new tank (kinda)

[chevydragtruck]

ok, ppl, I bought a used 55 gal tank from a friend (no rock, fish, or water) the tank was down for 2 to 3 days before I got it home and back up and running, I added 30 lbs of dead crushed coral, with 2 lbs of live sand to the bottom and ran that for about 2 weeks (the wet/dry wasn't cleaned out) and about a week ago I added 6 Damsels (2 died already) and about 14 lbs of LR, through constant testing, everything is fine, is this thing ever going to cycle? I now have some brown alge growing, some pet stores say to clean it out, and others say to let it take it's coarse, what do I do????? the damsels are verry active and just absolutley go nuts at feeding time. when is a good time to add my clean up crew, coral, and other fish?

 

[puff(er) daddy]

My advice is to take it slowly. I think your rushing it a bit. You should have 1 to 1/2 lbs. of l/r per gal. The cc is going to be a problem I think. I had it and it kept giving me high nitrates and nitrites. Because the cc sometimes hide the excess foods you feed and the waste from the fish. With sand you avoid these problems. I just perfer it and other will agree. But just take it easy and let it take it's course like advised. Good luck!

 

[trigahappynigerog]

your tank is cycling right know the brown algae are diatoms. try to clean as much as you can off, they wont hurt the fish. just leave the tank alone and let it do its thing.
you can add a cleanup crew right now like turbo snail to clean the walls for you.

 

[chevydragtruck]

cool, now I can look around for the snails, there are quiet a fiew stores here in town, or should I just mail order them? the guy I bought the tank from said that he could get the tank to cycle in a week, but then again I haven't heard from him since, so how many is a good amount to add? I've also been adding TLC every week to the tank, I'm not trying to rush anything, I'd rather have it done right and have happy fish, than to waist my money, and have dead fish, I've also been thinking about adding more sand, and some more LR, but this stuff is SOOOO expensive, so i'm doing a little LR every week. this is my first Salt water tank I've ever had, and WOW it is WAY different from any freshwater tank (and I have owned about 15-20 of them in my lifetime)thanks, and "I'll be back" LMAO

 

[mr . salty]

Your right,LR and LS are expensive.So adding it a little at a time is fine...That is how I did mine..I just wish YOU would not have put that cc in there.It may cause you problems in the future...Is there any way you could strain your substrate with a spaghetti strainer to remove the CC???That is what I had to do when I switched from CC to live sand and didn't remove 100% of the CC...Soon the CC was mixing with my sand,and looked like s**t...