new saltwater aquarium?

Question

ok i just bought a saltwater tank and i have two damsels and a smaller live rock in there and the nitrate level is high how do i lower that? also someone told me i needed to wait 6 to 7 months to add any kind of fish besides damsels is this correct? they also told me i didn't need to do water changes to just let the filter do the work. Any comments would be helpful.

Answer 1

How big is your tank? Your cycle really depends on the amount of live rock/gallon of salt water and the amount of water movement. The more of each, the better. The cycling does better with cured (aged and not smelly) live rock, nut to put fish in before the tank is at least six weeks old is silly. At this point, your increased nitrate is going to cause a HUGE bloom of slim algae (cyanobacteria). There isn't much to do about it other then a partial water change (with R-O water). Damsels can be very aggressive so you may end up trading them in for the fish you really want and if you have bought at least 1 pound of live rock/gallon you should be okay to put in your fish of choice after four to six weeks. You will have to monitor your levels daily and see if there are any spikes to figure it out. When you go two weeks without a spike you should be fine. Regular water changes not only remove potentially harm-full build ups of waste products, they replace the used-up mineral content of your salt water and are essential in a established tank.

Answer 2

the superb project to do is make certain out what length tank you'll do. Get as great of a tank as you are able to, because Saltwater fish favor more suitable room than freshwater considering Saltwater holds a lot less oxygen than freshwater and maximum saltwater fish get larger. elements Tank/Stand/etc lighting fixtures. Are you doing coral? difficult or tender? look at T5 lighting fixtures and metallic Halides. you'll favor round 3-5 watts per gallon. Heater- Submersible, marineland is a robust style or hydor filter out- Get a canister filter out. the recent FX5 is loopy impressive by skill of Fluval, get one which will move all the water interior the tank a minimum of 5 circumstances per hour. Protein Skimmer- Coral life makes some large ones. Substrate- Use both overwhelmed coral or aragonite (aragonite is sand and overwhelmed coral looks more suitable like gravel. both will buffer the pH to the position you like it (8.2-8.3) After the equipment is dealt with, you set up the tank as you may a freshwater tank, yet you upload interior the sea salt. I favor Oceanic or Coral life. A hydrometer is critical to study the point of salt interior the water(particular gravity) stay Rock is critical once the tank is setup and dealing. about 1lb per gallon is cautioned yet you are able to also mixture stay rock with base rock(it really is useless stay rock. that is going to ultimately grow to be stay rock inspite of the actuality that) I did a three/4 LR to one million/4 BR ratio because it really is more cost-effective and works in basic terms positive. supply it some weeks to cycle, and commence with some fish. i'd propose some Blue/eco-friendly Chromis to commence because they're a non violent damsel fish while lots of the different damsel fish get aggressive as they become old. that ought to favor to be about it, it somewhat is elementary so carry out a touch analyze and get to it! best of success

Answer 3

it should be not 6 to 7 months but about a month to 2 months. water goes into cycles and you have to let it "cycle" before anything. there are 3 different phases. the nitrates the nitrites and something elsei forget. here i found this link.

http://www.algone.com/cycle.htm