WHAT NOW?

[green valkarie]

JUST SET UP A 30 GAL TANK. ADDED SALTWATER ON SUNDAY. TEMP IS 77 / SPEC GRAVITY IS 1.022 / PH IS 8.2 / I ALSO ADDED CYCLE ON SUNDAY TO GET THE BACTERIA STARTED. I HAVE AN UG FILTER AS WELL AS A WHISPER FILTER AND ALSO A POWERHEAD. LAST NIGHT MY AMMONIA LEVEL WAS .5 DO I ADD THE LIVE ROCK NOW? DAMSEL FISH?

 

[dshurett]

I am not sure about the "cycle" that you added, but normally you would put the LR and the damsel in the tank at the beginning and allow those to cycle the tank for you. Continuing to monitor the levels until things come back to Ammonia and Nitrites come back to 0 and then you are cycled.

 

[nosmada]

before you do anything you may want to take the UGF out. they will cause your nitrates to stay high. id go with a DSB and add a little LS to seed it and some LR. then eventually get rid of the whisper filter and go with a skimmer. the whisper filter bads trap alot of waste also causing high nitrates. i started out with the exact same setup as you and constantly had high nitrates. finally i got rid of them both and have no problem with them.
just my .02,
chris

 

[davidcanupp]

If I were you I would get rid of that UGF before its too late. I'm confused as to why you already have the beginnings of an ammonia spike if you don't have any fish in there. That sounds strange and in light of that, i wouldn't add anything right yet. Continue to check the ammonia levels and see what happens. Don't buy a fish until you give the ammonia a chance to go down.

 

[car guy]

yeah it's a good idea to remove the ugf and whisper, you can get a cpr backpack filter, which is a filter and a skimmer for about 130$, go ahead and add the lr, but make sure you don't use crushed coral, but live sand and aragonite (dead sand)