20 Long Reef Build

[Rhino]

I am pleased to announce that my first saltwater tank finally has water in it!!! To say the least I am beyond excited!! Per the usual customs around here below is a cloudy shot where you can barely make out some rock work lol.

I am going to add the small pieces of live rock that I bought here in a few minutes. I will let the tank sit overnight and clear up then I will run a full round of test and post the params.

Then it will be time to start the cycling process. I followed the cycling guide on this site for my freshwater. The one thing I did notice between fresh and salt is that the salties used shrimp to get ammonia. I used bottled ammonia in my freshwater, can I not use it on this tank as well? If so, how many ppm of ammonia should I add?

 

[kdpuffer]

You can dose ammonia in salt also, usually dose up to 4ppm.

 

[Rhino]

You can dose ammonia in salt also, usually dose up to 4ppm.

Awesome that is what I thought. Already found two bristle worms on the live rock that I got, nice to see life even if its just a worm lol.

 

[Rhino]

Clearing crazy fast!

 

[Billbug68]

It looks sooo good man! Great job with the rock work! I'm so jealous... Starting to think I should go pick up a 20 long rather than trying to set up my 55 fresh... :/ haha

 

[Rhino]

It looks sooo good man! Great job with the rock work! I'm so jealous... Starting to think I should go pick up a 20 long rather than trying to set up my 55 fresh... :/ haha

Thanks so much! If you only knew how many hours I spent watching tv and arranging rock work on the coffee table while the wife shot me dirty looks. One piece of advice, from my very limited experience so far, is only practice with the rock work in the tank. I made some rock setups that I absolutely loved on the coffe table, but trying to take them apart and put them in the tank the same way...never works.

 

[Billbug68]

Haha my wife loves our aquariums, she just wants nothing to do with them besides buying the fish... Haha, whenever I start ranting on about fish stuff I can see her going off somewhere else in her head... Yeah I'd imagine with that many rocks, getting them back would be nearly impossible but IMO the way you set it up in the tank is better than any of the coffee table setups!

 

[Rhino]

So I did my initial round of test to get a baseline of everything in the tank.

Temp: 77F
Salinity: 1.025
PH: 7.8
Ammo: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate:0
Phos: 0
Calcium: 360

Going to dose ammonia to between 3 and 4 ppm.

Turned up heater when I left for work this morning to about 82 for the cycle.

 

[KoaGecko]

Awesome build so far. Cant wait for the rest.

 

[Rhino]

Awesome build so far. Cant wait for the rest.

Thanks! It has been so much fun.

 

[Rhino]

I made a totally stupid rookie mistake this evening while "attempting" to dose ammonia. With a slip of the hand I dosed my tank up to about 10 ppm I now need to do a major water change. Unfortunately, I decided to be a cheapskate and not get my own rodi unit, please all rookies learn from this and go ahead and get your own rodi unit. Now I have to try to work going and getting rodi water from my lfs into my schedule. What a pain!

 

[Rosesrblu1]

You can try Walmart, they usually have those water machines to fill your 5g jugs. If you have to do it tonight. Just an idea

 

[Rhino]

This may work. I have to go get some dog food tonight anyways. I will check on this.

 

[Rhino]

How horrible of an idea would it be to use conditioned tap water for this tonight, since I will be doing a large water change at the end of the cycle to lower nitrates. How bad of an idea is this?

 

[Rosesrblu1]

I would still recommend the machine, but...

The conditioner won't take out the phosphates in the water, just the chlorine. You might and prob will have a cyano or hair algae issue at some point. Just sayin...

 

[reefrunner69]

I would recommend against using tap water, get some RO from Walmart or distilled or RO/DI from the LFS.

 

[bigbanker]

Just curious would the super high ammonia not allow the tank to cycle?

 

[Rhino]

Just curious would the super high ammonia not allow the tank to cycle?

Perhaps, however, from my limited experience though I once dosed a 36 bowfront up to about 8 ppm and two weeks later there was no change in anything in the tank. If it did cycle the tank you would have a hell of a biofilter.

 

[reefrunner69]

Don't you have some live rock in there? That high of ammonia will likely fry any life that was left on it.

 

[Rhino]

Don't you have some live rock in there? That high of ammonia will likely fry any life that was left on it.

Yup had about two pounds....I am sure it is done for....