Saltwater & Reef

Buffy · 06-07-2011, 01:59 PM

Hi, am having trouble with what to do. Read soooo much am now confused.
I have 25 pound live rock and 80 pound sand (said live in the bag). Anyway, I followed my LFS instructions and now am thinking I screwed up. He said to go ahead and put the sand in (no rinse/clean needed), and to go ahead and put rock, fill tank and add salt. Then wait for cycle. Umm, I bought a 25' syphon hose and ended up taking it back (was too short) got the 50'. Hate it, it sprays all over my bathroom and popped off and flooded under sink and floor. But now am wondering if I need to remove everything because he said I could use my tap water. I'm finding that is wrong due to chlorine and chloramide stuff. I'm seeing I need RO and don't know how to do it. Am kinda physically limited so I can't carry water. I have a spare bathroom, I want to remove toilet and plug hole and put RO in there with some sort of container to hold RO water. Don't know how make a mix area. Think I neeWd sump too now and no place in cabinet. Am lost. Have protein skinner but is not assembled cause I think I have to drain and start over. Now after I got the live rock I'm see stuff about base rock. And put rock on sand, no don't put it on sand, and now also glueing it. Am thinking to empty my tank, take my rock out, put it in the sun, clean the sand somehow (no clue there either). But I believe I need the other systems set up first (like ro and sump). Not going to the quarantine stuff yet, that's another task later on, for now I want it up and cycling. Sorry so long. Oh and read about water conditioning for tap water and there's mixed ideas that yes it works and no it doesn't but either way I'm trying to do a reef tank (which i need to also figure out the rock/cave stuff) which I believe would do better with an ro unit. I'm in a jam sorta but I know this will be fantastic when done. So first question I guess is how to do an ro setup and what ro to use, then how to build the sump and what size (even rubbermaid is ok) to put my stuff in, how to do overflow box. And finally in what order do I need to get these things done. Am planning corals, fish and invertbrae eventually. Then how to post a pic from my phone. Thank you all for reading and any advice would be helpful.

Tank info is in profile, don't know how to get it here with each post

carey · 06-07-2011, 02:08 PM

Hi, welcome to the forum!

How big is your tank?

I wouldnt' take anything out, if youre concerned about having used tap water, I used tap water for the first few months of my reef. The only thing I ended up with were high levels of phosphate. I would def urge you to get an ro/di unit if you can, it's 100% better than tap in my opinion.

Buffy · 06-07-2011, 02:36 PM

75 gallon. I have all equipment listed in profile but don't know how to get it at bottom of my posts and I took a few pics which I don't know how to upload yet.

carey · 06-07-2011, 02:40 PM

Go into the user CP and go under signature, you can type whatever you want there and it will appear after each post.

As far as pictures, if you use photbucket you can just cut and paste the img link right into the post.

Buffy · 06-07-2011, 02:46 PM

75 gallon. I have all equipment listed in profile but don't know how to make it go to bottom of posts. Just tried uploading a few pics but app crashed. Thextension for my filter is too long. Hard plastic. If I cut it am afraid it will shatter. So filter only goes down half way. Any suggestions for ro's?