Hi! New to Saltwater - First Tank Build. Need Advice.

[kpiotrowski]

do you know you can also pee in your tank to get the cycle started? not kidding! also, when you aquire "dead" dry rock, weather its from someones tank they tore down or order it online it will have dead stuff on and in it that will breakdown in your tank and help with the cycle. this stuff will be breaking down for months! one reason I like bacteria in a bottle is when you pee in a tank, or use a shrimp etc you have to wait for the diffenrt forms of bacteria to come in order. meaning you are not gonna have bacteria in there that transform nitrite into nitrate untill you have nitrite...which came from bacteria that create ammonia which came from bacteria that breaks down the junk in the first place. bacteria in a bottle is pretty much instant for the intitial cycle then you have to wait for your anerobic bacteria to establish that transform nitrates. I wonder what brand the new store "oceans by design" will be using to cycle all their tanks? perhaps they have a suggetion like tom's maybee???

 

[Dawg2012]

Two questions .

1) While waiting until I have a final tank setup with a sump - which might be months away due to ancillary factors - could I get things started in a 55 with some dry aragonite substrate, a piece or two of dry rock, some bacteria in a bottle, a skimmer, a heater and a power head or two for good flow over the rock?

2) If I start with dry rock (I'm struggling with patience with this - but trying to heed advice on pests) - how does that eventually get populated with all the... little critters that make live rock so interesting?

 

[NC2WA]

yes, you can start the curing process on rock now...btw..as you are finding out, saltwater hobby requires an extreme amount of patience...if rushed, bad things usually happen.

 

[IPisces]

Yes like NC2WA said, you can start the cycling process on your rocks, BUT dont do the sand yet. Add the sand to the new tank when you get it set up.
As far as getting all the cool critters, you can get pods from LFS and some of the online sponsors. You can also get them from fellow hobbiests.
I for one have more than enough mini brittle stars. Your welcome to some. Could even get you some pods. Not a lot, but a few.

Oh, guess your a little too far away for that, but you know where you can get them if you need to.

 

[kpiotrowski]

you can also order pods ect online, just be sure they are the tropical kind that will breed. they have cold water pods that are for food and don't repopulate.

 

[Dawg2012]

Okay. Thanks for the advice. There is so much to learn and I have so many questions LOL!

Just curious - why not the sand yet? Isn't that a large part of the biological filter?

The problem is that setting up the main tank, with a proper sump etc..., could be 6-12 months off, I just don't know right now. I was thinking to do something small in the 55/75 and then using that knowledge, equipment and tank materials for the main tank/sump when that time comes... with that hopefully being a 6' or 8' display tank.

I know my plans are always changing lol... I just fear that if I wait for the timing to be perfect and I have 'all' the knowledge that it will never happen... Plus I learn better from experience. That being said I do NOT envision more than a basic fish or two and the LR before the main tank comes into play.

I would not mind making the learning tank now the sump tank in the future - using the LR and sand bed for the sump/refugium.

 

[IPisces]

It depends on what type of sand bed you want. A deep sandbed will help with filtration. If you have a deep sand bed you dont want to move it. It holds a lot of crap that if it is stired up gasses excape and can cause real problems. You dont want to transfer all that crap to your new tank. I dont know the chemistry of it all, it is posted around here somewhere. A thin sand bed would be okay, just rinse it real good before putting it in the new tank. I rinsed mine and dried it before reusing it.

 

[Dawg2012]

Ah okay that makes sense.

Right now I'll rely on the LR to handle both the aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. Should be a good start and okay with a very low bioload.

 

[pandora32]

If you were to use a dsb say in your 55/75 tank, then later on get your big 6'/8' tank, you would treat it like any other sand bed youd be tranfering. Rinse it real good and you wont have a problem. Me for 1, use a dsb. Lorrie "Ipices", dosent. I have it in my fuge. It NEVER gets stirred and thats real important. You can stir the top 1/2", maybe 3/4", but you dont want to go much more than that. It really does have alot of bad gasses in it, but i belive its worth it ON MY TANK. Your tank may be better off without sand at all. Depends ALOT on what you want to keep and also on your maintenance. If your like me, dsb is better. If your sucking all the crud out like you have ocd, you wont need sand at all. Waterflow is a big part also. If you have alot of water movement, your going to have alot of sand movement. Water movement also is important because it helps to keep the detritus up in the water column to be filtered out via your filter(s) and some of your corals, instead of settling on the bottom to rot.

 

[Dawg2012]

Alright. It's a multiple way to skin the cat thing. I was reading last night that with a dsb, time and balance - you can alleviate the need for a skimmer. Not that you should - just that your corals might show better growth if you leave more of the planktonic life in the water column, which skimmers reduce. Seems everyone has skimmers though so that's where I'm going - was just interesting reading.

So... I ordered a drilled 75 yesterday :clap2: ! ...along with a stand, overflows and a 30g long for the sump. Got the ball rolling! It will be in Thursday.

In the mean time I need to research Skimmers, return pumps and sump designs. I definitely want a refugium, and I think a dsb there would be good.

Oh... and a RO/DI unit... and a test kit lol.

 

[kpiotrowski]

And so it begins! No stoppin ya know lol. I went with display fuge next to my tank and am pretty happy with it. I used a 50g with stand and canopy and put my ato reseviour under it. api test kits work fine for the majority of your initail testing imo then if you want later you can go with elos, salifert, seachem etc.

here is a link to my display fuge. if figured the bigger the fuge the better and so why not make it something to look at too.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f70/tank-turned-1-year-old-im-broke-65306/

 

[Dawg2012]

Yep no stopping me now! The GF is on board and we're learning all we can. It's good for us . I told the guy at the LFS yesterday and he said "Oh no, he's going over to the salty side!". They don't do SW stuff but I assured him I'm not abandoning all my Cichlid tanks just yet.

I like the idea of a display fuge! How is it plumbed - just like a sump? I was shocked how much you've spent on everything - though if I added it up I've probably dumped close to that into my FW tanks in the past year. Ah yeah better to just not keep track lol. If you like what you have and aren't living in a box as a result - go for it.

 

[NC2WA]

The GF is on board

You are golden

Just go slow and do what u r currently doing which reading and asking questions

 

[kpiotrowski]

I could prob find a few pic on how "I" plumbed mine, but every situation is different. I skim first then pump to fuge and have very limited pods in fuge cuz no food for them, lots in display though. what seems to be working for me is extrremely clean water in my case. if you were to dump right from display into the fuge and then skimm before it return to tank you would have a fuge with tons of pods etc. ive heard of people just useing very large fuge's in this way and not even needing a skimmer....."many ways to skin a cat"

 

[Mike2112]

Sounds great that you will get the tank this week. I am excited for you. Ipieces gave an excellent link for the sumps. I chose to copy the design that had the skimmer in the first part, the return in the middle and the refuge in the third with the overflow piped to both the skimmer side and the refuge side. I recall seeing a section on the same site about plumping that particular set up with a ball valve controlling the flow into the refuge and having the rest dump into the skimmer portion. Good Luck, and we all will be looking forward to the pics as you get them.