brand new to saltwater conditions...

V

volcomkrew4life

Reefing newb
So I've had a Green Spotted Puffer for about 5 months now in a 20 gallon tank with a SG of 1.016. He's only about 2 inches long but I wanted to upgrade his tank. So overtime I've brought his SG up to around 1.019 and now that I have a new 50 gallon tank I've brought it up to full saltwater conditions (1.021). I want to get a false percula clown and maybe one or two more fish to put in there with him. I have no live sand or live rock in the tank however. I cannot afford it (along with some powerheads) for another two months or so. My question is what % and how often should i do water changes for these 3 or 4 fishes when I get them? I'm running an AquaClear 50 filter with all of the necessary media. Please help. Thank you.
 
volcomkrew4life said:
So I've had a Green Spotted Puffer for about 5 months now in a 20 gallon tank with a SG of 1.016. He's only about 2 inches long but I wanted to upgrade his tank. So overtime I've brought his SG up to around 1.019 and now that I have a new 50 gallon tank I've brought it up to full saltwater conditions (1.021). I want to get a false percula clown and maybe one or two more fish to put in there with him. I have no live sand or live rock in the tank however. I cannot afford it (along with some powerheads) for another two months or so. My question is what % and how often should i do water changes for these 3 or 4 fishes when I get them? I'm running an AquaClear 50 filter with all of the necessary media. Please help. Thank you.
Click to expand...

So it's an empty tank? If so I suggest waiting to get the fish since they will probably get stressed from a lack of hiding places and you won't have enough bacteria to handle the bioload.
 
Well the tank has sand (not live), some fake coral, and plenty of decorations. It's also fully cycled and ready to go. So what I'm asking is will weekly water changes with the HOB AquaClear filter suffice until I have the money for the liverock? I mean it's only gunna be 3 little fish in a 50g tank..
 
live rock only means that it has bacteria on it that can process fish waste, if your tank is already cycled then everything in it is live.

you are good to go!
 
Well I was informed that the media in the HOB AquaClear 50 filter won't be enough to effectively carry out the biological process of breaking down ammonia into nitrites and then into nitrates. I was told that I NEED liverock in full marine conditions to successfully and effectively carry out that process..
 
you are right, there isnt enough media in the HOB to take care of that, but that bacteria is living on every square of the rest of your tank. If you properly cycled your tank with a piece of dead table shrimp and saw your levels rise and fall, you will be fine.


But you should get rid of the HOB filter anyways. That will cause you more trouble than its worth. Unless you clean it every 3 or 4 days, it will just release nitrates back into the water column because those things only trap stuff so they can rot into smaller particles and be washed back out into the main water column.
 
volcomkrew4life said:
Well I was informed that the media in the HOB AquaClear 50 filter won't be enough to effectively carry out the biological process of breaking down ammonia into nitrites and then into nitrates. I was told that I NEED liverock in full marine conditions to successfully and effectively carry out that process..
Click to expand...

You should be alright with 3 fish since there is also bacteria growing on the decorations and all over the tank.
 
I assumed that there was good bacteria grown on the decorations in the 20 gallon tank so what I did was just put them right into the 50 gallon along wth some of the water from the 20 gallon tank and the filter from the 20 gallon which was already seeded with good bacteria. So basically I cycled by tank without having to wait for the bacteria to form correct?
 
I know that isn't how to properly cycle an aquarium but isn't the whole point of cycling an aquarium to seed the media in the filter and the decorations in the tank with good bacteria that can carry out the nitrogen cycle? I already had decor and filter media seeded with this bacteria so why wouldn't putting good bacteria into a new tank be the same as cycling a new tank to create that same bacteria?
 
volcomkrew4life said:
I know that isn't how to properly cycle an aquarium but isn't the whole point of cycling an aquarium to seed the media in the filter and the decorations in the tank with good bacteria that can carry out the nitrogen cycle? I already had decor and filter media seeded with this bacteria so why wouldn't putting good bacteria into a new tank be the same as cycling a new tank to create that same bacteria?
Click to expand...

The bacteria you already have will help alot, but there will be some die off so be careful and make sure amonia and nitrite stay at 0.
 
the point of the cycle is to grow that amount of bacteria you transfered in there, you have to feed them (by the rotting table shrimp) so that there are enough to handle the fish you are going to add. There inst much bacteria in the water, and not enough on a few decorations to take care of the poop from one fish.
 

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