s00z3
New Member
Hi all! I spent part of the morning lurking and reading, and since I have a few questions, I figured I'd go ahead and jump in. So hi. I've done freshwater for a few years now, bred Bettas for a while, and have a few of them at the moment. I'm not new to fish, just a bit newbish when it comes to saltwater. This might get lengthy.
I currently have a small FOWLR setup. It's a 29 gallon with a few pieces of rock and two clownfish. We were originally going to start out a bit bigger with a 75 gallon, but then we (my boyfriend and I) realized how pricey the startup of saltwater is and decided to go a little smaller to start out. We also only had a small apartment, and the 75 gallon tank sort of dwarfed our living room. It had a leak anyway, and I already had the 29 gallon that I had used for one of my Bettas in the past, so it made sense.
Anyway. I have an Aquatop canister filter on it rated for 75 gallons, and the whole thing has been up and running for about 6 months now. My clownies have grown quite a bit, and the whole process has been a lot of fun. We recently moved into a townhouse with a lot more room, so we figured.... why not go bigger? There's a 55 gallon tank with stand in my mom's living room that currently contains a turtle we need to release, and that's where my questions start.
(Also, we're eventually thinking of adding corals, but for the time being, we're going to add some new types of fish to the mix and do corals in the future once we know we can keep the tank going.)
Being that said turtle is the size of a freaking dinner plate (we found her in the driveway when she was a hatchling), she's ridiculously messy and kind of gross. It also seems like the kindest thing we can do, releasing her into the wild. Anyway, the tank has been exposed to turtle funk. I've heard mixed reviews about how exactly to sanitize it. I've read that bleach is the devil, yet I've also read that it's the best way to go about de-funkifying a tank. What would you guys recommend? I normally just use white vinegar to clean a tank and do a super thorough rinsing. Since this tank has had a turtle in it though and turtles are messy creatures, I want to make sure it's sterile or at least clean enough to put fish in.
I purchased about 50 pounds of rock from a guy on Facebook that used it in a brackish tank. He said that while the rock had been cleaned, I would still need to boil it. Again, I've read mixed reviews on that, mainly negative ones. Do I need to cook this rock, or can I just scrub it down really well and add it to the established rock to seed it? It's clean rock that's been dry for about a year now, so I'm pretty sure anything overly bad has died off. I'm in no hurry to start adding fish to the new tank as I know it's going to need to cycle, which is going to take a while. Haste makes waste and all that, especially with saltwater aquariums.
I figured once the turtle has been released and the tank has been sterilized, I would go ahead and keep the clownfish in their 29 gallon, but I would move a few pieces of their rock over to the new tank to seed it (with maybe half the new rock in the 55 gallon to start with?). We're switching from the white live sand we started with to black sand, and I figured we'd go with live sand again since it worked well the first time. I'm reluctant to put the clownies into an uncycled tank, even with their current seeded rock and live sand, even though they are some of the most forgiving fish I've ever encountered, lol.
Am I going in the right direction? Thanks for reading my novel.
I currently have a small FOWLR setup. It's a 29 gallon with a few pieces of rock and two clownfish. We were originally going to start out a bit bigger with a 75 gallon, but then we (my boyfriend and I) realized how pricey the startup of saltwater is and decided to go a little smaller to start out. We also only had a small apartment, and the 75 gallon tank sort of dwarfed our living room. It had a leak anyway, and I already had the 29 gallon that I had used for one of my Bettas in the past, so it made sense.
Anyway. I have an Aquatop canister filter on it rated for 75 gallons, and the whole thing has been up and running for about 6 months now. My clownies have grown quite a bit, and the whole process has been a lot of fun. We recently moved into a townhouse with a lot more room, so we figured.... why not go bigger? There's a 55 gallon tank with stand in my mom's living room that currently contains a turtle we need to release, and that's where my questions start.
(Also, we're eventually thinking of adding corals, but for the time being, we're going to add some new types of fish to the mix and do corals in the future once we know we can keep the tank going.)
Being that said turtle is the size of a freaking dinner plate (we found her in the driveway when she was a hatchling), she's ridiculously messy and kind of gross. It also seems like the kindest thing we can do, releasing her into the wild. Anyway, the tank has been exposed to turtle funk. I've heard mixed reviews about how exactly to sanitize it. I've read that bleach is the devil, yet I've also read that it's the best way to go about de-funkifying a tank. What would you guys recommend? I normally just use white vinegar to clean a tank and do a super thorough rinsing. Since this tank has had a turtle in it though and turtles are messy creatures, I want to make sure it's sterile or at least clean enough to put fish in.
I purchased about 50 pounds of rock from a guy on Facebook that used it in a brackish tank. He said that while the rock had been cleaned, I would still need to boil it. Again, I've read mixed reviews on that, mainly negative ones. Do I need to cook this rock, or can I just scrub it down really well and add it to the established rock to seed it? It's clean rock that's been dry for about a year now, so I'm pretty sure anything overly bad has died off. I'm in no hurry to start adding fish to the new tank as I know it's going to need to cycle, which is going to take a while. Haste makes waste and all that, especially with saltwater aquariums.
I figured once the turtle has been released and the tank has been sterilized, I would go ahead and keep the clownfish in their 29 gallon, but I would move a few pieces of their rock over to the new tank to seed it (with maybe half the new rock in the 55 gallon to start with?). We're switching from the white live sand we started with to black sand, and I figured we'd go with live sand again since it worked well the first time. I'm reluctant to put the clownies into an uncycled tank, even with their current seeded rock and live sand, even though they are some of the most forgiving fish I've ever encountered, lol.
Am I going in the right direction? Thanks for reading my novel.