Live rock changing colors?

[chevyjaxon]

the tank can take up to a month to cycle but every time you add something the tank will go through a mini cycle as the bacteria that consumes waste populates to keep up with the increased bio load like i said, before you add anything else buy a good quality protein skimmer a good skimmer should cost no less than 200.00 btw a sea clone although it looks good and is somewhere
around a hundred bucks is not a good skimmer and is just a waste of money
IMO a good needle wheel skimmer will keep your tank healthy for a long time also with the lighting you will want to simulate the suns natural rays im not too sure what you have but corallife is a great place for a beginner to start with. keep up the good work

[0sprey]

If all you want is softies, the lighting you've got should be fine. You'll see some interesting stages of algal growth, and if you're lucky, you may even find some macroalgaes sprouting from the rock.
*removed*
If you aren't keeping stony corals, don't worry about calcium. Seriously. You won't have any heavy calcium consumers, so regular water changes should be more than adequate to keep calcium, magnesium and alkalinity balanced. That's the most important thing- don't skimp on the water changes, especially in a nano like the one you're running.

A protein skimmer is a real boon to a tank. They remove all kinds of dissolved organics-once you've seen what a good skimmer can pull out of your water, you won't want to go without one! Buy the best you can afford. The usual recommended HOB skimmers (I'm assuming you don't have a sump) are the CPR BakPak, the AquaC Remora, and the Deltec MCE series. Most people would agree that the Remora is probably the best 'bang for your buck'. Do some searches online, read the reviews, and decide which one you want. Don't just settle for what's readily available- it's worth it to order a better skimmer online if you can't find it in the store.

Nothing wrong with a HOB filter... but ditch the bio-media. Just use it to run chemical filtration (carbon, phosphate remover), and make sure you replace it every month. Then you don't have to worry about organics building up and causing problems.

[lorenz0]

I ditched the media in the HOB except for the carbon. After I added the coralife light the tank has started to color up alot. Yesturday I brought my water to a local reef shop for a second opinion of where i am at with my cycle. Don't get me wrong, i was just a little mis informed earlier and my steps right now is once my NO3 cycle is finished I am going to be adding some softies. Today i did a water change and at elite aquatics they reccomended using their house brand Bio Stabilizer so I added a bit of that in with the water change. My gravity was a bit up there so right now i am trying to bring it down to 1.024 and it was at 1.028. I did a 20% change with water that was at 1.022 and the water is now 1.026 so with the next water change on the weekend I hopefully will have hit my goal.

I started this tank while i was at school so money was a bit tight and I start my new job on monday. debating about flat rate or not but I could add a protein skimmer with the first paycheck. This is actually the build that I am following right now;

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...owtopic=149926

The tank is doing great and I am happy i switched over my lighting and got rid of those glo bulbs