Help With Brackish Aquarium Please

[Marekm24]

Hey I had my brackish aquarium up and running for about a month . I dont have any plants yet except fake ones and I really want to get live plants. I have a 55 gallon tank but have no hood for it but im making my own hood because they are really too expensive to get and I got the fish tank for free. I am buying these lights and I dont know if they are the right ones but I really wanted led lights in my tank so I got these.

http/cgi.ebay.com/18-LED-Moonlight-Aquar...=item2548c7b9c8


So far I only have 1 figure eight puffer fish, and 2 mollies ,1 black and 1 dalmation molly. I plan on getting 1 or 2 more figure eights and some bumblebee gobys .

I have i think marine sand on the floor of the aquarium but I think I will get aragonite sand or crushed coral what do you guys think I should do?
I keep my tank at around 1.004 and my ph at around 6.5 but I have been trying to make it higher so I got that ph up 7.5 I did 2 water changes every week at about 50 percent and added 5 scoops of ph up to make it 7.5 every change but i dont think it really went up according to my ph live thing. Has any one used this product and how would I raise my ph.?

I also use prime and my top water conditioner every water change should I only use 1 or is it ok to use both?

I would really appreciate all the help because I really want to make the exact environment thats good for these fish and to keep them happy ,and the people at my shop where I get mostly everything just confuse me, any tips would help Thank You.

 

[iliveinazoo]

The light fitting in that link is a moonlight and so won't be any good for growing plants, it may give the tank a cool dim look but nothing else.

Figure 8 puffers require about 15USG per fish, not sure about the mollies.

Aragonite and crushed coral will release compounds into the water to buffer the hardness, but I'm not sure how much or how fast, I use inert sand for my low brackish system and have no problems with PH or hardness; that said I do dose Mg and Ca fairly regularly for the plants.

Don't worry too much about the PH, PH fluctuations will harm the fish more than a low stable PH. If you're worried then you could add crushed coral or aragonite in a bag and put it in a filter basket (saves changing the whole substrate), the marine salt that you use will harden the water also.

You use 2 water conditioners? You just need one that takes out the heavy metals and chlorine.

 

[Marekm24]

Thanks for the help you cleared a lot of things for me.