Noob from South Florida with a 240g

PeterC99 · Feb 16, 2022

Welcome to R2R!

Looks like you have an excellent plan! Good luck!

bnord · Feb 16, 2022

I'll join the chorus and welcome you and suggest there are lots of low cost/high impact things to do and then sit back and add a little as you go. please step by step and try not to make multiple fixes at the same time. And Calcium reactor only after you prove you need it - like a year from now
Water changes (!) on an aggressive schedule then ramp down. More sensitive water testing kits, (I like hanna and Red Sea) and Turbos and Trochus and Emerald crabs and hermits.
South Florida is rich in LFS's and suppose you have already found out some are better than others in helping you to keep costs under control

So best of luck and keep in touch

Schraufabagel · Feb 17, 2022

Manny’s Reef · Feb 18, 2022

Hello and welcome to R2R. Glad to have you here.

Kiwi reefer · Feb 18, 2022

Welcome to R2R

Sebastiancrab · Feb 18, 2022

Welcome!

Fish Think Pink · Feb 20, 2022

omgfishy said:
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!

Welcome! Glad you joined. Likely just replace the UV bulb and not whole unit, but saying this without seeing so forgive me for making a suggestion just trying to save you money. With all your freshwater experience - you already are going to be super successful with this tank!! Freshwater and saltwater fish are very similar. Saltwater corals are a whole next step up with additional testing types, dosing, and truly need more stable parameters, but you've got that planned for down the road so YOU ROCK IT!!!! They are lucky you are stepping in!!

Have you considered starting your build thread? I found its a great place to document my tank's evolution for myself. I started tank first then joined, so I'm still finding myself going back collecting pictures & updating historically as well as current state. Once you create your first post in your thread and link it to your account, they will give you build badge (look left, under my ID). You could probably take everything from above, create a new post in Forum > Member Aquariums > size and paste info from above to start.

This is a good reference book type online article I still review:

The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium

This article was sponsored by @MarineDepot at www.marinedepot.com. Introduction The marine environment is one of the most complex systems on the planet. The aquarium you are about to set up is only a tiny sliver of the vast ocean, but it is no...

www.reef2reef.com

attiland · Feb 20, 2022

omgfishy said:
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!