Davisc1293
Active Member
So I've set up my first saltwater tank and am just looking for general tips and information. My LFS is willing to answer any questions I have but as long as its as fast as humanly possible and very straight forward. Being so new though, I don't really know the questions I should be asking. So overall not very helpful and very expensive. I believe I was charged $89 for refractometer I saw on amazon for like 40 bucks. I have had an extremely different experience from another shop I found even though its over an hour away but well worth the drive. Unfortunately I wont be able to go as often because its so far....so here I am bugging yall instead 
I wound up with a Biocube 32. Which if you've seen my other thread you'd know I jumped the gun and just slapped everything together and put a clown fish in day one... and have also now been lights on with corals since like day 4. I'm now at the end of week two going on three. I got the tank goin with live sand, cured rock that already had some nice polka dots of coralline algae, the clown fish I mentioned, and also several types and brands of bacteria's. (fritz900,stability,microbacter 7).
My current levels are
ph - 8
ammonia - .25
nitrite - 0
nitrate - slighly above 1 was slightly darker then 10 on low range salifert says to divide by 10
calcium - 390
alkalinity- 9 have dosed with sodium bicarb
My initial instinct is to do a 20% WC because of the ammonia but should i wait for the nitrates to be higher first?
And any tips on what to put in my filter setup or if you think the skimmer is a little too much?
I have the overflow going into An Intank media basket that I have drilled to fit the intake of my skimmer into the bottom chamber of the 4 sided media basket to help flow through the filter. In the filter I have it starting through filter floss and have carbon in the middle and chemipuire in the bottom above the intake for the skimmer. Any advise on other media to use or if the skimmer is overkill?
I wound up with a Biocube 32. Which if you've seen my other thread you'd know I jumped the gun and just slapped everything together and put a clown fish in day one... and have also now been lights on with corals since like day 4. I'm now at the end of week two going on three. I got the tank goin with live sand, cured rock that already had some nice polka dots of coralline algae, the clown fish I mentioned, and also several types and brands of bacteria's. (fritz900,stability,microbacter 7).
My current levels are
ph - 8
ammonia - .25
nitrite - 0
nitrate - slighly above 1 was slightly darker then 10 on low range salifert says to divide by 10
calcium - 390
alkalinity- 9 have dosed with sodium bicarb
My initial instinct is to do a 20% WC because of the ammonia but should i wait for the nitrates to be higher first?
And any tips on what to put in my filter setup or if you think the skimmer is a little too much?
I have the overflow going into An Intank media basket that I have drilled to fit the intake of my skimmer into the bottom chamber of the 4 sided media basket to help flow through the filter. In the filter I have it starting through filter floss and have carbon in the middle and chemipuire in the bottom above the intake for the skimmer. Any advise on other media to use or if the skimmer is overkill?
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