New hobby I've found, time for a huge thread.

[leviburns89]

Hey there!

This is my first attempt to successfully keep a reef tank. I have been rasing critters, and the like, my entire life. And just now has my life slowed down enough for me to take on the daunting task of owning a peice of the ocean, in my den . Another huge part of this project is keeping as budget friendly as possible. I have a new baby, and this is what is gonna keep me focused without breaking the bank.

-The Build-
(**) - not purchased yet

55 gallon tempered back - Free from CL
Stand - Built with scrap lumber FREE
75lbs critter infested LR - Free on CL
X2 BRS Deluxe reactors - Free, again CL

X2 cobalt 300W heaters - $40
X2 China 1200gph PH - $20
200g IO salt mix - $40
BRS RO/DI system - $150
X2 Rubbermaid 35g - $20
Bleach - $3

X2 AC 70 HOB Filters - $80 (**)
Refractometer - $23 (**)
External thermometer - $8 (**)
Sunblaze 4ft 4 lamp t5ho -$120 (**)
Salifert tests - $50 (**)
Hanna Phosphate checker - $45 (**)
Red sea tests - $50 (**)
X3 ATI Blu Plus T5ho - $60 (**)
X1 ATI Coral Plus T5ho - $20 (**)
ROX 0.8 Carbon - $25 (**)
GFO - (**)
API dechlorinator - $10 (**)
Plumbing stuff - $15 (**)
MagFloat - $12 (**)
Live sand - $50 (**)

I didn't even touch livestock because I am way not ready to even think about that yet. All I do know is I want a coral tank with maybe 4 fish. A pair of clowns, and perhaps a lawnmower blenny if there are algae issues.

I want the focus of the tank to be on the corals, which I find to be living art. I need a zoa garden in there, and understand the risks of owning zoas. But with some luck and shopping around, I can have colors popping like mad. (Hence my choice on lighting)

- Where I currently am -

You may be wondering, why the bleach yo?!? Well to put it simply, I couldn't afford to take any chances with this rock. The guy on CL was breaking down an enormous system, maybe 2000 gal, and he had this pile that was covered in hair algae, mojanos, aiptasia, and worms. He said he had been curing it under a light for 12 months and it still was yucky. SOO, after a ton of reading on the subject of acid dipping and bleaching or air drying or cooking blah blah blah, I decided bleaching the rock safely is the easiest and most efficient thing to do.

I put all my rock in the Rubbermaid, added exactly 20 gallons tap water, (Rodi isn't here yet), and 1 gallon of standard bleach.
Let it soak for 36 hours.
Did 5 full water changes.
Now it sits with a fan in the garage for 1 week.

Once my RO/DI system gets here, I will soak it in rodi water for 48 hours with the API chlorine remover, do a water change, treat again with the API for 48 hours, then finally put it into heated saltwater with good flow for 1 month, maybe 2 depending on parameters, before doing a full cure and cycle in the DT with live sand.

The bleach seems to have worked. These rocks are wicked clean, and I've inspected them quite well. They still smell like bleach, but they are quite porous, it's a mix of brs pukani, and figi.

I understand the whole phosphate deal too, basically our rock, regardless of anything, is filled to the brim with life of some sort. When the rock gets exposed even for a short while, this life starts to die. Dry rock is fully dead. But the dead matter is still inside it's immense pore network.
So a very long and challenging cure must take place where simple bacteria break down all this gunk to a point where the bi-product of the gunk, "phosphate", doesn't leach out and cause massive algae problems.

Acid didn't convince me as it would have to break the rock completely down before it achieved what bacteria can do, without compromising the beauty of the rock.

So once my rock is out of its dechlorinator bath, and I give it a good rinse in rodi, I will be putting the rock in saltwater, warmed to 80 degrees, with ample flow. With this freshly nuked rock, I will add 1 softball size rock that was from a healthy tank, to help with fresh bacteria and ammonia.

This soup will be monitored and wc weekly for at least a month so I can buy the rest of the DT hardware.

I feel like I've explained enough, now I have questions that need to be answered before I can continue.

I've been planning this all to get filtered via 2 brs reactors, and 2 aquaclear 70s. The ac70 would be gutted and used strictly with mesh pads, to aid with polishing the water, as well as added gas exchange thru the surface tension breaking from the return. This leaves me with very little room for a skimmer, but skimmers are expensive, and from what I've seen, not a requirement.

The question, should I just forgo the two a70s and get a ReefOctopus Classic 100?
And I guess is my mechanical filtration with the ac70 pointless due to the dual brs reactors?

 

[homer1475]

I personally would never do a saltwater tank larger then 20G without a skimmer. The gunk they pull out of your water will amaze you.

Skimmer and live rock is all you need for filtration. You could use the AC70 for mechanical/chemical filtration(filter floss, chemipure, purigen, etc, etc), but the floss needs to be changed several times a week to avoid becoming a nitrate factory. If you want more surface agitation, buy another powerhead and point it at the surface.

 

[shocker444]

I have a reef octopus classic 100 on my 125 hospital tank its a great skimmer. Keep an eye on cl and buy a skimmer there. If you can't get a hang on maybe you could trade a sump skimmer for a hang on the back. But if you keep up on water changes and tank maintenance then you can definitely run no skimmer. My first tank was a 75 no skimmer i had great success with it. But on the down side salt is not cheep so water changes all the time will cost you more in the long run. But its up to you.

 

[leviburns89]

Thanks!

I've pretty much convinced myself to not buy the ac70s, and get the reed octopus instead.

My next question,
What equipment should I run during my cycle?

I plan on adding my rock to the tank after 1 month in a dark bin. I don't plan on actually adding livestock to the tank until April'ish. So that gives me 4 months to cycle and balance my tank. I know I'm not suppose to turn on the lights, but do I need to run my carbon and gfo reactors? Seems like since this rock will be doing a lot of rotting and rehabilitation, spending all that money on gfo and carbon is silly. Couldn't I just do 20% water change weekly with the power heads running?

But at the same time, I would hate to balance my system, then when I do turn on the reactors, throw everything out of wack again for a month.

 

[TangingOut]

I think two 300 watt heaters may be overkill. Usually when a heater fails, it fails in the on position and a 300 watt heater will heat 55gal fast. I would do two 100 watt heaters.

 

[leviburns89]

Thanks for the note!

That would also give me time to notice the failure. Otherwise I could cook my tank in hours.

I will be getting 2 100W heaters then.

I really like the cobalt neo-therm, they are wicked accurate, but I can't stand the price! Are there any cheap reliable heaters? Like $20 or less a peice.

 

[leviburns89]

So, the rocks dried with a fan on them for 3 days after the 36 hour bleach bath (1/20). They went from about 120lbs, to 55lbs, the original dry weight.
Now my RO/DI showed up last night, and I filled the tub overnight with fresh h2o. I added dechlorinator (API).

The recommended dose is like 5ml/30g.
This is not nearly enough, I added double the dose, and let them sit for 10 hours with a big PH on them. Tub still smells like a pool. Not nearly as bad, but still there.

The darned chlorine tests that came with the BRS unit are really hard to read. But I've heard chlorine tests suck in general, and trust your nose with that one.

That being said, I added one more 10/ml dose, and added 2 airpumps running new airstones. Perhaps since they were in a closed bin, the chlorine wasn't able to escape via gas exchange??

I am filling another tub with RO/DI water tonight, and tomorrow morning I will do a full vecile change, and dose the recommended 5ml/30g API tap water conditioner.
After I'm pretty sure this wc will do the trick. I just received my 200g box of IO salt today as well. So hopefully next week I will be able to start the long and dark process of seeding and slow curing.

 

[leviburns89]

These are my 3 display peices, 1 pukani, and 2 figi. All 3 are the size of a seedless watermelon, they are sitting in their new bath of RO water with 10ml of API tap water conditioner.

The chlorine smell is almost gone from the bleach, this round of water will finish that off.

This is the remaining 20 lbs or so sitting in the first RO bath.

On other news, my BRS RODI unit is leaking right at the neck of the RO membrane. Right out of the threads like it needs teflon tape.

Should I return it? Or fix myself? What can of worms am I opening if go this route?

 

[BrianKC]

Is the O ring seated properly? If it's not obvious, I'd probably just call BRS. I fix old stuff myself all the time. I return new stuff that doesn't work right.

 

[leviburns89]

Is the O ring seated properly? If it's not obvious, I'd probably just call BRS. I fix old stuff myself all the time. I return new stuff that doesn't work right.

I will take a pic of the leak tonight. It's coming out of the pvc at the top. It leaked probably .5g/hr, all night. So a considerable amount.

I also tried untwisting the cap to see if it wasn't seated right, and I couldn't get it to budge. I'm sure if I took all the hoses off and had the pvc peice by itself I could get it.

I actually live about 20 mins from BRS, so I may just return it in person Saturday.

I just don't want to get it open, and ruin all options of putting it back together, or returning it. I'm quite handy (carpenter by trade), but I know my limits.

 

[lmforbis]

The are only open Monday through Friday. Well worth the visit to their offices just to see their tanks.

 

[leviburns89]

I'll have to go in next week then, because this thing is def not right. But the 70g I've made so far has been 0ppm so the rock is soaking for a few days.

They are closed tomorrow. That's ok, it's on my way to work. No shipping costs. Or wait time.

 

[leviburns89]

The cap on the left end is leaking quite bad, but I can't budge it, it has beaten me. And I do mean the cap, and NOT the Murlok fitting.

 

[BrianKC]

Odd. You should be able to unscrew it. My guess is the O ring is either mis-seated or missing. If you can't unscrew it then I'd swing by. Like others have mentioned, worst case it sounds like a fun place to visit.

 

[leviburns89]

I agree, I am going to add a 10g FW aquascape in my office at work. BRS has tanks everywhere

 

[leviburns89]

I've got a question about lighting.

I've chosen to go with T5HO. I am currently looking at a 4ft, 4bulb setup.

My 55g is 13 inches wide, and 48 long.

The light fixture I am looking at is exactly those dimensions.

Will this be too much light? And should I go with a 2 bulb?

I am interested because I do not want a ton of light bleeding into the room. BUT I want my coral filled tank to be sufficiently lit.

Anyone have experience with using a light that is almost the same size as the tank?

 

[BrianKC]

What do you want to grow other than the zoa garden you mentioned? My first reef tank was a 55 with the same dimensions. I had a 2-bulb fixture and it did really well for LPS, polyps, zoas, softies...but not so great for SPS. Downside with a 4-bulb fixture is having to completely remove it every time you need to get in the tank...

 

[leviburns89]

As of right now, I have no interest in growing SPS.

I really like zoas, which will be my centerpiece.

I have also grown very fond of some LPS. Acans and Blastos really blow my mind too.

I plan on growing some mushrooms on my large rocks, as well as a hammer and torch somewhere in the mix.

But the focus I want to be on zoas, and other lps, softies. I'm in love with the ethereal colors they can have.

I should also add, regardless of the size of light, it will on a pull system that can raise and lower it accordingly.

 

[BrianKC]

I'm not going to open the LED vs T-5 can of worms and take you for your word that you did the research and know for sure you want T-5s. Given that...If it were me, and I was sure I wanted T-5s, I'd go with a 2-bulb setup. (1 at 14000k or higher and 1 actinic). You can add a second fixture later if you feel you need it. I think 2 of the Coralife 2x54w would fit on a 55 fine if needed (IIRC they are 5 or 6" wide). Also distributes the failure load.

Ok...the worm can is opening a little...any reason you aren't thinking about LED? You don't have to change bulbs every six months and you can pack a LOT of wallop into two tiny strips. I actually have two now that would work great for what you want to grow that are about to be replaced by Build my LEDs to get more PAR for my SPS. They did great for LPS and what not. Ones a Marineland and ones a Current Marine.

 

[leviburns89]

My take on leds:

They are wicked expensive, and still relatively new. I feel like in the next 5 years, we will see an amazing drop in price due the the home industry starting to convert as well as the climate deal that was just signed. Since my current project focuses around the budget, (my wife would leave me if she only knew), t5s are the best option cost/power/output.

That being said, I have an electrician buddy that builds leds, I am eventually going to have him build me a nice lightbar for a fraction of the cost. But that won't be until May perhaps June.

Would I be ok using the t5s for the first couple months and then adding the leds?