New reefer tank

[PapaReefer]

As of continuation from my meet & greet post https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-reefer-from-canada.689180/.

This is our first marine tank, here is what we have so far:

• Bowfront 47G tank
• Fluval 205 Canister filter
• Current USA Orbit Marine LED light
• Heater
• Current USA eFlux Wave pump
• CaribSea Live Dry Rock
• CaribSea sand

Although I know it is not the best, but plan is to start with tap water and canister (which came with the tank) and to upgrade later to RO/DI and look into building sump with skimmer.

Now, it's been almost 2 weeks since we started the tank. We started to ghost feed the tank about a week ago.
So far no changes in water chemistry. All at zeroes...
As patience is running out I think I am going to switch to Lasse method next week.

I guess questions at this point are:

• is it normal that after week of ghost feeding no changes in Ammonia etc?
• do we have enough rock for tank of this size? Somebody suggested that since I am running canister filter I can add bio-balls in the canister to serve as additional place for good bacteria to grow. Is it feasible approach? I have two boxes of Fluval BIOMAX filter media sitting on the shelf. Would it do or I need something special? Buy more of that CaribSea rock would be out of my current budget for now, so I am trying to figure out how to get away with minimum spend.
• Should I stop ghost feeding if we decided to go with Lasse method?

Thank you all in advance!

 

[Malifry97]

Caribsea life rock has bacteria painted on it. You are cycled IMO. I’d add a fish or some more food to keep bacteria going. So in this case you are having ammonia but the bacteria is consuming it, hence the zeroes. Also you have more than enough surface area with the rock so no need for bio max. What is your plan for the canister filter media? What coral do you want? Fish?

 

[PapaReefer]

After doing lots of research I figured that the best setup for canister would be just sponge and then carbon with floss. Does it sound right?

Not sure what corals we want as we are not there yet

Today we got our first inhabitant - Clarkii Clownfish!

 

[fishguy242]

hi consider protein skimmer happy reefing

 

[PapaReefer]

Yeah, it is in the plan. but now I have to do with what we have

 

[PapaReefer]

So it's been 3 weeks since we introduced our first inhabitant.

Ammonia is 0 an constant
Nitrate level raised to 5PPM and is constant
NItrites 0 constantly

I am still waiting for Nitrates to go down and Nitrites to go up but it's not happening.

Should I be worried?

 

[PapaReefer]

Anybody? Should I be worried or it is normal?

 

[Sparkymarc]

I think you have that backwards. Everything is fine. Your nitrite should remain 0. You can lower nitrate through water changes but nitrate is not lethal to fish unless they are very high. A lot of reefers keep nitrates at 10-20ppm.

 

[Geonet]

I'm new to the hobby also.I
'm just cobbling together all the advice I can from here and LFS. I filled my tank with tap water also.But have stopped..all my top-offs and partials are with Ro/DI. I bought the Rodi Buddy from Amazon for $59.99 and glad I did...its slow,but my water TDS is dropping now.I'm so impatient...but this hobby is changing that

Geonet