drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Right, I bought a tank and filter, lights, food, treatments etc off ebay about 6 months ago for the bargain price of £275 for the whole lot, but only got round to setting it up yesterday! Here is a quick pic of the tank itself...
Ive had a lot of experience with keeping koi in the past so I know all about testing water quality, water changes etc, and have decided to jump in the deep end, so to speak, and start with a marine setup with a few corals etc too.
The tank is around 400 litres and the filter that came with it was only good for 200, so I went out yesterday and bought one rated for 600 litres (better to be safe than sorry!). At the moment, the tank is now in position with the pump/filter running and is full of tap water with dechlorinator in it, so basically a blank canvas. I'm using the thermostat that I used to use on the vivarium with auto day/night and temperature control, so the water is currently heating up to 26 degrees. I have also bought a reverse osmosis filter for all future top-ups, 25kg of kent marine salt, a hydrometer for getting the right salinity, a digital pH meter, two 46" High Output blue flourescent tubes (it currently has 2 white and 2 red, so we've swapped the reds for blues) but now here come the questions;
For the lighting, are we OK with 2 blue and 2 white or should it be more blue? Should they all be turned off at night or just the white ones?
For the water changes, I'm guessing the best way would be to use the RO filter to make water and put it into a big bucket then heat that to 26 degrees, then add the salt and then use the premixed and preheated water after leaving it to dissolve for 24 hours?
How do you go about setting up a sump? Is it worth it/necessary?
How important are powerheads/wave makers? Do you really need one with a controller or would a £30 jobbie do it?
How much live rock should I get, or is it more a matter of preference when I have a big external filter to do most of the filtration?
Im going to mix the salt straight into the aquarium this time as there is nothing in there at the moment, so if I can do that on Tuesday then do you think we would be able to put the first fish in on Thurs?
Lastly (at least for now!) what fish would you recommend to start the bacteria in the filter going?
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Oh yeah, and protein skimmers - general info wanted!
|
Marc
Member
Registered: 11th Aug 02
Location: York
User status: Offline
|
I want fish again 
|
Dan
Premium Member
Registered: 22nd Apr 02
Location: Gorleston on Sea, Norfolk
User status: Offline
|
Im not sure the dechlorinator is a good idea? Ive always been told not to use it in mine.
I turn all lights on for 8 hours, then off the rest of the time.
In that tank your gonna need alot of live rock, i have a 55 litre with 10kg in. I think recomended figure is around 1kg per gallon. The more the better, but its not cheap.
Mix ro and salt for 24hours, with a power head in the bucket to mix it
Skimmers are pretty essential and very handy bits of kit. You would benefit majorly from one.
Adult GiftsClick here to vist us
|
Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
|
TBF Im no good answering any of these as havent kept Marine fish personally.
|
chloe16v
Member
Registered: 29th Nov 07
Location: Rotherham
User status: Offline
|
have a look at this site, you will find all the info you need on there http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/index.php
a dont need a sump but it is a very good bit of kit to have, you can hide all you exuipment in it like your skimmer which you will need. what lights do you have t5 or t8s? what sort of corals are you wanting to keep? soft, sps, lps? you will need powerheads, some cheap ones will do the trick, you dont need a controler, as for starter fish, start with some damsles or chromis, you will need to leave your water in the tank to cycle for around a month before adding any fish first though.
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
We've since emptied the tank and started again with RO water, as well as adding a coral that my parents brought back from the carribbean 30 years ago (after boliling it for half hour) and replacing the gravel for sand and adding rocks. Hopefully we will have some damsels in there by the weekend to start the filters going but the protein skimmer is probably going on the side of the tank instead of the sump because we reeally dont have the room to put it anywhere else!
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Just thought I'd do a quick update. We've now got in just over 30kg of rock as well as 4kg of live rock to speed up the colonisation, and we've put in the first inhabitants to get the filtration system going - a pair of clown fish, and 5 very small hermit crabs. Here's how it's looking at the moment;
We still need to get a few more rocks to finish off the wall but its 90% done now, so it will be staying like this for a while to let the water parameters settle down before adding anything else. I'll keep the thread updated though :-)
|
Marc
Member
Registered: 11th Aug 02
Location: York
User status: Offline
|
Very cool 
|
corsa120
Member
Registered: 4th May 02
Location: Northamptonshire
User status: Offline
|
cycling with fish in is very amatuer thing to do.... puts the fish under great stress while the cycle goes through its changes............
are you using a seperate filter? as if you just uses live rock and a protein skimmer you'll need hell of alot more live rock... looks awesome though
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Yeah there is a very large external filter in the cabinet too.
I do understand completely what you are saying but I don't see how two small fish in a huge tank will create enough waste for it to become anything near a problem? We don't plan on adding any more for a while now and even when we do it will be gradually anyway, and I am keeping a close eye on the water parameters in the meantime!
|
corsa120
Member
Registered: 4th May 02
Location: Northamptonshire
User status: Offline
|
yeah i suppose thats true dude.........
are you using any thing like a protein skimmer too or just the filter as im in the middle of buying a new tank which is a tropical setup and obviously comes with a tropical filter unit which is external like yours but i might make it a marine tank yet....
but i was considering using the filter which comes with the tank........ for benifical filtration then a protein skimmer and around 12kg's of live rock to add to the filtration along with alot of clean up crew...
what do you think dude???
|
ssj_kakarot
Member
Registered: 29th Apr 03
Location: hartlepool
User status: Offline
|
you really didnt need fish to start the cycle the cycle started when you put the live rock into the tank, bacteria that filters the tank is already establish in the live rock its not like cycling a trop tank.
you need more live rock for filtration, you need at least 44kg for that size tank.
No one really uses external filters for biological filtration as in essence its not very effective for marine fish tanks, so you really cant rely on the external to filter that size of tank if you hope to have any kind of decent bio load contained in there. It is fine however, for polishing the water but clean the sponges every week or they can become a very big problem and create a lot of water quality issues (namly nitrate problems). overtime the external filter will prevent the live rock from working correctly. people often misunderstand that the filtration is done by the live rock and not the external filter like in trops.
water should be mixed the day before in a tub with power head and heater and left to mix over night, only use RO water tap water will give you no ends of problems.
you havnt stated the wattage of the lights you have and if they are marine bulbs? marine and tropical bulbs are different spectrums and not suited to each others enviroment.
Now if your asking if you have enough lighting well that comes down to what you actually want to keep in the tank if its just fish only then you can get away with a low wattage no problems, if your hoping to keep corals it depends which ones you want, soft corals will be fine with the lower end of the spectrum but if you want to keep lps and sps corals you need quite a lot of lighting over that tank 300watt plus really, but depends what you want. You need very high lighting for the likes of anenemies and clams aswell. for a tank that size and a decent collection i would look into metal halides tbh. also the white bulbs have a different par to the blues whites have a much better par use for coral growth blues are mostly used for ascetic value and to bring colours of coral out.
You should not have put fish in so early. the filtration is contained in the live rock due to the bacteria that is contained within, when the live rock was moved there will have been die off from the various critters that are alive on there cocepods and ampipods ect so this will have released ammonia into the water colum, yes there is a lot of water for those two clows but you will undoutably put them under undue stress, i hope you are measuring the water quality every day for ammonia and nitrite spikes you really should have waited a at least a month before even adding the hermits.
on a tank that size you deffo need a skimmer the rule of thumb is to go for a skimmer rated at twice the size of the tank but it depends what you are going to keep in there and the bio load, you could get away with a 600litre one i guess, bubble magnus skimmers are taking favour at the min and there quite cheap compared to the branded models around.
what is the salinity of the water set at it needs to be around 1.025 for a reef system. seriously get a refractometer hydrometers are quite inaccurate and fluctuate widely due to temps ect.
you deffo need to turn the lights off at night, fish wont sleep compleatly till the lights are fully off.
as for a sump yes they are very very usefull, most people have them to put there skimmers in as hanging them on the back of the tank is quite uncitly, you can also run a refugium and macro algae bed from them to reduce unwanted chemicals in the water. to set one up you would have been better off drilling the tank and plumbing it in before you filled with water, you could get a prefilter to do it now though or overflow box.
What current do you have in there at the moment? the whole basis of the filtration of a reef system is provided by the flow around the live rock the general rule of thumb is to have the water turn over around 40 times the tanks volume so you need 40 * 400 of liters flow an hour, the cheap power heads on ebay are fine no need to purchase a really expensive one, the sunflow ones are quite good, or koralina or vortech if you want to go high class.
excuse the spelling mistakes i cant be arsed to go back and correct
ps:
have a look on http://www.ultimatereef.net/info/calculators/ for info and some usefull calculation for new tanks, also take the time to register and post this message on there, be warned though they will rip you for putting fish in so early.
[Edited on 14-02-2010 by ssj_kakarot]
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Thanks for the info mate :-)
We have 2x 40w white lights and 2x40w marine blue lights, so 160w total. It will obviously be a long time until we are able to start thinking about putting corals and anenome in there so I guess we will have plenty of time to think about the metal halides if we go down that route!
RE mixing the new water, thats pretty much what I had planned to do so its good to have some reassurance :-)
I am doing water tests every day and I will keep an eye on the parameters, in fact I think I might even mix up some RO water ready just in case I do need to start doing water changes - it can't hurt to be prepared.
The salinity is currently 1.024 as that is what we were told to make it at, and we have both a hydrometer and refractometer to test it with 
We;ve had the blue lights on at night with only the white ones being turned off until now, so I will swap both the plugs onto the timer as soon as I go downstairs! What do you think about the moonlight LEDs that are available, or is even a minimal amount of lighting not advised? It would just be nice to be able to see them at night, even under low powered lights.
We were advised not to get a protein skimmer at the start because it would actually be detrimental to the cycling process, or would you not agree with that? We are def going to get one anyway but were going to wait a few weeks - should we just get one now?
At the moment the current is just from the filter (which is overrated for the tank, so there is quite a lot of flow) The return is also from a spray bar type return which is directed downwards over the rocks at the back, so there is some current going past them. I have two wavemaker poweheads on order off ebay though which should be here today or tomorrow.
|
ssj_kakarot
Member
Registered: 29th Apr 03
Location: hartlepool
User status: Offline
|
160w will be more than enough for a lot of nice soft corals such as muchrooms, xenia, star polyps, zoas you dont have to wait to long before adding corals as long as you stick to easy to look after ones most of the ones listed above are bullet proof and quite cheap as starter corals
anenome is usually reccomended for a tank of about 12 month old there quite difficult to keep happy at the best of times tbh, great for your clowns though.
the lights you have shouldnt be left on over night, i would put them on 2 seperate timers have the blues come on an hour before the whites and stay on an hour after the white go off at night, whites should be on for about 8 hours and blues 10.
The blue led's are actually fine they add nothing to the tank in terms of actual light for growth there just nice to look at, i have some from ebay they come on when my halides go off and stay on till arond 1am when i usually go to sleep so i can see the tank on a night, but its still advised to turn them off for a good few hours over night to give the fish a complete rest.
yeah you dont need a protein skimmer yet, theres not enough in the water for it to work to full capicty any way, even then they take a good month or so to bed in, i would look at adding one after a few month.
whats the rating on the power heads ? like i said as long as altoghether the tank is being moved around 40 times its volume an hour it will be fine.
|
ssj_kakarot
Member
Registered: 29th Apr 03
Location: hartlepool
User status: Offline
|
btw very pretty clowns, what are you feeding them?
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
These are the powerheads that I bought, just waiting for them to be delivered now;
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-x-Wave-Maker-Time-Interval-and-Power-Control-System_W0QQitemZ370137474032QQcategoryZ46312QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3907.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BIEW%252BFICS%252BUFI%252BDDSIC%26otn%3D34%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D54
That's a good idea too about having the lights come on and off in stages, I will def get that sorted out soon. I will order some of the LED moon lights off ebay today too because, as you said, the tanks do look really nice lit up at night
I went back to the shop yesterday too and bought another 8kg of live rock, so now the tank looks pretty much finished. One of the bits of live rock has quite a lot of growth on it too, some of those tube things with what look like feathers at the end (pardon my ignorance but im still learning!  ) and it was also hiding two small crabs that we found a couple of hours after putting it into the tank! (Hopefully they won't be a problem?)
I can't remember what the food is that the guy told us to get for the clowns, but they are flakes. I'll take a look in a bit and let you know, and I'll upload one last pic of how the tank is looking now. We've arranged the rocks almost into two mini coves, so maybe if we introduce some more territorial fish in the future they can have a side each without fighting.
|
chloe16v
Member
Registered: 29th Nov 07
Location: Rotherham
User status: Offline
|
what colour are the crabs? are they hairy? if they are brown/black an hairy then get rid asap as they can cause huge probs later on an im sure you wouldnt want to start stripping your tank down in afew month or a year to find the crabs, the tube things are called fether dusters, i had loads of little white ones all over my live rock to the piont where they became pests, i would look into getting some halides for your tank in the future as you really are limited to soft corals atm with your lighting, i always liked my hammers and bubble corals which are lps and needed strong lighting, i think ssj is going a little over the top though with the lighting he is sugesting, 300watts is alot, my 8ft tank only had 200watts over it and i was keeping hard corals, there would be no reason why lps an most sps wouldnt cope in that tank with 150watt halides
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Yes they are dark and hairy, what sort of problems will they cause?
I just bought this 3 socket programmable timer off ebay for £18 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390156005374 ) so now I will be able to turn the white lights, blue lights and the moonlights on and off at different times like you suggested I'll get a pic of the finished tank up in a few mins too...
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
That's how the tank is looking now
|
chloe16v
Member
Registered: 29th Nov 07
Location: Rotherham
User status: Offline
|
they can grow very big and course a rock slide which could smash the tank, or they can eat your clean up crew given half the chance, if you can get them out i really sugest you do while you are still early on with the tank, search, teddy bear crab or gorilla crab and you will find some more info on them and ways of getting them out
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
I think out of the two you mentioned, it is def more likely to be the gorilla crab. There are two in there but both have been hiding behind the biggest bit of live rock in the middle and we've not really seen much of them apart from their pincers yet! I will try to get them out though when I see them out in the open.
|
corsa120
Member
Registered: 4th May 02
Location: Northamptonshire
User status: Offline
|
looking lovely mate
im getting my new tank saturday 260 ltr but its going to house more exotic tropical fish for starters like electric blue dempsey's and such... but i have paid a fortune for a fake coral reef setup which was pro built and tbh it will look awesome once some proper algae starts sticking to it once in my big tank and gets more established they can look quite real with no lighting ussues etc
turning my current 70ltr tropical into a marine tank with just a couple of fish no corals just live rock and a protein skimmer and powerhead along with some clean up crew so i will see how it goes....
only after a maybe a pair of clownfish for beginners see how i get on
|
drunkenfool
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 03
Location: Hereford Drives: Audi R8 V8
User status: Offline
|
Well, 6 weeks on and the tank has a few more inhabitants. We have a couple of soft corals (I know it is early to have corals but they seem to be doing very well, we have taken out one of the 40w T8 fluorescent to make some room under the hood and have replaced it with two double sets of the TMC LED bar lights, 2 white and 2 blue) and some mangrove plants to help with the filtration;
and we also have one new fish, Dotty, a yellow eyed tang;
I was also sitting by the tank the other day watching the soap opera of marine life, and I managed to get a few pictures of one of the dwarf zebra hermit crabs swapping his shell! (Pic quality is a bit shit cos my phone was on full zoom)
|
chloe16v
Member
Registered: 29th Nov 07
Location: Rotherham
User status: Offline
|
well you have done it now, i really really want another tank
|
