Just wanted to say whats up

[obi]

Hey everyone,i'm new to this forum and marine aquariums.Actually just got my first tank setup today,i figured i would start small for learning purposes so I went with a 10 gallon.just have the saltwater in there and 3 peices of live rock with the filter kickin for now.

Any help from you guys would be appreciated cause i know NOTHING about this and am learning as i go.

Peace

 

[jceli728]

Wellcome to the NJRC!!!

The only thing I could say is a lot of reading and listen to all the guys here always good advice and experience.

 

[ricwilli]

Welcome...... As stated. Do alot of reading and ask lots and lots of questions. Everyone here is great and very helpful. If you haven't done so. You might want to start a thread in the "Tale of the Tank" section. Thats where everyone logs there progress on setting up there tanks.

 

[Patriot76]

welcome. i have been keeping marine fish since the early 90's but i still consider myself a novice. i just started my first reef a few months back. my advice to you would be to read a lot and ask a lot of questions. there really is no such thing as a stupid question. first thing you should decide is what kind of tank you are striving for. this will determine what equipment you should buy. in this hobby you pretty much get what you pay for. if you think a deal is too good to be true- it probably is. i would ask other peoples opinions on here before buying any piece of equipment. chances are someone on this forum has once used/owned that product you are looking at and can tell you the pros & cons. i would suggest buying equipment that are rated for a larger tank because you probably will want to upgrade eventually. i would also suggest saying away from cheap equipment, it sucks to by the same item more than once because you tried to save money and bought a low end peice of equipment. i know you said you wanted to start small so you got a ten gallon tank, well the problem with that is with such a small tank it wont take long for a small problem to become a big one. there are many water parameters that need to monitored, if anyone of them is too far out of whack it could be fatal to the fish, coral, inverts. for example, if you heater breaks and it is cold in your house, the temp in a 10g tank is going to drop much faster than it would in a 55g tank- and vice versa. just like if you left a gallon of water and a cup of water outside in the middle of winter, the cup would freeze before the gallon- same theory with tank size. this is true for a raise in amonia, nitrates, etc. I would first focus on letting your tank cycle and getting your water conditions optimal before adding any fish. because of the size of your tank, you are going to be limited to what specifies you can keep. damsels are the easiest marine fish to keep, but you should do a lot of reading and and ask for advice, then form your own conclusion. there is so much info available online now, take the time and read up before making any decisions, it will save you money and stress in the long run.

good luck! and like i said, i am not an expert by any means, but feel free to email me if you have questions.

 

[NJ_ychung1]

same as u, i started a 10 gallon reef approx 18months ago with 3 rocks. after about 6 mo. into it i had a disaster that wiped out all my frags - only one damsel survived. after going fallow for close to a year w/o any corals, i finally mustered some courage to start up again. thanks mostly to mike in middletown, he hooked me up with some of his beginner corals and gave me lots of helpful tips. anyway. good luck to you. one thing i will say that wreaked havoc on my 10G was that the temp got out of control when the weather turned warm. at that point salinity, alkalinity etc. and other water param's didn't matter, it just killed all of the corals and it didn't take long either

cheers and good luck.

jay

 

[Brian]

Welcome, Obi!

The best advice I can give (which I still have trouble following!) is have patience. Nothing good comes fast in this hobby.

Good luck with the new tank!

 

[mikem]

Welcome. Great advice given here.

 

[momof6kids]

Welcome Obi. The best advice I can give you is to take it slow and not try to rush. Also don't try to save money in the wrong areas. It will just cost a lot more in the end. ;D I speak from experience.

 

[malulu]

Obi,

welcome, just like other said, take your time - slowly...

Step (1):
- leave whatever you have as is - and WAIT... (don't add any thing more to the tank). it is VERY normal, that people setup a new tank, fill it with water, and let it WAIT (cycle) for 6 to 8 weeks.

Step (2):
- do some reading, ask questions...
- if possible, get some book, like this one: New-Marine-Aquarium-Step-Step there are many many good books out there, this is ONE of the Best...

Step (3)
- good luck on your quest...

 

[AnDom1]

Welcome to NJRC Obi...Lots of good advice given here by the others...My suggestion, like Patriot's, would be to determine what type of tank you want before you do anything else and then because it is a small one, do weekly water changes of about 10-15%. That will keep you out of trouble until you get up to speed re knowledge and equipment.

Dom

 

[JohnS_323]

Welcome Obi. I have nothing more to add to the good advice you've been given so I'll just say "welcome, good luck and GO BIG BLUE!"

 

[obi]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!And thanx for all the great advice so far its greatly appreciated

Also i do a lot of work with photoshop,graphics,animations etc, and i noticed a lot of you don't have signatures on your profile,whoever wants to, can send me a message and i will gladly make a signature for you. Peace