Huzie
New member
I have been meaning to start this thread for a couple of weeks but never seemed to get round to it!
So after much deliberation and with my wife we settled (she agreed) the purchase of a Reefer 170 second hand that I found on ebay.. It seemed like a good system, was local to me and had pretty much everything I needed to get started.
Kit list as below
Bubble Magus C5
Aqua one 300w
TMC V2 PowerFlow 4500
2 x Ross mont m 3400
TMC 1500 V2 power pump
Zetlight B100
So after roping a mate in to help me pick it up in his van and 3 flights of stairs to the guys apartment later we headed back to the house to the delight of my kids asking where the fish were!
The tank seemed in good order however a few areas needed some tinkering. I replaced the transparent hoses from the return pump and the Auto top up as there were pretty dirty and the return pump hose was too short which meant the auto top up wouldn't work!
A £170 bill later from Complete aquatics with help from a mate at work who keeps a larger Reefer and I had lots of API test kits, a bobby up and down Hydrometer, some Red Sea Salt, Red Sea Live sand and the Red Sea Marine Mature Pro kit to get this thing up and going in a few weeks!
Clearly this fish tank needed water and I wasn't about to keep heading back to the LFS to pick up water every weekend. I wanted to be self sufficient in this area so looked for an RO unit. In desperate need to try and keep costs down I found a 3 stage unit on Ebay which arrived a couple of days before my Live Rock was due to appear on my front door step! Water making needed to to happen super quickly!
A couple more trips to B&Q resulted in the purchase of 2 x 80L dustbins for water mixing and I set to work.. (once I had figured out how to plumb it in!) man these RO units are slow!!
A bit more Googling to check I was doing things right and plenty of wet socks later I had filled up the first dustbin. But how did I know this RO unit was actually making water that was worthy of my new tank! - enter the TDS tester! I should have ordered this before getting started.. and as soon as it arrived from Amazon I plonked it into my large vat of new water and it kicked out a reading of 18!
Now a few phone calls later to the LFS and to a D&D retailer and I had various stories that told me that anything under 100 was fine.. then someone else said under 10 and another under 5!
So enter confused mode and what the hell to do with this 70 litres or so of water!
A quick trip to the LFS and £50 later resulted in two new filters and a membrane that was a lower rate than mine.. readings without the new membrane came out to around 6. Putting the new membrane in resulted in 26!
The helpful guys at the D&D retailer said I should be fine with the water now coming out at around 6 to get started (anything under 10 being fine) but I should aim for 0. So the 70litres went down the drain and I set to work on a new batch. Knowing full well my live rock was arriving the next day!
Any way a few more wet socks later and I had 2 bins brewing with warm salty water and ready for the rock. (I have since bought a DI resin unit for for the RO unit and now DTS is bang on zero every time.. the spare membrane is sitting in my garage soaking in some water!)
The LR arrived and deemed acceptable once scaped up by my wife!
Next lesson I learnt is that two dustbins of water is very heavy (I clearly knew this just hadn't considered how to get this water up into the tank!) A few more wet floors and socks later and wishing I had bought a pump for this very job I had managed to get the water into the sump and tank with various hoses and jerry cans. The kit was turned on and it was done..
So what did I learn.. ?
I learnt that I could save a bunch doing this second hand but it does come with its stress!
Here are some of my takeaways!
I started the Red Sea Mature Pro kit the very next day and have been stepping through this.
By day 3 I was fed up with the Bobby hydrometer.. It was just so hard to read so shelled out on a Refractometer and man was I glad I did! After calibrating it and testing the water the salinity was 1.030! I thought it was going to be too low given what the Hydrometer was telling (or not telling me!). I replaced around 13% of the water with fresh (DTS 0!) water and the Refractometer has been reading 1.025 ever since!
I wasn't happy with the Zetlight B100. It had a manual control on it (to change between blue and white) and I had to turn it on and off with a timer so no ramp up and down.
I decided to put my hand in my pocket again (this is the last time right?) and bought a Hydra 26HD and bracket.. this light appears to be awesome and I am hoping it will see me through everything I am going to need.
Day 10 allowed me to add a CUC.. 3 Turbos and 3 red legged hermits. One of the turbos carked it after 24 hours which resulted in me being convinced everything else was doomed and going to die.. turns out he was clearly a dodgy one as the others are still ok now.
I have been testing religiously every day and checking my figures.. I do find the API test kit really hard to read. However I am pretty sure the figures have been coming out fine. The Red Sea Mature Pro kit seems to be doing the job well.
Just purchased a Seneye Reef monitor to help me with my clear dis-talent for checking the similarity of colours on the API test kit.. at least I wont need to test for Ammonia and PH again! Will update more when this arrives in a couple of days.
Yesterday saw the purchase of our first fish.. I was happy the levels were fine. The CUC have been making good progress on the algae growth. To the kids delight two clowns came home with daddy from the LFS. 24 hours later they are still doing fine.. heres hoping that continues!
Congratulations if you got to the bottom of my ramblings.. I hope to post some more (shorter posts) a little more regularly! I am learning loads and really enjoying it.. my wife thinks this is turning into some kind of obsession!
So after much deliberation and with my wife we settled (she agreed) the purchase of a Reefer 170 second hand that I found on ebay.. It seemed like a good system, was local to me and had pretty much everything I needed to get started.
Kit list as below
Bubble Magus C5
Aqua one 300w
TMC V2 PowerFlow 4500
2 x Ross mont m 3400
TMC 1500 V2 power pump
Zetlight B100
So after roping a mate in to help me pick it up in his van and 3 flights of stairs to the guys apartment later we headed back to the house to the delight of my kids asking where the fish were!
The tank seemed in good order however a few areas needed some tinkering. I replaced the transparent hoses from the return pump and the Auto top up as there were pretty dirty and the return pump hose was too short which meant the auto top up wouldn't work!
A £170 bill later from Complete aquatics with help from a mate at work who keeps a larger Reefer and I had lots of API test kits, a bobby up and down Hydrometer, some Red Sea Salt, Red Sea Live sand and the Red Sea Marine Mature Pro kit to get this thing up and going in a few weeks!
Clearly this fish tank needed water and I wasn't about to keep heading back to the LFS to pick up water every weekend. I wanted to be self sufficient in this area so looked for an RO unit. In desperate need to try and keep costs down I found a 3 stage unit on Ebay which arrived a couple of days before my Live Rock was due to appear on my front door step! Water making needed to to happen super quickly!
A couple more trips to B&Q resulted in the purchase of 2 x 80L dustbins for water mixing and I set to work.. (once I had figured out how to plumb it in!) man these RO units are slow!!
A bit more Googling to check I was doing things right and plenty of wet socks later I had filled up the first dustbin. But how did I know this RO unit was actually making water that was worthy of my new tank! - enter the TDS tester! I should have ordered this before getting started.. and as soon as it arrived from Amazon I plonked it into my large vat of new water and it kicked out a reading of 18!
Now a few phone calls later to the LFS and to a D&D retailer and I had various stories that told me that anything under 100 was fine.. then someone else said under 10 and another under 5!
So enter confused mode and what the hell to do with this 70 litres or so of water!
A quick trip to the LFS and £50 later resulted in two new filters and a membrane that was a lower rate than mine.. readings without the new membrane came out to around 6. Putting the new membrane in resulted in 26!
The helpful guys at the D&D retailer said I should be fine with the water now coming out at around 6 to get started (anything under 10 being fine) but I should aim for 0. So the 70litres went down the drain and I set to work on a new batch. Knowing full well my live rock was arriving the next day!
Any way a few more wet socks later and I had 2 bins brewing with warm salty water and ready for the rock. (I have since bought a DI resin unit for for the RO unit and now DTS is bang on zero every time.. the spare membrane is sitting in my garage soaking in some water!)
The LR arrived and deemed acceptable once scaped up by my wife!
Next lesson I learnt is that two dustbins of water is very heavy (I clearly knew this just hadn't considered how to get this water up into the tank!) A few more wet floors and socks later and wishing I had bought a pump for this very job I had managed to get the water into the sump and tank with various hoses and jerry cans. The kit was turned on and it was done..
So what did I learn.. ?
I learnt that I could save a bunch doing this second hand but it does come with its stress!
Here are some of my takeaways!
- In the South of the UK it seems the water is hard enough that you need to have some DI resin to get the DTS values to 0
- A return pump for water changes is going to be required!
- A spare heater and pump is required to heat up and stir up the new water
- I need to wear shoes to prevent a constant array of wet socks in the house when playing with this tank
- A refractometer is needed (see below!)
I started the Red Sea Mature Pro kit the very next day and have been stepping through this.
By day 3 I was fed up with the Bobby hydrometer.. It was just so hard to read so shelled out on a Refractometer and man was I glad I did! After calibrating it and testing the water the salinity was 1.030! I thought it was going to be too low given what the Hydrometer was telling (or not telling me!). I replaced around 13% of the water with fresh (DTS 0!) water and the Refractometer has been reading 1.025 ever since!
I wasn't happy with the Zetlight B100. It had a manual control on it (to change between blue and white) and I had to turn it on and off with a timer so no ramp up and down.
I decided to put my hand in my pocket again (this is the last time right?) and bought a Hydra 26HD and bracket.. this light appears to be awesome and I am hoping it will see me through everything I am going to need.
Day 10 allowed me to add a CUC.. 3 Turbos and 3 red legged hermits. One of the turbos carked it after 24 hours which resulted in me being convinced everything else was doomed and going to die.. turns out he was clearly a dodgy one as the others are still ok now.
I have been testing religiously every day and checking my figures.. I do find the API test kit really hard to read. However I am pretty sure the figures have been coming out fine. The Red Sea Mature Pro kit seems to be doing the job well.
Just purchased a Seneye Reef monitor to help me with my clear dis-talent for checking the similarity of colours on the API test kit.. at least I wont need to test for Ammonia and PH again! Will update more when this arrives in a couple of days.
Yesterday saw the purchase of our first fish.. I was happy the levels were fine. The CUC have been making good progress on the algae growth. To the kids delight two clowns came home with daddy from the LFS. 24 hours later they are still doing fine.. heres hoping that continues!
Congratulations if you got to the bottom of my ramblings.. I hope to post some more (shorter posts) a little more regularly! I am learning loads and really enjoying it.. my wife thinks this is turning into some kind of obsession!
