straightlinespeed
Member
Hello everyone! My name is Ramie and I have just gotten back into SW tanks after being out of it for about 20 years. I've been visiting the local SW stores and trying to get acquainted with all the new technology out there. Wow has it changed! Needless to say Im a bit overwhelmed. However I was sold on the Red Sea tanks, being that its all in one.
My wife bought me a Red Sea C130 that we found on Craigslist, this past weekend. I went and picked it up and the seller still had it running. He mentioned he was going to transfer everything into a Max 250 that he had. As we were draining it, he was on the edge of not wanting to start another one. So he included all the live rock, which had 1 piece of coral (no idea what it is), and some green star polyps, 1 Gobi (that wanted to hide in the rock), substrate, power heads, aftermarket skimmer, wave maker, reactor and some misc. parts and supplies. Lets just say everything for under $350. I'm thinking heck of a score!
I went to the SW store that I used to go to for everything and talked to them about getting the tank up and running. Needless to say the substrate that came with the tank was junk and needed to be cleaned and flushed, so I opted to start over with live sand and I bought SW from them. I still have the old substrate and Im unsure if I should spend the time cleaning it or what I would even use it for... Is it worth cleaning and keeping? I cleaned the tank and all the equipment and I was able to get it online that same day, the cloudiness settled by the next afternoon. Its only been online for about 4 days now.
So I received a phone call from the seller that he found some more equipment and parts for the tank and wanted to meet up with me. Cool! While on the phone with him, talking about the tank. He said he wasnt going to set up the Max 250 and wanted to know if I was interested in it and everything else he had, RO units, skimmer, pumps, ATO, chems, and more for $400. So Im pretty sure Im going to have a larger tank that I'll set up sometime in the future, but no hurry to get that one online.
So onto the questions I have.
-When I was into this before, I mixed my own SW and then waited for the cycles of the tank. The guy I talked to at the fish store said if I buy there water, I dont need to wait for the water cycles because the water they sold already went thru all of that. Is this true?
-He also mentioned not to worry about testing for ammonia, nitrates and nitrites until about 2-4 weeks. Im just used to testing right away, but again not sure since I bought the water..
-Anything else I should know or need to do right away?
P.S. Sorry about the bad pics, I took those with a crappy phone.
My wife bought me a Red Sea C130 that we found on Craigslist, this past weekend. I went and picked it up and the seller still had it running. He mentioned he was going to transfer everything into a Max 250 that he had. As we were draining it, he was on the edge of not wanting to start another one. So he included all the live rock, which had 1 piece of coral (no idea what it is), and some green star polyps, 1 Gobi (that wanted to hide in the rock), substrate, power heads, aftermarket skimmer, wave maker, reactor and some misc. parts and supplies. Lets just say everything for under $350. I'm thinking heck of a score!
I went to the SW store that I used to go to for everything and talked to them about getting the tank up and running. Needless to say the substrate that came with the tank was junk and needed to be cleaned and flushed, so I opted to start over with live sand and I bought SW from them. I still have the old substrate and Im unsure if I should spend the time cleaning it or what I would even use it for... Is it worth cleaning and keeping? I cleaned the tank and all the equipment and I was able to get it online that same day, the cloudiness settled by the next afternoon. Its only been online for about 4 days now.
So I received a phone call from the seller that he found some more equipment and parts for the tank and wanted to meet up with me. Cool! While on the phone with him, talking about the tank. He said he wasnt going to set up the Max 250 and wanted to know if I was interested in it and everything else he had, RO units, skimmer, pumps, ATO, chems, and more for $400. So Im pretty sure Im going to have a larger tank that I'll set up sometime in the future, but no hurry to get that one online.
So onto the questions I have.
-When I was into this before, I mixed my own SW and then waited for the cycles of the tank. The guy I talked to at the fish store said if I buy there water, I dont need to wait for the water cycles because the water they sold already went thru all of that. Is this true?
-He also mentioned not to worry about testing for ammonia, nitrates and nitrites until about 2-4 weeks. Im just used to testing right away, but again not sure since I bought the water..
-Anything else I should know or need to do right away?
P.S. Sorry about the bad pics, I took those with a crappy phone.