another "newbie questions" post

[romeo22]

ok, so, i'm new here, and i have to say that this site has given me more info than any other nano site...my plan is to set up a 12 gallon nano cube dx, but not without some further research.

here are my questions:
1. i have an extra 5 gallon Top Fin Aquascene tank without a hood or lid. should i use it as a fuge? if so, what is involved in doing that?

2. i'm hoping to get cured live rock, salt water, and some live sand from my lfs so that i can minimize cycling time. if i were to do this, am i "instantly cycled"?

3. as far as water goes, i know there are many opinions. i use "deer park" for my house, and have some of those 5 gallon jugs lying around. can i use those, and see if my lfs will fill them up weekly with their water? or what would you all recommend? should i just use distilled water and mix it myself?

4. my plan is to go with the cured live rock, prolly a clown and maybe damsel, inverts, and corals. what mods to the nano will be necessary? honestly, i don't plan on keeping "hard to keep" corals. so do i need to mod the lighting, or just get different bulbs? sorry if that is an elementary question. i like the idea of having the light on during the day, and then that "blue-light" look on at night. i've never had to really worry about lighting in my fw tanks, so this is all new to me. and should i put some more powerheads in there?

5. how do i acclimate corals, and this is probably silly, but, how do corals attach to live rock. i have only ever kept fw tanks, so this is all new to me.

i'm really sorry for the newbie questions. if you all have links for these answers, please save your time and just post them. i've just been looking around, and these are the questions i definitely want answered before i jump in.

thanks much for all of your help.

romeo22

 

[dragon79]

read up my past posts, my brother mikeguerrero posts, and some of the others with the nano 12 and or nano 6. You'll get answers there. Your new best friend will be the search button to read into the past Enjoy your time here and welcome aboard. Always cool to meet somebody interested in the nanocube.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

1. i have an extra 5 gallon Top Fin Aquascene tank without a hood or lid. should i use it as a fuge? if so, what is involved in doing that?

Definitely do-able! You just have to decide how you want to plumb it into the main tank.

2. i'm hoping to get cured live rock, salt water, and some live sand from my lfs so that i can minimize cycling time. if i were to do this, am i "instantly cycled"?

You'll still see a small cycle from the LR and LS being transported to your house. Any time spent out of the water means die off. My guess would be that you should cycle within a week to two weeks. I've done the cured LR/LS route and was fully cycled in about 10 days.

3. as far as water goes, i know there are many opinions. i use "deer park" for my house, and have some of those 5 gallon jugs lying around. can i use those, and see if my lfs will fill them up weekly with their water? or what would you all recommend? should i just use distilled water and mix it myself?

I can't remember - is Deer Park distilled water? Ask your LFS what kind of water they sell. Some will sell RO/DI and premixed salt. That's what I do - buy 10 gallons of RO/DI and 10 gallons of premixed IO each month. And, yes you can use bottled distilled. 59 cents a gallon at Walmart. (purple label and cap)

4. my plan is to go with the cured live rock, prolly a clown and maybe damsel, inverts, and corals. what mods to the nano will be necessary? honestly, i don't plan on keeping "hard to keep" corals. so do i need to mod the lighting, or just get different bulbs? sorry if that is an elementary question. i like the idea of having the light on during the day, and then that "blue-light" look on at night. i've never had to really worry about lighting in my fw tanks, so this is all new to me. and should i put some more powerheads in there?

Which DX model did you get? Your basic DX? With the basic you can keep softies and some LPS with no problems. THe fish choices sound good, but keep in mind that damsels can be very aggressive, so add that guy last.

5. how do i acclimate corals, and this is probably silly, but, how do corals attach to live rock. i have only ever kept fw tanks, so this is all new to me

Acclimating corals is done by the floating the corals to adjust temp, then gradually adding tank water to the bag over the course of an hour or so. Some corals come already attached to small pieces of LR. Most softies come this way. Stony corals can be glued in place with either superglue gel or an underwater epoxy like Holdfast or Aquastick.

 

[incysor]

here are my questions:
1. i have an extra 5 gallon Top Fin Aquascene tank without a hood or lid. should i use it as a fuge? if so, what is involved in doing that?

Yes you could. However you'll either have to drill the tank, or do some extensive cutting and DIY on the canopy. For what you're describing that you want to keep in the tank, it's pretty unnecessary. Lots of people are keeping very similar tanks without the need to use a fuge.

2. i'm hoping to get cured live rock, salt water, and some live sand from my lfs so that i can minimize cycling time. if i were to do this, am i "instantly cycled"?

There's no such thing as "instantly cycled".
Even with cured LR, saltwater, and live sand, you'll still have a cycle. It should be much faster, but you're still looking at a couple weeks with no livestock in the tank.

3. as far as water goes, i know there are many opinions. i use "deer park" for my house, and have some of those 5 gallon jugs lying around. can i use those, and see if my lfs will fill them up weekly with their water? or what would you all recommend? should i just use distilled water and mix it myself?

For nano tanks I just recommend going to the LFS and getting 5g of salt and 5g of fresh. This should last you pretty close to a month. If you keep a light bioload and do 10% weekly water changes the saltwater should last that long on a 12g. The fresh might not it just depends on your evaporation rate. After doing this a bit you might find that you want to do 20% water changes so get a bit more salt water etc... Getting an RO/DI unit, and mixing your own saltwater for nanos really is more of a headache than it's worth. Once you start getting into larger tanks it becomes more necessary. Using distilled water is fine for your top off, but you may need to add a bit of buffer to it to raise the pH a bit.

4. my plan is to go with the cured live rock, prolly a clown and maybe damsel, inverts, and corals. what mods to the nano will be necessary? honestly, i don't plan on keeping "hard to keep" corals. so do i need to mod the lighting, or just get different bulbs? sorry if that is an elementary question. i like the idea of having the light on during the day, and then that "blue-light" look on at night. i've never had to really worry about lighting in my fw tanks, so this is all new to me. and should i put some more powerheads in there?

With the stock lighting on the DX you should be able to keep mushrooms, leathers, some zoos, most polyps, and quite a bit of LPS. Most of this doesn't really require much in the way of current, so I wouldn't get another PH until it's been up and running for awhile. Clowns are generally good choices for nanos. You might want to rethink the damsel. They all tend to get agressive as they get larger.

5. how do i acclimate corals, and this is probably silly, but, how do corals attach to live rock. i have only ever kept fw tanks, so this is all new to me.

I acclimate everything that goes in the tank the same way. Two pitchers, and a dripline. Pitcher one has the new purchase with as little of the water it came in as possible. Pitcher two gets filled directly out of the tank that the purchase is going in. A dripline siphon is started from the second pitcher dripping into the first pitcher with the new stuff. Some things, (starfish, anemones, clams), are slower to acclimate so the drip is very slow, and I usually will use two pitchers of tank water to acclimate them. When the new purchase pitcher gets full you just pour most of it back into the tank, then refill the tank water pitcher. This assures a nice gradual acclimation. Other things are more hardy, and I let it drip faster and only do one pitcher of tank water.

i'm really sorry for the newbie questions. if you all have links for these answers, please save your time and just post them. i've just been looking around, and these are the questions i definitely want answered before i jump in.

thanks much for all of your help.

romeo22

No problem. As suggested I'd try to use the search function. A lot of newbie questions get answered many, many times. The folks on this board tend to be patient about it, but on some of the others people are a bit more rude.

Welcome to the board, and good luck on your tank. Post some pics when you get started.

Brian

 

[romeo22]

thanks all for the help!!!
so my plan is to go purchase the nano cube, live sand, live cured fiji rock, a submersible heater, and salt water from their tanks tomorrow. then i am going to put it all in and run the tank for a few days...any suggestions, or am i missing anything?

thanks again
romeo22

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yup...get some test kits. ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH, along with a refractometer or hydrometer. Refractometers will give a much more reliable salinity reading than a refractometer.

Test your water daily to check all the levels. Once everything goes down to zero, you can ad a clean up crew. pH should be around 8.2, but will swing around during a cycle.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm