TinCanHero
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2019
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Hey guys, And welcome to my SW aquarium Build thread / diary.
This will be my first SW tank, I've had many, many fresh water tanks over the years but have been to scared to try SW until now. So any help, tips and general hand holding would be most welcome!
The gear im using is:
1 xEheim return pump 1500-3000L/h
1 xBubble magus curve 5 skimmer
2 x jaebo SOW4 wave makers
1 x AI Hydra 26 LED light
1 x 25kg bag of betta substrate sand
2 x 40lbs caribsea southsea dry rock
1 x Tetra ht25 300w heater (will upgrade soon and stick a backup in)
1 x elitech st1000 heater / cooler controller
1 x 12w 2500lm 6500k daylight bulb for the refuge
3 chamber sump
30x30x24 rimless tank with back right corner overflow
Salt: Red Sea Coral Pro
Starter Bacteria: dr tims one and only.
ecosystem aquarium mirical mud x 3lbs
So here we go!
I got the tank second hand for a good price although it seemed like a bad omen from the outset as i broke down on the way to get it! i had to rent a van and try again the next day, after alot of haste getting it out of the sellers house (who makes door frames that small! haha) we got it home!
I received a tank, stand, plumbing (parts needed changing), return pump, a broken net cover, some new puragen(thanks?), a bunch of heaters (for the bin), a heater controller, refractometer and some random bits and bobs.
I payed £100 for the lot, the included gate vave, puragen, and pump probably is worth that secondhand alone. The puragen went into one of my FW aquariums - I'm quite happy with it! The only downside to the tank i can see is one scratch on the front and the overflow box glass looks a little high. (it was added and drilled later) -- turns out its not a issue, not sure why the seller had one
I first of all decided to put the tank into my bedroom, I've had 3 4ft tanks and some 60l's in there all at once with no issues. I wisely decided against the 6ft tank going in there when i got it, however i thought i could get away with this size.
So we lugged the sucker up into place, already i was second guessing myself. I decided to give it a shot anyway, so i started to fill her up. I think i got just over half way before i decided to stop and test for a day before slowly continuing. Well that day turned into a week or more of my doing napkin math and trying to convince myself it would work, in the end i came to the conclusion i was crazy for even trying - lol. the math told me it would have been safer for the 6ft tank to be up there.
So there we are a week or 2 later with that feeling of dejavu bringing the tank back down. Man was it much harder. Going up seemed pretty easy with 2 of us, going down however we almost dropped the tank and had to slide it down in the end on its side to my horror. Lucky, after alot of foul language we got the tank into its new home without any damage!
I started by making my scape, i then went around and glued it all into place with some CA.
After looking at it for a while, im a little worried about one stone in the front that may cause flow issues. we will see, its a little late to move it now (i know probably better to do it now but ya know.. :/ )
I've hung my light on a cable hanging kit, i kinda wish i went for a arm now, it was difficult to get level on wires and is totally but ugly the way i mounted it to the ceiling. ill change it soon, but for now it works i guess.
I decided on 12" above the tank, it seems to give a good coverage. I'm currently using David Saxby's profile, although I'm a little concerned it may be to bright? it runs at 90%+ at its peak? any suggestions on a profile or some tweaks? unfortunately i do not own a par meter to test.
Here is my sump layout, Skimmer is in the input chamber, the center chamber will be for a refugium and then i have my heater and return in the last chamber. I tried my best with cable management, compared to my other systems its fairly tidy, although i suppose there isn't 20 miles of cable under my FW tanks -- seems the tape on the wave makers is useless thou. so there just hanging for now.. still some work to do
So here i go on filling, The RODI system is slow in this cold weather. Its taken my 50gpd system 5 days to fill my 210l drum, on the last day i came up with the idea of running a 4m line from the water input to the RODI device, i then coiled the line up and popped in the sink with some room temp water. crazy how much that upped the flow!
One more day and the tank is full.
Great! or not. I turn on the return pump and... bulkhead leaking... no idea how, but it seems it started after i turned the pump on. its been fine for the last few days with the overflow 3/4 full. blah, i guess that extra pressure started a leek. My fault for using old bulkhead rubber gaskets! that and the fact its impossible to get a spanner in there to grip the nut well. I've emptied the overflow and I've undone the bulkhead in question. a quick dry and clean of the inside of the overflow and the rubber and we can try again.. "Oh, wait. How has the rubber got on the bottom side of the tank? aint it meant to be on the top side?" that's a quote from me last night as im scratching my head like a 10 year old amazed by some magic trick. again after a hour of back ache i came up with the plan of using a bit of cotton to pull it back through.. man i wish i thought of that sooner! Take 2 of sealing the tank.. Yup that did it, i also managed to get a set of mole grips in from the back by removing some of the polystyrene -- the perks of using half inch
Time to add the salt! I'm aiming for 0.024
The TDS read 13 in the tank, i assume this is from the new sand / rock.
I started by knowing i would need about 3/4 of a tub of salt. so i rased the temp to 20c as it said on the box, added half of the tub slowly over about 20mins, waited until it all dissolved and came back and tested. Way under as expected. so over a 2.5 hour period i added more until i hit 0.023/24 i expected it to maybe rise a little since the water was still a little cloudy so i headed off to bed since i was already a hour over bed time.
I got up this morning and checked again, and it read 0.026/27 with clear water in the tank.
So i thought id ask if it was ok to just take a little out when i got home and replace with RODI water to bring it back down to 0.024. however when i got home i tested it again and it now reads 0.027/28 so Its got me a little confused.
I know Redsea say on there tub do not mix for more than 4hrs, I understand this is because the trace elements precipitate? would this effect the salinity by bringing it up? could this be due to my refractometer, i had it free with the tank.
Would it be ok to just bring it back down with RODI?
I'm going to use the dead shrimp method, i picked up one raw kind prawn since that is all i could find raw. the lady behind the counter looked at me stupid when i asked for one, when i told her why she looked at me even more like i was crazy - haha.
Here is the little guy.
[pic]
My cycle plan is to have the skimmer and light off. add the shrimp, after 24h or when i start to see a ammonia / nitrite spike forming ill add the Dr Tims then after a further 24-48h when the spike is formed ill take the shrimp out, pop the lights and skimmer on and watch the params. When i start to see the ammonia and nitrite fall to 0 and the nitrates increase ill do a water change, and ghost feed some cubes to keep the bacteria happy until i add a pair of small clown fish. the plan is wait it out for another month or 2 until everything is stable and I'm through all of the ugly and nasty phases before i add anymore livestock (bar a few clean up crew members if needed). Not to sure when i should be adding my "Miracle" mud thou, at the start of cycle?
My maintenance I have planned is a 20-25% water change weekly after my cycle is done. I plan to use this method until I stock the tank with coral and it starts to grow, ill then probably cut to a 10% weekly with dosing.
Again, any tips and help would be much appreciated. Ill hopefully keep you guys posted with many updates, maybe i could use this as a diary?
Kind regards, and happy reefing!
TinCanHero.
This will be my first SW tank, I've had many, many fresh water tanks over the years but have been to scared to try SW until now. So any help, tips and general hand holding would be most welcome!
The gear im using is:
1 xEheim return pump 1500-3000L/h
1 xBubble magus curve 5 skimmer
2 x jaebo SOW4 wave makers
1 x AI Hydra 26 LED light
1 x 25kg bag of betta substrate sand
2 x 40lbs caribsea southsea dry rock
1 x Tetra ht25 300w heater (will upgrade soon and stick a backup in)
1 x elitech st1000 heater / cooler controller
1 x 12w 2500lm 6500k daylight bulb for the refuge
3 chamber sump
30x30x24 rimless tank with back right corner overflow
Salt: Red Sea Coral Pro
Starter Bacteria: dr tims one and only.
ecosystem aquarium mirical mud x 3lbs
So here we go!
I got the tank second hand for a good price although it seemed like a bad omen from the outset as i broke down on the way to get it! i had to rent a van and try again the next day, after alot of haste getting it out of the sellers house (who makes door frames that small! haha) we got it home!
I received a tank, stand, plumbing (parts needed changing), return pump, a broken net cover, some new puragen(thanks?
), a bunch of heaters (for the bin), a heater controller, refractometer and some random bits and bobs.I payed £100 for the lot, the included gate vave, puragen, and pump probably is worth that secondhand alone. The puragen went into one of my FW aquariums - I'm quite happy with it! The only downside to the tank i can see is one scratch on the front and the overflow box glass looks a little high. (it was added and drilled later) -- turns out its not a issue, not sure why the seller had one
I first of all decided to put the tank into my bedroom, I've had 3 4ft tanks and some 60l's in there all at once with no issues. I wisely decided against the 6ft tank going in there when i got it, however i thought i could get away with this size.
So we lugged the sucker up into place, already i was second guessing myself. I decided to give it a shot anyway, so i started to fill her up. I think i got just over half way before i decided to stop and test for a day before slowly continuing. Well that day turned into a week or more of my doing napkin math and trying to convince myself it would work, in the end i came to the conclusion i was crazy for even trying - lol. the math told me it would have been safer for the 6ft tank to be up there.
So there we are a week or 2 later with that feeling of dejavu bringing the tank back down. Man was it much harder. Going up seemed pretty easy with 2 of us, going down however we almost dropped the tank and had to slide it down in the end on its side to my horror. Lucky, after alot of foul language we got the tank into its new home without any damage!
I started by making my scape, i then went around and glued it all into place with some CA.
After looking at it for a while, im a little worried about one stone in the front that may cause flow issues. we will see, its a little late to move it now
(i know probably better to do it now but ya know.. :/ )
I've hung my light on a cable hanging kit, i kinda wish i went for a arm now, it was difficult to get level on wires and is totally but ugly the way i mounted it to the ceiling. ill change it soon, but for now it works i guess.
I decided on 12" above the tank, it seems to give a good coverage. I'm currently using David Saxby's profile, although I'm a little concerned it may be to bright? it runs at 90%+ at its peak? any suggestions on a profile or some tweaks? unfortunately i do not own a par meter to test.
Here is my sump layout, Skimmer is in the input chamber, the center chamber will be for a refugium and then i have my heater and return in the last chamber. I tried my best with cable management, compared to my other systems its fairly tidy, although i suppose there isn't 20 miles of cable under my FW tanks
-- seems the tape on the wave makers is useless thou. so there just hanging for now.. still some work to do
So here i go on filling, The RODI system is slow in this cold weather. Its taken my 50gpd system 5 days to fill my 210l drum, on the last day i came up with the idea of running a 4m line from the water input to the RODI device, i then coiled the line up and popped in the sink with some room temp water. crazy how much that upped the flow!
One more day and the tank is full.
Great! or not. I turn on the return pump and... bulkhead leaking... no idea how, but it seems it started after i turned the pump on. its been fine for the last few days with the overflow 3/4 full. blah, i guess that extra pressure started a leek. My fault for using old bulkhead rubber gaskets! that and the fact its impossible to get a spanner in there to grip the nut well. I've emptied the overflow and I've undone the bulkhead in question. a quick dry and clean of the inside of the overflow and the rubber and we can try again.. "Oh, wait. How has the rubber got on the bottom side of the tank? aint it meant to be on the top side?" that's a quote from me last night as im scratching my head like a 10 year old amazed by some magic trick. again after a hour of back ache i came up with the plan of using a bit of cotton to pull it back through.. man i wish i thought of that sooner! Take 2 of sealing the tank.. Yup that did it, i also managed to get a set of mole grips in from the back by removing some of the polystyrene -- the perks of using half inch
Time to add the salt!
I'm aiming for 0.024
The TDS read 13 in the tank, i assume this is from the new sand / rock.
I started by knowing i would need about 3/4 of a tub of salt. so i rased the temp to 20c as it said on the box, added half of the tub slowly over about 20mins, waited until it all dissolved and came back and tested. Way under as expected. so over a 2.5 hour period i added more until i hit 0.023/24 i expected it to maybe rise a little since the water was still a little cloudy so i headed off to bed since i was already a hour over bed time.
I got up this morning and checked again, and it read 0.026/27 with clear water in the tank.
So i thought id ask if it was ok to just take a little out when i got home and replace with RODI water to bring it back down to 0.024. however when i got home i tested it again and it now reads 0.027/28 so Its got me a little confused.
I know Redsea say on there tub do not mix for more than 4hrs, I understand this is because the trace elements precipitate? would this effect the salinity by bringing it up? could this be due to my refractometer, i had it free with the tank.
Would it be ok to just bring it back down with RODI?
I'm going to use the dead shrimp method, i picked up one raw kind prawn since that is all i could find raw. the lady behind the counter looked at me stupid when i asked for one, when i told her why she looked at me even more like i was crazy - haha.
Here is the little guy.
[pic]
My cycle plan is to have the skimmer and light off. add the shrimp, after 24h or when i start to see a ammonia / nitrite spike forming ill add the Dr Tims then after a further 24-48h when the spike is formed ill take the shrimp out, pop the lights and skimmer on and watch the params. When i start to see the ammonia and nitrite fall to 0 and the nitrates increase ill do a water change, and ghost feed some cubes to keep the bacteria happy until i add a pair of small clown fish. the plan is wait it out for another month or 2 until everything is stable and I'm through all of the ugly and nasty phases before i add anymore livestock (bar a few clean up crew members if needed). Not to sure when i should be adding my "Miracle" mud thou, at the start of cycle?
My maintenance I have planned is a 20-25% water change weekly after my cycle is done. I plan to use this method until I stock the tank with coral and it starts to grow, ill then probably cut to a 10% weekly with dosing.
Again, any tips and help would be much appreciated. Ill hopefully keep you guys posted with many updates, maybe i could use this as a diary?
Kind regards, and happy reefing!
TinCanHero.
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