New 10g Nano, ideas please!!

[snakeblitz33]

No. Bad Patrick.
Buy a good quality salt. As long as you keep your water clean, your salt has additional calcium, alkalinity and magnesium - and you keep up with regular water changes - it will have no choice but to grow.
Adding chemicals to a small tank like that isn't the best thing to do, when a simple water change with a good quality salt will be sufficient if not 10x better than using a supplement.

 

[patrick8929]

haha sorry! okay okay, i will do water changes and get some good salt! sheesh

 

[snakeblitz33]

lol. It's all good man, just trying to keep you from making newbie mistakes.

 

[patrick8929]

ha thank you good sir. i still have yet to test my water

 

[patrick8929]

tuesday-
online order will look like this:
koralia 550
master test kit (reef test kit will be on the next order
and a bottle of phytoplankton

 

[patrick8929]

well i got a test kit today, and the nitrites and nitrates are both at zero, and as best as i can tell the ph is between, 7.5 and 8.0. so i think im ready to put a couple clown fish in there?

 

[snakeblitz33]

Did you test ammonia? Test ammonia and see what it says. If you cycled your tank properly you will see some nitrate at the end of your cycle.

 

[patrick8929]

yea there is very little nitrate, i just kinda rounded it down to 0 lol havnt tested ammonia yet. wat should it be at?

 

[snakeblitz33]

Before you add anything,... fish or otherwise, it should always be zero.

 

[gemmy]

Ammonia and nitrite always at zero. They can be very toxic to fish and other inhabitants at low levels. Nitrates below 20 is what I feel to be good. Zero is optimum, but IMO is very difficult to achieve.

 

[patrick8929]

okay thanks guys, im goin to the aquarium in newport ky, today so it will have to wait untill tomorrow

 

[snakeblitz33]

WooHoo! Have fun!

 

[patrick8929]

well i tested my water again and the tests results are:
nitrate- 20 or less
nitrite- 0
ph- between 7.5 and 8.0
ammonia- 0 or just a hair above 0, colors are kinda hard to read exactly
so what does this mean?

 

[snakeblitz33]

if ammonia and nitrite are zero, your tanks initial cycle has ended! woohoo! now is the time to add some clean up crew for when algae appears. ghost feed for about a week and re-test your water for ammonia and nitrite. Then, if they test zero again at the end of the week, add one small fish.
ghost feeding means to feed your tank flake or frozen foods as if you had a fish in the tank... but you don't. You feed a ghost fish.

 

[patrick8929]

well i already have some snails and a couple hermits. so ill start ghost feeding i guess

 

[patrick8929]

i need to get a few more snails and a couple more hermits and that should be it for my clean up crew! im almost there!

 

[patrick8929]

would it be a bad idea to add a little more sand? i also want to get about 5 more lbs of live rock to really fill out the tank well. also any suggestions on a good skimmer that wont break the bank and will work with a 10 gallon pretty well.

 

[snakeblitz33]

If it's dry sand, I wouldn't worry about anything but a little sand storm, which would subside. Adding additional uncured live rock may cause another small cycle.

 

[patrick8929]

okay

 

[patrick8929]

answered my own question