First Salt Water tank

swimmer4uus

swimmer4uus

Member
So I've been reading this forum for about a month now, and just recently registered. I live with three roommates and we just bought a 55 gal tank, stand, heater, filter, lights and top. We have it set up running tap water over night to check for leaks. Now I'm wondering how the process is for cycling the tank when we get the salt water mixed, and put in with LR and LS and if anyone can give me some steps for that? Or even some tricks that some people use? We're gonna try to do a small reef setup eventually after the tank is established. We're heading tomorrow to the LFS to pick up the live rock and sand, salt, testers, etc.
 
-tara33-

-tara33-

Member
are you going to use the water that is in the tank already or are you going to empty it and use ro water, i would deffinently recomend using ro instead of treated tap water. and welcome to this addicting hobby
 
swimmer4uus

swimmer4uus

Member
well I would at least like to use filtered water if I can't find an r/o unit any time soon, but I most certainly want to use r/o eventually for our water exchanges. We are for sure gonna drain the water when we get back from the lfs and try to get some lr and sand in there. I'm not letting the roommates touch the tank yet till we at least have water in it for 24 hours to see if we have any leaks.
 
scubaj

scubaj

Member
You can usually get RO water premixed from your LFS. They also usually have containers that come in handy later for water changes anyway.
 
swimmer4uus

swimmer4uus

Member
ok, so what's the process for cycling our tank? I've used the search function to try to find some info but I haven't been able to find much. Can anybody point me to a link or maybe give me a brief guidline?
 
catfishcity

catfishcity

Member
cycling is a process of turning ammonia to nitrite to nitrate and leveling all the parameters of those to 0. well thats basically it. after i put live rock and live sand in my tank, the cycling process only took about 2-3 weeks. be careful though to not put any fish in while cycling!
 
swimmer4uus

swimmer4uus

Member
I saw those links when I was looking through some old posts, guess I'll read them again here soon, but we're mixing the water now...I'm so excited. And I can only hold off my roommates getting fish for so long, but so far I've stopped them
 
mcbdz

mcbdz

Active Member

Welcome to SWF
First things first.
Drain out the tap water and get ro/di.
Either from the lfs or grocery stores(like walmart) have the water fill machines. That should be ro, double check. Then refill your tank with it before you mix.
Make sure along with sand and rock you get test kits and a REFRACTOMETER.
Do not buy anything your lfs tells you too.
get your tank running and in a few days check you salinity, ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.
While you are waiting read the sticky at the top of this board and you'll get all the info you need.
Please don't add any live animals or other chemicals except your salt to the tank.
Come back here and post your progress and everyone on here will help you along the way.
Patience is more then a virtue, it is a nessessity.
Pattie
 
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