My first reef tank!!

[soulbereaver]

Hey everyone, I've done tons of research and have been on this site for a while now, and I finally got my tank set up!! Here are some pictures of the tank that I took during the setup and all. Let me know what you guys think.

Here is my 75 gallon tank on the stand.

My home made 30 gallon sump tank.

Octopus skimmer.

Mag950 return pump.

The setup...

 

[soulbereaver]

The finished product... for now

Don't know why there's a red tint to this picture but the rest are normal colored heh.

 

[tspors]

Looks good, quick question if I may. Did you put your sand in first and rock on top of sand?

 

[kfisc]

Neat set up; do you have plans for circulation inside the tank (i.e. powerheads, closed loop)?

 

[soulbereaver]

Tspors -
Yes, I really wanted to aquascape my tank well, and I knew that it would be much harder to do with water in the tank, so I had about 35 gallons of water already mixed on standby and added the sand and rock first, then added the water. I got my live rock from someone I know trust, and the rock had been in a tank. I was able to transport it and set it all up, and get it back into water in about an hour and a half so there shouldn't have been hardly any dieoff.

kfisc -
Yes, water flow right now is basically just the return pump (mag9.5 or 950 or whatever) and I have a modified Maxijet 1200 that i bought the mod kit for. It is rated at 1600 gph and, being my first tank, i'm not sure, but it seems on the verge of being too much water circulation lol. I do not plan on having a closed loop system at this time, but maybe down the road a bit.

 

[SmknReefer]

think what he was getting at is the rocks should have been placed then the sand added. I generally throw my rock on eggcrate then add the sand to keep from scratching glass/ acrylic.

Regardless, looking great! Nice aquascaping and maybe keep that in mind for mind for next time try the whole eggcrate trick, for added stability. Whatcha goin' for with the sand bed? Deep, shallow? How many inches? Only curious, no ulterior motives.

 

[tspors]

Reason I asked.... If the rock is on the sand and not on the bottom of the tank. Beware of rock slide when the creatures in your tank start moving the sand. Just a heads up.

 

[soulbereaver]

well right now the sand bed is 90 lbs of sand. in my 75 gal it's about a little over 2 1/2 inches deep. It's CARIB SEA ARAGAMAX sand, the very fine-crystal sand that carib sea puts out.

 

[tspors]

Just in general Rock should be on glass bottomg of tank then put in sand or on Egg Crate. Little sea creatures in your tank will move the sand and rocks can fall.

 

[soulbereaver]

tspors -

when i put the rock in, i did make sure to bury any of the rocks that were going to support other rocks on top. I really only piled rocks together on the right side of my tank, the middle and left side are actually just really big single rocks. The middle one is 37 lbs and the left one is 22 lbs i believe. If those shift at all, there's nothing to tumble so hopefully I'm safe

 

[tspors]

Good Deal, just take your time. Do not add anything for about 2 months then put in Clean up crew. CYcle should eb over by then and take it in moderation. This is a long term hobby. Enjoy and GO BEARS!!!!

 

[jun_celis]

Nice clean setup!

 

[soulbereaver]

Couple of questions:

1. Since I really didn't have any dieoff from my live rock, is it still going to take 8 weeks for my tank to cycle?

2. My tank has been set up for about 5 days thus far, and I have a mushroom that came on the rock that I bought, it's doing very well right now, plus I've noticed that I have at least one worm living in one of my rocks, at least two little dime sized starfish, and I saw some kind of small snail/slug as well. There are some pesty polyps that seem to be multiplying already as well. Should I feed these little creatures or anything?

3. I haven't been running my lights much since I really would like to avoid as much of an alge breakout as possible. Will the purple coraline stuff on my live rocks die without adequite lighting? Is not running my lights much a bad idea or a good one?

4. My skimmer needs to be adjusted a bit I think cause the foam level seems too low for the skimmer to collect anything. To get the foam level higher do I adjust the water output valve higher or lower to increase the level of the foam?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[crvz]

1) it may be faster, do tests and find out.

2) i wouldnt worry trying to target feed the hitchhikers, they'll do fine on whats in the rocks until you start having and feeding fish.

3) lights off for now is fine, the coralline will come back if any dies off. I wouldnt worry about this much either.

4) Yep, you just move the output pipe up a bit to increase the water height in the skimmer, or better yet by a gate valve (not a ball valve) and a couple of PVC fittings to increase your fidelity of control.

 

[SmknReefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13222816#post13222816 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SmknReefer
think what he was getting at is the rocks should have been placed then the sand added. I generally throw my rock on eggcrate then add...Only curious, no ulterior motives.

Sorry tspors, I just reread that, didn't come out like I meant it.... I was trying to say the same thing you followed up with regarding stability... my bad, didn't mean to sound sooo itchy with a b. Not my intent!

Good job burying them....
1) agree w/crvz always safer to wait a bit longer...

2)again agreed.... however if it makes you feel better you can do some sort of phytoplankton or some sort of marine snow type stuff... not much or often at all -but they have been and will continue to feed off the rock.

3) eh, lights off will kill the coraline algae but I wouldn't worry about it either, since the cycle will still take a bit. You can always try running the lights and kill em if you do have some 'bad' algae. I haven't ever had very many problems with unwanted algae. You'll need some light for your mushroom however the pesty polyps will do better as well...

 

[crvz]

I dont know that phyto is really going to help anything, or marine snow (too small for the critters in the tank), but if you're worried about them a pinch of flake once a week will be plenty.