Reds first sw tank

Reddog170 · 11-09-2008, 01:41 AM

Well this is a little late to get started but I will go back through my notes and logs and get this up to speed.
My tank started out when a freind of mine was getting rid of a couple of 55g tanks. I got the tanks from him set them up and one had a large redtail cat and the other was empty. What to do with it I was not sure. I told my wife that I wanted to see if I could get a saltwater tank going, you just to see if I could do it.
On 10:10:08 it got water in it and I thought I messed up right away. It was like a fog that was so thick you would need a chainsaw to cut it. Well the next morning it was clear. Still did not have a light , a skimmer or anything that would move water other than a HOB filter.
Well I was behind a bit. I managed to get a couple used korallias from someone online and a skimmer off ebay, that was a mistake. I then built a T5 light setup in the canopy and started doing a LOT of research online. That was the point I thought that I got in over my head, Do you have any idea how many conflicting startup sites there are. This site was the best thing for me.
I got the live rock in and watched as all my levels spiked and dropped then did my water change and continued to watch all levels and graph them as well. Everything was stable.
Not at four weeks I have 2 damsels in the tank. They are doing great and eating good. I also have some hitchhikers there as well - a coral banded shrimp, two green emerald crabs, and some snails. I want to put more in right now but also like to wait. I have come to enjoy to slow way of a reef. I will get pics up as soon as I can. Will fill in more later.
One mistake I made is starting out without a RO/DI unit, tap stinks!!

sambrinar · 11-09-2008, 11:07 AM

Sound like a great start, anxiously awaiting picts

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 02:48 AM

Well I was doing my tests tonight and found that my ammonia is up to 1.2 and my PH is now at 8.5. I was hoping to be able toput off my water change until I got the RO/DI but it looks like it cant wait. I am working on getting pics up just my computer is begging to go swimming tonight. Mabey I will get the tech problems figured out tommorow and finaly get some pics up.

BLAKEJOHN · 11-10-2008, 03:06 AM

Elevated Ammonis is probly due to stocking too quickly. You bacteria colonies grow slow. During your cycle only enough bacteria grew to accomodate the amount of ammonia at the time. How much live rock do you ave in pounds? You need approx 55lbs for a 55gl tank. This give you plenty of suface area for nitrifying bacteria to grow. Adding a handfull of stock will cause a level of ammonia that may have been higher then the bacteria could handle in a sense causing another cycle. It is posible that you cycle may have never really started to begin with. Thats what happened to me. My ammonia was up to 1-2ppm and then then zero it was this way for a month untill I literally put in a good amount of urine and some cocktail shrimp and the my ammonia was off the charts and my cycle really started. Sorry for the rabbling but we would nee a bit more info on your tank to better understand what happend otherwise its just speculation.

BTW get that RO unit ASAP. Tap water is bad and can cause you many problems.

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 07:47 AM

I certianly agree on the tap water. I have algee bloom that I will never get rid of if I have to keep using tap. The only things that I had intended on putting n my tank for livestock (other than the LR) was the two damsels. Guess with them I just got in a hurry. -- I will not do that again-- . I am going to see if I can borrow a ro from a freind of mine that has one for drinking water.

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 07:51 AM

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 07:53 AM

The pic is the day I got it home. It needed some cleanup and to get rid of the lighting that was there but here is the culprit. This is what has gotten me adicted to saltwater, LOL

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 08:32 AM

This pic is the morning after I got the water salt and substrate in it. I will get more pics of the tank and of the sump I built for it and post them. Right now it has about 20 or so pounds of LR in and more to come.

Stacef · 11-10-2008, 10:38 AM

Subscribing, looking great so far!

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 11:14 PM

Well I will buy some water for a water change as i do not have an RO/DI yet and now that I had to buy a new car today( wife totaled our car this morning, she is ok the car is toast) it will put off an ro/di, unless I can find a used one cheap, for a while. Ohh well setbacks cant really be helped and they just challange our ability to overcome the hurdles that we encounter. Being as I am addicted to the salt there aint no going back now.
Did get my water tested by an lfs today and the tests they ran came out like this, SG 1.024 Nitrates 0 PPM Nitrites 0 PPM Ammonia YIKES 1.2+ PH is high as well at 8.7. Water change is so needed. Fish are happy and colorful as they were when I put them in, just two damsels, eating good. Algae is almost out of control, am starting to get green hair algae now. I will NOT put anything else in until I have a ro/di and all the algae under cntrol.
Can anyone explain this vodka/sugar/vinager dosing I read about and what the benefits/bad points are. I just cant seam to come up with much there. I can find where people are doing all three or just some of them but not much as to what they do. I am sure it is here I just have not found it yet.
And last point I want to make tonight, If it were not for the people here I would have probably crashed my tank by now. So I want to thank everyone for all the help and advise. I also want to thank RS for keeping this place going and helping the new adicts umm I mean new reefers get going. Shaun

yungreefer2410 · 11-10-2008, 11:28 PM

do you not ahve a lfs that sells ro water?

Reddog170 · 11-10-2008, 11:36 PM

That is where i will be getting my water from.

plecosword · 11-10-2008, 11:51 PM

i cant wait to see this tank grow!

BLAKEJOHN · 11-11-2008, 02:52 AM

On the Vodka, sugar or vinager dosing I wouldnt do it. I was thinking about it my self untill I looked into it even further. Here is a quote from a fellow reefer on one of my threads on another forum

"I don't recommend it.

Study the Zeovit system to see what is really involved with doing this. There is much more to it than just adding a carbon source. Add the carbon, then you have to keep adding bacteria so that bad bacteria don't dominate. You need a mega skimmer to remove all the bio mass you just encouraged. You then need to be adding back food and amino acids that the bacteria just removed. If not the corals starve and die. It's a fine line between a pastel colored coral and a dead one."

If your not very experienced in this the I would not atempt it.

Reddog170 · 11-11-2008, 10:19 AM

Thank you. I had read that the biomass was huge when doing this. Just was not sure if it was something that I needed to do. When I get mater today I will pick up some phosfate remover.

11-09-2008, 01:41 AM	#1 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Reds first sw tank Well this is a little late to get started but I will go back through my notes and logs and get this up to speed. My tank started out when a freind of mine was getting rid of a couple of 55g tanks. I got the tanks from him set them up and one had a large redtail cat and the other was empty. What to do with it I was not sure. I told my wife that I wanted to see if I could get a saltwater tank going, you just to see if I could do it. On 10:10:08 it got water in it and I thought I messed up right away. It was like a fog that was so thick you would need a chainsaw to cut it. Well the next morning it was clear. Still did not have a light , a skimmer or anything that would move water other than a HOB filter. Well I was behind a bit. I managed to get a couple used korallias from someone online and a skimmer off ebay, that was a mistake. I then built a T5 light setup in the canopy and started doing a LOT of research online. That was the point I thought that I got in over my head, Do you have any idea how many conflicting startup sites there are. This site was the best thing for me. I got the live rock in and watched as all my levels spiked and dropped then did my water change and continued to watch all levels and graph them as well. Everything was stable. Not at four weeks I have 2 damsels in the tank. They are doing great and eating good. I also have some hitchhikers there as well - a coral banded shrimp, two green emerald crabs, and some snails. I want to put more in right now but also like to wait. I have come to enjoy to slow way of a reef. I will get pics up as soon as I can. Will fill in more later. One mistake I made is starting out without a RO/DI unit, tap stinks!!

11-09-2008, 11:07 AM	#2 (permalink)
sambrinar recovering overfeeder Join Date: May 2008 Location: Arizona Posts: 6,410 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank Sound like a great start, anxiously awaiting picts __________________ Brenda Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music ~ George Carlin Original member of http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...eef-holic.html My addiction 75 gal glass http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ce-sanity.html

11-10-2008, 02:48 AM	#3 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank Well I was doing my tests tonight and found that my ammonia is up to 1.2 and my PH is now at 8.5. I was hoping to be able toput off my water change until I got the RO/DI but it looks like it cant wait. I am working on getting pics up just my computer is begging to go swimming tonight. Mabey I will get the tech problems figured out tommorow and finaly get some pics up.

11-10-2008, 03:06 AM	#4 (permalink)
BLAKEJOHN Elegance coral Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: KINGSTON, I.L. Posts: 1,060 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Reds first sw tank Elevated Ammonis is probly due to stocking too quickly. You bacteria colonies grow slow. During your cycle only enough bacteria grew to accomodate the amount of ammonia at the time. How much live rock do you ave in pounds? You need approx 55lbs for a 55gl tank. This give you plenty of suface area for nitrifying bacteria to grow. Adding a handfull of stock will cause a level of ammonia that may have been higher then the bacteria could handle in a sense causing another cycle. It is posible that you cycle may have never really started to begin with. Thats what happened to me. My ammonia was up to 1-2ppm and then then zero it was this way for a month untill I literally put in a good amount of urine and some cocktail shrimp and the my ammonia was off the charts and my cycle really started. Sorry for the rabbling but we would nee a bit more info on your tank to better understand what happend otherwise its just speculation. BTW get that RO unit ASAP. Tap water is bad and can cause you many problems. __________________ 110 gallon acrylic 1 Yellow Tang, 1 Blue Tang, 2 Eng Gobies, 1 Six Line Wrasse, 1 Tomato Clown, 1 Lion fish RBTA, Longspine Urchin, Approx. 200 snails Red Monti, Purple Rim Monti, Leathers, Elegence, Yellow Polyps, various Zoa's, FrogSpawn, Ricordias, Greenbirdsnest, Pink Milli, Blue Milli, Bonzai, unknown Acropora's, Purple Digi, GSP, Bubble Coral, Staghorn, Slimer Last edited by BLAKEJOHN : 11-10-2008 at 12:00 PM.

11-10-2008, 07:47 AM	#5 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank I certianly agree on the tap water. I have algee bloom that I will never get rid of if I have to keep using tap. The only things that I had intended on putting n my tank for livestock (other than the LR) was the two damsels. Guess with them I just got in a hurry. -- I will not do that again-- . I am going to see if I can borrow a ro from a freind of mine that has one for drinking water.

11-10-2008, 07:51 AM	#6 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank

11-10-2008, 07:53 AM	#7 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank The pic is the day I got it home. It needed some cleanup and to get rid of the lighting that was there but here is the culprit. This is what has gotten me adicted to saltwater, LOL

11-10-2008, 08:32 AM	#8 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank This pic is the morning after I got the water salt and substrate in it. I will get more pics of the tank and of the sump I built for it and post them. Right now it has about 20 or so pounds of LR in and more to come.

11-10-2008, 10:38 AM	#9 (permalink)
Stacef Golden Moray Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Dubuque Posts: 2,620 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Reds first sw tank Subscribing, looking great so far! __________________ Stace My 72g Build-full of pictures, we all know you loce pictures! I've had to pay my price. The things I did not know at first, I learned by doin' twice. -Billy Joel

11-10-2008, 11:14 PM	#10 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank Well I will buy some water for a water change as i do not have an RO/DI yet and now that I had to buy a new car today( wife totaled our car this morning, she is ok the car is toast) it will put off an ro/di, unless I can find a used one cheap, for a while. Ohh well setbacks cant really be helped and they just challange our ability to overcome the hurdles that we encounter. Being as I am addicted to the salt there aint no going back now. Did get my water tested by an lfs today and the tests they ran came out like this, SG 1.024 Nitrates 0 PPM Nitrites 0 PPM Ammonia YIKES 1.2+ PH is high as well at 8.7. Water change is so needed. Fish are happy and colorful as they were when I put them in, just two damsels, eating good. Algae is almost out of control, am starting to get green hair algae now. I will NOT put anything else in until I have a ro/di and all the algae under cntrol. Can anyone explain this vodka/sugar/vinager dosing I read about and what the benefits/bad points are. I just cant seam to come up with much there. I can find where people are doing all three or just some of them but not much as to what they do. I am sure it is here I just have not found it yet. And last point I want to make tonight, If it were not for the people here I would have probably crashed my tank by now. So I want to thank everyone for all the help and advise. I also want to thank RS for keeping this place going and helping the new adicts umm I mean new reefers get going. Shaun

11-10-2008, 11:36 PM	#12 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank That is where i will be getting my water from.

11-10-2008, 11:51 PM	#13 (permalink)
plecosword Acropora Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: So CA Posts: 1,888 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank i cant wait to see this tank grow! __________________ --Mario/Andre "Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time" !!!20g for reals!!! 55G

11-11-2008, 02:52 AM	#14 (permalink)
BLAKEJOHN Elegance coral Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: KINGSTON, I.L. Posts: 1,060 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Reds first sw tank On the Vodka, sugar or vinager dosing I wouldnt do it. I was thinking about it my self untill I looked into it even further. Here is a quote from a fellow reefer on one of my threads on another forum "I don't recommend it. Study the Zeovit system to see what is really involved with doing this. There is much more to it than just adding a carbon source. Add the carbon, then you have to keep adding bacteria so that bad bacteria don't dominate. You need a mega skimmer to remove all the bio mass you just encouraged. You then need to be adding back food and amino acids that the bacteria just removed. If not the corals starve and die. It's a fine line between a pastel colored coral and a dead one." If your not very experienced in this the I would not atempt it. __________________ 110 gallon acrylic 1 Yellow Tang, 1 Blue Tang, 2 Eng Gobies, 1 Six Line Wrasse, 1 Tomato Clown, 1 Lion fish RBTA, Longspine Urchin, Approx. 200 snails Red Monti, Purple Rim Monti, Leathers, Elegence, Yellow Polyps, various Zoa's, FrogSpawn, Ricordias, Greenbirdsnest, Pink Milli, Blue Milli, Bonzai, unknown Acropora's, Purple Digi, GSP, Bubble Coral, Staghorn, Slimer

11-11-2008, 10:19 AM	#15 (permalink)
Reddog170 Achilles Tang Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Winfield, IA Posts: 877 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Reds first sw tank Thank you. I had read that the biomass was huge when doing this. Just was not sure if it was something that I needed to do. When I get mater today I will pick up some phosfate remover.

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