new marine aquarium.?
hello how are you? i have just set up a new marine aquarium, live rock, live sand, and rigged up a great non-active filter. Its great i made a place for oops factor where i can use carbon only when i need to. for like an hour or two when ammonia and stuff spikes. I have fresh water aquariums of all types. and experienced with them. But salt water is all new and exciting.
now lol to my questions.
1- live sand. 3 days into it. I see allot of red and black worms. Cool: at-least i don’t have to stare at a dead tank for 4 weeks lol. Is there anything else that will pop up? like shrimp or something? And how long will it take?
1-2- all the little things are now making a home and they need to stay. but like i said it’s only 3 days old. Do they need food? Lots of stuff i am told will eat waste and stuff witch will not b in there for 4 more weeks until the first cycle is over. I will have some brine shrimp ready for my Knife in the morning. should i throw some in the new salt water tank to help boost things? (it would be cool to see the finial stage of a brine shrimp.)
2- what is the use of all this? what cant i have no live sand, or rock and just use active filtration? I know carbon is bad for rocks, reefs and such. For the same reasons as my freshwater plants. but couldn’t you just not have that stuff. Throw in some carbon and some mechanical media and be good?
and last
3- when do i know when the first cycle is done?
Other things may or may not pop up in your sand, it depeds on who you got the sand from.
You should not add anything to the tank during this period.
Live sand has bacteria in it. It is beneficial to your tank. A filter does not come with bacteria, you must add bacteria so that they can grow in the filter.
The live sand/rock is for a cycle. A cycle is complete when you see an ammonia spike, a nitrite spike and a nitrate spike. This means that the bacteria in your tank have developed and you can now start adding your fish. This should be done slowly, one at a time with at least a 2-4 week interval between additions. (You will need a test kit to check the parameters)
Other things may or may not pop up in your sand, it depeds on who you got the sand from.
You should not add anything to the tank during this period.
Live sand has bacteria in it. It is beneficial to your tank. A filter does not come with bacteria, you must add bacteria so that they can grow in the filter.
The live sand/rock is for a cycle. A cycle is complete when you see an ammonia spike, a nitrite spike and a nitrate spike. This means that the bacteria in your tank have developed and you can now start adding your fish. This should be done slowly, one at a time with at least a 2-4 week interval between additions. (You will need a test kit to check the parameters)
February 21st, 2010 at 4:05 pmReferences :