The Journey Starts Now

[boogly]

About me: My name is Anita and I live in Odessa. I lived in Carrolton when I was younger and still have family in Flower Mound. I remember when there were only three TV channels, when Dad wanted to watch the only TV in the house you watched what he wanted or went out to play, and they played the national anthem at 12:00 before going to a test pattern or just “snow”.

My first fish was a minnow we brought back from a camping trip named Minnie that my sister thought would smell better if she put some bubble bath in her water. I’ve had my 30 gallon FW tank for probably 12 years and my 55 gallon FW for at least 8. I think of these tanks as compromises. Kind of when you ask for a pony and get a rocking horse. When we see a public SW tank I’m always the last one ready to leave and always wish for a few more minutes. Imagine eye rolling, foot tapping and sighs ensuing from the back ground. My husband has discouraged me from SW for years and years complaining about the work and difficulty of such a tank. I’ve decided I’m not getting any younger and getting started now is the right time. This tank might require work, but it will be a labor of love.

About my tank: The tank hasn’t been purchased yet. This project is still in planning phases. I intend to sell the two FW tanks and purchase a reef ready tank. I’d like to shoot for a 90 to 120 gallon tank with a DSB. After I become more comfortable and knowledgeable I’d like to set up a 14 gallon Nano-Reef in the bedroom. Please don’t tell my husband.

My current reference library:
Marine Fishes – 500+ Esential-to-Know Aquarium Species ~ Scott Michael
Saltwater Aquarium Fishes – New Edition ~ Dr Axelrod & Dr Burgess
The Tropical marine Fish Survival Manual ~ Gordon Kay
The New Marine Aquarium Step by Step Setup & Stocking Guide ~ Michael Paletta
*Aquarium Corals: Selection, Husbandry, & Natural History ~ Eric Borneman
*The Conscientious Marine Aquarist ~ Robert Fenner
*A Pocket Expert Guide to Marine Invertebrates ~ Ronal Shimek
*The Nano-reef Handbook ~ Chris Brightwell.

*On route to the house as I type

My questions so far: I’ve been reading Mr. Paletta’s “The New Marine Aquarium” and it’s full of helpful information. I’ve visited several websites and forums around the internet and hit all the newbie sections. I’m sure there will be many more questions as time goes by but these are my initial questions:

We’ll get what is probably the silliest out of the way first: I know that saltwater should be aged before adding it to the tank. When setting up a new tank, is there any reason the initial water cannot be mixed in the tank itself? There would be no live rock or sand in the tank at the time.

The book talks about cured and uncured live rock. If I decided to go the uncured route it would seem I would want to initially want to start the curing process outside (or the garage) due to the smell. Would it be okay to finish the curing process in the tank since it would have no livestock?

I know the inches per gallon rule (and why I shouldn’t use it [smilie=wink.gif] ) but am curious: Does having corals in the tank subtract from the total inches allowed?

The sand bed is made up of …well…sand. Does this mean that the bottom of the tank is never vacuumed like in a FW gravel bottom tank? Is a cleaning crew of hermit crabs, snails, and shrimp enough to keep the sand bed clean or is there some maintenance that needs to be performed on it?

The sump: This has been the hardest concept for me coming from a HOB filter in a FW system but I think I’m getting there. Please correct any wrong assumptions on my part. The sump area is where my heater and protein skimmer will be. Does the sump need to have LR in it as well? I think I saw somewhere that wet/dry filter systems were for fish only tanks. If the heater is located in the sump, does that mean actual tank has no heater in it?

This thread helped a lot with understanding should someone else have questions.

Things I have learned already:
Nothing good happens fast. (The SW hobbyist motto)
Starphire glass is the Alfa Romeo/Ferrari/Aston Martin/Maserati of the hobby. More expensive but it sure is pretty!
Buy what you want/need the first time. Going cheap only costs you more down the road when you have to replace it.
Buy the biggest tank you can house and afford. Big tanks are more forgiving and the cost ratio makes them a good investment.
Reef/SW forums are full of knowledgeable people. Their information is given freely with no other motive than a love for the hobby.
Nothing good happens fast.

Please chime in on the questions and offer any other words of advice you have.

 

[bimmerzs]

Excellent start and welcome to the hobby. Here are a few more good reads and website stops for you. viewtopic.php?f=30&t=23791 http://www.melevsreef.com/links.html


Cheers,

 

[Lance]

Welcome to the Addiction...opps I meant to say hobby. Looks like you have a great start set in place by the keys that you have pointed out such as:

Things I have learned already:
Nothing good happens fast. (The SW hobbyist motto)
Starphire glass is the Alfa Romeo/Ferrari/Aston Martin/Maserati of the hobby. More expensive but it sure is pretty!
Buy what you want/need the first time. Going cheap only costs you more down the road when you have to replace it.
Buy the biggest tank you can house and afford. Big tanks are more forgiving and the cost ratio makes them a good investment.
Reef/SW forums are full of knowledgeable people. Their information is given freely with no other motive than a love for the hobby.
Nothing good happens fast.

Also with starphire it will scratch easier than regular glass. Look to what you are wanting and think into the future also. You can look through some of the builds and see that some have had tanks setup for years upon years and they look amazing. see where you are wanting to place your tank and look at the builds and see what everyone has done and see if you can incorporate their ideas to make it easier for you in the future so you do not make the same mistakes we have all made and learned from.

 

[Erik]

@boogly wrote:

Best advice I think is to position the tank and fill it with tap water. This will be your leak test and chance to make sure everything stays level when the tank is full and heavy. Then drain and fill with your R.O. or R.O./D.I. water. Yes, you can mix in the salting the main tank for your first fill.

If you go for uncured rock you can cure it where any smell won't hurt family relations then move the rock into the display tank once it doesn't have a noticeable smell. The beneficial bacteria will grow or die off depending on the bio load of your tank. Even once cured it won't be able to handle a dozen fish right away. Slow changes applies to fish bio load as well.

I'm still pretty new myself so I can't answer how much the corals impact the bio load of the tank. There are so many factors that I don't subscribe to the inch/gallon at all. It just does not apply as it might in a FW tank. Your reef tank will have a unique amount of live rock/sand, and that live rock/sand will be seasoned only as it applies to your tank over time. Your protein skimmer may be better or worse than someone else's, or may be better hardware but poorly dialed in, or worse hardware but perfectly dialed in. You may run a large or small sump, or no sump at all. You may have a refugium or not. You may have Live rock, live sand, macro algae etc in your sump or tank. There are just too many variables. I think the most stable tank and appropriate bio load will only happen over time and with experience. Every tank is different, and as you grow yours you will find out how often you need top off water, skimmer maintenance, water changes and such. Inch per gallon doesn't apply, but the corals and other invertebrates are part of the tank's bio load. Depending on the age and quality of your live rock/sand your available bio load capacity will be unique to your tank alone.

From what I have read, if you have sufficient and appropriate in fauna for the DSB there will be no maintenance required will be required of the sand bed itself. That doesn't mean you shouldn't retrieve any uneaten silversides your anenome doesn't eat or remove any dead fishes. Simple vacuuming should be done only superficially as needed if you want to remove an algae bloom or unattractive stuff on the sand bed. Try not to disturb a DSB.

Think of the sump as a big HOB filter. Think of it as if they made a 20g HOB filter for your FW tank. It's part of the same tank water so you can move any of your ugly tank maintenance items out of view. You can run your carbon, etc down there, do your water changes, run your heaters, etc. I personally like the idea of a sump with refugium, with live sand and live rock and a separate lighting system running on opposite lighting from the display tank. So at night when the main tank is sleeping the sump's DSB, live rock and clean up crew can be working and any macro algae can be growing. They are all filters, and your sump is a great place to run all your filtration.

A note on heaters. If you determine your tank will need a 300w of heating it is better to have a couple smaller (150w) heaters instead of one big one. If one fails off your tank won't get too cold as the second heater will try to keep things going. If you have a heater fail ON, then a 300w heater could kill your tank right away, whereas a 150w stuck on will warm things up but hopefully you can catch it in time. Another note on heaters, you many only need half of what you think you need. If you have a sump with an internal (submerged) return pump and an in-sump protein skimmer with its own pump tho two submerged pumps will be creating their own heat. That heat will get transferred to the water, acting as a heater. In the scenario where you think you might need 300w of heating for your tank the pumps may satisfy 150w of heating equivalent. Just remember to keep spares of your return pump model or get a tank with dual drains and returns. Redundancy is your friend. If a return pump seizes, and you have your heating run in the sump your sump stays warm but your tank will cool off. If you haves replacement return pumps (and easy screw on/off threaded unions) you can swap in a replacement return pump in short order once you notice the problem. If you have two return pumps and one fails then the water is still circulating and you can wait till tomorrow or Monday to replace the seized pump. You basically have you backup there and running full time.

Depending on how much time and money you invest in your live critters, you might want to budget for an aquarium controller that can monitor and alarm if things go wrong such as temperature, Ph, salinity, etc. It would suck to spend months and years getting your tank just right to have a heater failure or something else kill everything and force you to start over. I just about have my wife sold on the aquarium controller as an insurance policy.

Btw, wet/dry trickle filters are awesome for certain circumstances, even reef setups. If you have a heavy bio load the trickle filter is the best there is at keeping ammonia and nitrites at zero. If you have macro algae or live rock/sand to handle the nitrate to nitrogen then I don't see anything wrong with the trickle filter. (except the need to clean it). People call them nitrate factories, but where do they get the nitrites to make nitrate? From your system water. Ammonia and nitrites are harmful to your tank, and the trickle filter is very resilient at making sure they stay at zero. I think it comes down to personal choice with the balance tilted toward adequate amounts of non-maintenance live rock that is sufficiently aged (months and months).

 

[boogly]

Thank you for the links and advice guys. Erik I appriciate you typing all that out =) I've done some more research on sumps and even checked out a LFS's setup on their display tank. Its becoming a little clearer (no pun intended). I've seen some of the messages on the controllers and they would be mixing two of my favorite hobbies: fish and computers. It will be some time before I can pitch that sale though.

Thanks again!