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i bought a 45 gallon pentagon aquarium its beautiful i put water half way then added sand then filled it up then dumped salt in water is slowly clearing. i have a penguin 350 and a canister im getting a protein skimmer in a month.So now that im at this stage i have all the water testing equipment now what would be recommended that i do as far as stocking the tank and the weeks its gonna take

If your salinity is between 1.022 and 1.025, then my recommendation at this point would be to get about 50-60 lbs of live rock. I'd also purchase a koralia 2 powerhead for more flow. If you bought cured (already cleaned of any die-off, and generally what they sell at lfs) rock I'd leave the rock in and only top off for evaporation with freshwater for a couple weeks. Then get the water tested for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, alkalinity, and salinity. Report back with the numbers here and we'll let you know if it is safe to add in your first clean up critters.

If you bought uncured live rock, then the process will take much longer, but you might save some money on the rock.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

The canister functions like a powerhead I have great filtration Wednesday will be one week in a couple days I'm putting two damsels as for stocking I'm thinking two clownfish two tangs one yellow one blue and a snowflake eel and if I have room a brittle star and a cleaner shrimp

45 gallons isn't big enough for tangs unless you're either going to return the tangs later or get a bigger tank.

You have room for way more brittle stars and cleaner shrimps than you do fish.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

the yellow tangs only get 7 to 8 inches long the brittle star could be twice that so can the snowflake but those are bottom dwellers im gonna stock the tank slowly

7-8" is too big for that tank... Plus tangs are fairly active swimmers that need lots of room. Neither a brittle star nor a moray moves anywhere near as much.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

It also depends on how much decor is in the tank cuz its not a bad size

ammonia- 0.00 ph.-8.2 i added more live rock and substrate and im releasing damsels in 3 hours

Can you show pics of what you are doing...? Also, I would like to see your setup. (before and after fish are added)

TTFN --->Ta-Ta-For-Now
Kelly ;o}

The damsels r alive but still scared

ive had the damsels for three days the only weird thing is i took the nitrites and they were at zero so then i checked the nitrates and they were zero is this abnormal i thought the nitrites were supposed to be spiking or show some growth

How's the ammonia? If I had to guess, the ammonia should be up right now.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

ammonia is already at 0 thats why i put damsels in but right after the last comment i checked nitrites again i got .25 ppm so im all good just gotta wait for it to come down to put my clownfish in first

thats weird its still at .25ppm its prolly going really slow