First Ever Saltwater Tank

[360º]

ok so i bought a 55 gallon saltwater tank off someone on kijiji (like craigslist)

went to his house, it was set up and him and i took apart the liverock, put it in buckets and rubbermaid containers. had them fully submerged in tank water.

left a little bit of water at the bottom to cover the sand.


brought it home, set it up. put the liverock in and filled it half with the old tank water and half with new water.

salinity balanced out at about 1.025

came with an emperor 400 and a powerhead that i have running in there right now...

..... a little cloudy but seems to be settling down.

there seems to be a lot of hair algae on the sand and on the liverock, should i do anything about that? can i vacuum the stuff off the sand?

 

[melosu58]

If it was me I would have discarded the sand. Too much trash in there. You`ll probably experience an ammonia spike which will cause your algea to grow out of control. Be ready to do alot of PWC`s.

 

[360º]

why do i need to do a lot of PWC?

if i clean the button should be ok right?

the guy i bought it from said he even had a fish that ate that stuff

 

[360º]

i think he said it was a scoter blenny

 

[cmor1701d]

Scooter or lawnmower blenny will eat some hair algae. BUT, you need to eliminate the source which is excess nutrients. Large, extra PWC's will help with that.

The sand got stirred up in the move releasing a lot of nutrients into the water column. That combined with rock that already has HA is going to be a problem for you.

 

[360º]

well currently i filled up with just over half of totally new water.

when i poured all the old water back into the tank the salinity was over 1.035

so the new water was more around 1.015 which brought it down.

so to eliminate the growth of hair algae completely ill need to eliminate nutrients? nutrients could possibly be from the previous owner doing water changes once a month.(should probably be done more often then that)

so the best way is with PWC? is there any other way? will protein skimmer help? (im only going to keep a few fish, no corals)

 

[the_fish_man]

Oh just found your thread well i am now following

 

[360º]

heres a current picture

3 hours after setup.... tested 0 ammonia, and 0 nitrite

i think im gonna get rid of that background and just use black

 

[cmor1701d]

Nutrient build up is from overfeeding, and lack of PWCs. It could also be due to phosphates from tap water if you are not using RODI for top off and PWCs.

You should get the tank cycled again and stable before you add any livestock.

Get a refractometer to check SG.

Add at least one more powerhead.

If there's no livestock in the tank, turn off the lights and don't feed the tank. Just let the tank stabilize and cycle.

 

[360º]

thanks for the advice. I will be waiting for cycle to complete before livestock

i bought a nano power head thats rated at 250GPH but im gonna exchange it tomorrow for the 750GPH

i checked the salinity and it says 1.028

to lower salinity do i just add straight freshwater (after using prime ofcourse)

 

[360º]

one more quick question..... the fixture it came with is a 48" coralife light with 2 T5 bulbs..... one of the bulbs is atinic i think because its very blue(previous owner tried to keep anemone)

should i just replace it with a standard bulb or keep the atinic?

 

[cmor1701d]

If you use RODI or distilled water you do not need to add prime. And yes, you just replace some tank water with fresh water.

As for the T5 bubls, ATI and Giesemann have some great HO bulbs in a variety of blues.

 

[360º]

im just using tap water for now. so thats why i add prime

heres a small update: changed background to blue and cleaned the sand a little.

did 10% water change

 

[the_fish_man]

Looking nice!

 

[360º]

water has been testing good. no ammonia and no nitrite.

got a few fish. two 3 stripe damsel and two blue damsel.

they seem pretty happy and actively exploring their new tank

video here

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in a month or so if all is good, im gonna get a couple of clownfish
and a lawnmower or scooter blenny

 

[iDream]

i wouldnt get a scooter blenny, they feed off of copepods, and all the time, in a tank your size itll decimate your population and starve unless you train it to eat prepared foods or supplement pods, both of which i wouldnt suggest to a beginning saltwater aquarist

 

[mr_X]

i wouldnt get a scooter blenny, they feed off of copepods, and all the time, in a tank your size itll decimate your population and starve unless you train it to eat prepared foods or supplement pods, both of which i wouldnt suggest to a beginning saltwater aquarist

the lawnmower blenny will work though. just keep some nori on a clip in the tank for it.

 

[360º]

thanks for the advice. whats nori?

 

[atte]

It's a type of seaweed that most herbivores love. Your LFS probably carries it and some supermarkets do too because it's used sometimes in Japanese food.

 

[mr_X]

yeap..just go to the supermarket and pick some up. it's like 2 bucks and will last a long time.