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20 gallon long (1 Viewer)

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Grant Carter

Grant Carter

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👆 that. Also, do you have a general plan that you can share with us? Like, how you will cycle the tank, what you would like to stock it with etc.. Do you have a top off container and device? That's a pretty fundamental thing for water parameter stability and as a side benefit, makes keeping up with evaporation much, much easier.
i do have a ato and cody is going to get me some live rock to start the cycle i just came back from BBS fish and petsi got KENT salt premade saltwater and a heater i
 

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ok.. are you going to add substrate (sand)? do that first before you add water.
when you add the waqter, add it with a pump and a hose and try to disturb the substrate as littler as possible.

you bought pre-mixed saltwater from BB and Kent salt to make more water in the future right?
 

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once you have the tank full, you can fire up the filters. its an all in one tank so just make sure there is floss wherever the water goes in to start clearing it up. it might take a couple hours (or more) but the water will clear up.

you can install the heater anytime (nothing alive to get hurt from temperature changes) after the tank is full. once everything clears up, i would add some carbon and either microbacter7, fritz fast start or whatever tiny bottle of fishpoop they can charge you $20 for. or/and you can throw half a shrimp or a large pinch of fish food to get the cycle rolling.

After that, you have really hurry up and... wait. and wait some more. you can test for ammonia, after the ammonia goes back down to normal the nitrite will jump, once that goes down, you get to the nitrate part of the cycle and once that's done, you can add living things.

you will hear some different timelines like "it will only take a week" and so on and it might but the test tell the story as to when the tank is ready. Normally it takes up to 4 weeks. anyways, after all that has happened and you add fish or whatever, there usually comes an algea bloom or two. don't get discouraged. they also don't last and will eventually go away.
 
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decimal

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ATO setup is super simple and you can do that anytime too. just put the pump with the hose on the outlet side into the fresh water top off container and run it to the tank where it needs to securely fastened. the hose should not be under the tank water line at any time since it will suck tankwater back down into the freshwater container. the float or optical sensor gets placed on where you want the waterline to be and everything (senor to unit --> unit to power) gets plugged in.
 

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There should be three compartments in the back of that all in one tank. One of those compartments has a water level that changes (goes down or drops) when the tank doesn’t have enough water flowing through it. That’s where you mount the ATO sensor and set the water level for the tank.

edit: I don’t know the layout of your setup so I was just referencing what mine looks like. they may not be same but the principle still applies. Your going to want to mount that sensor back there.
 
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have you thought about what your going to add after your cycle completion?

i would move the light to the other side too. that way your cables wont be in the way of the viewing window.
 
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