Saltwater Aquarium Advice

So, by now you have added Live rock to your aquarium and are letting that cycle the water from ammonium spike to nitrite spike to nitrate (which is then reduced by anaerobic bacterial denitrification or absorbtion by marine plants or partial water changes) , you can also cycle your tank in other ways such as using Live sand, but Live rock is by far the best way in my experience. Some people even use hardy fish to add the vital ammonium to kick start the reaction but this is very mean. The entire cycling process should take around 30 days, but can take up to 6 weeks.

When the tank is cycling you do not want to remove any water or mess with it all all, just let the bacteria do their thing and be patient. DO NOT attempt to put in any marine life at this time, if they dont die outright they will get very stressed out. If there is a lot of organic matter gathering at the bottom of the tank you can carefully remove this with a siphon.

A good use of your time at this point is to set up a quaratene tank as a secondary medication/new addition acclimation tank if you intend to use one. This is a very good idea and is a vital way at stopping the spread of disease in your display tank and gently acclimating your new pets in a stress free environment, if can be small and doesnt have to have much in it at all other than a few PVC pipes and a bit of live rock for the fish to hide out in.

You will now need to test your water parameters to see what stage of the cycle your aquarium is in. If it is nearing the final phase nitrite levels should have dropped to zero and increasing nitrate levels may co-inside with an increase in algal growth. Now simply conduct partial water changes or initiate anaerobic bacterial denitrification using specific filters to get rid of excess nitrate, if you have a good quality stock of live rock it should naturally provide the bacterial growing environment for this to happen. It is a good idea to do a partial water change (20%) right after the ammonium and nitrite levels drop to zero to help get the nitrate levels down.

You will also want to do a bit of a clean up, siphoning organic matter from the substrate and getting rid of excessive algae that has popped up. Any final aquascaping changes can now be done before you add marine life. If you have any mechanical filtering devices as they would have go clogged up during the cycling you should clean out or replace and media or sponges from them. Now you should restart all you equipment and give the tank a few days for the water to settle, then make any adjustments to temperature or water quality (salinity may need a tweak). Also keep an eye on the nitrate levels at this time and conduct a partial water change and siphon more debris out if neccessary. You will need to bring nitrate down to acceptible levels for your intended set up (ideally less than 20ppm for reef and fish only).

Now for the fun part add one or two species from your plan into the aquarium. You need to move very slow giving the bacteria time to adjust to the increased bio-load. One of the biggest mistakes made at this point is putting to much in too fast. Over the next week or so test water levels and when you get a zero reading for ammonia and nitrite you can add more pets one or two at a time, but remember the slower the better!

And finally your new saltwater aquarium is complete!

Tags: marine aquarium, marine fish, saltwater aquarium, saltwater aquarium set up, setting up marine aquarium

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 12:53 am and is filed under saltwater aquarium set up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.