New SetUp and getting started :)

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Traciedjessop

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jun 8, 2013
Messages
142
Location
Mesa Arizona


We just setup our first saltwater that we bought from a guy off Craigslist on Saturday and its in pretty bad shape.
This is my first saltwater but have good experience with freshwater tanks so I understand water quality and testing etc. Right now I also have a 55 gal tank with red eared slider turtles.
I've had a 20 gal long tank in cycle for 4 weeks and was ready to start stocking when we had a hard time finding a good freshwater lfs in our new city so here we are.

New set-up consists of (with many plans for upgrading and updating)
-55 gal tank
-basic canister filter (soon to be aquaclear 110 + a power head )
-Some kind of decent hob protein skimmer
-duel mode T5 light hood (to replace with led's soon too)

-Came with 5 fish who are not exactly a good mix so we are going to move at least 2 of them out. We have:
-yellow tang
-kole tang
-angelfish ( going to be rehomed)
- regular clownfish
-tomato clown (will be rehomed, he picks on the regular).
we will add a few clean up crew guys once we have the tank good and stable.

we've cleaned everything really good and we replaced the original substrate of crushed coral with fine white sand and live black sand.

My next steps is to update the pump and am thinking...with an AquaClear 110 and a Hydor Koralia Evolution 1400-1500.

And to get that Tomato Clown and Angel out of the tank, our lfs does store credit so we can rehome them. We love both, but like the regular clown and would like to add a Black and White clown.

My questions are:
1) Will this pump system be sufficient for a beginner reef tank? We plan to use LPS and Soft Corals in this tank. Glad to look at other options, but please keep in mind this is under a reasonable budget for our first tank.
2) Clowns. We really like the regular clown, but really love the Black and Whites. Are they ok in a tank together? (unlike the tomato) If they are fine together, do we need to do 2 of each? (We won’t be adding any more fish to this tank, We are removing the Angel also.)
3) When the sand settled it settled on our live rock as well. What’s the best way to get that off the rock without disturbing the water too much?

I took progress pics of my tank last night and have attached J
I have a whole album here that shows what we started with on saturday: https://www.flickr.com/photos/traciedpannell/sets/72157634060816326/

Sorry for the long message, just wanted to include as much info as possible. Thanks and I look forward to learning from all of you!
 

Attachments

  • tank061013.jpg
    tank061013.jpg
    63.8 KB · Views: 87
Just curious... Did you just mix the white & black sand and it looks like salt n pepper or separate kinda aquascaped?

And to answer Q3) I use a small brush & gently brush it off, sometimes just waving your hand near it helps. I'd like to hear what other people do, there might be a better way!

Good luck w/ your new tank! I also just took the saltwater plunge w/ a used tank w/ stock, I have a 75 ;)
 
1) Yes a 1450-1500 power head will give you good water movement
2) Two pair of clowns will fight to the death Get a black/white thats smaller than the one you already have
3) Use a turkey baster (very handy to have) to blow the sand off of the rocks
4) Get and use a good test kit And a RO/DI unit A must if you plan to keep coral.
5) The canister filter will need to be cleaned weekly
6) That bubblier will cause a lot of salt creep I'd take it out if it were me
 
Tango, my husband mixed the sand together prior to putting it in the tank. He rinsed and re-rinsed the white with ro/di water before mixing bc we used live black.
Thanks!!
 
Grizz, thanks!
We do plan to get the ro/di unit as well will eventually set up an over 100 gal, for now we can easily and cheaply get our hands on it at a water store near the house. We will likely get it pre-salted at the reef store nearby for now though.

As to the clowns, thanks for that. I was afraid of something like that.

The canister is going to another tank and I'm putting in an aquaclear 110 for this tank.

Can you explain what salt creep is?? The guy at our lfs is who recommended it. It's a dedicated reef shop, so should I be concerned about this type of advice from them??

Thanks again!!
 
...The canister is going to another tank and I'm putting in an aquaclear 110 for this tank.

Can you explain what salt creep is?? The guy at our lfs is who recommended it. It's a dedicated reef shop, so should I be concerned about this type of advice from them??

Thanks again!!

Salt that ends up undesirably on the outside of the tank or on equipment like light coverings. I think if that's HOB (hang on back type filter), it'll create a lot of splashing which is desirable for aeration in FW tanks when there's no refugium/sump & protein skimmer. IMO, the sump & protein skimmer plus running a powerhead that disturbs the surface helps w/ aeration enough. To Each, His Own... something you may have said to the LFS may have clued him in to recommending a HOB for your needs. It may not be his fave for SW tanks but he may've felt it fit your situation.
 
Thanks guys. He may have recommended it bc we currently have just the canister and hob skimmer.
Once my new aquaclear and the power head gets here ill take that stone out.

Salt creep= just what the names implies, which is what I thought. I shoulda just googled that one ;). Thanks for that clarification.

Now to get this new filters and get all the sand off the live rock!!

Oh. Ill check the salinity at the reef store. I believe he said it was 1.025 but ill confirm.


I did have another question. The previous owner was feeding the fish the standard marine flakes and clown pellets and seaweed in a clip for the tangs. Is this best or are there better options for these guys??

Thanks!
 
Didn't finish last post. Mine has one. It's made of black plastic. It has a J shaped tube inside and two nozzles that come out through the glass in the bottom of the tank. I think this is where 2 hoses attach from the pump down below. I don't think I see anything like that in your tank. Not having one sure leaves a lot more room for fish, rocks, corals, etc.

Obviously there area my different configurations, but this has me wondering what is best

BTW. I like your setup so far :). Can't wait to see what grows in there!
 
I make my own frozen food,there's a good thread here about it. I also feed nori and a peeled seedless grape as a treat for my tangs.
There's nothing wrong with the flake or pellets, I just like knowing what im feeding. And it's cheaper. I also keep a pair of mollys in the sump they breed like crazy and add a food source to the tank.

@ Callen that's a built in over flow Which means your tank is Reef ready, it's set up for a sump
 
Didn't finish last post. Mine has one. It's made of black plastic. It has a J shaped tube inside and two nozzles that come out through the glass in the bottom of the tank. I think this is where 2 hoses attach from the pump down below. I don't think I see anything like that in your tank. Not having one sure leaves a lot more room for fish, rocks, corals, etc.

Obviously there area my different configurations, but this has me wondering what is best

BTW. I like your setup so far :). Can't wait to see what grows in there!

A built in overflow would be so cool! Mine hangs on the side. It prevents if the power shuts off to the pump that all your water in your tank doesn't flow into the sump & all over your house! The water leaves the DT (display tank) via suction/siphon/gravity, there's no electricity involved. Only a certain amount of water can enter the overflow area & if no more water is pumped back in to the DT to keep it *flowing over,* then no more water flows down to your sump which wouldn't be able to hold that volume of water. Mine has about 1" slats at the top of the overflow box, but it really is about .5"-1/4" of water from the top of the tank--I'm thinkin 5-10 gals of water?? I've never done the math. It amazes me, yet makes sense. Would that be Physics?? I received a 100% on my Physics final in high school. Anyway, if you removed the overflow box, which I could in my case, the water would continually flow down into the sump & flood the place (at least until it got to the bottom of my tube that loops up & over the edge which is about 6"?? That's be A LOT of water!!). HTH!!

I make my own frozen food,there's a good thread here about it. I also feed nori and a peeled seedless grape as a treat for my tangs.
There's nothing wrong with the flake or pellets, I just like knowing what im feeding. And it's cheaper. I also keep a pair of mollys in the sump they breed like crazy and add a food source to the tank.

@ Callen that's a built in over flow Which means your tank is Reef ready, it's set up for a sump

Mollys?! Wow, that's a cool idea. Also I had no idea Mollys could handle the salinity, maybe there are different breeds of Mollys. Guppies breed like crazy too!! I have like 30+! And am constantly re-homing them. Couldn't bring myself to purposefully feed them to my fish though :\
 
Some cool info, thanks guys!!



While we are on topic of sumps and overflows.

I have a 20 gal long just sitting empty in my guest room (it was initially supposed to be an aggressive freshwater tank but we've had a hard time finding a good local freshwater source. Lol. That's how we ended up with this new setup)

Anyways. I'm itching to do something with this tank.

I am initially thinking of starting it as a basic salt fish tank for now and eventually turn it into a sump for the 100/200 gal we plan to get next year.

So with that in mind, If you had a 20 gal long just sitting there what would you do with it?? ;)
 
Also. We tested salinity this morning and it looks like we are at just 1.016/17
What the best way to bring that up to 25?!
 
You'll want raise the SG slowly over time no more than .01 at a time best way is to top off with salt water till you get to 1.024 I say that because as the water evaporates it will cause the SG in the tank to rise.
The .024 will give you some room and wont hurt anything. I have an auto top off so my SG stays the same at 1.025
If your sure your going to upgrade I'd use the 55 as a sump The 20 wont add a lot of volume 10-12 gal at most Better to use it as quarantine/hospital tank

@ Tango yea i didnt know it either i seen some a my LFS (they do the same thing) it took me around 3 weeks to acclimate them to my SG They wanted $2.99 for fresh water mollys and $25.00 for a pair of salty's They've been in my sump for two years now
 
You'll want raise the SG slowly over time no more than .01 at a time best way is to top off with salt water till you get to 1.024 I say that because as the water evaporates it will cause the SG in the tank to rise.
The .024 will give you some room and wont hurt anything. I have an auto top off so my SG stays the same at 1.025
+1 Much harder on stock to raise salinity on them than lower it, go slowly.

@ Tango yea i didnt know it either i seen some a my LFS (they do the same thing) it took me around 3 weeks to acclimate them to my SG They wanted $2.99 for fresh water mollys and $25.00 for a pair of salty's They've been in my sump for two years now
Crazy!! Good to know! Maybe we can get in the biz of making Mollys saltys! HA!!
 
Thanks guys! We got some more saltwater from lfs. They do keep it at 25 so we've topped off and will continue to until the sg comes up.
We also got angel and tomato clown out. Got a smal black and clown. Won't do any more fish at all in this tank.
 
Back
Top Bottom