New to this

[deraticus]

Ok so i bought my wife a 24g nano for her bday. I got a lil bit of rock in there now but tommorow im gettin 16lbs and all my algae eaters. Well my tank has been up prolly 2-3 weeks now and i have all the eq it came with. Should I upgrade any of it? I have a ton of algae build up and took my moms small conch and decent sized hermit and they have been busy. Im taking them out tommorw before i put my new rock in and urchins snails and hermits in. I just want a clean healthy tank. and all my water levels are excellent and salt is where its supposed to be.

 

[reefcrazy81]

what kind of water u use....and how long your lights on each day

 

[deraticus]

water.........i used some from my moms tank and did water change till my water was good. and lights.......um prolly the bright ones are on 8-10 and blue on is on all night. I have a timer just still have yet to set it up

 

[deraticus]

So what should i have my lighting set to? and should i do any equipment upgrades before i do anything else?

 

[aztec reef]

you might wanna think twice about putting 16lbs of liverock in your wife's nano, because it will cause a ammonia spike. i would say to add about 2lbs of live rock per week while checking parameters and also you wanna make sure that the lr is cured.. because you stated that you already have some animals and your tank is already cycled you are risking loose the livestock and create a minicycle.
as for lighting i run my mh's for 10hrs and actinics for 12hrs.

 

[rbaldino]

Originally Posted by Aztec Reef
you might wanna think twice about putting 16lbs of liverock in your wife's nano, because it will cause a ammonia spike. i would say to add about 2lbs of live rock per week while checking parameters and also you wanna make sure that the lr is cured.. because you stated that you already have some animals and your tank is already cycled you are risking loose the livestock and create a minicycle.
as for lighting i run my mh's for 10hrs and actinics for 12hrs.

Personally, I wouldn't think twice about adding all that live rock at once if it's cured. When I got a 50 gallon tank many years ago, I threw in about 30 pounds of cured live rock I bought the same day and all of the fish from my 30 gallon. Those fish lived for another 10 or so years, and one of them is still going. Anyway, I'm very skeptical of the idea that cured live rock will cause any sort of ammonia spike.
As for algae, it would help if you described it a bit. Is it brown, red, green? Slimy or hairy? It's probably just part of the new tank's cycle, so I wouldn't worry too much about it just yet. Get everything set up the way you want it and see what happens.