smithsco615

I have just finished viewing your website and I wanted to say thank you for all of this great info. It will be two weeks tomorrow 5/26/08 that I set up a 46gal bow front salt water tank. sadly I was unaware about how cruel it was to use damsels to start to cycle my tank and bought six of them to do the job. I have a friend that is going to be giving a Clown fish and a yellow tang in a couple of months. My temperature is at 80 deg. and i tested my water today and my pH was at approx. 8.2, ammonia was 0, nitrite at 0.1. I used live sand also and currently going to be getting some live rock for my tank, i hope tomorrow if I can. Is there anything that I'm doing wrong or could be doing better? What should I do to make my tank good for the new fish coming. I will be returning the damsels before they come. Thanks for your input!

Mike

Hi - first, welcome to FishLore!

Second, live rock and a protein skimmer and some powerheads for water movement will make your setup much better. If you get enough live rock (at least 1 pound per gallon) you don't need to use fish at all to cycle... The live rock will handle the bio-load. After you get the live rock you monitor ammonia, nitrite and nitrate with your test kits (like you're already doing). If you get rock that has been in a dealer's tanks for a few weeks already you might not see a cycle at all. Check out the saltwater aquarium guide for some helpful articles too.

mastercave

i had recently finished setting up a 55g and i used 20 lbs of live sand,30 lbs of aragonite, and 70 lbs of live rock. my tank cycled instantly!

i think many new hobbyists like to get a little bit of rock since it's expensive but i went ahead and bought enough for the entire setup so it might have helped.

good luck!