~krystal~
New Member
So I have been reading up a bunch and searching for my questions but I have terrible service where I now live. I used to have a 30 gallon fish only in high school and was pretty successful with that. I told my self when I got done with college I would set up a reef tank because I enjoyed the other so much. I have forgot a lot of crucial things though.
I set up my 10 gallon a few days ago because Im broke after school so trying to use existing stuff I have and make it work on low funds. I have a hob bio wheel filter and a power sweep with the sponge intake (does the sponge do anything important?) Have 1 5500 k bulb and might get an actinic for the other side?
Got a piece of fiji live rock at ***** and put it into the tank with no scrubbing, plan to get more rock in the next week, maybe online or I may go to an actual fish store in Houston. The ***** piece had a blue leg hermit in it that cruises around. I have Arag alive sand. Should I wait until I get all my rock in place and suck up the broke pieces and die off or whatever else before putting the sand in or will it help the cycle? We have a water softener and I used that water to start it because I'm a ways from town. I bought distilled water today since it's so small I'll do changes with that. I had some old coralife salt I used. My ph seems to keep dropping to 7.8 and salinity dropped from 8.0 to 7.8 in the past couple days. Is it not getting enough air? Also I remember buffering ph with baking soda? How do you do that? Sorry for the long post just want to do everything right. Especially in such a small tank.
I set up my 10 gallon a few days ago because Im broke after school so trying to use existing stuff I have and make it work on low funds. I have a hob bio wheel filter and a power sweep with the sponge intake (does the sponge do anything important?) Have 1 5500 k bulb and might get an actinic for the other side?
Got a piece of fiji live rock at ***** and put it into the tank with no scrubbing, plan to get more rock in the next week, maybe online or I may go to an actual fish store in Houston. The ***** piece had a blue leg hermit in it that cruises around. I have Arag alive sand. Should I wait until I get all my rock in place and suck up the broke pieces and die off or whatever else before putting the sand in or will it help the cycle? We have a water softener and I used that water to start it because I'm a ways from town. I bought distilled water today since it's so small I'll do changes with that. I had some old coralife salt I used. My ph seems to keep dropping to 7.8 and salinity dropped from 8.0 to 7.8 in the past couple days. Is it not getting enough air? Also I remember buffering ph with baking soda? How do you do that? Sorry for the long post just want to do everything right. Especially in such a small tank.