switching to salt

That sounds very similar to what I want. What kind of lighting do you have for the soft corals? My invert plan is pretty simple- mushroom corals, maybe button polyps, just some super hardy stuff that can take really low light. Down the road I might be interested in a brittle star or something along those lines, but I'd like to see how it goes with my current plan.

How many kgs of live rock do you have? I'm going to the LFS tomorrow to get a rough estimate of how much this is going to cut into my retirement fund. ;)

Liszie
 
I use a 50/50 130 watt power compact coralife light. It is 2 65 bulbs. There is also a 260 watt model available.

I have about 65 pounds of live rock. Is that about 30kgs?

I have a Xenia, Mushrooms, 2 feather dusters, a leather, green star polyps and some zoas that are not doing well. Everything else is doing well. I have really struggled with the zoas. I do not know if I have enough light.

I will post a picture or 2 tomorrow. Good luck and take it slow.
 
Can't wait to see the pics! In this case, I have no choice to take it slow, since there are freshwater fish in the tank right now, so dumping salt in there is probably a bad idea. :D
I am happy to hear I won't have to deal with another cycle. When I cycled it the first time, a slip of the hand resulted in way too much ammonia going in the tank, which made it a long and arduous process. Not to mention I couldn't get near the tank for a few days without getting a headache from the fumes. :rolleyes: Still, it took less time than it would have if I cycled with fish.
Do the feather dusters require a lot of light? They have some at my LFS and they are quite elegant.

*sigh* I love the dreaming part of setting up an aquarium.

Liszie
 
Hi Liszie,

Nice to see you switching over. Salt is so much more fun than fresh and I strangly am much more successful at it.

You are still going to cycle. Live rock isn't an instant cycle. It may be faster and it may be slow. It depends on the live rock and how much die off you get. The less die-off the shorter the cycle. Sand is good. RO/DI is important IMO. It just gives you a better start and one less factor to try to trouble-shoot when something goes wrong. You mentioned a couple of qualities of your tap water but have you measured TDS (total disolved solids).

Another thing to consider when you change your freshwater tank over is what medications you have used in that tank over the years. If you have used copper you need to get rid of your sand and even consider getting a new tank. You may have to get a copper test kit to make sure that you don't have copper. Copper is a big no-no for inverts, corals, and live rock critters.

I would get rid of the old sand anyway and get new sand.

There is one thing about moving over from fresh you have to do and that is forget most of what you know about fresh water. In many ways it could mess you up later.

Stocking is going to be dependant on the bio-load that your individual tank can handle. The better skimmer, more live rock, and possibly deep sand bed are going to be factors. Other things that can increase bio-load capablity are refugiums and remote deep sand beds. You will know when you hit your limit by testing the water for nitrates.

Cleaner shrimp don't eat fish and are great in pairs and benificial for your fish. Most likely even you coral banded shrimp only scavenged dead or dying fish. Many scavengers get blamed for a kill when they are simply doing a little janitorial work.

There are several good books on reefkeeping that I would recommend. Get the 'Contientious Marine Aquarist' by Bob Fenner for starters.


You will also need powerheads for flow in the tank. Your filter will be going away except for maybe running some carbon. Either way you want to give the fish some current. The reefs are full of flow so you want to have at least a moderate amount. It will also help keep detritus suspended in the water column so that your skimmer can get it out of the water.


good luck!

Lisa
 
Thanks for all the information!
I think I will keep the sand, the tank has been set up as freshwater for all of 2 months, during which I have added nothing but the ammonia to start the cycle. I had used the tank a few years prior, but it had been dry and then I cleaned it well (no soaps! :D) before refilling.
I don't know how to measure TDS, are there test kits out there?
Now that you mention copper, I'm slightly worried. I've never in all my years fishkeeping intentionally added copper to my tanks for medicinal purposes, however now that I think about it, my pipes might be made of... you guessed it, the big CU himself. Are there any ways other than RO/DI of getting rid of copper in the water? I age my water change water in 5 gallon buckets for a few days- so that would be a good time to get rid of it, or at least neutralise it. Ia there's a chemical out there that does it, a chelater, maybe? I'm just throwing out ideas here.
Hmm... Actually, come to think of it (the epiphanies just keep on comin', eh?) I have a spare water filter lying around, one of those ones for tap water that's supposed to remove heavy metals and such? I believe it's technically designed for the water that goes into the ice machines of refrigerators- the folks over at Home Depot told me that was the best they had. I was intending to hook it up to my water change system, but haven't got around to it.
It's kind of late, so I'll pull it out tomorrow and get the specs on it.

About the powerheads... how do I setup powerheads without an undergravel filter? Obviously a UGF won't work so well in a sand-substrate tank, not to mention trying to install one at this point in the game would be an exercise in futility....

Thanks!

Liszie
 
For the powerhead you just don't hook up all the other junk that comes with them. You just set them up to take water in an put it back out. They usually come with cages or foam to stop you from sucking up errant fish or particles large enough to clog them. You just stick them to the sides of the tank in strategic areas to optimize water flow. If I was think freshwater I would think of a river tank. Lots of flow.

TDS meters are available , check ebay or reefing websites.

There are some medias that can remove copper. I want to say Polyfilter pad but I could be wrong as I haven't had to remove copper from my system.

I would still get new sand and you can get a decent RO/DI for $100 or less on ebay. Worth it if you ask me considering that the net worth of your animal and corals in a reef can easily get into the $1000's of dollars fairly quickly.

This isn't a cheap hobby by any means unless you compare it to my horses (I have 5), or the dirt bike racing that we do, now that makes my reefs look cheap. LOL

Lisa
 
I'll go check out e-bay, but I haven't had the best of luck on there and I'm hesitant to spend even 100 dollars on something sight unseen.
In the meantime, I pulled out the water filter that I have. Here's the specs from the GE website:

Filter Reduces Unpleasant Taste and Odor While Minimizing Dirt, Rust and Sediment
25 Min. - 125 Max. (psi) Feed Water Pressure
35 - 100 (F) Feed Water Temperature
0.5 (gpm) Filtered Water Flow
Activated Carbon Filter Provides Clean Tasting Water and Ice
6 Month Filter Life with Filter Change Indicator (Sticker)
Click to expand...

In the corner, it also says "this is a chemical reduction filter, only for use in microbiologically safe water".

Will this tide me over while I save my money for an RO/DI unit?

Liszie
 
Okay, I've been on E-bay, and I found this
I can afford that, but I'd like to here from you guys first that it is what I need. I don't want to go buying something that in the end isn't right for me...
 
Never mind on the post above. I did some research into that kind of RO/DI and it seems rather unpopular. I'll find something else...

Liszie
 
That will do just fine! BTW welcome to reef central! The best peice of advise I can give is to take things slow and do alot of research before you add anything, livestock or equipment. There is a saying in this hobby, only bad things come quickly. Also dont expect no cycle time buying rock from a lfs, it can still take a few weeks even if its not been out of water long. Pre cured rock, isnt always completely cured! I thought your stock list was a lil low for my tastes, and I like to keep sps! Plus unlike many others, I like some hermits, but get scarlet reef hermits as they are the least aggressive. Expect a few snail deaths, cause they will happen. Lastely, dont go cheap on your skimmer. At the least I would reccomend an AquaC Remora PRO. They can be bought for a lil over $100 used here in the selling forums.
 
OkI see you changed your mind on the ro/di. Unless there is something that you found wrong by research I dont see why it wouldnt work just fine if that is your budget. But if you can afford more, definately spend it. There are people who will rave over reefkeeper 3s, me being one of them. But if you cant afford a $300 ro/di, then get the cheaper one. You wont be producing HUGE amounts of water, so it will do just fine for quite some time,
 
Thanks for all the advice. I too thought my plan might be a little understocked, but I think I'll stick with my plan and down the road I'll think about adding more fish. Maybe if my tank does well I'll get better lighting and try my hand at corals/anemones someday.

Liszie
 
Okay, I've been researching/thinking, and I was wondering if you guys think I need a quarantine/hospital tank? If so, what would be a good size? I've got a few empty 10gal tanks in my closet but they were infected with a local cyanobacteria strain and are effectively useless, at least for freshwater. I've tried everything to clean them but it always grows back. If I filled them with salt, would they still grow?

Also, how does one keep a quarentine/hospital tank cycled when there's nothing being quarentined/hospitalised? Ammonia?

Thanks,
Liszie
 
QT is always a good thing to do. Have you read about hypo salinity? Size depends on your fish. For your fish choice a 10g would prob be fine, although 20+ would be better. To keep ammonia down put a sponge filter in your tank for a while, and move it to the qt. Then, and I know its a pain, but 50% water changes daily. You can take the water directly out of your tank if your tank is fully cycled. It at some time you need to treat your fish, dont put the sponge filter back in your main. Throw it away. They are cheap on ebay.
 
I haven't. I'll look it up.

In the meantime, I'm not sure I understand. I keep the sponge in my cycled tank until I need to use the qt tank then I move it? Also, why 50% water changes daily? If I'm going to use water from my main tank, wouldn't it make sense to change the water on the qt tank when I'm changing the water on the main tank? So the water goes like this:

qt tank->sink
main tank->qt tank
Twice weekly.
 
Yes keep the sponge in the main to collect some bacteria, then move to qt. It is alot easier if you have a sump obviously as the sponge wouldnt need to be in the main tank. Then with the water changes, just like you said qt -> sink, main -> qt. Depending on your ammonia reading you may need to do more than twice weekly though. Ammonia reading = any ammonia at all btw!
 
Okay. I read up on hyposalinity, makes a lot of sense.

Will my 10 gallon tanks work, even with the freshwater cyano? Since I'm supposed to quarantine for six weeks, I'd like to get my quarantine tank up and cycling as soon as my ro/di unit gets here (a few weeks from now, maybe).

Liszie
 
But wait, there's more.
Some of the things I've been reading regarding qt recommend to keep it disasembled except when it's going to be used. So, keep the sponge in the main tank, and when you need the qt tank pull it out and fill it up with water from the main tank (plus some freshwater for the hyposalinity.

Would this work too?
 
Keeping the sponge in the tank seems to work for a lot of people. I keep mine set up all the time. Either way is fine, in my opinion.
 
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