a few weeks ago, i decided that i would get into the hobby to have something help calm my nerves, and love the idea of interesting fish, such as those for saltwater, so i dove in and went with a saltwater tank. originally bought a 65 gallon, but decided to tone back and buy an additional 20 gallon tank to start with before jumping into the big one. i started with doing a fishless cycle. 2 decent size dry rock and standard substrate. also went with a couple algae plants just for something to look at while the tank cycled. that was just over 2 weeks ago that all started. had a water test done at the LFS, and ammonia was zero, and nitrites/nitrates were at low enough levels where the owner of the store felt confident that now would be a good time to introduce a couple fish (clowns) and some hermit crabs to help continue the cycle. its been a few days, fish are good and happy.
obviously in the coming days, i will be wanting to start with a water change and will probably do a 10 or 20% depending on what my levels are at at the time, but had some questions on that. how much cleaning should i be doing? i do have a bit of brown build up on the sand, but as far as i know, its part of the process, but dont want to throw off the cycle by doing a clean that is too thorough.
the talk of keeping the good bacteria in it, comes to mind since its really the part that is needed, so should i be cleaning the sand and surfaces where that bacteria is? and wouldnt that remove what the intent was, to begin with? i know water changes wont effect that, but when it comes down to the filter cleanings, or other surface cleanings, i dont want to mess it up.
obviously in the coming days, i will be wanting to start with a water change and will probably do a 10 or 20% depending on what my levels are at at the time, but had some questions on that. how much cleaning should i be doing? i do have a bit of brown build up on the sand, but as far as i know, its part of the process, but dont want to throw off the cycle by doing a clean that is too thorough.
the talk of keeping the good bacteria in it, comes to mind since its really the part that is needed, so should i be cleaning the sand and surfaces where that bacteria is? and wouldnt that remove what the intent was, to begin with? i know water changes wont effect that, but when it comes down to the filter cleanings, or other surface cleanings, i dont want to mess it up.
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