Noob from South Florida with a 240g

[omgfishy]

Hi everyone!
I'm coming from over 20 years of freshwater tropical hobbying, mostly with planted shrimp tanks.

Starting to figure out this whole salt water marine stuff and taking over my siblings 240 gallon beast of a tank.
It's been super neglected and only had basic maintenance but I was really surprised the PH, Nitres and Ammonia were all perfect when I tested it with the API master kit last night.
Guess it's been running between 6-12 months. There's a 'healthy' layer of brown algae on it which I'm gonna scrub and vacuum off this week.
Figuring out the stock, so far my guess is:

• 3x Blue damsels
• 7 black saddleback clowns
• 1 x pink smith damsel
• 1 x yellow tail damsels
• 1 x regal demoiselle

I suspect all the fish are from ORA , I'm trying to find out when and where they got these fish.

Took me all night to figure out the set up, but from what I see it's got a SpectraPure 3 canister RO(DI?), Aqua UV Sterilizer, external return pump, skimmer, overflow, sump, 3 types of LED lights (mix of blue, white, pink leds) controlled by a wemo app?, a broken gas thermometer (house a/c is set to 72 round the clock), 4 power heads. The tank itself is like 10 years old and it was professionally set up but has been pretty neglected the past few years.

Ordered a bunch of Neptune automation supplies from BRS and Jersey Corals. Shoutout to their fantastic customer support!
Got some fresh supplies of magnesium, calcium, phosguard, sea salt, rodi filters, ceramic filter logs and a salinty tester coming in.
Looking forward to setting it all up, hopefully everything arrives by this weekend!

Next steps:

• Planning on getting some snails and shrimp after the neptune is set up to keep help the rocks clean.
• Set up a refugium in the sump with some filter media, LED lights and algae .
• Research calcium reactors
• Holding off on getting Neptune sky lights, I want to see how the current lights perform after I fix their schedule.
• UV sterilizer probably needs to be replaced.
• Might try to find a quieter external return pump .
• Eventually get some coral in there.
• Maybe I'll even upload a photo here.

Not sure what else I need?

Anyways, probably tmi for a hello thread. Hi everyone!

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!!

 

[Sean Clark]

Welcome Noob, nice to meet you.

 

[tharbin]

Welcome to R2R Nice start on the equipment front...

 

[Kennya]

Welcome to R2R

 

[SlugSnorter]

Hi everyone!
I'm coming from over 20 years of freshwater tropical hobbying, mostly with planted shrimp tanks.

Starting to figure out this whole salt water marine stuff and taking over my siblings 240 gallon beast of a tank.
It's been super neglected and only had basic maintenance but I was really surprised the PH, Nitres and Ammonia were all perfect when I tested it with the API master kit last night.
Guess it's been running between 6-12 months. There's a 'healthy' layer of brown algae on it which I'm gonna scrub and vacuum off this week.
Figuring out the stock, so far my guess is:

• 3x Blue damsels
• 7 black saddleback clowns
• 1 x pink smith damsel
• 1 x yellow tail damsels
• 1 x regal demoiselle

I suspect all the fish are from ORA , I'm trying to find out when and where they got these fish.

Took me all night to figure out the set up, but from what I see it's got a SpectraPure 3 canister RO(DI?), Aqua UV Sterilizer, external return pump, skimmer, overflow, sump, 3 types of LED lights (mix of blue, white, pink leds) controlled by a wemo app?, a broken gas thermometer (house a/c is set to 72 round the clock), 4 power heads. The tank itself is like 10 years old and it was professionally set up but has been pretty neglected the past few years.

Ordered a bunch of Neptune automation supplies from BRS and Jersey Corals. Shoutout to their fantastic customer support!
Got some fresh supplies of magnesium, calcium, phosguard, sea salt, rodi filters, ceramic filter logs and a salinty tester coming in.
Looking forward to setting it all up, hopefully everything arrives by this weekend!

Next steps:

• Planning on getting some snails and shrimp after the neptune is set up to keep help the rocks clean.
• Set up a refugium in the sump with some filter media, LED lights and algae .
• Research calcium reactors
• Holding off on getting Neptune sky lights, I want to see how the current lights perform after I fix their schedule.
• UV sterilizer probably needs to be replaced.
• Might try to find a quieter external return pump .
• Eventually get some coral in there.
• Maybe I'll even upload a photo here.

Not sure what else I need?

Anyways, probably tmi for a hello thread. Hi everyone!

get a CUC now! no need to wait for clean rocks. Trochus, Cerith and Nassacrius come to mind.

 

[Reeferjunkie]

Welcome to r2r

 

[omgfishy]

get a CUC now! no need to wait for clean rocks. Trochus, Cerith and Nassacrius come to mind.

Yeah? Are marine snails just are hardy as freshwater snails? Was thinking of waiting till the Neptune settles in. I have Zebra or Astrea Turbos, Margarita, Nassarius and Banded Trochu's on my list.

 

[Just John]

Yeah? Are marine snails just are hardy as freshwater snails? Was thinking of waiting till the Neptune settles in. I have Zebra or Astrea Turbos, Margarita, Nassarius and Banded Trochu's on my list.

Add Mexican turbos

 

[Just John]

Glad you're here!

 

[SlugSnorter]

Yeah? Are marine snails just are hardy as freshwater snails? Was thinking of waiting till the Neptune settles in. I have Zebra or Astrea Turbos, Margarita, Nassarius and Banded Trochu's on my list.

don't go all at once. And kinda yeah, more hardy than most fish lol, if your tank has them your tank is ready for snails.

Trochus (cleans the rocks of most algae and can flip itself back up unlike astrea)

Nassarius (eats scraps and poops, not algae, good cleaner and keeps sand bed stirred)

and ceriths (small and eat algae on the sandbed, can flip themselves and burrow during the day)

are what you want RN. The others are more specialized. A large amount of people have no apex system at all, it is not needed to a keep a good tank by any means. Weekly WCs of 10-30% are good too. Make sure salt is 35ppt and heated to tank temperature before adding. Inverts do not like big swings in PH, or salinity. If your PH is stable and you do not mess up WCs you are likely fine for a cleaner shrimp

 

[tharbin]

Yeah? Are marine snails just are hardy as freshwater snails? Was thinking of waiting till the Neptune settles in. I have Zebra or Astrea Turbos, Margarita, Nassarius and Banded Trochu's on my list.

They are quite hardy, although you don't want them to starve so don't add them unless you have something in the tank for them to eat. If the tank was neglected it probably has lots of food available...

I would add ceriths to your list as they can get into places the others cannot and in a large tank like yours, some conchs.

 

[Karen00]

Welcome to the salty side and the community! If the tank is fish only then you won't need the extra calcium and magnesium. The marine salt mix you buy will have everything fish/inverts need. Once you get into corals you might need to dose those if the demand from your corals is more than what your salt mix provides and you will need additional test kits for those parameters (ca, mg, etc). Don't buy API kits for those. Get good ones like Salifert, etc. Doing reading on here will point you in the right direction. I look forward to seeing your setup.

 

[SlugSnorter]

They are quite hardy, although you don't want them to starve so don't add them unless you have something in the tank for them to eat. If the tank was neglected it probably has lots of food available...

I would add ceriths to your list as they can get into places the others cannot and in a large tank like yours, some conchs.

no conchs yet, likely dinos, diatoms, or cyano in a neglected tank, so ceriths and trochus are better and will eat it.

 

[Billldg]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[omgfishy]

don't go all at once. And kinda yeah, more hardy than most fish lol, if your tank has them your tank is ready for snails.

Trochus (cleans the rocks of most algae and can flip itself back up unlike astrea)

Nassarius (eats scraps and poops, not algae, good cleaner and keeps sand bed stirred)

and ceriths (small and eat algae on the sandbed, can flip themselves and burrow during the day)

are what you want RN. The others are more specialized. A large amount of people have no apex system at all, it is not needed to a keep a good tank by any means. Weekly WCs of 10-30% are good too. Make sure salt is 35ppt and heated to tank temperature before adding. Inverts do not like big swings in PH, or salinity. If your PH is stable and you do not mess up WCs you are likely fine for a cleaner shrimp

I saw that about the astreas having trouble getting back up. Guess it's safer to not get them. I thought it might be funny to see them flip over but the joke will be on me if I have to grab the ladder and climb up the tank to rescue them. Thanks for the snail recommendations, I'll get those three.

I'm going to set up one of the DOS controller to do auto water changes with the RODI. Shrimp would be cool to have one day but I know they are more sensitive than snails.

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R and the salty world. Lots of knowledgeable and helpful people here who will support and advise you when needed.

 

[Fred2482]

Welcome!

 

[Jeffcb]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!

 

[G Santana]

Welcome to R2R and the salt side of life