55 Gallon Reef Tank--New To Hobby/Environmentalist

L

liquid1012

New member
What's up guys. I'm from New Orleans and have been a fish enthusiast as soon as my dad had a pole in my hand at 6 years old. I recently finished my undergraduate at the University of New Orleans (although I did Biology research at a school in Pennsylvania called Cabrini College while on a lacrosse scholarship). I've always been a reef enthusiast, but I haven't had the funds to buy necessary equipment to put together a build. BUT to get to the "nuts and bolts of the matter":

I recently acquired a 55 gallon saltwater tank (NO STAND) and a whole bunch of other cool bonus stuff.

The tank is very "mature" jut unkempt/unkept--both words seem to work.

I'm a lost fish in a big sea of information here, and I'd love input on what I'm doing.

To start, the tank's dimension are 55 x 13 x 20, which i think is extremely standard.

As for hardware:
Protein Skimmer: Remora (not sure model) very nice
1 75 Gallon filter
1 35 Gallon filter
1 45 Gallon filer
1 48-6-" 4500K Fluval SEA LED light

Livestock includes:
2 aquarium trade-grade clownfish I don't know much about speciation
1 Damselfish
4 Cardinalfish
1 Brittle Star
10-ish Hermit crabs/snails
1 Unknown coral

I know how important the salinity, nitrate/nitrite, phosphate, pH, etc levels should be; but should I be looking out for something in particular while I let the tank hang out for a month or so and reach equilibrium? I have a test kit so I will be monitoring closely.

My goal for the tank (for the next year or so) is to grow a good amount of coral/do aquascaping with the setup I have. Im not against adding a sump, refuge(iumSP?) eventually, but trying to ween myself into this hobby. I figure I'll have to add powerbeads, more lighting, etc. to have good coral growth, but I feel like I have a nice start.

All comments will be considered helpful, and appreciated!
 
Welcome to Reef Central. Here is a sticky at the top of this New to the Hobby forum called Setting Up. It's a complete guide to setting up your tank, how things work and what you need to know in most all aspects of keeping a saltwater tank. I suggest that you read through it to become familiar with keeping a saltwater tank. Good luck and if you have any specific questions don't hesitate to ask.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031074

You say you have a test kit but not which one or ones you have. I suggest the following at a minimum.

Nitrite
Nitrate
Phosphate
Magnesium
Calcium
Alkalinity

Also need a good refractometer to measure the SG of the water. The hydrometers are not accurate and can be off due to a micro bubble holding on to the swing arm.

Then after you've run a full set of tests come back and report your readings and we'll go from there.

I purposely didn't add a kit for PH because it's not that important in keeping a saltwater tank as it is in freshwater. Alk is much more important in the saltwater environment and if it's in order so will your PH be in order.

Also get a good or decent digital thermometer so you can monitor the temp of your DT.
 
Nitrite-0ppm
Nitrate-0ppm
Salinity-36ppt
Alkalinity-high (see picture)
Calcium-460 mg/L

No phosphate or magnesium tests. The water is much clearer than yesterday obviously due to settlement, as the skimmer was putting in double time work.
 
Here's a what I did minus my own calcium test
 

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Also noticed red parts of rock. Looks like purple coralline algae, just red. Am I right, or am i in for some serious contamination cleanup?
 

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Coralline comes in many different colors as it forms. Yellow, pink, red purple etc but in the end it all becomes purple
 
Thanks for the insight @dkuhlmann what do you think my next step should be? I'm already anxious to add polyps and different fish
 
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liquid1012 said:
Here's a what I did minus my own calcium test
Click to expand...

What do you mean your own calcium test?

liquid1012 said:
Looks like my Alkalinity is pretty high. Is there any way to fix this without a huge water change?
Click to expand...

Yes that test kit shows high but we have no idea of an exact number? High could be anything.

liquid1012 said:
Thanks for the insight @dkuhlmann what do you think my next step should be? I'm already anxious to add polyps and different fish
Click to expand...

I would finish getting the proper test kits so we can have actual numbers and also where your parameters are steady without a lot of fluctuation before getting any corals. While I'm on the subject of corals that light you have isn't sufficient for coral growth. It's fine for a fish only tank. But for now until you get your tank stable it's fine.

You certainly can add a fish or two maybe another two later. Don't want to overload your bacteria with too much at once. It needs to grow, this is all in the Starting up link.

Yes a sump is in my opinion a must have. This will allow you to get rid of all of those filters that you currently have which will become nitrate traps and are a PITA to clean and need to be cleaned weekly. With a sump you can also hide all of your current attachments to the sump where they're not seen. Skimmer, heater etc. Plus it gives you more water volume which will help in keeping your system stable.

The 55 gal to me is an obsolete size tank. The foot print with the distance from front to back only being 12" doesn't allow for much diversity in an aquascape design. You basically have to build a wall of rock even at best it will only leave 4-5" at best of swimming space for your fish in front of the rocks. Saying this I think you should think about upgrading to a tank with a different footprint. For example the 40 breeder is a much better footprint with it's dimensions of 36x18x17. That extra 6" of the front to back is HUGE when compared to the 55. Depending upon space you have you can get even up to say a 120 with a 48x24x24 footprint. This is all just food for thought. Getting that larger tank you already have a great sump by using your 55.

Go to Live Aquaria's website and look at fish and other critters and corals to decide on a direction for your tank. There are many great fish that you can have in the 55 some of which are my favorites. Flasher wrasses are excellent fish as are Royal Gramma, My favorite Golden Midas Blenny and so many more. If you provide a picture of your clowns I can identify them for you so you know a direction in the event you wish to get an anemone. With clowns and anemones it's best to pick the natural host anemone for a particular clown species to insure a hosting relationship. BUT again you need much better lights to keep an anemone.

liveaquaria.com has pictures, tank size, diet, water parameters size at maturity and compatibility with other species.

Well I think this is enough for now to get you thinking of which direction you wish to go. So read all of the Setting Up thread and you will get a lot of great information in there.

Oh and I forgot to tell you that I'm originally from NOLA.
 
Well to start, I drove myself over to the our local reef store in Kenner to let them do a complete test on all of my levels. Unexpectedly, they said my alkalinity is fine, but my pH was too acidic. Bought some Eight-Four solution and got the pH exactly where it needs to be 8.2. Bought a proper pH kit to assure the correct acidity.

I also bought a thermometer, and as expected had been running the tank at about 84 degrees fahrenheit. Brought it down to 78 and let it cycle for a couple of days.

Went back to the store and bought a few new inhabitants (now knowing all parameters were perfect):
Banded Coral Shrimp
Gold Toadstool Mushroom Leather Coral
Piece of live rock with Green "colony polyp"
Little frag of orange and green "colony polyp"

Everything has acclimated very nicely, and I'm very happy with the status of the tank.

All inhabitants seem happy, but I know that I'm at *about* max capacity fish wise. I'll eventually get rid of the pajama cardinals and get more inverts, but for now I'm very happy.

If my phosphate level rises (which I assume it will at some point), does anyone recommend Phosphate Rx? I've read some very good reviews on it for controlling green hair algae (not sure genus/species).
 
That PH buffer you're using will greatly increase your Alk. Alk, Mg and Ca are the big three that need testing when having a reef tank. Alk in a saltwater tank is much more important than PH. As long as your Alk is in line so will your PH be.
 
Also testing pH after transporting the water is useless. PH is directly dependent on the amount of co2 in the water. Which will change quickly when transported. Don't worry about pH especially if you cannot test it properly (forget about the drop tests, they give you an idea at best).
 
Thanks, just recently picked up a Diamond Watchman goby to sift and aerate the substrate (because god knows how long it had been stagnant from the previous owner). I also bought a hollywood stunner chalice coral. Both seem to be nice and happy.

I'll upload a video later in the week.

Original purchase was $0.00. It was given to me by a friend's mom who needed someone who would care for the tank, and who knows a good bit about water chemistry. I was an easy fit.

I made a pretty stupid purchase *48" fluval light* that I thought would be all I needed, but I'm not desperate to find something more powerful in my price range. MAYBE even something just to supplement the light I already have.

Also, just recently found two travelers on my the live rock hosting the green colony polyps. Turn out to be two feather duster worms, should they be a cause for concern?
 
feather dusters are of no concern. They are filter feeders that help you keep your water clean. I had an outbreak once, probably too much feeding but they pretty much disappeared again.
 
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