New guy across the Mississippi

Hello all,


New in the saltwater game, with not a whole lot of experience but I've done my homework and know what's going on for the most part lol. My SAAB has decided it no longer wants to explode so I decided to pick up this as another hobby besides fixing cars. That and I've always wanted to have a fish tank setup since I was little and my parents had one. Aiming for a reef tank ideally, nothing too crazy.


With that said, here's what I have so far:


40 gallon breeder tank, with about 1.5" of coral sand and about 50w of florescent lighting (one daylight, one plant)


Fluval Aquaclear 50 power filter that I cut the foam/mesh filter in half to make a little extra room for a Seachem Purigen organic waste filter, the ceramic bio pellet filter and then the carbon on top.


Aqueon 700 circulation pump


Aqueon 150w heater


The tank gravel, I had purchased 2 16lb bags of live coral sand/gravel from petco, but then my roommate bought a 90 gallon tank that was a saltwater about 2 days before he bought it (I was going to use a 29 gallon tank we had) and had a good amount of coral gravel in it. So I got his 40 gallon tank/light/stand setup. I returned one bag of gravel since I opened the other already because it was leaking and put that in, with about half of a kitty litter bucket worth of gravel I salvaged from the 90 gallon tank. That gravel was filthy though, I tried cleaning it up best I could and put it in, but it was still nasty. This was monday night, and I've been using the gravel vac to suck all the junk out and its about 90% clean.


Right now the salinity is at 1.020, water temp is 80F, PH is 8.0, Ammonia is at 2.0PPM (yikes), Nitrite is 0, Nitrate is between 5-10 PPM, Calcium is at 320PPM. I need to get a test kit for KH yet. On my todo list is a 50% water change to hopefully curb the ammonia from the nasty gravel and the resulting higher nitrate, look for some conditioner/supplement to bring up the calcium and/or PH a bit, hoping to hit at least 400PPM calcium and a ph of 8.2, and come up with a test kit for KH. Also need a decent protein skimmer since I'm not sure how effective the purigen will be.








From what I can tell, the tank is off to a good start otherwise, the bacteria are doing their job considering nitrites are 0 and nitrates are on the rise. I am looking for a source of live rock, coral and whatnot. Being in the southwest corner of wisconsin doesn't give me a good selection.


Any pointers would be appreciated. Fish are a bit different than cars lol.

 

Update: Tank is settled in, got 40lbs of live rock, 10 gallon sump with a coralife skimmer, the aquaclear hob full of carbon, 150w heater and filter floss. Redid the light fixture so now it has 3 daylight bulbs, the plant bulb, actinic bulb and a 50/50 bulb. I also found my old 35w HID bulbs from the Taurus so now I have 2 8000k HID bulbs in addition to the 150w of fluorescent lighting. http://imageshack.com/a/img22/8310/ro7n.jpg