Mayday Mayday!!

[Turtle77]

Ok so alot of you read my post Getting a bigger tank!! and know that I got this sweet deal on a whole setup from someone who was moving and did not want to take thier 58Gallon Oceanic with them. Ok so I went to pick it up tonight. Now since I have not had a larger tank with all the extras my plan was to come over take pictures of the setup and draw a diagram so that I would know where everyhthing was setup and how everything hooked back up when I got this home.
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I got there the guy had everything broken down already and all the hoses and pipes and EVERYTHING was just sitting in tubs. All these little pieces and clamps and stuff that I have NO clue where it goes. He drained ALL the water off and discarded it before I got there. He scooped out all the crushed coral live sand into a couple buckets. Then we couldnt get the tank out of the stand because of a couple pipes coming out the bottom so he removed with using a couple different pairs a plyers, I didnt get to see what the parts looked like he just chuncked them in bucket with some stuff. He took all the live rock out and wrapped it in dry newspaper and put it in a tub with no water at all. We loaded it ups one flight of stairs down a long hallway and down another flight of stairs. not to mention the ten steps to even get into the house itself.

Ok so now I am home with everything sitting in my garage and I am doing a little freaking out. Now I knew this wasnt going to be easy but I also had a plan to help myself that got ruined.

I am going to suck up the pride and ask for a little help. Everything needs cleaning up, and I mean EVERYTHING. But I can do that myself. Its hooking everything up to the right hoses and holes that I need help with and making sure the tank is put back together. I am worried about the live rock, how long can it stay like that. Theres like 60-70 pounds of it in a couple tubs out there and a couple buckets of live substrate.

I know that setting a tank up is the most boring part and the most work and its probably the part that no one wants to help out on but If your into that I could sure use it. Please pm me for my number. I live in LaVergne. I can do the work all you have to do is pretty much sit and point and answer a ton of questions.

thanks for listening

 

[gsusfreak]

i would have helped since im so close...but im leaving for cincinatti for an emergency tomorrow.......

are those rocks in any salt water at all?....if not....go ahead and make some...and go buy a rubbermaid trashcan.....put as much saltwater in the trashcan, and dump the all the rocks in there....and also toss a powerhead/pump and heater in there as well......and everything shouldlive and have little die off.... then you can take as much time as you need to get the plumbing setup

also...toss the sand and get a new bag ...and i dont recommend using crush coral, which he had

 

[Turtle77]

there is a plenum filter in here which has a pipe that sticks up right at the front of the tank. Do I have to have the plenum filter?

 

[Turtle77]

Does anyone have an Oceanic 58 Gallon Reef REady manual that shows how to hook everthing up???

 

[gsusfreak]

how is the plenum setup?..... is in the sump or the actual tank itself?.....i dont know much about plenums...so i guess i can say that i dont have one in my setup....

you have a picture of the pipe?

 

[mamagoose45]

I don't know that you're likely to find any sort of manual showing you how to set the tank up. Do a few searches here on RC looking for other threads where people have pictures of their setups, similar tank sizes, etc. and you might find more help than you think...

 

[NeveSSL]

Yeah, you'll probably not be able to find a manual that shows you how to set it up.

First things first... take a pill of chill. Tis ok, there aren't any animals that are going to die or anything like that, so you can get through this and learn A LOT! Its all good!

Secondly, I think most of us actually love to design and setup tanks!

If you can get some pictures of what all you have and where the holes in the tank are, we can help you a little bit from here. I'd love to come help, but I'm not going to be able to this weekend. Get us some pictures and get us as many details as you can.

Thirdly, just like Moriah suggested, check out some other tanks and how they're setup and that may give you a good idea of how yours can be or maybe even was setup.

Then we'll go from there.

Oh, and just like John said, get that rock in some water ASAP.

Brandon

 

[Angela Short]

Most reefers do not do the phlemmm y thingy anymore. It was a way of thinking a few years back and some people liked them but I know someone who used one then set up a normal reef with a thin ascetic layer of sand and tossed the phlem FWIW.

Also C Coral is a bad No No from way back when also. It was used all the time years ago but people found it to trap deitrus leading to poor water quality and to be very hard and sharp on bottom dwelling fish. Also re-using any substrait is a bad idea IMO. "Live" sand is such a senseless word that get new folks all excited when in truth "most" live sands/substraits are just full of nitrait, dirty poo and phosphates leading to alage problems in the long run for the average new person who needs some learing curve anyways. I know, been there done that! That life you mentioned in the sand can very easily be replaced from the rock itself or a scoop of sand from a fellow reefers tank. And life populates fast in the right environment so I would just toss the coral, scrub the rock real good with a clean toothbrush in new SW and toss it in a bucket with powerhead and heater like john said to give you time to set the tank up right. Cooking it may not be a bad idea if the rock is old. ( not litterally ) I wouldn't rush to save the life of a few pods, bristle worms and other critters and be unhappy with the tank.
Good luck with the tank, you will learn fast how it all works and be a pro in no time! Wish I could help out but I am totally overwhelmed with things right now. We are building a house and its serious crunch time to move in by next weekend!

 

[NeveSSL]

Good eye, Angela.

I meant to also mention that crushed coral is no good. Get some new sand. If you want to do aragonite, awesome. If you'd prefer the cheaper silica (regular) sand, go for it.

And by cooking the rock, Angela means just leaving it in a tub with a powerhead and a heater for a while.

And I'd like to reiterate, just take it easy. Take your time setting the tank up now and you'll be much happier later. There's a saying in reefing, and it always holds true: Only bad things happen fast.

Brandon

 

[Mikeyjer]

I hope you got to see the tank prior to it being taken down. Doesn't people show their tanks first before selling? I personally would be worried about what's on those rocks so cooking it like Angela suggested would be a good idea....I would get rid of the crushed coral substrate and get live sand or if there's no fish or any livestock involved, I would just get dry aragonite sand and seed it with some live sand over top of it. Too bad I wasn't off today to give you some help. Let us know how everything is going for ya, when I moved my tanks, it wasn't pretty either. But I put my tank together at the beginning so I knew how to take it apart and put it back together again. I started moving tanks at 10am and got done with 2 at 7pm and started on the 90 bowfront at 9pm and didn't get it finished until 8am, showed and slept one hour and head to work from 10am-9pm, I was dead tired by the end of the night......lol

 

[Turtle77]

I have a 30 gallon freshwater tank thats currently empty that I got at a yard sale thats on a cast iron stand. If i put all my live rock in there with water will it hold? There are not supports in the middle of the tank stand its just the edges and the glass doesnt look very thick.

 

[fallinapart]

You don't even need to put it on a stand, just sit the tank in the corner of the garage on the floor, gently put the rock in there, then add a power head, heater and saltwater and let it sit until you get your tank ready. no big hurry, take your time and enjoy the process of sitting up of a nice tank.

Norman

 

[Turtle77]

Ok while I calm my nerves a little this morning while I have my breakfast I wanted to discuss this plenum filter. The guy who had the tank said that with that filter in he never had to add anything to the tank like calcium or anything because it took care of itself. I have been trying to read up on articles and some people like it some dont. Angela you said most people just threw thiers away. was this a fade that is old now or does the filter actually have any worth to it?

 

[Turtle77]

ok live rock is taken care of and I am about to run out and get some more salts. but I found a very large tub that I had in the garage, scrubbed it down good with water only and put all my rock in it and some power heads, now I can breath a little easier and start cleaning the rest of this stuff up because its horrible. Structurally everything is good but its just in a mess. I am not sure when the last time this stuff was cleaned. I am going to clean everything and take some pictures of the inventory of everything so I can start the task of putting everything back together. Good thing I dont go back to work till Tuesday huh...
But I figured for everything I got for $400 that deal was worth the extra cleaning work.

Oceanic 58 Gallon Reef Ready Tank with Stand and Canopy
50-70 lbs of Live Rock
30 Gallon refugium
Coralife Super Skimmer for up to 250 Gallon tank
1 250 watt Metal Halide
2 x 75 Watt Actinic
Wavemaker system with Power heads
Plenum Filter
Test Kits
Various dry goods and extras

There is alot more stuff here I just havent sorted it all out yet.

One concern I have is that this looks like an awful lot of rock. I think he may have had too much in the tank and it was crowded. I thought it was suppose to be a pound per gallon? Seems to me he has alot more than that. I guess I could use some for the refugium and other places.

I was thinking that when I get the big tank setup finally of using my 12 gallon nano for a quaranteen tank. Does anyone else have one? And do you leave itup all the time or do you only set it up when you need it?

 

[Angela Short]

Get a gallon a vinegar at the grocery and just soak the stuff overnight and it will come off easier than you think. I use a single edged razor and just scrape the tank clean in no time in the yard with the hose. Just splash the water on the glass to get it wet to help the blade slide.

If you want to cook the rock for real you need it in total darkness also so the algae will not grow to feed the tank. Total darkness is suppose to make the bacteria feed off the built up phosphates and bad stuff for food essentially purging the rock of all the bad build up it can acquire over time leading to "old tank syndrome" from rock being in a closed system for many years. Google it to find out the skinny on how its actually done because I have never done it. My rock is in a 1/2 way cooking set up. In almost total darkness but I haven't found time to make a big black lid for the 100 gallon rubbermaid and to do any reaserch on the exact ways to do it like water changes, skimmers and such yet.

Plenums best I can remember are just something like a old undergravel filter making a dead space of water for anarobic bacteria under the sand to process .......nitrates? I am thinking. Basically it is a good place for food and poo to work its way down to with no good way to clean it so it can be a place for problems to arise. Someone correct me if I am wrong since its been years since I briefly read about them. Just go over to the reef forum and ask any one use a plenum these days and you will get a bunch of feed back I bet from people more educated than I am. ( That don't take much to get there ) Good luck!! Breath and enjoy the hobby and don't rush things! The rock will be fine and you definetly should think about cooking it and reading up more in the process about how you want to go with the tank set up for long term beauty.

 

[NeveSSL]

Sounds like you're getting on the right track. Just take you're time and you'll be fine.

One thing to keep in mind is that if that freshwater tank you bought ever had any copper treatments done in it (popular in freshwater for ich I think), your inverts won't be able to survive for long in it.

Brandon

 

[Turtle77]

yeah I was only wanting a temp place to put the live rock for today but I found that big tub in the garage so I am not going to use it. I am cleaning all the stuff right now, all the chords, cables, hoses, everthing. If i get done with some energy left I will clean out the cabinet stand and move it in and then tackle the two tanks tomorrow.

How long can my live rock stay in that tub out in the garage?

 

[NeveSSL]

Sounds good, man! One step at a time.

You can leave it there as long as you need to. I had mine in a tub in our spare bedroom for like 2 months before I used it. I did throw a little food in every once in a while just to give the bacteria something to munch on (after it started breaking down, that is ).

This may or may not help, but you can check out my build thread here.

Brandon

 

[teamreefers]

The live rock can stay in the garage as long as you want it too. just take you time 1 step at at a time. do some water changes on the rock in the garage about once a week, that will get you into the habbit of doing water changes when your tank is up and running.
Just remember we are all here to help and take it slow. you have gotten some wonderful and expert advise here... heed it and you cannot go wrong. Anglea, Brandon, michael, Norman, John and Moriah are all experts and have sucsessful and beautiful setups.
Kathy

 

[Turtle77]

Ok so since I have calmed way down for right now I think I am going to do what alot of people do and start a "My First Tank" kinda thread and try and document everything that I am doing. It wont be anywhere near as "technical" as most I have seen but it will help everyone know what I might be doing wrong and can help steer me in the right direction.

OHH and Brandon I read your thread of your build and it was amazing, thanks for sending the link.