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vince0
04-26-2011, 02:01 AM
Hi Folks,

I've been reading on here for a long time, getting a little more comfortable with salt water tanks and the way they function. I've been keeping fresh water tanks for almost 15 years, with a focus on breeding. After seeing some of the reef tanks on here, and on display in some of the local stores, I decided that I may want to dip a toe! I've been doing research for over 2 years and finally decided to convert one of my tanks over to salt.

The tank is a 4ft 55g, with the back and sides painted mat black. It has a hang on tank Eshopps psk75h for skimming. A hydor-corallia 1050gph powerhead for circulation. The heater is a 150w ebo-jager submersible. The light is a 48" hagen glo, with a 10k and a 14k korallen-zucht bulbs.

I purchased 65lbs of Marco Key Largo dry rock from Red Coral in Calgary last week, and purchased 3lbs of misc live rock from them this weekend.

The salinity is currently as 1.021, the chlorine is gone, ph is at 8.2ish (i hate the colored strips, probably going to have to get me a ph pen in the near future.) Let's get this experiment started!

Here is a picture as of now :)

http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo69/Vince_O/55g%20Salt%20Water%20Setup/P4250001.jpg

vince0
04-26-2011, 02:10 AM
I guess I have a few questions regarding the set-up of this tank. I've been dumping brine shrimp in there, in the hopes of setting up a colony of sorts in the tank prior to adding fish. Im also curious if there is anything else I can do to help things along. Also, what do you folks figure is the next logical step to take, and when should I take it? I'm worried im not going to have enough bacteria to sustain the live rock I have in the tank... I hope I don't kill it :P

Thanks for reading so far! Feels great to start one of these!

Thanks

Vince

Magma
04-26-2011, 03:16 AM
Time to cycle the tank IMO here is a great article about starting the cycle and what to watch for etc.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/articles/3/1/Cycle-your-salt-tank/Page1.html

This is basic info about ammonia to nitrate
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/articles/6/1/Ammonia-conversion-to-nitrate/Page1.html

vince0
04-26-2011, 12:53 PM
Thank you! That was exactly what I was looking for! Looks like I'm headed to the grocery store tonight!

fishytime
04-26-2011, 06:28 PM
Lookin good so far......that article should help you get things going.... You may however need to exercise a little more patience as far as your cycle goes due to ratio of live to dead rock.....looking forward to some updates...... Have fun with it:biggrin:

vince0
04-26-2011, 09:56 PM
Are you saying I should add more live rock to the set-up, if I wanted this to jump along a little quicker? And also, with adding a couple dead shrimp, how long do i leave them in there? And should I put them anywhere specific, or is there somewhere that they will have the greatest impact.

I was also curious about adding a sand bed? I like the idea of sand, and wanted to get a symbiotic shrimp/goby combo, or at least try for it. What is involved in adding sand bed? What is the best time to add the sand bed? Should I wait until the tank is cycled completely?

Thanks again for the info, and any additional info is great!

vince0
04-29-2011, 02:37 AM
I added 2 raw frozen shrimps to the tank last night, and when I go up this morning I found a lot of tiny dead shrimps and copepods. It would appear that ammonia is starting to register on the test kit. Also, since I added the raw shrimp, my skimmer has stopped producing micro-bubbles! Im starting to notice some alge and diatom growth. I can't wait for it to be safe to add more live rock :)

lee9
04-29-2011, 05:51 AM
I was also curious about adding a sand bed? I like the idea of sand, and wanted to get a symbiotic shrimp/goby combo, or at least try for it. What is involved in adding sand bed? What is the best time to add the sand bed? Should I wait until the tank is cycled completely?

I have a Yellow Watchman Goby and Tiger Pistol Shrimp pair. In hindsight, I wish I would have used a coarser substrate for my sand bed. I currently have a mix of fine live sand and aragamax sugar-sized sand. The Tiger Pistol Shrimp is like a little bulldozer. It's a permenant construction zone at the bottom my tank. haha It's cool to watch but it makes a mess of things with the fine sand. I can't really put anything right on the substrate or it gets partially buried. My bottom live rock gets a lot of sand on it too. My tank is very small though (28 gallons) so it probably won't be as much of a problem for you.

That's just my experience with the pair so far. I really enjoy them though.

vince0
04-30-2011, 12:12 AM
Did you add your sand right away, or did you wait till later?

Magma
04-30-2011, 12:28 AM
I added mine before I filled the tank, it still clouds the tank but not as bad, if you want to add it after it will take a day or 2 for the sand to settle and your tank will look white.

But then your rock will be touching the glass already and be more secure.

lee9
04-30-2011, 09:42 PM
I put my live sand in after the saltwater. A few days later I added all my live rock.

vince0
05-01-2011, 04:08 AM
Thanks for the comments guys... I think im going to wait for this part of the cycle to get done and over with before I add the sand, just to make it easier on clean up for now.

On a side note, I've noticed quite a few orange/blue bristleworms :)

vince0
05-01-2011, 05:32 PM
Ammonia is now at 1.0

Nitrite is at .25

Didn't bother testing for nitrate yet.

Can anyone tell me when I should be removing the raw shimp and replacing them with fish? Should I add more live rock before I add more shrimp to bring up the ratio of live to dry rock?

I'd provide an updated pic, but thing haven't really changed with this tank.

vince0
05-05-2011, 04:05 AM
Upon further testing, the ammonia seems to be gone from my tank. The nitrites, on the other hand, are clearly on their way up. I'm also registering nitrates, and seem to be getting some feathery looking green, for lack of a better word, algea, growing all throughout the tank. There are also sponges, a couple pink anemones and lots of brown diatoms. Ill get some pictures up tomorrow.

vince0
05-11-2011, 04:24 AM
Ammonia was down to zero, Nitrite is at zero. I was getting a reading of Nitrate around 30ppm so I did a 40% ro water change (with salt of course). I now don't show a reading for nitrate either. I have a bunch of green algeas growing on the front glass, they almost look like plants. I had a bloom of brown algea as well but on the live rock, it seems to have receded. There is some nice purple coraline algea starting to grow.

I think this weekend I will add a sand or fine gravel bed to the tank to get it ready for a cleaning crew. I may add another raw shrimp in there to keep a source of ammonia for the bacteria in the tank as I still don't have anything other than bristle worms and copepods living in here.

I'm also planning on purchasing a few more pounds of live rock to help seed the dry rock I had purchased.

I'm getting kind of excited about having the cleaning crew in there, It'll be something more to look at than the minor life forms in there lol!