New and hungry for information.

[Pinkmolly21]

I have experience with freshwater tanks but haven't had a reef tank yet. Now my boyfriend is gonna get me a 12 gallon nano cube deluxe for christmas and I am trying to get as much information together as I can before I get started.
Sooooooo..... Any tips would be greatly appreciated. What should I know before I plug the tank in? (besides the fact that I have to put water in )

[cjtice]

Add salt to water first!!!

Welcome to TRT!!!

Good luck!

Chris

[dobejazz]

Welcome to TRT!!

[Wiskey]

Welcome to TRT!

Patiance,.. that's the first thing you should know

The first thing I would do is put live rock, sand, and salt water in it, then let it cycle, and test. While the tank is cycling you can research what kind of coral you want to keep. One MAJOR difference with a SW tank is the very small amount of fish you can keep compaired to a FW tank.

Whiskey

[depitch]

Ditto on Welcome

Get as much reading material as possible.

Put most of the $$$ into lighting and filtration.

HTH

Doug

[nobody]

Patiance,.. that's the first thing you should know

The first thing I would do is put live rock, sand, and salt water in it, then let it cycle, and test. While the tank is cycling you can research what kind of coral you want to keep. One MAJOR difference with a SW tank is the very small amount of fish you can keep compaired to a FW tank.

Agreed the worst thing to do is try to speed things up. I have a 24g aquapod. Its a bit bigger then yours but look on my website to get some ideas. Here is what I would do.
1) buy dry/dead aragonite sand. I like the Aragonite Pink Flamingo reef sand. Its not to big and not to suger sized and has some pink peices that are nice highlights
2) Use only RO water weather you have a ro filter or buy RO water at walmart like I do.
3) Use good "reef" salt. All salt is ok for fish only but some salt like tropic marine pro and red sea pro are meant for reef tanks. I use red sea pro which has 450ppm of Calcium in it along with everything you need. When you use good salt it eliminates the need to buy additives like trace elements, calcium, etc.. I have never add one additive to my tank.
4) buy about 1lb per gallon of live rock.
5) once you have the sand in, water, salt turn on the system and let it cycle.

[[WDT]TardFarmer]

A great site for nano tanks is www.nano-reef.com , I use both nano-reef and the reef tank religously and can get most of my questions answered.

As far as advice? go slow as most others are telling you. Read everything you can find on marine tanks in general and than read everything you can on nanotanks. I have had great success with mine, in fact I have had more luck with my nanocube 12DX than with my 45 gallon. But if something goes wrong in your nano it will happen extremely fast, so you need to stay on top of it and monitor it constantly.

Train a reliable friend or family member in the care of your tank, the last thing you want is to go on vacation and come home to find your tank has crashed because your "caretaker" got drunk and had a party at your house and had party members dropping crap in the tank, true story... Luckily it did not happen to me.

Invest in a refractometer...
Get rid of the bioballs and sponge (nitrate traps)
learn the cycle
add your critters slowly
find a local reef club and try to get your corals through them, chances are they are healthier and put no strain on the reef, plus if something bad does happen you can most likely get a frag of the colony from the member you got it from originally, oh and they are a LOT cheaper too.

most of all spend lots of time staring at your tank, not only do you learn what "normal" is for the tank but it will prevent heart attacks they are so relaxing.

[Loverotties]

Welcome to TRT! take your time and go slow!

[Pinkmolly21]

ok...We decided that we are gonna go with a 24 gallon nano cube instead...
and we are planing on posting pictures of every step on the way...

a few questions:
which heater would you guys suggest we get? and which power head?
Should we take the sponge out of the filter or leave it in? how many hermit crabs and snails should we get?
which animal would be helpfull during cycling?

ok...that's it for now