Begginer marine tank set up

[music4everman]

hi everyone
I'm sorry I haven't been posting anything for awhile but there really hasn't been anything new to post. It's been almost a month now since I started, and I've been testing the levels and they've been good until yesterday. The ammo. finally rose to 0.25 & the nitrates reached 20, everything else was fine. I did a partial water change (16gal) out of my 56gal tank. I used distilled water from wal-mart (83 cents) a gallon. Is distilled good enough to use in the tank? I was looking for the reverse osmosis but they were out of it. Today the ammo. tested zero and the nitrates dropped down to 10. I also bought a protein skimmer( haven't hooked it up yet) and plan to buy a UV Sterilizer as soon as possible. As far as the diatom in my tank I've been wiping the glass w/the mag-float when it really spreads badly. I also added 4 fish(2 clown & 2 scooters blenny's). I also added 2 peppermint shrimp, 4 lil hermit crabs w/the red legs and about 10 snails not really sure what type but they're very little except for 1 big one. I'm so happy to finally have fish in the tank. I hope I didn't add to many at once. They seem pretty happy so far. I've tried to take pictures with my digital camera but they're not coming out clear. As soon as I get a good one I'll try to post it. How do you post a pic. here? Anyway I hope everyone is doing well , just thought I'd let you know how things were progressing.
take care

[OCtrackiepacsg1]

neat, I have a photobucket.com account, you can upload photos that way then img link them here.

[pinkorchid]

Yes....I also use photobucket.

Can't wait to see some pics. I was wondering how things were going :)

[Bergy]

hey, congrats on finally getting some action goin' on in your tank...

The issue with adding 'too many fish' at once is a coupel issues...

First, if something goes wrong, or maybe you didnt read or do something right, then the chance of total loss is pretty significant...

Also, the 'cycling' process is not something that happens all at once... that is, now that your tank is 'cycled' it doesnt mean you can put a ton o fish and critters in there..

the cycling process setup the 'initial' biological organisms... the population is relative small/low as there isnt much for them to consume, and there fore they only multiplied minimally..

as you add more and more fish, (gradually), the organisms get  a new food source and with the new and more plentiful food supply, the population of biological organisms grows, to handle the new 'bio load'

they will continue to grow until they find the 'balance' of food to organism level...

and as you observed in your test results... the amount of fish you added was more then the organisms could deal with.. which is what led to the higher ammonia result...



You did great by doing a quick water change to reduce the ammonia, but ammonia is very caustic and will burn the gills of the fish... how much, I dont know... maybe very little to none...

The goal is to go slowly and to build up the organism population so they can help in preventing issues...

as for the nitrate.. they arent a big concern now, as it really only matters for corals and such...

The skimmer... you could probably have waited, or not, depending on the deal....



as for posting pics, you can post them two ways... you can look just below the text entry box for replying to messages here, and there are several text fields where you can browse to locate the filename and then when you are done, you click on PROCESS NOW to upload the pics and then you need to click on POST  when you are done...

PLEASE make sure your pictures are smaller then uber high resolution... you really only need a resolution of 640x320  for the majority of web pictures....


The other method is to open a www.photobucket.com account, (or any other photo web hosting servers), and upload your pictures to thier servers... (it is free)...  and this allows you to have a back up of your pictures, and to share your pictures, and or protect your pictures with passwords, and this will save me and my web hosting server some major space...


I suggest you check out www.photobucket.com and look around there...

im sure you w9ill like it, not only for fish and aquarius but for all around general picture sharing...

[cruzincaril]

hi..welcome back..i havent been here for a few days myself..congrats on your fish and as bill says keep an eye on your params now cuz of fish waste..i upload directly to this site..not to photobucket..

[music4everman]

txs for the tips on pics,
I'm checking the parameters every other day and so far it's testing fine. Only the nitrates have been a lil off (10). I also hooked up the protein skimmer and it's actually collecting stuff in the cup. Still searching for a UV light. Really considering the blue dot 
jawfish as my next fish, down the line of course. love the way they act, very cool looking too. Also the coral beauty angelfish. Well that's about it for now, hope everyone is having a good day. bye

[Just_Greg]

if you're thinking about a jawfish, particularly the blue-spotted, you'll need to put some type of cover on the tank.  these fish are 100% carpet surfers, and nobody needs a piece of $100 fish jerky.