How do I fill up my tank first time?

[RussC]

This sounds crazy to ask, but how in the world do I fill up my tank the first time? Its going to be 112 gallons, including sump. I guess I could use my RO/DI system. I think I'll buy a 75GPD system. In a couple days I should have enough. Is that how folks do it? How do you get the salinity level mixed? When do you do that? Before you put it in the tank or after?

 

[mcgyvr]

Yep... drip.. by drip
Add sand... add water... crank up the powerheads and slowly add salt in front of powerheads..
Then add rock

You can mix up 5 gallon (or whatever) buckets of saltwater at a time if you want too

 

[RussC]

Simple answer to a simple question. Thanks. Patience!

 

[Kmiller035]

If you don't have sand then you can fill and mix salt in the tank pretty easy without having to worry about pockets of unmixed sand being left. I've done it that way in the past. If you have sand, I would suggest mixing in a large drum or trash can and measuring salinity before adding to tank.


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[mako61]

I did mine over 2 days. I have a 26g tank on my RO/DI, so i did 20G at a time. I use a brute trash bin to mix before I add to tank. I have cheap pump and heater I put in brute to mix.

 

[Kmiller035]

Unmixed salt. My bad


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[RussC]

I think I'll have to mix it in a drum anyway due to logistics of where the RO/DI system is located. Makes sense. I'll add sand and rock first so I don't overfill.

 

[mako61]

The brute trash bin I have has an optional roller base. So I roll my water over to the tank. I also use the cheap pump to pump water from trash bin to the tank also. This is for water changes, but the same for first fill.

 

[JimON]

When I filled mine, I added the rock first on top of eggcrate so that no diggers would upset the piles of rock, then put in sand, then filled with straight RO water. I had not filled it prior, and wanted to make sure that if it did leak I was not spending money on salt that would most likely be wasted if i had to drain it. I filled it, turned on all systems to ensure no leaks in my marginal plumbing. Then I syphoned out 3 gallons at a time into a bucket and mixed up a few buckets of super salty water to replace in the tank. After I had it close (per my math on amount of salt needed) to what I figured would be a close level to 1.020 I began testing salinity. I raised it from there to 1.025 with another 2 buckets of mix. It worked great. Just make sure you use a powerhead to mix it well in the bucket prior to adding to the tank. HTH!

 

[BigDave]

I have two 55 gallon storage units. One for RODI, one for salt water. I mixed mine 1 55 gallon drum at a time and then pumped it into the tank.

Once full, I adjusted the salinity in the tank to be exactly what I wanted.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

I first filled mine with RODI, then once ready added salt. My reasoning for this was if there was a leak in my plumbing I'd rather have freshwater leaking than salt. I did indeed have a couple minor leaks (quickly resolved). You can just temporarily move your R/O system closer to your tank for the initial set up.

 

[Stolireef]

Fill tank, add salt, crank powerheads. I just ran a long refrigerator line from my RO/DI to the tank. 140 gallons took about two days to fill.

 

[RedStangGA]

If you have sand you can always add salt to the sump area. It'll be mixed by the time it reaches the DT.


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[brianbrainstein]

For my 220, I filled with water, added salt, turned on powerheads and sump pumps. Removed some (held in a brute with a circulator pump), then added sand and rock.

In hindsight, I wouldn't have filled and run the sump first


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[RedStangGA]

For my 220, I filled with water, added salt, turned on powerheads and sump pumps. Removed some (held in a brute with a circulator pump), then added sand and rock.

In hindsight, I wouldn't have filled and run the sump first


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Just finished filling my 220 this week! I did a mix of RODI and premixed saltwater. As I was filling my 55gal mixing tank overnight I'd dump in the salt and set the circulation pump to run 15 min's every 4 hours. By the time it was full, it was mixed. I'd also pre filled the 75gallon remote fuge with RO.

Anyway, once the system was full, sand went in first and rock at the half way point, it was 1.012 or so. Turned it on and started adding a few cups to the sump at a time. By the time it reached the return the water wasn't cloudy anymore.

 

[highlite2nice]

another tip would be to put trash bags on top of the sand before you put the water in that way you minimize the sand clouding up the tank.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

another tip would be to put trash bags on top of the sand before you put the water in that way you minimize the sand clouding up the tank.

Or use a tube and pour the sand through the tube to the bottom of the aquarium after it's full of water.