My Fish tank Story and Questions... Excited and need some help....

[Brannon132]

Moderators if I posted this in the wrong place please move it for me...

So we inherited a Fish Tank! It's awesome I've always wanted a saltwater tank!!! It is 8'wide by 28" tall by 22" deep, made of 1" acrylic. There are 2 pipes coming up into the tank to feed the water in. It has a big black overflow box on the side with quarter shaped holes that cascade water from the tank to that box. There's a big hole in the bottom of that box that drains it into a tank in the bottom of the stand. From there the water goes into 2 filter socks, then there' a heater (Aquaheat, Ecoplus 300w) a skimmer (BubbleMax, PS2500) and a pump (GenX, PDX-150 35gpm) to push the water back up, and it also has a 1/10th hp chiller (Pacific Coast Imports CL280).
Originally it had a 7 inch dory (blue hippo?) a 5" yellow wrasse and a 5" brown with white spots goby? A small blue fish with a yellow tail and a large (18" dia) green starfish (brittle green?), large banded coral shrimp (5") and one red legged hermit crab. It also has about 300lbs of live rock with about 2 inches of sand in the bottom.

The tank had not been touched in over a year other than a relative putting tap water in it when the water got low and feeding the fish 2 squares of brine shrimp once a day. There was green and red algae everywhere and about an inch of salt on the top of the tank (no cover).

So here's what we did"¦ I took the water to the fish store and they said I had no Ammonia but my phosphates were through the roof. I told them I was going to move the fish tank to my office and they suggested I do a %100 water change at that time. So I drained the water from the tank into a large tub until there was about a foot of water left, then took the rock out and put it in the tub, caught the fish took them to the fish store.

When I took out the sand and asked the fish guy if I should clean the sand he said yes so I got three 5 gallon buckets full of RO water. Took all the sand out of the tank and rubbed the sand though my hands in one of the 5 gallon buckets scooped out the sand with a fish net and did it again in the second bucket then again in the third. So I basically triple filtered the sand and got a ton of the silt out of the sand. Was this the right or wrong way to do this?
After we cleaned the tank, we then went to the fish store, bought 250 gallons of saltwater and filled the tank half way. Then we put 1"of the sand back in and arranged the rock in the tank (rocks look way better now ). After that, we filled up the rest of the tank and turned on the pump and skimmer (after I already cleaned about two inches of solid brown stuff off of it"¦. Nasty).

Then we let the tank run for a few days. I went to the fish store with a water sample and they told us to add "œmicrobacter7" (good bacteria?) "œPrime" by seachem (to remove ammonia) and "œThrive" phosphate remover. They also told us to add our green starfish, brown goby and red hermit crab back into the tank while also selling us 3-4 turbo snails, 4 butterscotches, 15 small snails, and 10 hermit crabs. (do we need more snails and if so how many and of what?)

We put those in the tank and waited for a few days. Everything looked good, so we went back to the fish store where he said we still had phosphates but no ammonia or nitrates. So we got 2 sand sifting starfish (2" in dia) 2 cleaner shrimp (3"), 2 fire shrimp, along with our blue hippo. We then found out our yellow wrasse didn't make it so we got a new one, and bought two clown fish as well. I took them back in their bags and put the bags in the tank to let the water acclimate then added 3-4 ounces of water to the bag every 5-10 minutes till we doubled the water then took the fish out of the bags and put them in the water (is this the correct way to add fish?). We also got a thermometer and a refractometer(?) and changed the filter socks.

The yellow wrasse hid in the sand the blue hippo hid in the rocks and the clown fish swam around like nothing happened. We woke up in the morning and everyone was swimming around (very pretty) but no clown fish, My wife and I looked around everywhere for them and finally found them in the filter socks"¦ dead "¦. so I went to Ace hardware and got plastic gutter shield and zip tied it to where the holes were and also I made a dorso drain(?) and got a larger drain pipe so that I could turn the pump all the way on.
Also I noticed I also couldn't find the fire shrimp (still never have seen them) Then I looked at my temperature!!! It was 86.5 degrees! (a heat wave just hit the area). So I hopped on this forum and craigslist and got myself a ½ hp chiller (EcoPlus) (have not hooked it up yet).

The maintenance that I do so far is: I feed my fish about a nickel sized piece of fish food (special stuff made by the fish guy) twice a day (too much or too little?). I have 2 half blue half white led 120w lights and have the white on for 5 hours and the blue on for 7 (whats the max time you guys would suggest?). I also add RO water from the fish store (about 5 gallons a week!!).
I noticed that stuff is starting to grow on the rocks!!! (I think this is good?) Our goal is to have an easy-to-keep, low maintenance, harmonious and pretty tank with some corals and anemones as well as some peaceful beautiful fishies.

I bought a seachem marine basic and reef special test kit from Amazon
Here are my levels I Tested: (what else do I need to test for??)
Temp- Now (82.2)
Salinity- 1.023
PH- 8.4
Alk- 3.5
Nitrite "“ 0.0
Nitrate "“ 1.5
Free Ammonia "“ 0.0
Total Ammonia "“ 0.2
Phosphates "“ 0.8
Silicate "“ 0.1
Iodine - .02

So here are a few of my many questions:::
First off, how many things did I do wrong? What would you have done differently?

Are my pipes that are adding water in the right place and facing the right way? The left one pushes the water straight back and the right one pushes water to the left. Does it matter how the water circulates in the tank? Can I hook my chiller up to one of the pipes pushing water back up to the tank? And if so does it matter which pipe?

What other equipment do i need or should I have?

I also noticed that my starfish was attacking my sand-sifting starfish and am wondering if you would keep this guy in your tank? Is the bastard killing stuff in my tank? (like my two fire shrimp?).

What pretty & harmonious fish that are easy to moderate keepers that would you suggest putting together in my tank?

Thanks so much for your help in advance, its nice to learn from other people who you can trust and have the experiances....

Thanks, Brannon

 

[laxb0rder]

From what i read i have a few suggestions, first is that you may want to get an Ro/Di filter instead of buying the water from a fish store it may save you some money. another thing you may want to make sure your rocks are dug into the sand bed so that they dont move around. Other then that im new as well but those are 2 things i noticed that may help you.

 

[pootiethetang]

Well.. not bad for what sounds like flying by the seat of your pants off the fish store suggestions.

Few things though;

1) I think you are moving much to fast. Don't listen to the fish store guy trying to sell you chemicals and a bunch of extra animals so fast.

2) From the sound of what you did and the look of your numbers, I'd say the tank is going to go through at least a mini-cycle before it's ready for adding live animals. I suggest you read this thread;

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2075632

3) Definitely get your own RO/DI filter and make your own water. It's basically a requirement for a tank that large. You'll spend a ton on water otherwise.

4) In addition to adding replacement fresh water to make up for evaporation, you should be changing out about 10-15% of the tank water with fresh saltwater about once every 2-3 weeks. So you'll need to get some salt mix along with your new RO/DI unit.

5) You're going to need more lights for that tank if you intend to keep any coral. those 2 120watt LED's won't be enough for an 8 ft. tank that's so deep. Depending on coral/animal type, you'll probably need 4-6 of those light units.

6) You really should slow down adding animals. Remember that fish store guys are usually just trying to sell you stuff. Read this thread first;

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2068112

For example, anemones require powerful lighting, which you would need to upgrade for.

7) You MUST MOVE SLOW in this hobby. Waiting a few days is nothing. Setting up a new tank and waiting to cycle can take a month before adding animals. Some people go 2 years and only have 4-5 fish.

So my main suggestion is to take your time and slow way down from your current pace. Get some of the other equipment you need. Then do a lot of reading about how the system itself works, how to maintain it over time, and then what kidn of live stock you want to have. Many types of fish/inverts/corals are incompatible in an aquarium and you need to know how to care for and feed each animal as well as which animals can be housed together.

 

[Harleyx2]

The green Brittle Stars have been known to eat fish.

 

[Brannon132]

So I am ordering 2 more lights, should I add any other equipment? As far as the chemicals go should I be adding prime and thrive phosphate remover? Also should I be adding any benificial critters? And if so wheres the best place to get them and do I have to quarantine them?

Thanks again! Brannon

 

[rajkovich207]

QUARANTINE EVERYTHING! lol seriously though some of the best things I've been told here is go slow and quarantine everything even if its from your mom. I have lost alot of money and still smoothing things out 8 months later by not doing those two main things. Follow the advice here and things well go well. Good luck and happy reefing! If you would like you can pm me if you have any questions I would love to share my experiances with you.

 

[pootiethetang]

So I am ordering 2 more lights, should I add any other equipment? As far as the chemicals go should I be adding prime and thrive phosphate remover? Also should I be adding any benificial critters? And if so wheres the best place to get them and do I have to quarantine them?

Thanks again! Brannon

Hi again Brannon.

o.k.

Chemicals - You really should try to avoid adding a bunch of extra chemicals and additives that intend to fix things. A lot of times they just cause additional problems. Always try to solve the source of the problem first, in this case you have phosphates. So you need to hunt down the source of the phosphate and fix it. In this case,.. my first guess is that the LR has built up phosphate in it from all the tap water it was sitting in. So it may leech phosphate for awhile until it's all gone.

The main chemicals you'll need is a buffer to raise Alkalinity because replacement fresh RO water has none, so you need to buffer the water, otherwise the tank can crash over time if Alk drops too low. I'd suggest either getting a calcium reactor to take care of all that automatically.. or you need one of the 2 part liquid systems for Alk and Calcium that you dose every other day or so. You can get equipment like dosers that do it automatically for you. Other than that, most everything else will be taken care of with routine water changes.

As you add animals though, you may need to add others. For example if you add some zooanthids, you might want to start feeding some zooplex once a week, which is food for them. Some corals need Marine Snow once a week. There's several of them depending on what live stock you intend to keep.

Does this tank have a sump and refugium? Looks like it does from what I can see of the plumbing. To help remove phosphates and nitrates, you just need to get a bunch of Cheatomorpha algae and put it in your refugium with piece of live rock and dump some live isopods (like tigger pods) in there.

You also need to learn up fast on all the plumbing and how it's hooked together and how to shut things down to clean and all that stuff if you don't know already. So if there's a problem... like say a power outage, you know that things are hooked up correctly and you won't end up with water all over your floor.

You also need to know things like whether your sump/refugium has any filters in it.. such as bioballs or filter socks. Those need to be cleaned weekly or you will quickly have a phosphate and nitrate problem again. Just remember that any kind of pad, sponge, sock, etc. that the water flows through constantly, will need to be cleaned once a week.

2 more of those lights will be fine. That should allow you to keep most stuff. But I would avoid anything that says it requires high or intense lighting.

Here's the immediate steps I would take if I were you;

1) Get an RO/DI unit and get it producing water
2) Get good salt mix
3) Check all water params and make sure they are acceptable
4) Learn to manage those, such as keeping the water buffered to keep Alk in the acceptable range. Your inverts will all die if alk drops dangerously low
5) Learn about the system itself. How to shut down the plumbing and return pump to clean things. If you have a refugium or just a big sump. If you have anything that needs weekly cleaning.
6) When all that is good and done, then you can start making a list of what livestock you'd like to keep and make sure everything will be compatible and how to care for each animal.

 

[devildog999]

Nice inheritance, I can only think of the literal hundres to thousands you have save with getting that for free.

Now onto the good stuff... as said again but cannot be stressed enough.. buy your own RO/DI unit!! It is much more costly in the long run to be running back in forth picking up 5g jugs of RO water. Also, with a tank that large, you might consider getting a 50g water storage barrel or 2, one for keeping straight fresh RO/DI for top off and one so you can always have a good amount of premade salt water on hand. I would def advise to slow down as well with adding livestock. Too much at once can increase your parameters causing other issues. Another things I personally cannot stress enough as I have learned the hard way... GET A QT asap. You do not want to go through the pains of trying to remove ich or another parasite from your tank. You have a blue hippo and they are especially prone to ich for instance. If you get ich, you are going to have to remove all your fish and hospitalize them and then treat them. You also get to leave your main tank without fish for 10 - 12 weeks to ensure that there is no remaining parasite in the tank (ich cannot survive without a fish to host). As you have been dealing with heat it appears, you should def remove those covers on top of the tank (sorry if I am wrong but it looked like the top was covered). By covering the top, you take away the ability for the most part of the tank to cool some via evaporation. That is a huge way to help keep your temps low.

Good luck and I hope you are successful in this hobby, as other have said; take it slow and be patient. You will run into less issues that way.

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

Nice score

 

[Brannon132]

Got the lights on order...
So should I stop adding Prime and the phosphate remover?
Which calcium reactor would you suggest?
Now since everyone is telling me to get a ro/di unit I did a little research and found good reviews on the Typhoon III unit with a seperate tds meter. Now here are my questions I heard of a unit that is a float valve that has an electronic safety shutoff? And I was thinking about getting a 55 gallon toter do most people put a shutoff float in that as well and do i need one for ro water and one for salt or do you use one can for both? If someone could get me a pic and how they use their setup that would be great.

Thanks for the help and info,
Brannon

 

[jake koppen]

Just take your time and enjoy it along the way. Even the nicest, filled tank is a work in progress. It's always work and is truly a hobby. Learn to enjoy getting equipment, doing maintenance, watching it evolve. we all take allot of pride in our tanks and learning is fun to.
Allot of reading here and asking questions. You're doing great so far.
My next addition if I were you would be a huge clean up crew. I like mexican turbo snails myself. They will eat all your algae , get big and can live forever. I'd put 100 of them in a tank that size. Not all at once but buy 5 every time you see them at the stores you visit. You can go to reefcleaners.com and get a cleaner crew too for a really good price.
Just keep reading, I also got a free set up and now I'm all in and it's easily my favorite hobby now. Welcome

 

[devildog999]

If your question is about whether to use one container for salt and one for fresh or just one container to be switched back and forth between salt and fresh, I personally would advise having 2 containers. If you only have 1 and it is full of SW and for some reason you have an immediate requirement for a good amount of fresh, you are going to end up dumping a lot of SW to make room for the straight FW RO water. By having 2 different containers, you always have both on hand. You could always go for a smaller container and get 2 of them. Maybe 2 30g if you are concerned about space.

As for the float valve, I have one for my RO/DI system. I like being able to walk away without forgetting and coming back to water all over my garage. Just make sure to get one that has no brass or copper peices as that will lead to disaster over time. I would put one in the container itself so that you can just walk away and let it fill and turn itself off. When talking about a 55g container, it is going to take all day to make that much water. If you have no float, you are stuck having to plan your day around being back intime to turn the water off so you don't flood or turning the water off before you leave to avoid an accident. The float means you don't have to worry, it will stop when it is full.
I don't personally know about the Typhhon III but I would highly recommend BulkReefSupply.com. For 200 bucks you can get the 5 stage plus which comes with a TDS meter, multiple ways to connect to a water source, built in auto shut off valve (need this when using a float shut off valve so that the waste water gets shut off when the pressure builds due to the RO/DI water line no longer putting out water), and many other things.... http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store...systems/75-gpd-ro-di-5-stage-plus-system.html.

If you want, you can shoot me a PM with any specific questions you have. I won't be able to answer all of them but it might help getting some answers faster to some of your questions and I will be on for a few more hours...

 

[dublo8]

Slow down, get your equipment in order and understand how the tank operates first. Get an RO/DI kit (bulk reef supply or spectrapure), get some basic test kits and let the tank ride for a little bit(as in a couple months). Adding all that stuff doesn't help, it's just a band aid. The tank is an ecosystem and will take care of itself in due time. Just make sure your doing water changes, keeping up with top off's and general husbandry. Just slow it down and enjoy it. Nothing happens fast in this hobby it's a waiting game. good luck and enjoy your new tank.

 

[TimeConsumer]

I agree with the above posters on most of their topics such as RO/Di units, quarantine tanks, going slowly, etc etc.

Some things not covered:

Your tank is acrylic, it will scratch very easily. Be careful! Use a plastic blade to scrape off coralline. If you use a magfloat, check to see no sand is trapped in it. Don't use the magfloat at the bottom near the sandbed, it's too easy to kick up and and scratch the tank. Use the plastic blade at the bottom.

Look into getting an ATO unit if you don't already, they make maintenance easier. Tunze Osmolator is pretty easy and effective.

Find a way to put your heater on a controller. A Ranco temperature controller works. Or get a system controller like an Apex or Reefkeeper. A heater temperature control can break very easily, and if it breaks in the on position, it can cook your tank. Don't bet thousands in livestock on a $30 heater.

Ask lots of questions, but don't believe all the answers. RC is full of pseudo-experts. Read the sticky threads in the forums, those have reliable time-tested information. Read the articles on the reefkeeping magazine website here: http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/articles/articles-by-topic.

And have fun!