Help with Nano Reef?

Question

I just purchased a used nano reef with no fish but some live rock and sand and some almost dead polyps and mushrooms. The tank comes with everything but I need some advice on what I will need to get the evnironment at a livable level. I am new to this but I am a wildlife biology major who has a lot of interest in marine life. Any help would be great and I am trying to keep it simple at first. I don't really want to dump a bunch of money into it right away.

Answer 1

Welcome to basic saltwater 101! Your immediate concerns would be water quality, lighting, and temperature.

Your tank needs to have the proper salinity to keep anything alive. So you'll need a sea salt mix, a hydrometer, and something to mix saltwater (a clean 5 gallon bucket is great). With the polyps and mushrooms, you'll want the specific gravity, as measured with the hydrometer, to be 1.024-1.026. I like the lower end, so if water evaporates from the tank, you have a little leeway before it gets too high. You should mix the salt using cold tap water only, but you shouldn't measure the specific gravity until the water is at least room temperature (which means mixing it ahead of time) because temperature affects solubility.

Water temperature should be 76-80o, and be kept stable. This means finding a place for the tank where the room temperature doesn't vary much over the day, and away from drafts and heating or AC vents.

The polyps and mushrooms are photosynthetic, so they need proper lighting for photosynthesis. Most of the lamps that come with the prefab nanotanks have the proper wavelength, but if yours is a 10 gallon with a standard hood, you'll need to buy the proper replacement tubes. You want something in the range of 10,000K, and these should be replaced every year to keep the proper intensity and wavelength - don't wait for the tube to burn out.

You should also have a saltwater test kit to measure ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH. Ammonia and nitrite should both be =0, nitrate should be <30, but even lower is better. The pH should be in the 8.2-8.4 range. Most people have trouble maintaining this, so if you do, I'd recommend using kalkwasser to keep the pH elevated. Just follow the directions on the jar, and mix in a separate container (never add directly to the tank). You can dose the tank with an eye dropper a few ml a day till you get to the needed level.

That should help you get the tank up to livable conditions for what you've got. I'll add some links below to site where you can get more info for the future. Good luck with the tank.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/
http://www.fishlore.com/SaltwaterBeginners.htm
http://www.peteducation.com/index.cfm?cls=16

Answer 2

everything he said is right except don't use tap water if you have reverse osmosis water available use that other wise you will have a algea bloom . go to this website it is a forum that will tell you everything you want to know