Picking Up New 30 G Today
- Thread starter jlevan
- Start date
kdfrosty
Active Member
I would start off with about 45lbs aragonite sand seeded with live sand. You'll also want some live rock initially, but eventually a minimum of about 45lbs.
If you can spend the $$ on live rock now, you can buy it online, and cure it in your tank. It will help your tank cycle, and you'll save lotsa $$ doing it that way. I wish I did it that way anyways.
To kick off the cycle you'll either want to use uncured LR, or a raw cocktail shrimp. You can also just feed your tank flake food as if you had fish in there. the cocktail shrimp method seems the most popular around here, and is the method I used. Just drop a shrimp in, and watch it decompose. Test water weekly first, then more frequently as you see nitrites and nitrates spike and ammonia go away.
A lot of people cycle their tank with damsels. It usually turns out to be a mistake for them. Damsels are agressive, territorial, and very hard to catch later down the road. Besides that, it's inhumane to keep fish in waters with high ammonia,nitrite, and nitrate levels on purpose.
Don't add anything until the cycle has completed (about 4-6 weeks usually), and when you do it should be a cleanup crew....snails, hermits, etc...
If you can spend the $$ on live rock now, you can buy it online, and cure it in your tank. It will help your tank cycle, and you'll save lotsa $$ doing it that way. I wish I did it that way anyways.
To kick off the cycle you'll either want to use uncured LR, or a raw cocktail shrimp. You can also just feed your tank flake food as if you had fish in there. the cocktail shrimp method seems the most popular around here, and is the method I used. Just drop a shrimp in, and watch it decompose. Test water weekly first, then more frequently as you see nitrites and nitrates spike and ammonia go away.
A lot of people cycle their tank with damsels. It usually turns out to be a mistake for them. Damsels are agressive, territorial, and very hard to catch later down the road. Besides that, it's inhumane to keep fish in waters with high ammonia,nitrite, and nitrate levels on purpose.
Don't add anything until the cycle has completed (about 4-6 weeks usually), and when you do it should be a cleanup crew....snails, hermits, etc...