New 80 gallon Oceanic tank

[lisa.gregory11]

So I'm excited to say we are getting good readings on our 5 week old aquarium. We have 0 ammonia 0 nitrites 80 nitrates before water change ph of 8.0. I'm going to take a sample to the lfs Sunday to see if they agree as this guy has been a trusted place for over 40 years in our area. Then I can finally add fish. Lights were only on for the picture. Will eventually add corals also but starting with fish right now. Looking at a goby, wrasse, or a pair of clowns to start.

 

[HD_Reefer]

Looking good! I might wait a bit on the goby...they feed by cleaning the sand so waiting a while will allow the sand to develop more nutritional substance for them. You can definitely add them now, but just make sure they are eating whatever your feeding.

 

[lisa.gregory11]

Thank you will do

 

[DiefsReef]

Looks great, I'd say your for sure ready for fish. Welcome to the journey and R2R!

 

[lisa.gregory11]

Looks great, I'd say your for sure ready for fish. Welcome to the journey and R2R!

Thank you. I'm pretty excited 5.5 weeks was the hardest wait but I wanted to make sure I did things right

 

[lisa.gregory11]

Ok guys. I'm new so I don't know what happened here. I did a water change and gave it 24 hours before I retested to ensure I did enough to drop the nitrates into a safe zone and now my Nitrites and nitrates are elevated again like I dosed ammonia or something. I have no idea what's up. I know I'm not using the best salt so I'm told as I'm using instant ocean sea salt which since getting I have read a lot of bad news in these groups on it. Is it possible the salt has ammonia in it causing issues with my tank ?

 

[lisa.gregory11]

Today I checked my Phosphates (0.25), Calcium (520), KH(9), Nitrates (40), Nitrites (0), Ammonia (0), PH 8.0, Temp (80.2) I did not add any calcium so my guess is it's the salt. Now that my tank is cycled and everything is looking good and within a safe range I am going fish shopping this week. Temp is a bit higher today because for the first time in two weeks the weather has warmed up so I turned my heater down a bit.

 

[lisa.gregory11]

My new tank inhabitants. They have been hanging out near this filter intake and near the power heads so far but it's still early. I just added them this afternoon.

 

[lisa.gregory11]

Clowns have been doing amazing. We named them Achmed and Mohammed because they chase each other all over the tank. We added 3 pajama cardinals, a skunk cleaner shrimp and a goby. The goby is doing great eating baby brine shrimp and food leftover from the others. So far everyone is happy.

 

[lisa.gregory11]

I haven't updated in awhile but my tank is doing incredible. I'm super happy with it so far. I did get some algea but I picked up a few turbo snails and they are cleaning it up nicely.

Stock
Pair of Platinum Clownfish
3 pajama cardinals
Yellow Watchman Goby
McCosker's Wrasse
Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
4 Nassarius Snails
3 Turbo snails

Rock of GSP
2 frags of zoas
2 red mushrooms (started as 1 but seeded pretty fast)
Green Goniopora
1 teal and purple scolymia

 

[lisa.gregory11]

Update on my tank. Its now been 4 months and everything is going well for the most part. The only fish we've had not survive was a royal gamma that was fine then one day died no signs of any issues no aggression from other fish. I checked numbers today and found alk8.0, cal 460, salinity 1.025, nearly 0 nitrates, phosphates were 0.25 but I was about to do a water change, ph 8.4. I have a pair of Platinum ocerlarous clowns, 3 pajama, a mccosker wrasse, yellow watchman, coral beauty, a skunk cleaner shrimp, 5 nassarius snails, 3 turbo snails and 5 turban snails. We have a large rock of gsp, a red mushroom, scholy, acro, several zoas, firework cloves, green palys, green goni, hamster in a microwave favia, skittles cyphastrea, Hollywood, 24 k gold war coral, autumn harvest lepto, green candy cane, and a sunset montipora.