I recently purchased a 150 litre fishtank as i have been wanting to set up a marine tank for a while. Friends of mine have one and they explained to me the process of setting it up etc so i thought i would take the plunge and buy one.
So i purchased as i said a 150 litre tank (3ft) as well as an "aqua one" external filter, which has skimmer attached aswell as the thing that sits on top made of plastic and when the water bubbles the bubbles go into the plastic bit to empty...not sure what its called
. anyway i have had this tank for 7 weeks now and am having some serious trouble. I purchased 10 kilos of live rock as im told that they help with the initial cycling of the tank. so i set it up and got the salt levels all right and allowed it to run for 2 weeks before decided perhaps i should put a fish in? So i went to my local aqaurium which im beggining to think arnt very helpful. They told me it would be fine to put in two fish that where hardy to help the tank cycle. so i purchased two tropical mollies for a saltwater tank? they did fine and i eventually replaced them with two clown fish after the 3rd week. I did some tests and it showed that the PH was fine and the ammonia was a little high. The man at the local aquarium said that this was normal and the best way to speed up the process was to add more fish. so i purchased a puffer fish (baby) and over the next few weeks i ended up with 7 fish in my tank as per the mans instructions. Anyway over the past two weeks i have noticed that the ammonia is really high around a 4-5 and even 6 on the ammonia for saltwater ratings. So my local aqaurium man told me to purchase ammonia down i have used the whole bottle aswell as doing water changes every 2nd day. 50 percens on the first day with a tripple dose of ammonia down and 20 percent for 7 days after that. So it has now been two weeks and the ammonia has returned to the 4-5 mark. I have changed to feeding them a frozen shrimp block once a day as he told me im probably over feeding them with the flakes which i wasnt as i was feeding them just enough to eat within 2 minutes and only once per day.
My tank has a mix of crushed coral for the bottom and sand. there are three live rocks in there, the man at the aqaurium told me to purchase a second pump to circulate water more which i bought and that is all that is in the tank, and also a air rock thing that runs along the back of the tank underneath the crushed coral.
I realise that my tank most probably has not cycled but i am beggining to think that my local aqaurium is just making money off me as everytime i go in the man sells me something that i probably dont need.
I would really appreciate if someone could treat me like a 3 year old and give me some good hints and tips on how to genuinly set up my tank as i have looked on the internet and there seems to be different stories everywhere!
.
Oh and one last thing i forgoto to mention is my live rocks have also began to start growing brown algae which i think is because i have used tap water with a saltmix to set up my tank which was reccomeneded by my local aqaurium man.
any help will be greatly appreciated,
Callum.
So i purchased as i said a 150 litre tank (3ft) as well as an "aqua one" external filter, which has skimmer attached aswell as the thing that sits on top made of plastic and when the water bubbles the bubbles go into the plastic bit to empty...not sure what its called
My tank has a mix of crushed coral for the bottom and sand. there are three live rocks in there, the man at the aqaurium told me to purchase a second pump to circulate water more which i bought and that is all that is in the tank, and also a air rock thing that runs along the back of the tank underneath the crushed coral.
I realise that my tank most probably has not cycled but i am beggining to think that my local aqaurium is just making money off me as everytime i go in the man sells me something that i probably dont need.
I would really appreciate if someone could treat me like a 3 year old and give me some good hints and tips on how to genuinly set up my tank as i have looked on the internet and there seems to be different stories everywhere!
Oh and one last thing i forgoto to mention is my live rocks have also began to start growing brown algae which i think is because i have used tap water with a saltmix to set up my tank which was reccomeneded by my local aqaurium man.
any help will be greatly appreciated,
Callum.