Hello, a friend told me about this site because me and my wife just started out first salt water fish tank, we got a 14 gallon oceanic biocube, i have had alot of fresh water fish growing up but never saltwater, I was just wondering if anyone had any advice on starting out and just general info I should know. I have a great shop I go to with very knowledgeable people, but I was wondering if anyone had some advice on starting out and keeping up a nice saltwater tank.
New Comer
- Thread starter ctracy86
- Start date
Best of Luck on ya'lls new tank.
I'll move this to the salt section so you can get more responses.
Dr Joe
.
i just want to take this time to welcome you to MFK. this is a good site for info. my first suggestion is to get some really good books and maybe even subscribe to TFH. they have wonderful info on fresh and salt. spend your money of a small refugium and a small sized skimmer. you have a 14 gallon tank i would get a skimmer for about a 40 gallon. this will work much more efficient for you. consider lights if your doing some corals and then post what type you find to make sure its good for those corals you want. do all research before you buy fish and corals. get live sand and live rock from that LFS.
i do appologize for that rushed thread.
i also want to mention a note on the size of your tank, the amount of fish is going to be low. you can do some dart fish, a pair of clownfish and a couple other small aquarium reef safe fish. you may also want a basic hang on filter with some rock rubble in it and some filter floss. the rock rubbel will be a small piece of live rock, smashed into smaller pieces. this will act as a biological filter. i would also invest in a hydor koralia power head to get some water moving and have enough surface agitation to keep particles in the water column and for good gas exchange. these are all things that you will most likely end up reading about, but im letting you know now. other memebers will chime in with other ideas, and dont forget, keep those questions coming. lol
again welcome to mfk.
i also want to mention a note on the size of your tank, the amount of fish is going to be low. you can do some dart fish, a pair of clownfish and a couple other small aquarium reef safe fish. you may also want a basic hang on filter with some rock rubble in it and some filter floss. the rock rubbel will be a small piece of live rock, smashed into smaller pieces. this will act as a biological filter. i would also invest in a hydor koralia power head to get some water moving and have enough surface agitation to keep particles in the water column and for good gas exchange. these are all things that you will most likely end up reading about, but im letting you know now. other memebers will chime in with other ideas, and dont forget, keep those questions coming. lol
again welcome to mfk.
Cool thanks guys. The tank I got came with all the lights and filters and everything I needed. and I got like 7 pounds of live rock and a nice piece of lace rock, and some special sand the guy was saying has the bacteria in it to help the tank get started. But I might try they crushed up live rock thing. Oh yeah the only real question I have ( for right now I sure in a day or to I'll have like a million more) is on my tank it has three lights a blue moon light, the blue light for the corals and a white flouesent light, I just wanted to know do I leave all the lights on all the time or at night do I just leave the moon light on.
if you have a 3 stage timer then you can put them all on that, otherwise i would just try and make a schedual that fits your day like a glove lol. the whites really only need to be on for 6-8 hours and the blue actinic bulb should be on for about 1.5 hours before the white comes on and stays on for about 2 hours after the white goes out, and then the blue light goes off, the the moon light comes on. get some pics of the lights, or give us a model number. if its basic flouresent then your not going to be able to keep much coral, if any. remember the crushed rock goes into the filter.
it is an oceanic 14 gallon biocube, all the filtration and lights are built into it, the shop explained it to me and I have a basic understanding of the stuff, they said it wasn't a regular light, sorry i said it was just a regular one, the light system in the tank is by coarlife. Oh i tested my water today just to pratice the test,
i know not all the numbers would be right this, but my ph was pretty low, it was only like 7.8, should I just get some buff to put in the water to fix it or is the tank still adjusting its self.
i know not all the numbers would be right this, but my ph was pretty low, it was only like 7.8, should I just get some buff to put in the water to fix it or is the tank still adjusting its self.
i would increase the amount of surface current to allow better oxegen exchange. on top of that i would get a buffer as you were askin. i use argomilk, its straight argonite and it works pretty well. its all natural as well so its hard to hurt anything. otherwise get a good powder and disolve it in your mix water. then when you add your salt everything should balance out pretty well. keep an eye on it until you get used to adding chemicals and what not.