New saltwater tank

[Keily]

Hello!
I just started doing this and I'm questioning many things since people from different fish stores tell me different things all the time.
I have a 125 Gallon saltwater tank that I started almost three weeks ago. As of right now I have a yellow tang, two maroons (smaller one gold stripe and the larger one just regular), 4 yellowtail damsels and a sailfin tang. I also had (or have) a diamond guby which I have not seen in 5 days after I moved some rocks around. What could have happened to it? Dead? If so, where's the body? Also, 15 hermit crabs (blue and red legged), 3 snails, 1 lettuce sea slug, 1 flame scallop, 1 chocolate chip starfish and 2 anemones. No corals except one that came on a rock so I don't even know if it's alive.
Water levels were perfect yesterday but I did a small water change (15gal) because the sand was dirty and now the salinity is a bit high but I already put RO water (+buffer) so I'm rechecking it tomorrow.
Now my question, what do you recommend when it comes to adding anything else to it either fish or some sort of supplements? I'm adding microbacter7 because the nitrite was a little high days ago. Should I continue even though it's okay now?
The big maroon attacked the gold stripe smaller one many times so the bottom fins are messed up and one on the side slightly. They seem to be getting along just fine now and they haven't taken any anemone. Is this normal? They swim next to each other and under and so on and everything seems okay now, does that mean they became a pair?
What and how often do I feed the anemones? I noticed that when I fed the fish one of the anemones took a pellet or two.
Also, is it true that once I have the chocolate chip starfish I cannot have any other kind other than that one because it'll eat the other one?

Sorry for the massive amount of questions, anything will help!
Thank youuuu

 

[Katrina71]

Hi. People are nice here. I'm new also. You can get pretty much anything answered.

 

[Mombo]

Nice looking tank! I am new as well my tank is still in its cycle. Love the rocks and how you have em set up. Super white sand!

Seems like you have added quite a few fish quite quickly. I would hold off adding more for a little bit. With you having a nitrite reading recently that means the tank hasnt fully cycled yet but I imagine if you have been adding bottled bacteria that you should be alright. Still have to go through all the ugly phases of the cycle though haha just keep an eye on the nitrates now.

There is a thread though to post your current fish and new fish you'd like and people will help you figure out what will work or not.

Seems like people usually have more snails then just 3. You have quite a large tank so there will be alot of glass for them to clean.

How deep is your sand bed?

Not all clowns will take to an anemone. A lot of them are tank raised now and its not as natural I guess. It seems like they will do it in time. Just not as quickly as we would all love them to do it haha. I have seen and heard that maroon clowns are extremely aggressive even to there mated pair. Sounds like yours are calming down and they definitely have enough space so I would hope it works out for you.

No idea at all with the starfish haha. I dont think that are reef safe so I havent looked into them that much.

Wont be much help on most the other stuff as I am still learning. Hopefully the info I did throw out there is relatively close to correct haha.

Good luck!

 

[Keily]

Nice looking tank! I am new as well my tank is still in its cycle. Love the rocks and how you have em set up. Super white sand!

Seems like you have added quite a few fish quite quickly. I would hold off adding more for a little bit. With you having a nitrite reading recently that means the tank hasnt fully cycled yet but I imagine if you have been adding bottled bacteria that you should be alright. Still have to go through all the ugly phases of the cycle though haha just keep an eye on the nitrates now.

There is a thread though to post your current fish and new fish you'd like and people will help you figure out what will work or not.

Seems like people usually have more snails then just 3. You have quite a large tank so there will be alot of glass for them to clean.

How deep is your sand bed?

Not all clowns will take to an anemone. A lot of them are tank raised now and its not as natural I guess. It seems like they will do it in time. Just not as quickly as we would all love them to do it haha. I have seen and heard that maroon clowns are extremely aggressive even to there mated pair. Sounds like yours are calming down and they definitely have enough space so I would hope it works out for you.

No idea at all with the starfish haha. I dont think that are reef safe so I havent looked into them that much.

Wont be much help on most the other stuff as I am still learning. Hopefully the info I did throw out there is relatively close to correct haha.

Good luck!

Thanksss!!
Yes, I've heard people tell me it's really new so I shouldn't be adding anything else, it's just so tempting :/
How many snails do you recommend I have in total? And about the sand... I have no clue about the depth but I put a total of 5 bags which is what they recommended.
And lastly, how long will the cycle last more or less? This seems like forever lol.

 

[Mombo]

Haha youre telling me! Atleast you jumped ahead and got fish already I am still waiting haha. Hopefuly someone more useful will show up in here and answer the questions better but until then I will keep trying!

Every time you add fish it changes the bioload the bacteria has to process. Plus all the fish are stressed from the moving. So usually you want to let the fish normalize as well as let the tank get stable again before you keep adding. Or you risk the bacteria not being able to catch up quick enough and end up poisoning your fish. Or all the stressed fish raising your chances of one of them getting sick and infecting your whole tank. Being new you probably dont have a QT tank so the whole tank getting a disease could be quite awful.

Slow is good!

As for how long the cycle takes you are probably already through the first phase. Which is building up the bacteria that consume ammonia and nitrites. Although I imagine the nitrite spike you experienced was caused by the large amount of fish you added early on so that happened because the bacteria colony hadnt become large enough to process it all yet. The rest of the cycle just takes time for the tank to age and to become stable. It will go through different phases of ugly algae and bacteria blooms as is grows up.

For the Clean up crew I am not sure of the answer. But one of the sponsors here on this site reefcleaners.com helped me get mine all set up. They actually have a lot of sales going on right now with coupon codes that take extra money off. You can go to there custom crew request and type in what you have and a little about your tank and they will put something together for you.

I imagine you dont need more hermit crabs. On that note make sure you get them some extra shells. They have some you can get on reefcleaners.com The hermits will start killing your stuff if they get hungry or dont have shells to move into.

Do you have any powerheads in your tank moving the water around or just the main pump?

What kind of lights do you have above the tank?

Keep reading and learning! Here is a link to my thread where I have probably asked a bunch of dumb questions that might be useful. Your tank is much bigger then mine though.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/help-me-with-my-bioube-29.304263/page-4#post-3773939

 

[Mike N]

Ideally, you shouldn't have put any fish in the tank until it was cycled completely. Definitely hold off on adding anymore livestock at this time.
Can you please post your current Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels? (if you have other test kits, post those results too)

Here's the recommended snails for a 125 gallon tank on reefcleaners.org:
117 Dwarf Ceriths
39 Nassarius
46 Florida Ceriths
36 Nerites
So you may be a little light in the snail department.
Outside of these snails, I'd definitely get some astrea snails. Those guys seem to do the most work IMO

 

[Peeptoad]

I'm still new myself and I love John from reef cleaners, but do not add that large of a size CUC to your tank. They will starve in a new tank. Check out BulkReefSupply Suggestions:

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome

 

[Stolireef]

Welcome to a great hobby where patience is the most important skill. Along those lines, as Mike N indicated, way too many fish way too fast.

The very first thing I do is stop listening to your LFS, especially if they told you that a 3 week old tank can handle that bioload. At three months, it would be dicey.

Second, along with your parameters, please post your equipment list especially as it pertains to water quality. Some examples.
Are you using a sump?
Skimmer? If so, what kind?
Fuge?
Other?

This will help us understand your current situation and we'll then be able to provide you with accurate advice.

 

[Keily]

Ideally, you shouldn't have put any fish in the tank until it was cycled completely. Definitely hold off on adding anymore livestock at this time.
Can you please post your current Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels? (if you have other test kits, post those results too)

Here's the recommended snails for a 125 gallon tank on reefcleaners.org:
117 Dwarf Ceriths
39 Nassarius
46 Florida Ceriths
36 Nerites
So you may be a little light in the snail department.
Outside of these snails, I'd definitely get some astrea snails. Those guys seem to do the most work IMO

I don't have the exact levels, I've just been taking the water every day to the place for them to check it.
Last time I went, which was on Saturday they said everything was perfect; Nitrite, Nitrate, Ammonia, pH and salinity. However, they recommended to wait about 5 more days to let the cycle completely finish for sure.
Also, in regards to the snails... my father just came back from a beach vacation and brought me a billion snails (small and larger ones), a rock and 5 small crabs. Can I put those in there?

 

[Mike N]

Which beach?
I personally wouldn't add them to the tank until you can positively identify them. Some snails are pests/predators, same with crabs.
I don't see any crabs in the picture. can you post a close up shot of the crabs and the snail shells?

 

[Keily]

Welcome to a great hobby where patience is the most important skill. Along those lines, as Mike N indicated, way too many fish way too fast.

The very first thing I do is stop listening to your LFS, especially if they told you that a 3 week old tank can handle that bioload. At three months, it would be dicey.

Second, along with your parameters, please post your equipment list especially as it pertains to water quality. Some examples.
Are you using a sump?
Skimmer? If so, what kind?
Fuge?
Other?

This will help us understand your current situation and we'll then be able to provide you with accurate advice.

Yes, every store tells me something different so I find myself having to google everything and listen to them contradict each other even from the same store.
I don't know much about names and purposes of most of the equipment so I'll try to explain everything and post pictures. lol
I got the tank from another person. It is 125 gal and has a sump, which i don't know how big it is and it obviously has a pump. I have two heaters, one on each end of the tank and since everyone said something different, i just have the temperature at around 79-80; but then they said to raise the temperature to about 82 to accelerate the life of the bacteria or something like that.....Where should it be?
I checked the water on Saturday for the last time to make sure everything was okay and it was. All levels (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and salinity) were perfect (the only thing that was high was nitrite and it was at 0 too) but they recommend to wait another 5 days to make sure the cycle ended or something like that they said.
I currently have a yellow tang, maroon, 4 yellow tail damsels (might be 3 soon since they attacked one and I put it aside but looks like it won't survive another second in there) and a sailfin tang. I also had (or have) a diamond guby which I have not seen in a week after I moved some rocks around. They said it might have died and gotten eaten by the crabs. Also, 15 hermit crabs (blue and red legged), 3 snails, 1 lettuce sea slug (may no longer be alive because i haven't seen it in days), 1 flame scallop, 1 chocolate chip starfish and 2 anemones. No corals except one that came on a rock so I don't even know if it's alive. I had another maroon that was smaller but it died the other day. Can I put another kind of starfish with the chocolate chip? Someone told me that they would eat the other starfish, if they're not the same one!?
I am putting MicroBacter7 in the tank because they recommended it.
Lights are Coralife Actinic 54W T5 HO -- how long are they supposed to be on?
Hydor Koralia Smart Wave being used.
I have no idea what the yellow thing is for?-- on #1
I have a skimmer "Aqua Euro USA" and "PhosBan Reactor 150" but I'm not using them and also I'm not using any of the things on these images.
If i should be, please let me know, I put numbers on them so it's easier in case.
I'm sorry it's so many questions, anything will help. I really appreciate it <3

THANK YOUUUUU ALL

 

[Keily]

Which beach?
I personally wouldn't add them to the tank until you can positively identify them. Some snails are pests/predators, same with crabs.
I don't see any crabs in the picture. can you post a close up shot of the crabs and the snail shells?

It was this area. I will definitely take a picture of the crabs and the shells tomorrow and post it. I know the snail shells have spikes and the crabs are whiteish. lol

 

[Keily]

Which beach?
I personally wouldn't add them to the tank until you can positively identify them. Some snails are pests/predators, same with crabs.
I don't see any crabs in the picture. can you post a close up shot of the crabs and the snail shells?

Here are the crabs and the snails.
Should I? Lol

 

[Mike N]

I have absolutely zero idea what species they are. That being the case, I wouldn't add them to your display tank if I were you.
Maybe setup another small tank with a sponge filter and keep them there.