New to Salt Water Reef Nano Tank

[shrtnswt247]

Hello my husband and I are new to the salt water tank. We have the FluVal Evo 13.5 tank and we want to have fish and coral in. We put ammonia and Dr. Tim's bacteria boost in and we are wondering when we can start or what is the next step, so that we can start putting fish and Corals in the tank. We are also looking for a great place to buy upgrades for the tank, like a tank cover for when we put up the new light ( FluVal Marine Nano 3.0 LED light) also we are running the stock filtration set in what media to use. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your input and advice.

 

[keatonmjenkins]

Well right now you are cycling the tank and that takes about 3 to 6 weeks and once your parameters are consistent ( which you can check weekly) you can add fish and soft corals like mushrooms and polyps. Keep the lights off while you cycle so you don’t grow any algae during this stage. Stay away from anemones until about 6-8 months of tank mature and stay away from SPS until you have very accurate parameters that’s don’t fluctuate.
Consistency is key so after your cycle stay consistent on water changes to replace minerals.

This is a fun hobby but it’s a slow hobby so slow and steady is the name of the game

 

[shrtnswt247]

Well right now you are cycling the tank and that takes about 3 to 6 weeks and once your parameters are consistent ( which you can check weekly) you can add fish and soft corals like mushrooms and polyps. Keep the lights off while you cycle so you don’t grow any algae during this stage. Stay away from anemones until about 6-8 months of tank mature and stay away from SPS until you have very accurate parameters that’s don’t fluctuate.
Consistency is key so after your cycle stay consistent on water changes to replace minerals.

This is a fun hobby but it’s a slow hobby so slow and steady is the name of the game

Thank you for the information, what parameters do we need to look for? We bought a Red Reef Master test kit. What numbers are we looking for in the kit so we know when we can start putting fish and coral in?

 

[Reef.]

My advice, take it very slow and read and research a lot before doing anything.

Not being rude but if you have started the cycle you should know what parameters you are looking for, if you get it wrong it’ll likely put you off the hobby or at least get you off to a bad start.

Parameters for the cycle, you want your ammonia to read 2ppm at the start, test for nitrites, it will not be showing at first, then it will go up, then it starts to come down and then reaches zero, you can then test for nitrates, when you get a nitrate reading you can then test your ammonia, when it’s zero you are cycled, you can then do a water change to get rid of some nitrates, to get them down to around 10ppm.

 

[BigDangler]

I'd just take the first 6 weeks of checking out everything you could and should do while its cycling... was this live rock? live sand? so many things can change anything honestly.. Also all depends what you tryin to get out of the tank itself.. soooooooooooooooo many variables

 

[kevgib67]

Check out BRS 52 weeks of reefing. It will take you step by step, in detail setting up a new saltwater aquarium. Just do a search on YouTube. Good luck.

 

[Rmckoy]

Welcome to r2r
This is a great place for advice and help when needed .

having a 13.5 gal tank and wanting fish and corals .
by any chance have you put together a wish list of what you wanted to add when ready ?

 

[tyrym1234]

Hello my husband and I are new to the salt water tank. We have the FluVal Evo 13.5 tank and we want to have fish and coral in. We put ammonia and Dr. Tim's bacteria boost in and we are wondering when we can start or what is the next step, so that we can start putting fish and Corals in the tank. We are also looking for a great place to buy upgrades for the tank, like a tank cover for when we put up the new light ( FluVal Marine Nano 3.0 LED light) also we are running the stock filtration set in what media to use. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your input and advice.

Congrats on setting up your tank! Its so exciting setting up a new tank and dreaming of what it would look like! Might be the best part of owning an aquarium haha

In short, success wont come unless you develop the discipline to keep a tank on track.

You’ll be told the basics; take it slow, check water parameters, do water changes, dip, manage feeding, etc infinity… this is all too true.

I did not do any of those on my first tank, or my third, because i wanted to believe the tank was progressing faster than the 99% of other tanks out there. not taking it slow resulted in stress and confusion because the tank was not cycled thoroughly. All the different types of algae, missing maintenance, over maintenance, which all resulted in coral and fish death… all failed.

Only on my fourth tank did I actually take it slow. Maybe more like i gave up on everything and let the tank do its thing letting all algae do what it wanted, doing water changes every so often because i wanted to keep a goby alive.
After 6 months of this, i felt comfortable adding some corals in because i started seeing coraline algae and pods crawling around.
Now the tank is doing well with sps/lps/softies.

Please watch some BRStv. Its the best place to get solid advise on running a salt tank.



Reefing is a great hobby to get into, but it takes a lot of effort (and money..) to keep it going.
Good Luck!!!

 

[willnow]

Hello my husband and I are new to the salt water tank. We have the FluVal Evo 13.5 tank and we want to have fish and coral in. We put ammonia and Dr. Tim's bacteria boost in and we are wondering when we can start or what is the next step, so that we can start putting fish and Corals in the tank. We are also looking for a great place to buy upgrades for the tank, like a tank cover for when we put up the new light ( FluVal Marine Nano 3.0 LED light) also we are running the stock filtration set in what media to use. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your input and advice.

I started a lil over a 2 years ago with the same Fluval evo 13.5 gal. I kept the stock light until the cord started deteriorating and short circuiting. So I got the Fluval Sea Marine 3.0 15"-24". I kept the stock lids it came with it helps slow evaporation and keeps the water at stable temp. I started with only 1 inch of sand on the bottom. You should invest in at least (10lbs) of live rock you can ask your local store for. This helps build your "good bacteria". I cycled mine the first time with only the rock work, sand, Dr Tim's bottle of starter microbacteria, 1 live small hardy fish to start with ammonia. I purchased a reverse osmosis filtration system because you'll be doing alot of water changes with it being such a small tank. Approx 3 gallons every 2 weeks. That's a whole process in itself. Let me know if I can help with that. All in all it took nearly 6 weeks to cycle the water (no tank is the same some take longer or shorter) you can look up the right water parameters for your type of tank. They are different depending if you want to keep only fish with live rock or do you want to keep fish, rocks, coral and crabs. Let me know if you can't find that info either. I kept my filtration nearly stock. 50 gal heater with built in thermometer, same water pump. Although you wanna buy a backup one in case the original goes out. Most folks wont be standing right there prepared for a switch out. I added additional chemical and mechanical filtration to the stock. After cycled you could start adding fish livestock one at a time every two weeks. Max 4 fish in our tank we don't want it overloaded. I got some snails to help with glass, some crabs to help keep things clean, small branching hammer coral, pulsing xenia, and gsp. Unfortunately we can't have all the fish we want due to the size. They will die due to over crowding and sickness. Also it overloads our filtration setup too quickly, our systems can't handle fluctuating conditions. In a tank our size if one or more water parameters are too high for too long or too low it quickly effects the entire tank in matter of a days. This is called crashing your tank. It means everything or nearly everything dies and you have to start all over. Been there. Sorry it's a lot of info at once but this is just the beginning. I've crashed a tank or two. I've done a ton of research online, verified with additional information I could find. Let me know if I can help