First brackish setup

[UofMKitty]

As the subject says, I am in the process of setting up my very first brackish tank. It is a 55-gallon, and has been cycling for two days. I have sand for substrate, with a power-head I borrowed from my 55-gallon freshwater cichlid tank. They just finished their move from a 30-gallon which has now become a nursery for a mama who has a mouthful of babies!! thumbs2: I have sprinkled a little flake food in(about as much as a couple small fish would eat), borrowed the power-head filter and sponge from the cichlid tank, and dropped in a little food for the bacteria to feed on. No fish yet, as I do not think the tank is ready yet, and I am a little nervous about adding fish in general. I have decades of experience with freshwater, but none with brackish/saltwater. I have a hydrometer(the floating thermometer combo kind), and currently the SG reads 1.004. Since I do not have the proper pH/ammonia test kit for saltwater(I've read freshwater kits will not work), I have no parameters to offer there. Tomorrow, I go to get all the testing kits, more sand and a good hanging filter. Someone said I would need a skimmer eventually--->TRUE?? I plan to add a few plants from my freshwater tanks(Horn-wort, Amazon swords, Anubis) after an acclimation process. Then, I plan to slowly acclimate my 7 black mollies and one silver molly over from their community 55-gallon freshwater home. (I cannot believe I now have 3 55-gallon tanks!) My biggest concern is how to do all this acclimating without losing a single life(plants included). Everything I have read said to raise the SG by .02 daily for 4 days. I AM equipped with two 10-gallon tanks in which I was planning to do the acclimation process. One is currently in use as a quarantine(mama black molly keeps getting fungus--main reason for change), and the other is bone-dry. Would it be safe to take water from my already cycled freshwater tank and then use it in my dry tank to acclimate my fish and plants all at once?(gradually, of course--like stated above) My second concern is for this beautiful snowflake eel(at least 12") I spotted at Petco that is in freshwater. I've heard this is a common problem among the brackish fish community-misslabeling and all. Anyways, I want to rescue him/her--'it' seems to be in distress-->breathing heavily and overly active.

I will post pictures of my many tanks for you all to enjoy as soon as I get the free time. For now, when I DO get some free time, I stare at my fishies!

:fish: :fish: :fish:

[tetrageek]

The snow flake eel you saw is most likely G. Tile. They do require brackish water.