Vince's 55g Starter Tank

vince0 · #1 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

vince0 · #2 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 · #3 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/articl...ank/Page1.html

This is basic info about ammonia to nitrate
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articl...ate/Page1.html

vince0 · #4 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 · #5 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

vince0 · #6 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 · #7 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 · #8 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!