Newbies to salt!

[thecostas]

Hello R2R from Florida!

So my hubby & I have decided to venture into the world of saltwater! We have multiple freshwater (125g, 65gT & 20gL). We purchased a 29g Bioqube. We have 25lbs of live rock in our tank and are in the process of cycling now!

I am obsessed with all things coral and am super excited to learn all I can!!

Thanks for having us & may the force be with you!

 

[Shep]

Welcome to the community! Post up some pics! (wouldn't mind seeing the FW tanks!)

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome to R2R , you came to the right place!

 

[kschweer]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Tru REEF]

Welcome. Its a awesome thing to see your empty tank turn into a real thriving ecosystem. Good luck on the new build. ×2 on the pics.

 

[hopperjl16]

I'm a newbie too and started with Biocube 29 as well! It's been up and running for 2.5 weeks, just put our invertebrates in a few days ago. Tons of fun! I'm on here non stop researching and asking questions. Great place!

 

[Diesel]

 

[silent_circle]

Did you customize the biocube or left it stock?

 

[thecostas]

Here they are!! Sorry I was so excited to find this resource I didn't think about pics. We have our fresh on auto-timers so the 65T is not lit up.

 

[thecostas]

@silent_circle left it stock.

 

[thecostas]

@hopperjl16 Yeah!! Thats great! We were wondering how long to cycle before stocking. We have been told a few weeks to 6 months!

 

[hopperjl16]

@hopperjl16 Yeah!! Thats great! We were wondering how long to cycle before stocking. We have been told a few weeks to 6 months!

So since I'm a newbie take my info with a grain a salt.....I was so confused b/c I too was told up to 6 months to get my tank fully cycled before I could add anything, but the LFS told me to add fish relatively soon (like within a few weeks). After reading a ton of threads and info I decided to kick off the cycling with a piece of dead table shrimp. Well my tank never showed an ammonia spike, and I realized (after reading more threads and talking to even more people) that my tank probably wasn't going to cycle. I had enough live rock with coralline and I had also used live sand, so my tank was already "functional" (or at least that was my understanding). I still let it just sit with everything running and the live rock in it for about 2 weeks before I added any creatures (checking parameters every few days). And once I did start adding creatures I stuck to invertebrates and a couple soft corals. My understanding is that they don't create a huge bio load and it's a good way to see if your tank will keep things alive. So far so good! I have an emerald crab (LOVE her, highly recommend), a fire shrimp, 2 nassarius snails (I call them my Zombie Pit Crew - also highly recommend), 5 astrea snails, 4 hermit crabs, and a sand sifting sea star. My two corals are a green star polyp (who is very happy in my biocube) and a typical flat little blue mushroom (who is not so happy and I can't figure out why yet). I kept my biocube as the standard set up for now as well. We may add one fish in a week or so if everyone is still doing well. So yeah, you probably could get creatures in sooner than you think if you started similar to me. But I will definitely defer to the experts on here.....

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R

 

[silent_circle]

Nice tank. I would take the bio balls in the middle out since when they get dirty they will generate nitrates. I made a filter basket and put it in the middle section to put filter media and filter floss. I have a small skimmer in the first chamber

 

[thecostas]

Hey all just a follow up! We have fish and coral!!!

So our cleanup is: 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 turbo snail, 1 sand conch, 2 med & 3 small hermit crabs, 2 snail (no clue what they are called) & 2 pistol shrimp.

Fish: 1 clown, 1 gobby, 1 firefish, 1 banggai

 

[thecostas]

 

[thecostas]

@silent_circle we did the same and created our own media rack!!