Teach me the basics

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newreef1

newreef1

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My advice is to have patience. This is where I started...

I’ll watch this. Lol I have patience but I feel like my family is quickly losing theirs whenever a fish dies. It’s like I did it, even though I guess I did. They want to hire a professional guy who maintains tanks In restaurants apparently.
 
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newreef1

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Can you be a bit more specific on what you’re wanting to learn?

For example, you asked about filtration and maintenance - do you want to know more for the mechanical/equipment side, or are you asking to help keep nutrient levels in check?

Similarly, you mentioned that you lost a fish - do you know why you lost it? (I.e. was it disease, aggression, malnutrition, jumping, etc.?)
Both, I thought I had a good idea about maintenance and filtration but sometimes my ammonia goes from 0 to .25 and then my nitrates goes even higher than what it is, maybe I’m feeding too much. I’ve been told the 0-.25 ammonia is probably just at 0 but then a fish dies and I get worried again! I’m under more stress than fish I have! The trigger died, it jumped out the tank on the tank cover, acted funny with a different color, had a red bruise under its mouth and died two days later! No other disease or injury noticeable. No other fish is aggressive towards it, if anything that was rhe aggressive one.
 
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newreef1

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Before watching BRS 52 weeks of reefing or whatever else you're going to do to learn the basics you should make sure you have the right mindset for this hobby. By this I mean you have to be a really patient person and also not the type to make large drastic changes when you see something go wrong. This is especially true if you one day plan to keep SPS. You're going to get disappointed and frustrated really quick if you don't have any patience. I'm not trying to turn you away from the hobby, I'm just being realistic. I've been in the hobby for over 5 years and there are still times when I tend to try to rush things.
True, I learned not to add anything random to my tank based on what one fish is exhibiting but what do you do when you find a fish acting funny or not eating. I feel like not taking action fast enough might result in them getting more. I’m not entirely sure about it though honestly.
 
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newreef1

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The best advice I can give to someone just starting out is this; This Hobby is not a Cookie Cutter type, what works for me, may or may not work for you, every tank is different and will react to changes differently. The single most important thing you can do is PAY ATTENTION TO WHATS HAPPENING INSIDE YOUR TANK!!! Testing water is great, but IMO water tests come second to Observing your Reef!

This Hobby is very scientific in nature, so certain rules apply!
Science is GOOD OBSERVATION coupled with Experience to make good decisions!
Experience comes from making Bad Decisions!!

Happy Reefing!
Thanks, this makes me feel a little better.
 

Icryhard

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Buy the best equipment possible, and best test kits such as Hanna or salifert brand.
What is your maintenance schedule (water changes, water testing)?
Is this tank a fish only or reef with fish ?
Any pics of tank under white lighting you can post ?
What is current ammonia-nitrate-ph-salinity and water temp ?
*Unless it's the Salifert PO4. This one kind of sucks in my opinion. RedSea test kit works better and is more accurate.
 
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newreef1

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One. Cycle your rock for your tank and sump. Put a shrimp in the water let it rot. Put it in a fine mesh so you can remove it.
When you have nitrates and no nitrite or ammonia. Add fish 2 at a time. If you want to get it done faster bottled bacteria does work.
Two. Get a medium sized algea turf scubber. This is all you need. You can run a fuge with a skimmer if you want. But in my opinion ats is the best.
Three. Keep it stable!!! Salinity, nitrates, calcium,magnesium, Alkalinity.
Four. Set your lights and forget about them do not change them all the time
Five. 20% water change every two weeks.
That's just my opinion!
I don’t know anything about algae scrubber, I’ll have to look that up. Also I keep my lights turned off majority of the time because it coats my rocks into a brown algae and the glass. Should I keep them on? What’s the blue and white light percentage and time you recommend. I don’t have any corals just fish.
 
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Reading a book on keeping an aquarium is number 1. Watching a video works better for some but you should then read a book. Joining a reef club and finding a mentor is also another way to learn. A forum is not a good place for a general education, but an excellent place to obtain answers to specific questions.
Cool, I’ll have to find a good reef club, and hopefully a nice mentor. I’ll also look up books I think some of the monitors here have written books too.
 
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*Unless it's the Salifert PO4. This one kind of sucks in my opinion. RedSea test kit works better and is more accurate.
Redsea test kit? I’ve seen that, have other also had good results with that?
 

Icryhard

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Redsea test kit? I’ve seen that, have other also had good results with that?
I've tested the Salifert PO4 test kit compared to the Hanna ULR (multiple tests) and below 0.7 po4 the Salifert PO4 testkit returns 0. So when you see 0.03 on the Salifert testkit you're more around 1. I then asked around and a lot of people mentioned that the PO4 testkit of salifert indeed isn't the best one to use, since it isn't really accurate. The other testkits of Salifert are good to go though. Those are accurate. The people I've asked either had RedSea testkits or Hanna.
 

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*Unless it's the Salifert PO4. This one kind of sucks in my opinion. RedSea test kit works better and is more accurate.
Everyone is going to have a different experience and as much as im on here, hanna and salifert are the favored. Some will say Api, sera and so forth.
 

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I don’t know anything about algae scrubber, I’ll have to look that up. Also I keep my lights turned off majority of the time because it coats my rocks into a brown algae and the glass. Should I keep them on? What’s the blue and white light percentage and time you recommend. I don’t have any corals just fish.
Here is a picture of my Light Profile, I am using Reefi-Lab Uno 2.0 lights on a mostly softy/lps tank. These are 277 watt lights. Your light intensity will depend on the type and make of light you are using. ViparSpectra I ran at 80% Blue and 5% white for 12 hours on blue and 6 hour on white.

1687774544998.png
 
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newreef1

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Here is a picture of my Light Profile, I am using Reefi-Lab Uno 2.0 lights on a mostly softy/lps tank. These are 277 watt lights. Your light intensity will depend on the type and make of light you are using. ViparSpectra I ran at 80% Blue and 5% white for 12 hours on blue and 6 hour on white.

1687774544998.png
Thank you, I don’t have any corals so not sure if I can run lighting for that long. Even for a couple hours a day, my tank was covered with algae in a couple days.
 

Icryhard

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Everyone is going to have a different experience and as much as im on here, hanna and salifert are the favored. Some will say Api, sera and so forth.
Everyone is going to have a different experience, but if I run a test X times and converse with a lot of people in order to determine whether my tests are faulty and they all mention the same thing, we can safely assume it's not merely experience, but also some truth to it. Salifert isn't bad, as a matter of fact, it's (as you mentioned) favored, but the PO4 testkit sucks. I am simply stating what I have observed throughout my tests and conversations in regards to the PO4 testkit and which one was favored when testing for PO4 by others (RedSea).
 

Bruttall

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Thank you, I don’t have any corals so not sure if I can run lighting for that long. Even for a couple hours a day, my tank was covered with algae in a couple days.
For me, the biggest difference between Fresh and Salt was this, with Salt we MANAGE the Algae, and we do this with snails, inverts, fish etc, because we WANT our light cycle to mimic the SUN itself, so we will get algae, it's a fact of salt water.

With fresh I used to adjust light cycle to balance algae, but with Fresh the light is for us to enjoy the fish colorations, salt the lights are for the coral to grow.
 

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With fish only you can use any light you want! The brown is diatoms they usually take off in a new tank full of sylicates. Use your lights to feed and admire your fish . You can set your light to the color you like . But if you put coral in you will have to find the par of your lights the coral likes.
 

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