Am I going down the right road?????

My 34 gallon Red Sea set up has been running for a week. I am wondering if i am doing this right. I am brand new to the Reef. I have read so much information and at time it seems that no 2 sites agree.

Here is what I have done so far: I cleaned 40 lbs of live sand and put it in the tank. I used water purchased from the LFS that sold me the tank. I let the tank run and after it cleared up I put in 40lbs of live Fiji rock. I am curing the rock. When I put the sand in the ammonia went way up. Normal??. It came down and that is when I put in the live rock. My ammonia 1 week later is at 0. Nitrate is at 10 and nitrite is at <0.3. I even have a little hermit crab that must have come from the rock walking around.

I am beginning to get brown algae on all the top surfaces of the rock. Is this good??? A fellow reefer freind of mine said this is the begining of the cycle and to get "the cleaning crew" It sounds to early to me.

My questions are. When does the cleaning crew go in? Before or after the fish. Do you put in the entire crew at once a just a few pieces at a time? I am thinking I will need 10-20 hermit crabs, 10 snails, a star and a cleaner shrimp. Does this sound right?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I want to start the tank off right and then keep it that way.

 

welcome to 3reef tbelt. everything is moving along as normal in regards to algae and params so far. good start. lol. the cleaning crew i would wait until youre finished cycling. and they do go in before fish. a loose guidline in regards to cuc, is at least 1 per gal. you may want more snails tho. brittle stars are another good detrius eater. good luck, and be patient and take it slow.

 

The clean up crew is pretty much what you prefer. You dont need a star, but if you find one you like you could add one in later. I stress later because Stars are very sensitive to water changes and you dont want to have the horrifying event of watching it rot. Getting a shrimp depends on the kind of shrimp you have in mind.
Always remember TAKE IT SLOOOOOOOW!!!!
Only good things will happen if you wait.
Don't let any one rush you into putting things into your tank.
I will let the other more experienced Reefers tell you how many of each CUC member you should need.
Good Luck
Slow and Steady wins the race!!!

 

Sounds like your doing great. That brown algae is most likely diatoms and almost every new tank gets them they will go away on there own after 1-3 weeks. For a clean up crew like divott said 1 snail or hermit per gallon is pretty good I probably have 2-3 per gallon. If you want the cheapest place to get a great clean up crew check out reefcleaners.org they are top notch.

 

+++ on REEFCLEANERS.COM! They Are EXCELLENT!

 

Yep. +1 to all posters. Once cycle is finished, then add cleaning crew. And since this is your first tank, go with smaller numbers and a wide variety as far as snails and/or hermits. Watch them for a while, decide which ones you like the most, then get more of those

 

Good posts. Also, keep the actinics on and the daylights off for the duration of the cycle. As well, keep the skimmer off, it will speed things along. I would pay attention to flow right away. In a 34g, I would aim for about 50x turnover, so that is about 1700GPH. Subtracting what you have in there already, you would probably do well with three Koralia-1's. It would put you around 42x off the top of my head, but that would suffice. Cyano does not like flow.

 

Thank you to all you have set my mind at ease for now. It sounds like things are going well.

Tony G

 

welcome to 3reef and good luck with your first reef tank.