Help - Dazed and Confused

[bclynes]

Hi all,

I have been keeping freshwater tropical for 4 years and decided to try setting up a reef tank - I like a challenge! However I am very confused about a couple of things and would like to know if I have the order for cycling correct. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

I have bought a
67 gal tank
2 X 150 watt heaters
1 Seaclone skimmer
2 MP900 Powerheads
1 Fluval 304 Filter

I would like to use live rock and am reading that the fluval filter will not be necessary and that it may remove some good things from the water?

How much live rock would I need for a tank this size? Should I also use an Arogonite substrate? How deep should it be?

My plan is to mix water and bring to required temperature ( I sound like I'm cooking now!)
After a couple of days at correct temp, add live rock? and substrate?
Add 1-2 raw shrimp and monitor levels in tank before thinking about adding anything else?

Does this make sense? Shoudl I use the filter? Do I need the raw shrimp with LR? When would you advise the first water change?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[Hara]

I use the Fluvals as supplementation in my 150. I did this because I did not have 200 pounds of liverock. IF you have a sufficient amount of rock, you would not need it and in fact, in can complicate things later on down the road. Different rock has different density values. As an example, most fiji rock it is recommended to have 1 to 1.5 lbs per gallon. Lalo rock is less dense and the recommendation is from .75 to 1.25 lbs per gallon.

If you use the filter, I would run it while cycling your tank as it needs to get a good bacteria bed growing in it.

As far as the substrate, someone else will have to comment on that as I have not
used that in my tanks.

 

[Anemoneman]

Use 90# LR. It is usually prchased online in 45# boxes so get 2 boxes. Put you LR in your 2 day old water (mixed to 84 degF @ 1.024 SP). No raw shrimp is needed, your LR will cycle the tank. Add an inch or so of fine aragonite sand. Wait 2 or 3 days for the sand storm to settle down then use a turkey baster to blow the sand dust of the LR. Take the fluval back to the store for fish credit. Don't do any water changes until your ammonia and nitrite are zero. You didn't mention lights. The one that came with your tank is woefully inadequate. Get 300-400W of VHO, PC or MH lights.

Good luck,
Mark

 

[DHS]

Well I'm no guru on this stuff but I'll try and help:
1) Filters with Live rock are not necessary, though I may get ranted on this one but I'd suggest keeping with just the filter floss in there to help take away some of the larger particles food and what not.
2) for a 67 gal tank 67-100.5 # of live rock is suggested. Substrate should be about 4" deep with a grain size of 0.02mm-1.2mm
3) I'd suggest adding the base rock (bottom layers of live rock) & the substrate first then add 75-85% of the water needed. Allow this to cycle enough to allow the particles of substrate to settle. Then add enough water to top off the tank and start your fishless cycling (adding the shrimp and monitoring the levels till everything equals 0).
4) I'd suggest doing the first few water changes about 1-2 per week until everything cycles out. Then you can start adding fish (remember don't add to many fish at once, 1-3 at a time).

PEACE,
DHS

 

[bclynes]

Thanks you to both Anemoneman and Hara for your v swift responses.

Whoops - the lighting is a twin tube T5 lighting kit with 1 actinic and one daylight which i think should be ok.

Any ideas of when the skimmer should be activated in the cycling process?

Thanks again- I am very impressed.

brian

 

[Anemoneman]

the lighting is a twin tube T5 lighting kit with 1 actinic and one daylight which i think should be ok.

Pay mind to my recommendation of 300-400W of intense lighting. It's no exageration. I think you are talking about regular 4' 40W normal output flourescent tubes. If you mean HID bulbs then never mind.

 

[bclynes]

Thanks Anemoneman

This is a quote about T5 lighting...

each tube offers output easily equivalent to 4 normal aquarium tubes with a manufacturer rating of 90% output for 20000 hrs.

They also have specialist reflectors.

Cheers,

Brian

 

[Anemoneman]

Can you post a link to more info about these lights?

 

[Guest]

T rating is the size of the bulb. I did some searching for these and most are very low wattage bulbs and are roughly 1/2 to 3/4 inch in size. They also don't normally go beyond 6 watts. I think that you are meaning a different kind of bulb?

 

[Guest]

Here is a link I came across in more deep research.

http://www.paraquatics.co.uk/T5 lighting.htm

 

[Guest]

Here is another.

http://www.ecosmart.ws/items/T5h0.pdf

I can say that these lights are expensive, and if I had the choice in spending the money, I would go with MH