. I’ve been watching reef YouTube videos for years and finally just pulled the trigger on a tank. I got a 24 gallon Red Sea peninsula. I am one week into my cycle. I dosed ammonia with my starting bacteria and have some bio balls in the filter. I got saltwater from my LFS and it’s reading around 30ppt. Is this normal? Should I increase my salinity by topping off with saltwater? Here are my current parameters:
Ph. 7.9
N2. 1
N3. 2.5
A. .75

Also should ph rise naturally with cycle or do I need to do something about that?

I'm glad you got started and no don't worry about pH.

YouTube is not a great way to learn if you have options.

I would recommend reading some before proceeding further.

Books are great and IMO should be your main resouree: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-long-is-your-aquarium-book-collection.180547/

But periodicals like TFH and FAMA magazine (many others) are also great. Archive.org has lots of old magazines and is a great resource for that. reefkeeping.com and the old advancedaquarist.com archive on reefs.com are great and R2R's article section keeps getting better! Google Scholar can point you to LOTS of scholarly journal articles....and my blog (reefsuccess.com) has lots of interesting journal articles linked as starting points for further research.

With those resources under your belt, you'll be MUCH MUCH better equipped as a reefer – and better equipped to consume utubes and other online info.

 

[cactusreef]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

#WelcometoR2R

Congrats on the new tank!

Don't worry about the pH, it does fluctuate when the tank is new and cycling, but many successful reefs run at about 7.8 or so without problems. Many successful reefers don't bother to test pH at all. If you're growing corals professionally or competitively, then maybe you'd want to chase a higher pH, but for most hobbyists it's not worth it. That said, making sure you system has good gas exchange (oxygen in and carbon dioxide out) can help keep your pH up. Carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid in the water that lowers pH, so ensuring that the CO2 leaves your tank will help keep the pH up.

The 30 ppt salinity is a little low, but that actually helps the initial nitrogen cycle proceed a bit faster because the bacteria can grow more easily at the lower salinity. But you really want that up to 35 ppt if you have plans to keep corals. A easy way to up your salinity would be to top off evaporated freshwater temporarily with saltwater until you reach your desired salinity. Because you have no real livestock in the tank yet, you *could* simply add some salt to your tank, but that's not something you should ever do once you get livestock.

Otherwise, looks like your cycle is progressing well. How high did the ammonia concentration get when you first added it? If you got it up to about 2.0 ppm, simply wait for that to go down to nearly zero, and you should be good to start to slowly stock with some hardy livestock. There's no reason to test for or be concerned with nitrite, it is 100% non toxic in saltwater tanks (unlike in freshwater tanks).

I hope that helps and please post back with any further questions, I'm sure someone will be able to help you

Good luck!

Great, thank you so much! Yes my ammonia was about 2 when I first dosed it. Do you mean there’s no reason to test for nitrate or nitrite. Most sources say you want no nitrite but nitrate is fine. Is this correct or am I backwards?

 

[mcarroll]

Nitrite is just non-toxic in saltwater. Still part of the cycle...though sometimes it doesn't show up in tests.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Great, thank you so much! Yes my ammonia was about 2 when I first dosed it. Do you mean there’s no reason to test for nitrate or nitrite. Most sources say you want no nitrite but nitrate is fine. Is this correct or am I backwards?

Test nitrite until your cycle is complete. Once it is done, there is no need to test nitrites again.

 

[cactusreef]

Great, thank you so much! Yes my ammonia was about 2 when I first dosed it. Do you mean there’s no reason to test for nitrate or nitrite. Most sources say you want no nitrite but nitrate is fine. Is this correct or am I backwards?

Test nitrite until your cycle is complete. Once it is done, there is no need to test nitrites again.

How about nitrate? Is that toxic?

 

[mcarroll]

How about nitrate? Is that toxic?

Not really. If so, it's a a VERY high level. IMO hundreds of ppm.

 

[Dom]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

#WelcometoR2R

Congrats on the new tank!

Don't worry about the pH, it does fluctuate when the tank is new and cycling, but many successful reefs run at about 7.8 or so without problems. Many successful reefers don't bother to test pH at all. If you're growing corals professionally or competitively, then maybe you'd want to chase a higher pH, but for most hobbyists it's not worth it. That said, making sure you system has good gas exchange (oxygen in and carbon dioxide out) can help keep your pH up. Carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid in the water that lowers pH, so ensuring that the CO2 leaves your tank will help keep the pH up.

The 30 ppt salinity is a little low, but that actually helps the initial nitrogen cycle proceed a bit faster because the bacteria can grow more easily at the lower salinity. But you really want that up to 35 ppt if you have plans to keep corals. A easy way to up your salinity would be to top off evaporated freshwater temporarily with saltwater until you reach your desired salinity. Because you have no real livestock in the tank yet, you *could* simply add some salt to your tank, but that's not something you should ever do once you get livestock.

Otherwise, looks like your cycle is progressing well. How high did the ammonia concentration get when you first added it? If you got it up to about 2.0 ppm, simply wait for that to go down to nearly zero, and you should be good to start to slowly stock with some hardy livestock. There's no reason to test for or be concerned with nitrite, it is 100% non toxic in saltwater tanks (unlike in freshwater tanks).

I hope that helps and please post back with any further questions, I'm sure someone will be able to help you

Good luck!

Sound advice.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

How about nitrate? Is that toxic?

Far from it. That is one of the key chemicals you need to be testing in your tank.

I highly recommend checking out this article below. This should cover most of the basics and help answer a lot of your questions!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.138750/

 

[Fish Fan]

Great, thank you so much! Yes my ammonia was about 2 when I first dosed it. Do you mean there’s no reason to test for nitrate or nitrite. Most sources say you want no nitrite but nitrate is fine. Is this correct or am I backwards?

No reason to test nitrite, it's basically a non-issue in saltwater aquariums. Here's Randy Holmes-Farley's comment on nitrite and links to his articles explaining why it's non-toxic in saltwater:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nitrite-toxicity.402708/post-4805029
That said, it's a fine plan to go more slowly and watch the nitrite if you're more comfortable doing so