Just how feasible is a FO 29 gallon...

[20 20]

Well.

Well, well, well.

Here I sit, staring at my nice new 29 gallon tank, with nothing in it. Nothing, except water. SALT water.

That, and a heater and powerhead. Gonna get the live rock, and most likely a skimmer, this weekend.


Damn. It starts...

 

[20 20]

Went to the fish store this morning, and just finished getting everything set up. 30 pounds of Caribe Sea (sp?) aragonite substrate, 35-40 pounds of base rock, 25 pounds of Solomon Islands live rock, another Maxi-jet 1200 PH (that makes two of them), and also stuck on a small HOB filter for mechanical filtration. Got the Coralife Super Skimmer '65' which I haven't hooked up yet. I'd take a picture, but one of my kids must have taken the camera and put it somewhere else. A bit cloudy, but the HOB filter is clearing that up. PH is 8.2, with a saltwater test kit.

Hehe, fun morning!!

 

[20 20]

Tested the water this morning:

PH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0 to 0.25 (hard to read darn test)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20-40 (again, hard to read darn test!)
Salinity: 1.021

Is the PH to low? If so, how should I bring it up?

 

[Jermz79]

Ph should be around 8.0 - 8.2, I would just wait it out a little as you are still in the cycling process. If by the time your cycle ends your PH doesn't raise, partial water changes will bring it up and if not you may need to use some sort of buffer.

I don't know much about the other additives to raise Ph, but I know there are a few out there. Maybe someone else will have some info for you.

 

[20 20]

Pictures of the tank, the first without a flash, the 2nd and 3rd with a flash:

 

[Hulrick]

i had a 30 gal for over 7 years non stop and had a Hagen Canister for main filter with a hob skimmer and 2 PH with a set of light for my coral and rarely did maintenance or water change, maybe 2x a year at that, i was very very lucky that the home i stayed at had a nice in home water filtering system to start with, so just adding the weekly evaporated water to top off the tank and use my magnet scrubber and i was on the way for maintenance, i had about 20lb of baserock at first and adds about 10-15 lb of LR over the years and all mixed together and at the end everything was covered with live, sad i had to moved and got rid of my entire setup for a few $$ that i regreet very much.but in all, its doable i also had 1 moonline groper,1 huge yellow tang, 2 lion fish,a few snails and a nice cleaner shrimp it was a crazy ass tank, used to dump about 6 goldfish in there every 2-3 days along with pellets along the gaps.

 

[afilter]

.....And another one bites the dust!

Good luck with your new set up. I give you 12 months before that 125gal gets turned into a SW tank. That is what happened to my 75gal african tank two years ago.

Now this weekend I am upgrading to a 90gal with overflow. I would go bigger, but that whole wife thing you know.

Good luck,

 

[Mephistopheles]

I have a 30 gallon cube that I have been running successfully with exactly the stock you described (blue devil damsel, black o. clown, firefish goby). They all get along fine, plenty of space even in the cube setup. I don't have a skimmer and don't plan on getting one (least until I can get one for $20). If I wanted to keep animals requiring higher water quality, I'd get a larger tank to start with and go all the way. A large sump can help stabalize.

 

[Guest]

20 20, Don't get damsels! Just a friendly reminder from the guy who cycled with damsels.