staresatrocks
Member
My main purpose in posting this is to put a link to it in my signature, but if you want to discuss it, that'd be cool.
Keeping It Simple Since 2005
I enjoy reading all kinds of tank-build threads, from low-tech to high-tech, and learning from fellow reef-keepers who go about it differently than I do. I read lots of questions posted by hobbyists who took a different approach, and I don't answer them because there are too many variables in a high-tech approach that differ from those in a low-tech system. Also, by training and practice I'm a musician, not a scientist; if not for my 15 years as a freshwater hobbyist I'd have come into reef-keeping knowing almost nothing about water chemistry!
Having said that, I'd like to share how I have set up and maintained my reef tanks, and why. I was a reluctant convert, finagled into my first nano reef by a pair of well-meaning friends who called me on their way home from the beach to tell me they were bringing me some sand, and I was to meet them at the grocery store to pick up the cooler. Since they promised to walk me through the set-up and assured me they had a source of reasonably priced live rock (and they did), I said "okay," brought my 15-long down from the attic along with an old Whisper filter, and made a mad dash to Walmart to pick up an inexpensive metal stand. A few hours later, we were all gathered in my dining room mixing saltwater and pouring it in over the sand. I ordered my light fixture, a PC with a SmartPaq tube, test kits, and lots of stuff I didn't end up needing, and in the meantime, kept the water topped up and watched small mussels move about the tank, and spaghetti worms wave in the current. A few days later we all drove to the lfs they trusted and began purchasing live rock. I took mine home and began trying to arrange and stack it in a stable, attractive manner. For hours. When my husband got home, I was still up to my elbows in the tank, and supper was not ready.
The light fixture (and test kits) arrived, and it had a "moonlight," and I developed a habit of staying up to see what came out of the rock. Poor hubby could not understand why a stack of rock was more interesting than he was. To his credit, we are still married, and I have just turned my 55-long freshwater tank into a mini-reef tank. He does love me.
I tested the water and waited impatiently for the nitrites to fall and the nitrates to spike and fall, according to Jim's instructions. I also found a couple of forums that looked respectable and spent the rest of my spare time reading up on stickies, articles and threads. I decided to keep inverts only. When my nitrates became undetectable (>5ppm) and diatoms easily detectable I purchased a clean-up crew consisting of astrea and cerith snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, and a few small hermits from a nearby lfs, who also recommended live phytoplankton and some frozen cyclopeeze. So I bought that, also. The peppermint shrimps hid all the time, and I really wanted one mobile invert I could watch, so I got a cleaner shrimp. After the diatoms, there was the cyano stage, but it wasn't bad, and then there was lots of film algae for a while, but that cleared up as well, and I began adding soft corals. I kept what turned out to be a very pretty and interesting tank for about 18 months, and then my older son and my dad had significant health problems simultaneously and I gave the tank to my friends who had brought me the sand. I had begun to neglect it somewhat and hoped they'd be able to nurse it back to health and enjoy it. Ultimately, the system failed, in part because they were also very busy.
Two and a half years ago the reef bug bit me again, and I collected my tank and equipment from my friends, cleaned it up, went reading and then went shopping. I bought live sand (in a bag) at the advice of the lfs, took it home and poured it in the tank, then added the saltwater I had mixed and waiting. Then I called the "manufacturer" of the sand and asked why my tank looked like a glass box full of skim milk! They assured me it would clear in a couple of days, and it did. I went back to the lfs and purchased live rock and began testing the water when my kits came in. This time the nitrogen cycle took 2 weeks rather than a month (seriously!) and a greater number and variety of hitchhikers survived. After two weeks I was watching cap snails spawn and seeing tiny mini-brittle stars. I purchased only snails for my CUC this time, a 2-part product for alk and calcium, and live phytoplankton for the 'pods. I planned on adding a couple of fish later and slowly began adding soft corals. Since the previous tank ended up crashing I researched protein skimmers, but there were still no reliable ones that I came across that would fit my tank. I did not want to set up a sump for a skimmer and risk having the tank drain out onto the floor if the power went out, so this tank went skimmerless also. I read that well water was probably not okay to use and started buying premixed saltwater at the lfs and R/O water for topping up. Several cyano outbreaks later I sniffed the R/O water as I began to pour it into my container at the store. It smelled just like their tanks, which always had cyano patches in them. I went back to my well water and haven't regretted it. ***Don't try using well water without testing it first for hardness, specific gravity, nitrates and phosphates. It has to read like (real) R/O water or it will nasty up your tank!*** Later I added an ocellaris clown (to see whether it really would host in the toadstool coral) and a yellow-tail damsel. I did lose some livestock I purchased without knowing their needs: a couple of feather dusters and an anemone crab (porcelain).
Now the contents of the nano tank are in my recently set up mini reef (the old 55 freshwater tank). I don't plan to add a skimmer; I'm using a water pump on one side (500+ gph) and my power filter on the other side for GAC and to move water. I purchased about 30 lbs of live rock and started with 3 bags of live sand. The rest of that story is unfolding in my tank thread. It's interesting to note (and I haven't posted it there, yet) that dredging my 2.5 year-old sandbed in the nano to find my ceriths did not cause a nitrite or nitrate spike, and I'm still finding and transferring asterinas, baby ceriths, and cap snails 3 days later. I'll also confess that my water change schedule was flexible and sometimes spotty, but I have begun my weekly water changes in the mini-reef. As with the previous tanks, I won't be overstocking or overfeeding. It isn't any fun (for me) to lose livestock. My new 2-part calcium/alk supplements are baking soda for alk and a commercial supplement for calcium and magnesium. I've lost a couple of chromis this time around, but I was told they often drop like flies. Not a happy thought, though.
If I hadn't done things backwards and started with a nano, I might be doing things differently. I'm succeeding and having fun and enjoying reading about what's working for the rest of you.
Happy reefing to us all!
Keeping It Simple Since 2005
I enjoy reading all kinds of tank-build threads, from low-tech to high-tech, and learning from fellow reef-keepers who go about it differently than I do. I read lots of questions posted by hobbyists who took a different approach, and I don't answer them because there are too many variables in a high-tech approach that differ from those in a low-tech system. Also, by training and practice I'm a musician, not a scientist; if not for my 15 years as a freshwater hobbyist I'd have come into reef-keeping knowing almost nothing about water chemistry!
Having said that, I'd like to share how I have set up and maintained my reef tanks, and why. I was a reluctant convert, finagled into my first nano reef by a pair of well-meaning friends who called me on their way home from the beach to tell me they were bringing me some sand, and I was to meet them at the grocery store to pick up the cooler. Since they promised to walk me through the set-up and assured me they had a source of reasonably priced live rock (and they did), I said "okay," brought my 15-long down from the attic along with an old Whisper filter, and made a mad dash to Walmart to pick up an inexpensive metal stand. A few hours later, we were all gathered in my dining room mixing saltwater and pouring it in over the sand. I ordered my light fixture, a PC with a SmartPaq tube, test kits, and lots of stuff I didn't end up needing, and in the meantime, kept the water topped up and watched small mussels move about the tank, and spaghetti worms wave in the current. A few days later we all drove to the lfs they trusted and began purchasing live rock. I took mine home and began trying to arrange and stack it in a stable, attractive manner. For hours. When my husband got home, I was still up to my elbows in the tank, and supper was not ready.
The light fixture (and test kits) arrived, and it had a "moonlight," and I developed a habit of staying up to see what came out of the rock. Poor hubby could not understand why a stack of rock was more interesting than he was. To his credit, we are still married, and I have just turned my 55-long freshwater tank into a mini-reef tank. He does love me.
I tested the water and waited impatiently for the nitrites to fall and the nitrates to spike and fall, according to Jim's instructions. I also found a couple of forums that looked respectable and spent the rest of my spare time reading up on stickies, articles and threads. I decided to keep inverts only. When my nitrates became undetectable (>5ppm) and diatoms easily detectable I purchased a clean-up crew consisting of astrea and cerith snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, and a few small hermits from a nearby lfs, who also recommended live phytoplankton and some frozen cyclopeeze. So I bought that, also. The peppermint shrimps hid all the time, and I really wanted one mobile invert I could watch, so I got a cleaner shrimp. After the diatoms, there was the cyano stage, but it wasn't bad, and then there was lots of film algae for a while, but that cleared up as well, and I began adding soft corals. I kept what turned out to be a very pretty and interesting tank for about 18 months, and then my older son and my dad had significant health problems simultaneously and I gave the tank to my friends who had brought me the sand. I had begun to neglect it somewhat and hoped they'd be able to nurse it back to health and enjoy it. Ultimately, the system failed, in part because they were also very busy.
Two and a half years ago the reef bug bit me again, and I collected my tank and equipment from my friends, cleaned it up, went reading and then went shopping. I bought live sand (in a bag) at the advice of the lfs, took it home and poured it in the tank, then added the saltwater I had mixed and waiting. Then I called the "manufacturer" of the sand and asked why my tank looked like a glass box full of skim milk! They assured me it would clear in a couple of days, and it did. I went back to the lfs and purchased live rock and began testing the water when my kits came in. This time the nitrogen cycle took 2 weeks rather than a month (seriously!) and a greater number and variety of hitchhikers survived. After two weeks I was watching cap snails spawn and seeing tiny mini-brittle stars. I purchased only snails for my CUC this time, a 2-part product for alk and calcium, and live phytoplankton for the 'pods. I planned on adding a couple of fish later and slowly began adding soft corals. Since the previous tank ended up crashing I researched protein skimmers, but there were still no reliable ones that I came across that would fit my tank. I did not want to set up a sump for a skimmer and risk having the tank drain out onto the floor if the power went out, so this tank went skimmerless also. I read that well water was probably not okay to use and started buying premixed saltwater at the lfs and R/O water for topping up. Several cyano outbreaks later I sniffed the R/O water as I began to pour it into my container at the store. It smelled just like their tanks, which always had cyano patches in them. I went back to my well water and haven't regretted it. ***Don't try using well water without testing it first for hardness, specific gravity, nitrates and phosphates. It has to read like (real) R/O water or it will nasty up your tank!*** Later I added an ocellaris clown (to see whether it really would host in the toadstool coral) and a yellow-tail damsel. I did lose some livestock I purchased without knowing their needs: a couple of feather dusters and an anemone crab (porcelain).
Now the contents of the nano tank are in my recently set up mini reef (the old 55 freshwater tank). I don't plan to add a skimmer; I'm using a water pump on one side (500+ gph) and my power filter on the other side for GAC and to move water. I purchased about 30 lbs of live rock and started with 3 bags of live sand. The rest of that story is unfolding in my tank thread. It's interesting to note (and I haven't posted it there, yet) that dredging my 2.5 year-old sandbed in the nano to find my ceriths did not cause a nitrite or nitrate spike, and I'm still finding and transferring asterinas, baby ceriths, and cap snails 3 days later. I'll also confess that my water change schedule was flexible and sometimes spotty, but I have begun my weekly water changes in the mini-reef. As with the previous tanks, I won't be overstocking or overfeeding. It isn't any fun (for me) to lose livestock. My new 2-part calcium/alk supplements are baking soda for alk and a commercial supplement for calcium and magnesium. I've lost a couple of chromis this time around, but I was told they often drop like flies. Not a happy thought, though.
If I hadn't done things backwards and started with a nano, I might be doing things differently. I'm succeeding and having fun and enjoying reading about what's working for the rest of you.
Happy reefing to us all!