advice for newbie

[simgirl]

I have a friend giving me a marinland eclipse three gallon tank that she was keeping dwarf seahorses in until she sold them.
she says the following:
"This sand is from a fully established tank so it is basically ready to go...meaning you can add it to a tank (or keep it in the one it's already in), add salt water and fish. In a new marine tank, it would take the initial 6-8 week period before it would be safe to add fish. Although in this size tank (3 gallons) you are pretty limited in what you can add. "

I also read that i would need a small heater.

any advice? how long would it be until I could add stuff with this "live" sand? I would like to put some coral or soemthing intereinsting in it...mabe a small fish..

 

[dragon79]

6 to 8 week period she says if you are getting LR in your tank, because it takes time for it to cure in your tank, and the water to stabalize to healthy conditions. It's a waiting game, but you can speed it up a bit if you can get hold of already cycled/cured rock from an established fish tank. Check with your fish store, they may be able to help you and answer a few of your questions. As for little heater, you can use like a 6 inch submerisble 25 watt heater. You may be able to find them at the fish store as well.

To inspire you, check out the pico 2.5 and under to see those small tanks, it'll give you an idea. Good luck.

 

[simgirl]

great thanks for the advice, I was planning on getting already cured live rock, but wanst sure how long I had to run the tank before I did that. and then how long i have to wait after I added it until I could add other things.

 

[djconn]

Hi simgirl and welcome to nanotank! If you are going to use her live sand and purchase some cured LR from your LFS, you will indeed be speeding up the cycling process considerably.

What I would recommend it that you purchase a few test kits for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. These tests will let you keep and eye on you water parameters until things have cleared up with the cycle in your new nanotank. My guess is that within one to three weeks the tank will be ready and its cycle, for the most part, will be completed. Most die-off will be over. Time to do some nice big (25-40%) water changes.

I would also recommend doing as much research as possible on the net on sites like this and purchasing a few reef/aquarium books.

The next question I have is what kind of lighting does the Eclipse tank have? Is it stock lighting? If so, you will be very limited to the corals you can keep.

 

[simgirl]

I'm not sure, I think its stock but I can't find specifics form any of the websites i have found.

here is what i have read abou this system

"I have one of these aquariums that has been setup on my desk at work for nearly 2 years now. I have a dozen or so Mushrooms, some ricordia, anthelia a sun polyp colony, a fire goby, coral banded shrimp and a few bumble bee snails. ONly thing I did was remove the bio wheel and add a 12 dollar heater. Can't get a better looking or working desktop size tank for that kind of money."
I don't know what half these things are but was planning on looking them up.. I wont get the tank till next week so I have pleanty of time to decide what I want/need to do.