New marine NanoTank ? ?

Question

Hi

A few days back, some really close friends of mine gave me a marine nano tank for my birthday (Orca TL-450). I do have a fair bit of experience with tropical and coldwater fish, but I have never kept marine, except when i was taking care of said close friends' fish while they were on holiday. Could somebody please tell me what i need to do to get it all up and running because I really can't find any decent sites online that are reasonably short. I'm not a total amateur when it comes to fish so i would just like to know the steps i need to do to get it up and running.

By the way, my tank is cool because all the heater, filter, skimmer, UV and powerheads and stuff are built into the back of the tank so it is all set up, i just wanted to know how to put in the water, rocks and coral etc.

The salt water is not a problem, because the ppl who gave me the tank have their own distiller that makes it and they offered to give me all the water i need and mix the salt in for me =]

Sorry the post is a bit long

thnx

Answer 1

first off let me say that nanos are for people with salt water experience not beginners, you will need to stay very vigilant, or everything may suddenly die over night,

disclaimer out of the way...

add the water first, run all the pumps and filters, after a day or so make sure the water is crystal clear, i.e. no floating salt crystals,

then

add about 20 lbs of live rock leave it be, test weekly till ammonia and nitrite are undetectable, if your clear add some live sand, test weekly again, now at this point what you want determines where to go next

i suggest you go to this forum below become a member and read read read

Answer 2

Well, it takes six weeks to cycle a marine tank and you must constantly check water parameters. Be patient and look at this website. http://liveaquaria.com/PIC/article.cfm?a...

It will help you with everything