Slowly starting a salty tank

[myjohnson]

*** it! Kill them.

[Andrew_B]

So it's coming up on 2 weeks of cycling. The start of the cycle I kept lights on its rotation. A few days in I added a shrimp. The next day had a good amount of algae in tank. Since then I kept lights off, thinking it was actually doing something in relation to cycling. Tested water today and everything is still 0. Think it went through a quick cycle? Should I keep lights on rotation for a day or two to see if algae keeps building? Probably a sign that its still cycling if it keeps growing. When can I start adding more cleaners?

[myjohnson]

You can add a CUC right now.

What test kit are you using?

Are nitrate readings also zero?

[Andrew_B]

API saltwater

Yeah, nitrates are 0 too


What are good CUC for LPS/Softies? I seem to have a couple tiny stars and some random small snails roaming the tank now.

[mgarrido]

Just snails, stay away of any kind of crab, even hermits can nip your corals

[myjohnson]

+1. Hermit crabs are over rated.

You should be seeing some level of nitrate in the water.

lol, you get a fish to be safe and wait two weeks to be safe.

[Andrew_B]

Sounds good - What about some kind of shrimp?

[myjohnson]

I've had a CUC since day one. If the spike isn't that bad the shrimp should also make it.

What shrimp did you have in mind?

Hmmmmmm, I guess good beginner shrimps I would get are:

1) Coral banded shrimp
2) Blood red fire shrimp
3) Scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp

The skunk shrimp is not aggressive so you can keep multiple in a smaller tank without issue.

[Andrew_B]

Honestly, I haven't even started looking at livestock for the tank yet. I grow impatient when things are on my mind, so I wanted to wait until tank was ready before even thinking about whats going in there!

Are those fairly easy to come by?

[myjohnson]

Yeah, these are like standard shrimps.

I have kept all three actually. The coral banded shrimp was the biggest jerk.

lol, but they all had to deal with bad water and they held up fine.

For my current tank....I might go with one fire shrimp and like three skunk shrimps.

[Andrew_B]

A couple of those skunk shrimps would be cool. I'll start peeking around for them. Are particular snails better than others?

[Darbex]

Smaller the better because turbos and nerites knock crap over. Dwarf ceriths and DIBS turbos are good I have some but can't ever reach them. If I can find some you can have them.

[myjohnson]

Yeah, I never miss with full size snails.

Those turbos are good but too damnable big.

I've always had dibs turbo. They work good.

[Andrew_B]

Got a couple Peppermint Shrimp and a turbo. Got the turbo just for the sake of having something - I can take him out later if needed. With a bunch of dwarf ceriths, I should be good to go. Still not reading anything with my water parameters and it's been 15 days or so with live rock, almost a month with dry rock. I may try some small/cheaper frags this upcoming week to see how they do.

[Andrew_B]

Put in an order the other day (should ship today) from reefcleaners.org. 45 dwarf ceriths, 25 florida ceriths, 10 nerites, 8 nassarius. Good guy to deal with. Ended up being only 27.00 shipped.

I think I'm seeing a hint of nitrates, less than 5ppm. I'm going to be ready for corals a day or two after I add the snails incase there is a nitrate spike of some sort.

I guess one thing I haven't even looked at yet was food. Is there something I can use for both corals and some small fish? What foods do you use? Thanks