New to saltwater, starting with 10g...

[coachresue]

First off I would like to say hello. I have been reading up on a lot of threads the past few months and I appreciate everything that you guys contribute to this great forum. I finally registered after having a tank up for 5 days. and here's what I have going on so far...
Standard ten gallon tank (thought about taking the rim off?)
Aquaclear 50 (turn it into a fuge?)
50watt Visi-Therm
Crappy Fluorescent lighting (Aqualight HOT5 24" 48watt comming tomorrow I hope)
Hydor Koralia Nano
2.5" argonite sand bed (not live)
10lbs live rock (branch rock)
Hydrometer (Refractometer comes with the lighting)
I literally live two doors down from a LFS which is sweet. When I purchased the LR, it was literally placed into the tank minutes later. Yesterday amonia was at 3. Today it's at .25. Is my cycle just about complete? How is everything looking so far? Suggestions? Stock list? Anything...
Here's a pic

 

[fibinotchi]

You need to monitor your nitrite and nitrate, when you have no ammonia or nitrite your cycle should be done, a good sign your getting close is when you get a brown diatom bloom, then you can add a clean up crew shortly after.

 

[coachresue]

Well, I kinda jumped the gun on a cleanup crew. I have some sand sifters, turbo, 2 astraeas and a Ninja. They all seem to be doing well but I obviously should have waited.
For nitrites and nitrates, can I use the API freshwater kit? Just to give you some background I have a 90g African Hap/Peacock all male setup and needed some saltwater in my life!

 

[coachresue]

Nitrate - 15
Nitrite - 5
Wow, These numbers are horrible. Considering my ammonia is at .25. Does this mean my cycle is almost done, and I need to do a water change?
All tests were done with API freshwater kit...

 

[fibinotchi]

it will probably take at least a week for your nitrite to go down, nitrate is fine but will raise as your nitrite drops. A small water change might not be a bad idea for your clean up crew, 5 nitrite is pretty toxic. but it may prolong your cycle, there are arguments for both doing small waterchanges and leaving them alone. I too have 3 freshwater planted tanks and needed some new scenery.

 

[coachresue]

Thanks for responding to me so fast. I've read a bit about partial changes and letting the water just cycle... I'm at a lost of what to do. I'm willing to just keep the water in there and let the cycle finish. Hopefully my CUC is strong! I'm going to come back here daily and post my numbers. I hope you and the rest of the members here can help me out!

 

[fibinotchi]

Here is a picture of mine about 6 weeks after adding water. My ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are 0. Still have diatoms. 6 hermits and 6 snails. I also have a cpr skimmer which removes a lot of filth.

 

[fibinotchi]

Don't forget to top off with R/O water or distilled instead of saltwater so your salinity doesn't raise, also check out the sticky posts in the new hobbiests forum.

 

[coachresue]

I top off with distilled water... I've done a lot of research and I will deff look at the n00b section... lol. Again thanks and I will get back tomorrow with updates.

 

[coachresue]

fib, what size tank is that? Looks great...

 

[fibinotchi]

10 Gallon, about 15 lbs of live rock. have a cpr bak pak 2r+ skimmer and 80 watts power compact flourescent homemade fixture. This is a picture before I added livestock.

 

[coachresue]

Nice, I really like it...
So I received my new lighting today (48watt T5HO, not much and I do plan to have corals, obviously nothing that requires a ton of light). My Koralia nano also came as well. I'll put pics up soon...
Anyways, I just did another test...
Ammonia - .25
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - 5
PH - 7.8
Ughhh... Can't believe my CUC is still alive.

 

[fibinotchi]

Ya, PH is pretty low, you may do a partial waterchange just to get that up a little bit. once you cycle you should be good for mushrooms, and ricordeas, and zoas and palys, maybe some leather or something eh?

 

[coachresue]

I'll be doing a partial water change shortly. Hopefully some of those parameters will get in check soon. Thanks for your input on corals. I haven't done much research yet on what types, but I'll get back to you shortly. Anyways, here's a new pic...

 

[fibinotchi]

Looks good, looks pretty bright, You should be in for a lot of fun stocking your tank. Although it can be stressful, I think stocking is the funnest part, I am not even half stocked with coral and I am already eyeing my 29 gallon planted tank, which I have decided to convert within the year. I just restacked my rock yesterday and I like it a lot better, plus I won some ---- auctions that will be coming next week. Here is a picture from today.

 

[nikesb]

coach i really like the scape on your tank

 

[coachresue]

Thanks Nike. I actually tried doing and arch like in your tank. Just couldn't get the rock to stay the way I wanted it and that's what I ended up with.

 

[fibinotchi]

How's it going? Anything new?

 

[coachresue]

Yes! Things are new... I received a promotion at work and things have been hectic but of course I have made time to keep up with my fish hobby.
Last night my ammonia dropped! I did a 30% water change and my ammonia currently reads at 0% Nitrates and Nitrites are still a tad high but with another water change tonight or tomorrow I should be good to go for fish.
Fib, I like what you stocked your tank with and was thinking of doing something similar. However, it seems a bit much... What are your thoughts? Here's what I like...
Firefish, clowns, gobys/pistol shrimp and grammas. Obviously I'm not gonna put all of them in there but that's what I like.
Also... I added a yellow tail damsel to the tank... Temporarily of course. I wanted to make sure I could keep one of those alive before spending the big bucks, lol.

 

[nikesb]

meh dont worry about the arches. In the end it was not a great idea like i had hoped for. the reason being is that the flow is very low in that area i have. if i had a stronger pump, itd be great, but with a k1 its much too little flow in the area. this has resulted in hair algae in that area (dealt with now) and i get diatoms in that area every day but its slowly going away. also, you'll see detritus and everything get stuck there, which has its pros and cons. pro - I siphon all of it out in an easy to get to area. It also provides more surface area for beneficial bacteria to live instead of me just piling it up. Con - it builds up there and looks like crap until i do a water change.
But be happy with your aquascape cause its really nice. I would be able to do so much with a scape like that.