saltwater aquarium log of a newbie..w/ questions of course

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.
man.. . . been sleeping a couple of days now just figuring out how to make my tank work well if not best.

ive come across the refugium idea. and really think itll work best for me as i do not want a wet-dry filter as i feel this will just be redundant to what i have already existing.

what is your take on these refugiums?

http://www.cpraquatic.com/products/aquafugepro.html <<=== comes with protein skimmer but just doubt quality..

http://cgi.ebay.com/300-Gallon-Aqua...748333100QQcategoryZ46310QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem <<== this one is quite promising. with better bang for the buck but i am also not sure what kind of skimmer it has.

can you help me out please.. if i get tired ill just sit it out and just hope everything will do well with my tank with just LR and a canister filter.. .
 
I think the 2nd of the 2 looks more promising. the skimmer on the CPR one looked a little hoky.

that said the dimensions of the 2nd one look small and seems like very little room for a fuge in the middle compartement.

I say buy the biggest tank that will fit in your stand and then spend the rest on a good skimmer.

the fuge can be added into the sump at a later date.
 
the refugium looks decent, but the skimmer isn't gonna do much for ya. and the pumps it comes with are not quality either.

Why are you against doing what I mentioned in the last post?
 
sorry. but no, i am not against any of your ideas. am not sure which post you are referring to. are you referring to the post with a diagram on it, or the post with a closed loop or both?

its just prolly me wanting a ready setup as i do not have the tools nor expertise to do handywork. id love to try to do it myself but the fear of screwing up and end up wasting time and effort is for me another source of frustration. mainly me being impatient.

heck i do not even have a fish yet in my tank!

are aqua c skimmers in sump or can they stand alone under the tank?
 
i am not against any of your ideas. am not sure which post you are referring to. are you referring to the post with a diagram on it, or the post with a closed loop or both?

In fact I was refering to: "buy the biggest tank that will fit in your stand and then spend the rest on a good skimmer. The fuge can be added into the sump at a later date."

I would necessarily search on ebay for "refugium" packages, just try and find a standard fish tank thats will just fit under your main tank. then you can have a glass store cut the right size of glass/acrylic sheets that you can silicon in and make your own custom sump/fuge. It's WAY cheaper and you'll end up with a better setup. You could find a used and scratched acrylic tank for super cheap.

Don't worry about screwing stuff up. pvc pipes and plumbing accessories are dirt cheap. 20' of pvc pipe is probably $4. you can't mess up with any of the fittings I listed unless you glue them prematurely, which is why I recommended dry fitting and testing your system that way before glueing, so the only thing there is to mess up is cutting the pipe. I think you would agree that $4 for 20 feet is cheap and you can afford to make a few miscuts and measurement errors a handful of times and still have pvc left over at the end.

I'll tell ya something though, once you start doing the stuff yourself, you'll love it. This hobby has more to offer than just fish in a tank. Building your system is a great part of it. I'm sure once you get going, you'll find it is easy and rewarding.

I'm giving you a picture of a really cool sump/skimmer set-up through www.lifereef.com and a pic of my system when I was dry fitting it in the garage so you can see how its plumbed from the back.
 

Attachments

  • lg_bliz_144.jpg
    lg_bliz_144.jpg
    25.4 KB · Views: 840
thats a cool setup.. sorry did not quite get your suggestion. i was thinking you were suggesting a fuge.. .

getting a cheap tank is a brilliant idea.. .then i can get an AQUA-C EV120! thing is as you have also pointed out how to have it drilled.. am not sure ill find a place here thatll do that for me....
 
i was thinking you were suggesting a fuge.. .

I looked back at the previous posts, I can see where I went wrong. I was talking about a refugium but not meaning to limit it at that. The ones you were looking at were all fairly small and had limited room for other additions.

I was just meaning to have a refugium section within a larger sump. This way you have room for expansion and maximize your system volume.

If you look for acrylic, you can drill it yourself. Glass on the other hand, not so much.
 
went around to see if i can find an acrylic aquarium. .no dice only found glass aquariums.. will try wal-mart tomorrow..

i have a cycling question.. tank will be 2 weeks old on SATURDAY. im using 3 raw shrimps right now.. i also as you know have live rock already... yesterday, decided to put in BIO-SPIRA... checked water values today.

pH: 7.8 ( added pH 8.3 also yesterday)
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 5.0
nitrate: 80

questions:
1. do i get rid of the shrimps now? as my ammonia is 0.
2. i plan to do pwc on FRIDAY. i suppose 25% will be fine. WOULD THIS BE OK?
3. after doing pwc on FRIDAY and values are ok (ammonia 0, nitrite 0) can i add YELLOW TANGS ( how many? was looking at getting 2) and a bit of a CLEANER CREW? :)
 
not sure whether people continue to let the shrimps rot or not. I would say leave them in until you introduce your cleaning crew. Your NH3 is zero, but ammonia is still being produced, only now you have enough bacteria to deal with the amount of ammonia being produced. Not sure if any more colonization of NH3 bacteria would still be occuring though until you introduced a small spike in ammonia from new animal additions.

25% should be good to start.

I would say to start with your cleaning crew, test your water, and add the fish in a feew days following. You probably would be fine all together, but I'd just take it slow to be safe and allow your bacteria colonies to build from the cleaning crew, although they won't add too much to the bioload, it still is something.
 
howeh!! checked my water today and here are my values:

ph: 8.0 ammonia: 0 nitrite: 0.25 nitrate: 20

am i doing good with my cycling?
 
yep your almost there probly have a few more days before its complete
 
looks like im good to go..

day 12, 3 days after using bio-spira:

pH: 7.8 (ive started to put in pH 8.3 save for today)
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0

nitrate: 40

i take it that my plan of a pwc tomorrow (saturday) will somewhat take care of the nitrate level....

looks like am going to pay my lfs tomorrow for some yellow tangs..
 
just added a yellow tang, foxface and cleaning crew.

ph; 7.8 ammonia: 0.25 nitrite:0 nitrate: 20

i may have to redo my aquascaping as my fish are spending more time at the back than showcasing themselves up front! but i do love my current aquascape thought as i have a couple of cave formations, cave-loving fish would enjoy.
 
2 days after putting my initial fish and cleaning crew.

ph: 7.8 - this is by far what is boggling me. ive been putting in ph 8.3 by seachem i guess but still my ph is down. what gives?

ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate:20
 
it has been awhile since ive last posted. been busy with my ST.

well to update my log, i just lost a FLAME ANGEL. as to the cause im not really sure (not water parameters. parameters are fine). a night before i saw its demise, i still saw it swimming around. then when i came home from work the next day, i saw crabs feasting on its carcass! only thing i can attribute its death is probally because it was not eating much. although i do see him catch some food and swim around during feeding time. other than that i am not sure of cause of death. wish i saved the fish for you guys to do an autopsy. lol!

before the FLAME ANGEL demise, i had a pair of HENI's that also died. i did not notice they had ICH from the LFS! MORAL OF THE STORY? QT. anyways during this time i was (and still am) expecting the impending doom of my tank as i was thinking ICH will develop on my other fish. well, with ginger and garlic laced food and a UV sterilizer i am yet to see any ICH. though i am not that optimistic though.

currently i have 3 orange anthias on my QT. and im trying to keep them there for at least 2 weeks (not if cant help my itchy hands from getting them off there and to the MAIN tank). i am also in the process of revising my closed-loop design. believe me guys if gone through 3 setups already! initially, i thought getting rid of 3 PH's would not be expensive. well, just found out the hard way after looking at some cc bills!

anyways, ive just upgraded my pump (again!) from a mag12 to a mag24. just did not think the latter was adequate. problem with the mag24 is its noise. so had to think of putting the pump below the floor (basement ceiling) which was way harder than i thought. just thought i just drill two holes and thats it! WRONG! turns out my hardwood floors were at least 4" thick! dang! just did one hole for the return line and will do the intake line hole when i come back from a conference.

man this saltwater experience is something.
 
Back
Top Bottom