I'm new and have a question...or two

[Sushiman]

Originally Posted by MikeP

I've read a few things about people having nitrate problems, how can I make sure I'm not one of them? I intend to do frequent water changes and I use 'prime' water conditioner which is supposed to remove chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia and detoxify nitrite and nitrate at every water change. Is that enough to keep things in check? Is there any filter media that I should use? Right now I've just got foam, carbon, and bio spheres. I'm foing to start with a couple of clowns and if all goes well I will get a blue damsel. How long should I wait to get some sort of 'cleaner' like a cool shrimp or something? Another thing I wanted to ask about was iodine? Some guy at petcetera told me I need iodine if I'm going to keep any sort of invertabrates. He didn't really seem like he knew exactly what he was talking about. But here I am research, research, research right?

Thanks for any help

Let me help; what the oh-so-helpful clerk at your local fishstore was vaguely talking about refers to soft corals (the respond positivly to iodine supplimentation) your cleaner shrimp will benifit as well. Don't worry about that for now. That is the last time I want you to get advice from a LFS clerk. By & by, your typical (not all) Petcetera or whatever is not where you want to get advice from. Come here, or Reef Central, etc. Now stay the heck away from suppliments or any miriacle-in-a-bottle for now. Most of it is crap. I want you to invest in the best quality live rock you can find /afford (this is your backbone of you system both physically & bio-filtration-wise), nice sugar-sized arragonite substrate for a deep sand bed (another key part of your bio-filter), lab-grade carbon for your chemical filtration (you'll need to swap this out every other month or more depending on the tanks bio-load). You can continue to use tapwater conditioner if you like however the best route is to utilize RO or RO/DI water in your tank. There are all sorts of things in tapwater that don't belong in your aquarium, such as phosphates & silicates, heavy metals, etc. Consider investing in a good quality protien skimmer. There are many hang-on-tank models that will do a good job on a system of your size. Skimming is one of the best ways to strip desolved organic wastes out of your system.
Consider small, hardy fish & invertibrates & add the well after you set up your live rock and soon to be live sand bed. Nothing good happens fast, but if you take your time, you could have a very nice looking tank that is stable & ready for the long haul. Stick with the basics: don't overstock, don't over-feed, make regular H2O changes using a quality salt mix & RO or RO/DI if you can, do regular tank maintenance & treat the tank as a system! It's not a "fish tank", think of it as a garden or ecosystem. The fish are only a small part of it and that is one of the reasons reeftanks are sooooo captivating /addicting.