bjonesjr1
Premium Member
Hello fellow reefers, I have decided to start a thread about my 55 gallon tank from start to well, when ever it ends, I guess in this hobby it can go on forever... First of all I bought the tank from a buddy back on the secound week of February with the tank, stand, and a Emporer 400 for $150, Can't beat that so I bought it... It didn't come with any lights, circulation pumps, or anything else, but a bunch of chemicals, test kit, hydrometer, and some various other things. Oh yea a 2" - 3" sand bed in it, so when we moved it to my house we left some water in the bottom of the tank to keep the sand in their wet, didn't want to have any die-off, because I was afraid of how long it might take to cycle if I just drained it compleatly, so thats why I left water in their.
After first setting up the tank and adding RO/DI water from the LFS and turning on the Emporer, their was this brown color to the whole tank, My testing on the water showed this:
PH - 8.0
Nitrites - .30ppm
Nitrates - .50ppm
Ammonia - .50ppm
I think these tests came up this way because
a) their was alot of movement when we moved the tank so the sand in the tank shifted around alot.
b) My buddy used the Bio-wheels on their before I bought the tank and I heard that the Bio-wheels are a Nitrate factory...
So First step in getting my tank on the road to being able to start something with it, I took the Bio-wheels off and replaced the carbon inserts with new ones, Did 5 gallon water changes every other day for 2 weeks, and bought a ZooMed Rotating pump that does 270gph, some people may say that they don't like these pumps but I have had them for almost 2 months now, and they haven't given me any problems, I clean them every month and make sure that everything is working and it does fine haven't had any problems with it yet... Going to buy another one for the other side of the tank, maybe even one for the middle up on the top if I ever aquascape alittle high with LR to give nice flow up their on top. My buddy also gave me some plastic inserts that hold any kind of media that goes in front of the carbon filter inserts, and I bought some stuff on-line...
Here's a picture of what I put in them to go along with my carbon inserts:
Would like to hear other reefers comments on this stuff, the good and the bad please...
My dream list of things to purchase are going to be:
1) Another Emporer 400 to add some more filtration because I am only able to add things that hang on the back because their is no room in my apartment for a sump or anything else except for things that hang on the back of the tank
2) Like I said above another ZooMed pump
3) A skimmer, I'm looking at the Aqua C Remora Pro hang-on most likely the one that I'm going to get but maybe going to be able to afford a Deltec...
4) I might upgrade in lighting depending on what I plan on doing with the tank and what the misses lets me spend... LOL
After about 3 weeks my tank was done cycling I think and my tests showed this of my tank:
PH - 8.2
Nitrites - 0ppm
Nitrates - .20ppm
Ammonia - .0ppm
Here is a picture of my tank before I bought any lighting:
Then I met a robthorn, a guy on here who lives by me and sold me a CustomSeaLife Moonlight fixture that has 2x96w (1) 10,000K Premium-Daylight & (1) Ultra-Actinic with 3 moonlights and the dimensions of 36.25"x8.25"x4.5"
I know, I know the light doesn't go all the way across my tank but I figured out a way to mount it and now it fits perfectly and hey I bought the light for $25... again can't beat that. Thanks again Rob
This is now what my tank looks like,
Now all my water test at this point have been good, this is what I got after 1 month of the tank up and running, (I keep a log)
PH - 8.3
Nitites - 0ppm
Nitrates - .5ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm
So I went to the LFS and I bought 5 Blue Legged hermit crabs, 5 Astraea Turbo snails, 3 Peppermint shrimp, and 3 Damsels... the tank had its diatom algae bloom and the clean up crew did a good job of keeping it under control and now its all gone and haven't had a problem since, I then bought some Worm Culture rock about 5lbs and placed it in the tank, it was fully cured from the LFS and didn't have any problem with my water tests when added to the tank... oh what the life you see in that stuff, for the first few nights I keep on seeing new stuff and one night I saw this feller,
So I ended up takeing him out, because I found out he wasn't a friendly crab and disposed of him the right way by putting him back in the ocean, I live a mile from the beach in florida so that wasn't that hard to do, better than flushing him down the super bowl...
My tank has been up and runnning now for 40 days and I ended up putting a Pink Tip anemone in my tank, here is a picture:
He has been doing fine and has found his home next to some LR and right near the ZooMed pump I think he likes the current... & other than that my tank has been doing fine nothing wrong with anything, and I think I'm going to buy some Live Sand to make my sand bed around 3" - 4" deep. and next purchase on my list before anything else is a skimmer, another Emporer 400, and another ZooMed pump before I add anything else to the tank, don't want my Bio load getting to high, to where my equiptment can't handle it... This is the most recent picture of my tank and the last one tell I get some new stuff to take pictures of, and I will try to keep this thread going to keep a diary of my adventure on my first Saltwater Tank, and thanks to all that have helped with everything, and to all that will help in the future.
Thanks for everything guys... and girls
After first setting up the tank and adding RO/DI water from the LFS and turning on the Emporer, their was this brown color to the whole tank, My testing on the water showed this:
PH - 8.0
Nitrites - .30ppm
Nitrates - .50ppm
Ammonia - .50ppm
I think these tests came up this way because
a) their was alot of movement when we moved the tank so the sand in the tank shifted around alot.
b) My buddy used the Bio-wheels on their before I bought the tank and I heard that the Bio-wheels are a Nitrate factory...
So First step in getting my tank on the road to being able to start something with it, I took the Bio-wheels off and replaced the carbon inserts with new ones, Did 5 gallon water changes every other day for 2 weeks, and bought a ZooMed Rotating pump that does 270gph, some people may say that they don't like these pumps but I have had them for almost 2 months now, and they haven't given me any problems, I clean them every month and make sure that everything is working and it does fine haven't had any problems with it yet... Going to buy another one for the other side of the tank, maybe even one for the middle up on the top if I ever aquascape alittle high with LR to give nice flow up their on top. My buddy also gave me some plastic inserts that hold any kind of media that goes in front of the carbon filter inserts, and I bought some stuff on-line...
Here's a picture of what I put in them to go along with my carbon inserts:
Would like to hear other reefers comments on this stuff, the good and the bad please...
My dream list of things to purchase are going to be:
1) Another Emporer 400 to add some more filtration because I am only able to add things that hang on the back because their is no room in my apartment for a sump or anything else except for things that hang on the back of the tank
2) Like I said above another ZooMed pump
3) A skimmer, I'm looking at the Aqua C Remora Pro hang-on most likely the one that I'm going to get but maybe going to be able to afford a Deltec...
4) I might upgrade in lighting depending on what I plan on doing with the tank and what the misses lets me spend... LOL
After about 3 weeks my tank was done cycling I think and my tests showed this of my tank:
PH - 8.2
Nitrites - 0ppm
Nitrates - .20ppm
Ammonia - .0ppm
Here is a picture of my tank before I bought any lighting:
Then I met a robthorn, a guy on here who lives by me and sold me a CustomSeaLife Moonlight fixture that has 2x96w (1) 10,000K Premium-Daylight & (1) Ultra-Actinic with 3 moonlights and the dimensions of 36.25"x8.25"x4.5"
I know, I know the light doesn't go all the way across my tank but I figured out a way to mount it and now it fits perfectly and hey I bought the light for $25... again can't beat that. Thanks again Rob
This is now what my tank looks like,
Now all my water test at this point have been good, this is what I got after 1 month of the tank up and running, (I keep a log)
PH - 8.3
Nitites - 0ppm
Nitrates - .5ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm
So I went to the LFS and I bought 5 Blue Legged hermit crabs, 5 Astraea Turbo snails, 3 Peppermint shrimp, and 3 Damsels... the tank had its diatom algae bloom and the clean up crew did a good job of keeping it under control and now its all gone and haven't had a problem since, I then bought some Worm Culture rock about 5lbs and placed it in the tank, it was fully cured from the LFS and didn't have any problem with my water tests when added to the tank... oh what the life you see in that stuff, for the first few nights I keep on seeing new stuff and one night I saw this feller,
So I ended up takeing him out, because I found out he wasn't a friendly crab and disposed of him the right way by putting him back in the ocean, I live a mile from the beach in florida so that wasn't that hard to do, better than flushing him down the super bowl...
My tank has been up and runnning now for 40 days and I ended up putting a Pink Tip anemone in my tank, here is a picture:
He has been doing fine and has found his home next to some LR and right near the ZooMed pump I think he likes the current... & other than that my tank has been doing fine nothing wrong with anything, and I think I'm going to buy some Live Sand to make my sand bed around 3" - 4" deep. and next purchase on my list before anything else is a skimmer, another Emporer 400, and another ZooMed pump before I add anything else to the tank, don't want my Bio load getting to high, to where my equiptment can't handle it... This is the most recent picture of my tank and the last one tell I get some new stuff to take pictures of, and I will try to keep this thread going to keep a diary of my adventure on my first Saltwater Tank, and thanks to all that have helped with everything, and to all that will help in the future.
Thanks for everything guys... and girls
