My New Fish Tank Story and Questions... Excited but need some help.....

[Brannon132]

So we inherited a Fish Tank! It’s awesome I’ve always wanted a saltwater tank!!! It is 8’wide by 28” tall by 22” deep, made of 1” acrylic. There are 2 pipes coming up into the tank to feed the water in. It has a big black overflow box on the side with quarter shaped holes that cascade water from the tank to that box. There’s a big hole in the bottom of that box that drains it into a tank in the bottom of the stand. From there the water goes into 2 filter socks, then there’ a heater (Aquaheat, Ecoplus 300w) a skimmer (BubbleMax, PS2500) and a pump (GenX, PDX-150 35gpm) to push the water back up, and it also has a 1/10th hp chiller (Pacific Coast Imports CL280).

 

Originally it had a 7 inch dory (blue hippo?) a 5” yellow wrasse and a 5” brown with white spots goby? A small blue fish with a yellow tail and a large (18” dia) green starfish (brittle green?), large banded coral shrimp (5”) and one red legged hermit crab. It also has about 300lbs of live rock with about 2 inches of sand in the bottom.

The tank had not been touched in over a year other than a relative putting tap water in it when the water got low and feeding the fish 2 squares of brine shrimp once a day. There was green and red algae everywhere and about an inch of salt on the top of the tank (no cover).

 

So here’s what we did… I took the water to the fish store and they said I had no Ammonia but my phosphates were through the roof. I told them I was going to move the fish tank to my office and they suggested I do a %100 water change at that time. So I drained the water from the tank into a large tub until there was about a foot of water left, then took the rock out and put it in the tub, caught the fish took them to the fish store.

 

When I took out the sand and asked the fish guy if I should clean the sand he said yes so I got three 5 gallon buckets full of RO water. Took all the sand out of the tank and rubbed the sand though my hands in one of the 5 gallon buckets scooped out the sand with a fish net and did it again in the second bucket then again in the third. So I basically triple filtered the sand and got a ton of the silt out of the sand. Was this the right or wrong way to do this?

 

After we cleaned the tank, we then went to the fish store, bought 250 gallons of saltwater and filled the tank half way. Then we put 1”of the sand back in and arranged the rock in the tank (rocks look way better now ). After that, we filled up the rest of the tank and turned on the pump and skimmer (after I already cleaned about two inches of solid brown stuff off of it…. Nasty).

Then we let the tank run for a few days. I went to the fish store with a water sample and they told us to add “microbacter7” (good bacteria?) “Prime” by seachem (to remove ammonia) and “Thrive” phosphate remover. They also told us to add our green starfish, brown goby and red hermit crab back into the tank while also selling us 3-4 turbo snails, 4 butterscotches, 15 small snails, and 10 hermit crabs.

 

We put those in the tank and waited for a few days. Everything looked good, so we went back to the fish store where he said we still had phosphates but no ammonia or nitrates. So we got 2 sand sifting starfish (2” in dia) 2 cleaner shrimp (3”), 2 fire shrimp, along with our blue hippo. We then found out our yellow wrasse didn’t make it so we got a new one, and bought two clown fish as well. I took them back in their bags and put the bags in the tank to let the water acclimate then added 3-4 ounces of water to the bag every 5-10 minutes till we doubled the water then took the fish out of the bags and put them in the water (is this the correct way to add fish?). We also got a thermometer and a refractometer(?) and changed the filter socks.

The yellow wrasse hid in the sand the blue hippo hid in the rocks and the clown fish swam around like nothing happened. We woke up in the morning and everyone was swimming around (very pretty) but no clown fish, My wife and I looked around everywhere for them and finally found them in the filter socks… dead :( …. so I went to Ace hardware and got plastic gutter shield and zip tied it to where the holes were and also I made a dorso drain(?) and got a larger drain pipe so that I could turn the pump all the way on.

Also I noticed I also couldn’t find the fire shrimp (still never have seen them) Then I looked at my temperature!!! It was 86.5 degrees! (a heat wave just hit the area). So I hopped on this forum and craigslist and got myself a ½ hp chiller (EcoPlus) (have not hooked it up yet).

 

The maintenance that I do so far is: I feed my fish about a nickel sized piece of fish food (special stuff made by the fish guy) twice a day (too much or too little?). I have 2 half blue half white led 120w lights and have the white on for 5 hours and the blue on for 7 (whats the max time you guys would suggest?). I also add RO water from the fish store (about 5 gallons a week!!).

I noticed that stuff is starting to grow on the rocks!!! (I think this is good?) Our goal is to have an easy-to-keep, low maintenance, harmonious and pretty tank with some corals and anemones as well as some peaceful beautiful fishies.

 

I bought a seachem marine basic and reef special test kit from Amazon

Here are my levels I Tested: (what else do I need to test for??)

 

Temp- Now (82.2)

Salinity- 1.023

PH- 8.4

Alk- 3.5

Nitrite – 0.0

Nitrate – 1.5

Free Ammonia – 0.0

Total Ammonia – 0.2

Phosphates – 0.8

Silicate – 0.1

Iodine - .02

 

So here are a few of my many questions:::

 

First off, how many things did I do wrong? What would you have done differently?

 

Are my pipes that are adding water in the right place and facing the right way? The left one pushes the water straight back and the right one pushes water to the left. Does it matter how the water circulates in the tank? Can I hook my chiller up to one of the pipes pushing water back up to the tank? And if so does it matter which pipe?

What other equipment do i need or should I have?

 

I also noticed that my starfish was attacking my sand-sifting starfish and am wondering if you would keep this guy in your tank? Is the bastard killing stuff in my tank? (like my two fire shrimp?).

What pretty & harmonious fish that are easy to moderate keepers that would you suggest putting together in my tank?

 

Thanks so much for your help just dont want to do anything else wrong or have anymore fish die,

Brannon

[Brannon132]

Heres a few more pics....

[Brannon132]

Heres a few more pics....

[Jeramy]

That is quite the set up you have. I did not see mentioned or in any of the pictures but you are going to want more flow in there via some power heads in the display. You dont want to only use the flow from the returns to circulate the water in your tank. with a tank that long you will need some really hefty flow in there. you appear to be off to a good start so far just rember to go slow and take your time and enjoy the process. Welcome to the club and dont hesitate to ask questions =)

[Derbird]

Wow nice write up

 

Do you have any macro algea in your sump? I didn't see any in the pictures. If not I would recomend some, it will help keep PO4 and NO3 down

 

Do you know what type of starfish you have? Some can be very peditory. Others need to be fed. Maybe yours is hungery or might not even be reef safe.

 

For fish I am a huge fan of wrasses. So many colors and shapes. What ever fish you decide on just make sure to do your reserch on what is reef safe and how agressive the fish can be

[Brannon132]

Thanks for the help I will work on the flow by the way whats macro algea? also what is PO4 and NO3??

I think its a Green Brittle Starfish it has about 8 inch legs....

 

Thanks, Brannon

[ZachS]

Is this a FOWLR? Salinity seems low and temp seems high IMO. Also the tank looks nice

[Garrett]

Temps high, if your doing just fish your salinity is good if you are going reef you need to raise it, po4 and no3 pr whatever po is phosphate thr other is nitrate. Macro algae is like seaweeds the idea id you grow it to prevent micro algae the bad stuff to grow. Nice set up overall, youll need more flow as the pump you have isnt the best on msrket so some additional powerheads will help

[Garrett]

Also i noticed as far as feedings you can probably feed less as overfeeding is what caused the algae before it causes high nitrates and phosphate. I only feed once a day for about 2 mins worth unless they need veggie clip too

[Garrett]

As far as different i probably would have done new sand but since you cleaned it your probably in the green, your lighting might need to be upgraded depending on your corals of choice. Your really going to want to focus on slowly dropping heat to 74-78 as well but those are basic rules of thumb. Also i saw the question mark sfter refractometer, it measures salinity based on light reflecting through the water and is the best way to measure salinity besides extremely exspensive computer one

[Emerald525]

Welcome to the forum! With that big of tank to make life simple here are a few tips:

 

1. Buy an rodi unit and supply your own water.

2. Get an autotopoff unit

3. Go slower with adding livestock. It sounds like you are still in the cycle phase?

4. Research before adding fish. Read all you can and post up here. Do not rely on the fish stores to educate you.

5. If you want low maintenance stick with mostly softies.

6. It is better to underfeed then overfeed

7. A highly rated skimmer is your best friend.

 

 

That's a few tips off the top of my head.

 

Sent from my BlackBerry 9630 using Tapatalk

[Brannon132]

Getting two more lights, going to start topping off with salwater? Also was wondering if I should get anymore benificial creatures? and if so where? Also wondering what a FOWLR is?

 

Thanks, Brannon

[Brannon132]

and since the chiller is a flow through should I get a pump or just hook it up to one of my return pipes?

[Kimberlee]

Okay FOWLR ( Fish Only with Live Rock) and top off with fresh RO water no salt and the more hermit crabs and snails the better. Nice first tank by the way.

[Burningbaal]

great to have you here!

lots of good advice so far, I'll chime in too.

 

1. normally, Kimberlee is right: top-off i with RO water, no salt. However, since your salinity is a little low, you can top off with salt water until it get up to spec (1.025 is my target, it will raise toward 1.026 as the water evaporates and when you top off with RO water, it'll drop back to 1.025).

2. defniitely more flow than just the return pump, you're going to want at least 2500gph in that tank, and if you're hoping for hard corals (less easy to maintain) or big 'swimy' fish, as much as 10,000-15,000gph wouldn't be insane. a lot of people really like the tunze stream and vortech powerheads...but they do cost $$$, I'll be running about 5000gph in my 90gallon tank.

3. I highly recommend macroalgae. chaetomorpha is an easy and productive one, but caulerpa, ulva, and lots of others are great too. you'll need a light in the sump to get it to grow (look for 'daylight' CFL bulbs at the store, probably 30-50 actual-non-'equivalent' watts of daylight CFLs would do great to getting some 'macro' to grow. it will help keep nitrate (NO3) and phosphate (PO4) levels near 0, which keeps the ugly algae from growing in your main tank.

4. Definitely buy your own RO/DI system (I think you'll need a chloramine cartridge in vancouver, but I'm not sure), look at some of our sponsors for good systems. Mine is from bulkreefsupply.com, it'll save you tons of money in the long run compared to buying saltwater. you'll want to pay attention to the 'GPD' figures, since you have such a big tank. many are '75 GPD' units, that means you can produce 75 gallons of good water a day...that's in 24 hours.

5. I'd wait on more livestock, unless you see some ugly algae/diatom/cyanobactera growing. anything you see, show us a picture and we can tell you if it's good or if not, how to get rid of it. For the stuff to get rid of, usually it's certain species of hermits or snails that do it (or a sea hare). you will probably, someday, have a couple hundred snails/hermits in there eating the uneaten food, fish poo and algae. These are your 'CUC' (clean up crew)

6. until it's been set up for a couple months, I wouldn't add anything except a clean up crew that you see a purpose for (don't buy hermits 'just in case', they'll probably just starve)

7. I would do some picture-surfing and decide what you want in your tank long-term. do you want to set it up as a coral haven with the 'colored sticks' (SPS)? that's more work, but very rewarding. do you want buttefly fish, angels, etc? then don't buy corals. do you want a lionfish or eel? then don't buy a wrasse...you get the idea. figure out what you want it to be for sure early so you can have a good plan of attack. these decisions also affect your equipment. if you're going to have lionfish and soft corals, you'll need 2500-5000gph of powerheads, but for colored sticks and monticaps, you'll need three times that much.

8. ask more questions than you can think of (you get the point) to us, other forums and (sometimes) fish store owners. some employees/owners are amazing...others just want to sell stuff, you won't know which they are until you know the right answer before you ask it

9. I would definitely get an auto-topoff unit, you can get one from some sponsors here, or autotopoff.com, and lots of websites.

10. 2 more lights will be pretty good...are those reefstars? those are pretty awesome lights.

11. I forget what skimmer you have, but typical wisdom is to buy way overrated. they tend to be rated by the gallon ('this is a 250gallon skimmer'), but usually that means that your fish won't die if its in a tank that's 250gallons or less. buying one rated for 400-500 gallons will make your fish much happier, make your feeding regimine more flexible (over-feeding is slightly less dangerous), and gives you the option to keep decent corals.

12. usually, a chiller is run off it's own pump, check if your chiller is a 'push through' or 'pull through' chiller, depends which end you put the pump.

12b. a lot of people shoot for 77-79 degrees, some go as low as 73ish...I've never heard of anyone happy with anything above 81 (I think). without a controller (next point), probably set the chiller for 79 and the heater for 77 (or 75 and 77, whatever), you can try setting them for 78 and 79, but they'll probably end up fighting each other unless you have them the perfect size for the tank.

13. consider a controller like an apex or reefkeeper, they'll help keep your tank happy with temperature, chemistry levels, light timing, etc.

14 never buy something because it looks cool. Ask the name of the species (scientific and common names if you can), then go home, research it, what it needs, how it thrives (not just survives), what it gets a long with (or doesn't) and all that. then go back and buy it. if they're nice, they might hold it for 24 hours or so for you, or if it gets sold, ask them to order one in for you soon.

15. lighting cycle can be pretty flexible for you with only fish. I like to run about 8-10 hours with the 'whites' and 12-14 with the blues, but that's just me.

16. your alkalinity is really low, we usually shoot for 8ish. because you're fish-only right now, it's not a big deal, but you'll probably want to get that up. dosing kalkwasser, baking soda (dissolved), aquarium buffer, or kits from the store will get it up. once it's stable, a lot of people find that they can keep it stable by dosing some of that in the RO top-off water, but if you don't have hard corals, it will tend to stay wherever you put it.

17. your pH is very dependent on a lot of things, especially time of day (because of the lighting cycle and temperature). try testing it at several times on the same day and you'll see what I mean. 8.2-8.4 is the usual target. if your alkalinity and calcium level are on-target, pH tends to stay correct

18. if you keep hard corals (LPS and SPS), you'll need to keep an eye on a lot more chemistry levels, and much more carefully. soft corals (softies) and fish are much more forgiving.

19-80billion. later...I've already talked your ear off enough

[Burningbaal]

and: amazing first tank. my first was a dualling betta bowl (plexiglass divider), then a 12g freshwater community tank, then a 55g softy-reef tank. only last weekend did i start my 90g (moved everything from the 55).

 

have fun, be patient, enjoy, and ask a billion questions.

[Brannon132]

Got the lights on order... and since everyone is telling me to get a ro/di unit I did a little research and found good reviews on the Typhoon III unit with a seperate tds meter. Now here are my questions I heard of a unit that is a float valve that has an electronic safety shutoff? And I was thinking about getting a 55 gallon toter do most people put a shutoff float in that as well and do i need one for ro water and one for salt or do you use one can for both? If someone could show me their setup that would be wonderful....

Thanks so much for everyones help, didnt realize there was so much to this hobby...

Brannon

[Burningbaal]

a lot of people keep one of each (for RO and for salty), I just keep my fresh (a 32g can), and salt it 5 or 10g as I need. we've talked about an auto topoff unit, that is ran by a float switch in the sump (in the chamber that the return pump pulls water from, that's where the evaporation will show up). I'd also recommend a float switch in you RO drum.

some float switches are electric, some are mechanical. I feel like I've heard of more failures with electronic ones, but don't take my word for it. typical recommendation is to put a rubbermaid or something next to your sump that you fill with RO water that is to be used for topoff. the rubbermaid should be big enough to last for a few days or a week, 20 gallons is probably plenty, but totally depends on your particular evaporation rate. so every few days, you refill the rubbermaid with RO water. you can hook it up directly to the RO unit, but if the float switch fails with it 'on', you'll flood your floor, drop the salinity in the tank to squat and everything starts to die...hence the rubbermaid recommendation.

 

in your other thread, you asked about acronyms. LFS is local fish store, but here's a thread at another forum I'm on to get you started: http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/acronyms-frequently-used-list-134531.html

[Burningbaal]

that typhoon looks like a perfectly good unit, if you've got city water, a 10 micron sediment filter is a waste, so when you feel like replacing a filter, get a 1uM or smaller for it instead. I plan on my three (not counting DI resin) being a 1uM or smaller sediment, then a 1uM or smaller carbon, then an alumina filter (gets out fluoride, which Corvallis adds to the water) and I'm going to try doing just those three (no RO, no DI). I'm going to catch a lot of flack for trying this, but that's my plan.

 

the point is that your water from the city is pretty thoroughly filtered for sediment, so unless your plumbing system is crappy enough to be leaving sediment in your water, a 10uM filter is just a waste.

 

but that typhoon III unit looks pretty typical (for the types that we tend to buy), again: pay attention to the GPD, you'd probably appreciate yourself if you get a 150gpd membrane since you have a pretty big tank.

[Rick T]

Thanks for the help I will work on the flow by the way whats macro algea? also what is PO4 and NO3??

I think its a Green Brittle Starfish it has about 8 inch legs....

 

Thanks, Brannon

 

It's my understanding that Green Brittle Stars can be very predatory