First saltwater tank set up!

FlexingFishSticks · May 10, 2020

Hello everyone! Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours! Just set up my first saltwater tank today. It’s a 36 gallon bowfront tank. Salinity is 1.024 ph 8.1 temp 76 nitrate 0 nitrite 0 ammonia 0.25. I have 50 pounds of live rock in it. 2 inch sand bed of CaribSea special grade reef sand. I used di water mixed it with fritz rpm salt mix. I am using a Marineland c-220 canister filter and a aqua knight light temporarily until my xr15 gen5 comes in along with my mp40 wavemaker. I do not intend on running a protein skimmer for now. I have a thin acrylic top I made as a lid. Just wanted to share with everyone and gather input in case I am doing something wrong or not. Hoping to get some live stock in there ASAP but I’m hearing 6 weeks until I can which is fine rather do it slow and steady and right the first time.

Flippers4pups · May 10, 2020

Go slow. You've got a good start.

FlexingFishSticks · May 10, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
Go slow. You've got a good start.

Appreciate it! Will def go slow

Chrisfish · May 10, 2020

Welcome to R2R, nice looking tank

FlexingFishSticks · May 10, 2020

Chrisfish said:
Welcome to R2R, nice looking tank

Thank you!

DaddyFish · May 10, 2020

Welcome to R2R, nice tank.

Is that a Top Fin 36 and TF stand?
I hope you have good luck with the acrylic cover. I can't seem to get acrylic to stop warping and twisting, no matter what the size, shape or thickness of the piece. I'm having much better luck going to the local glass shop and getting 1/4" glass cut to shape/size/fit.

FlexingFishSticks · May 10, 2020

DaddyFish said:
Welcome to R2R, nice tank.

Is that a Top Fin 36 and TF stand?
I hope you have good luck with the acrylic cover. I can't seem to get acrylic to stop warping and twisting, no matter what the size, shape or thickness of the piece. I'm having much better luck going to the local glass shop and getting 1/4" glass cut to shape/size/fit.

Yes it is the Top Fin tank and stand. I was worried about that as well I was leaning towards glass from the start but was not confident cutting it so I decided to take the risk and do acrylic it’s 1/4” thick so far no warping and twisting fingers crossed.

FlexingFishSticks · May 23, 2020

It’s been about 3 weeks now there’s a lot of green/brown algae growing on all my live rock. My sand bed has patches of yellowish green on it. I did a few tests over the weeks and I had a nitrite and nitrates go up to 5/10ppm my ph has been 8.2-8.4 and salinity 1.025. Today nitrates and nitrite were 0 and ammonia 0.25. Wondering if That’s normal and if my cycle is still going or if it has completed? I have not put anything in the tank at all. Jus weekly water top offs.

Copingwithpods · May 23, 2020

Welcome to R2R great start and good looking tank.

sfin52 · May 23, 2020

FlexingFishSticks said:
It’s been about 3 weeks now there’s a lot of green/brown algae growing on all my live rock. My sand bed has patches of yellowish green on it. I did a few tests over the weeks and I had a nitrite and nitrates go up to 5/10ppm my ph has been 8.2-8.4 and salinity 1.025. Today nitrates and nitrite were 0 and ammonia 0.25. Wondering if That’s normal and if my cycle is still going or if it has completed? I have not put anything in the tank at all. Jus weekly water top offs.

Welcome mate. Have you thought about a build thread

Jonify · May 23, 2020

FlexingFishSticks said:
It’s been about 3 weeks now there’s a lot of green/brown algae growing on all my live rock. My sand bed has patches of yellowish green on it. I did a few tests over the weeks and I had a nitrite and nitrates go up to 5/10ppm my ph has been 8.2-8.4 and salinity 1.025. Today nitrates and nitrite were 0 and ammonia 0.25. Wondering if That’s normal and if my cycle is still going or if it has completed? I have not put anything in the tank at all. Jus weekly water top offs.

No worries! That's normal. Takes a couple of weeks to a month to finish the initial cycle. If you just stay on top of weekly water changes, keep your lights to about 8 hours, and feed sparingly (once you have fish), it will go away on its own. Adding a clean up crew like turbo snails or an herbivorous fish like a blenny will help control it in the mean time.

FlexingFishSticks · May 23, 2020

Jonify said:
No worries! That's normal. Takes a couple of weeks to a month to finish the initial cycle. If you just stay on top of weekly water changes, keep your lights to about 8 hours, and feed sparingly (once you have fish), it will go away on its own. Adding a clean up crew like turbo snails or an herbivorous fish like a blenny will help control it in the mean time.

Thank you for the feedback! I guess I am just overthinking things and need to let cycle run it’s course.

Steph37 · May 23, 2020

FlexingFishSticks said:
Hello everyone! Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours! Just set up my first saltwater tank today. It’s a 36 gallon bowfront tank. Salinity is 1.024 ph 8.1 temp 76 nitrate 0 nitrite 0 ammonia 0.25. I have 50 pounds of live rock in it. 2 inch sand bed of CaribSea special grade reef sand. I used di water mixed it with fritz rpm salt mix. I am using a Marineland c-220 canister filter and a aqua knight light temporarily until my xr15 gen5 comes in along with my mp40 wavemaker. I do not intend on running a protein skimmer for now. I have a thin acrylic top I made as a lid. Just wanted to share with everyone and gather input in case I am doing something wrong or not. Hoping to get some live stock in there ASAP but I’m hearing 6 weeks until I can which is fine rather do it slow and steady and right the first time.

Looks fantastic!