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I'm starting a 75 gallon tank from scratch, and it's my first project. I have the tank, stand, a ~10 gallon acrylic sump, and protein skimmer on hand. Coming in the mail are my return pump, powerheads, GFCIs, and a few other odds and ends. So, come this weekend, I'll hopefully be able to plumb it and do some "dry" (wet) runs to check for leaks. Anyway, I'd like some advice on how to initially "cycle" my tank. I've heard that using dead rock is better because you don't get any of the pests that can be on live rock. On the other hand, you don't get any of the beneficial organisms either, and it takes much longer to cycle. I've been thinking about doing half-and-half, and letting the live rock seed the dead rock, but if I'm going to be using any live rock off the bat, should I just use ALL live rock and save myself some time?
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Feb 19, 2011 11:28
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Dono posted:Have you bought any rock yet? Live or dry? I'm thinking I'm gonna go with mostly dry rock, so that I can aquascape it and stuff. Plus, in theory it should be cheaper. Any suggestions on where I can buy cheap dry rock online? ALSO: sand/substrate. How much and what type should I use? quote:The minuses are that they need a small tank so more prone to fuckups and need two daily feedings of bbs.
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Feb 22, 2011 04:12
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Argh. I want to plumb my tank with flexible 3/4" I.D. vinyl tubing. It seems like there are ball valve and check valves with barb fittings for hoses, but I can't find any union joints so that I can disconnect my pump easily. Do they even exist? I'd rather not have some kind of lovely vinyl-pvc-union-pvc-vinyl set-up for simplicity's sake (and $$$'s sake.) Also, it's not necessary to use check valves if the plumbing is done right, is it? I know that in certain set-ups, if the return pump fails, siphon pressure will dump all the tank water into the sump. But, that only applies if the return line empties BELOW the water line, right? If I have the return line dump the water somewhere above the water line, it isn't an issue, because if pressure loss occurs the return line can't siphon anything except air. The only issue that would cause is noise from the water splashing, right? Man, setting up a tank is like learning biology, chemistry, carpentry, plumbing, and electronics all at once.
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Feb 23, 2011 08:20
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Impressive! What type of fish is that in the pic with the clown? And what variety of goby is that?
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Feb 26, 2011 23:10
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Welp. Went to a fellow reefer's house today to get some seed water/rock/sand for my tank. He ended up being pretty generous and gave me a bunch of Kenya Trees, mushrooms, starfish, some baby anemones that I can't remember the name of, etc., as well as a pair of Clownfish. I was hesitant to put ANYTHING into my tank because it isn't cycled yet, but he assured me that everything he gave me is really hardy and will be just fine. Then he came over to my apartment to help set some stuff up and promptly found like 15,894 things wrong with my set-up. Biggest lesson I learned today: don't use superfine sand for your aquarium. Or if you do, at least rinse it first so that it doesn't cloud up your tank so bad you can't see an inch into it. Now I have to run heavy filtration overnight to pull the fine sediment stuff out of the water, and I can't put any of the stuff I got into my tank until then. Any recommendations on what I can do to clear up the water quickly? Right now I have my protein skimmer running and some loose foam stuff packed into the sump to trap stuff. Ugh, I wish I had waited another 15 minutes until he arrived at my place before I started dumping that damned sand into my tank. 
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May 9, 2011 05:35
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arioch posted:Mushrooms are ok, but hopefully those baby nems aren't majanos.
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May 9, 2011 09:05
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Wellll gently caress. I had all the live rock and stuff with the Kenya Trees and anemones and whatever else in buckets until I could get them into my tank. They were stuck in there for over 24 hours because I had to make some last-minute changes to my set-up (and wait until the water had cleared up somewhat from the sand.) Stupidly, I let the temperature in the buckets get dangerously low; the bobbing thermometer was reading 65 degrees, but when I reached into the buckets to actually pull the stuff out, the water felt even colder. All of the live rock and critters are in my tank now (which was fairly cool by that point as well, so the temperature shock was actually minimal) warming up, but the damage has obviously already been done. Some of the Kenya Trees are clearly dead, shriveled up and blue. The rest are in bad shape; they appear to be alive, but are pretty limp. Hopefully they'll perk up with some warm water flowing around them. All of the little starfish appear KIA, I haven't seen any of the copepods, and it generally looks like a wasteland right now. All hope is not lost, though. There are little feather-duster worms alive on the rock, the anemones seem hardy, and there are lots of unidentified worms and crawly things on the sand. I put the clowns into my 10 gallon quarantine tank and set them up with a heater and power filter, where they will probably stay until the tank is fully cycled. Now all I can do is wait and see what survives I guess. Man I knew I would end up killing stuff eventually in this hobby, but I had really hoped to at least get them into my tank before doing so. 
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May 10, 2011 12:52
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Yeah, things seem better than I had feared as of now. Even the shriveled and blue Kenya Trees are standing back up, although they are still a bad color and haven't unfurled their branches yet. I've spotted a few of the starfish (yeah they are micro brittles) on the rock that seem to be alive, although they're not very active at the moment. Looks like some of these guys are doing okay.  Some of them aren't, though.  This is the anemone I was talking about. He's about half the size of a dime.    Edit: Here's the overall tank (75 gallons): 
Anony Mouse fucked around with this message at 22:43 on May 10, 2011 |
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May 10, 2011 22:11
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arioch posted:I can't tell what that anemone is from the side but it looks like a mojo to me. As for the aiptasia, I was planning on getting some kind of shrimp for the tank eventually, so I guess I should just go ahead and get some peppermints sooner rather than later?
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May 10, 2011 22:56
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One of my Clownfish died. The other fish seems to still be healthy and is eating well, and they were both in the same water conditions since I got them, so he must have been a bit weaker since the start. Some more pictures:  Here is one of the mystery anemones in the tank. Green body with fat brown tentacles. Is it a Mojano? I've been looking at images of them online trying to ID them, but they all seem to be different.  There is a mushroom wedged in between these two Kenya Trees. Algae growth is starting to pick up steam, and the aiptasia are everywhere, so I'll be picking up some Peppermint Shrimp and hermit crabs online ASAP.  A pair of mushrooms on one of the rocks. From looking at pictures online, I think they are Lavenders? Kind of purple-ish bodies with brown, green-tipped tentacles.
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May 15, 2011 22:55
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Yeah, they move. The one on the sand bed moved about a foot over a day or so. The big one crawled his way up into the rocks somehow, because he wasn't there two days ago.   Two visible here. 
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May 15, 2011 23:55
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How easy is it to just pull them off with tongs? Will I need to resort to kalk paste or Joe's Juice or whatever? I've read that they just explode from those, releasing larvae that just exacerbate the problem.
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May 16, 2011 22:15
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Is this little pink starfish guy anything to worry about? He has been clearing a swath through this algae (brown diatoms according to my friend.)
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May 20, 2011 03:16
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Are LEDs really that great or are they just the latest and greatest bandwagon that everyone is hopping on?
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Jun 17, 2011 00:34
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I was messing around with my aquarium tonight and the furtive shape of some strange crustacean darting across the sand caught my eye. I tried to get a clear picture of it, but he was moving too fast. By the time I switched to video, he had pretty much disappeared under a rock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylNYsz7WQyI Does anyone know what this is? I'm sure it's harmless, but I'm pretty curious now. As a bonus: Copepod close-up! 
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Jul 7, 2011 10:06
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What exactly is the point of "cooking" dry rock that is already "dead?" It's not like you have to cure it like live rock...
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Jul 12, 2011 22:19
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What is the cheapest/best/most efficient way of lighting an under-tank refugium? Right now the only thing in that chamber of my sump is a heater. I'd like to get some macroalgae and (more) copepods and stuff growing in there. Emphasis on "cheapest."
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Jul 22, 2011 03:34
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So I've got quite the macroalgae problem. It's growing errywhere in my tank. What's the best way to get rid of it? More frequent water changes? More herbivorous fish? Different lighting?
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Aug 31, 2011 04:38
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I don't know, really. It grows in thick clumps of hairs or strands, kind of like a green shag carpet. I'll take some pics tomorrow in the daylight.
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Aug 31, 2011 07:55
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    What's the verdict? I've had my tank up for about 5 months now. I began with all "dead" rock except for some live stuff I got from someone else to seed it. I've been pulling the stuff out in clumps when it gets annoyingly large.
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Sep 1, 2011 07:30
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So I've got a tiny tiny colony of some unidentified zoas on one of my rocks, but I don't know what to do with it. In the ~6 months it has been in my tank, it hasn't really spread or thrived at all. Maybe it's being crowded out by the Kenya Tree that it is growing next to? Should I cut off the Kenya Tree (I have like 3 dozen of them in my tank, one less won't hurt) to give it room to grow? Right now it's at the bottom of my tank because algae was smothering the rock; should I move it back towards the top? As far as my algae problem goes, I tested my RO/DI water the other day and it's at 3 PPM. I don't know how old the filters in my unit are, so I'll try replacing those and see what happens. My skimmer seems to be working pretty well, and my Nitrates are at 0 while my Nitrites are at .05 PPM. I don't have a test kit for Phosphates so I should probably pick one up. My algae is really getting annoying. I've got some spiny astraea snails, and there is algae growing on their shells. That's right, I need snails for my snails now apparently. Speaking of algae, about 3 months ago I had awesome purple coralline algae growing over everything in my tank. Since then something must have changed, because it has all but disappeared. There is still some left encrusted underneath some rocks or in the shadows of overhangs. Is this a lighting spectrum thing? I can't think why else it would grow only in shadows and under rocks. I really want it to start growing everywhere again; what do I do?
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Sep 20, 2011 02:20
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Wow, that is incredible. How on earth does he find the time to maintain all that stuff? Keeping it running smoothly would be a full time job!
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Sep 27, 2011 06:30
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One of my emerald crabs died yesterday. I have no idea what killed him. When I got home from work, he was laying upside-down on the bottom of the tank without a mark on him. I guess he had a crab-heart attack? He was the biggest and healthiest-looking crab too...
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Oct 7, 2011 01:48
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Emancipator posted:Did you confirm it was actually his body and not a molt? I ran into a similar situation a few weeks ago where I found 4 emerald crab corpses. Not a mark on them, appeared to be Sudden Crab Death Syndrome and it appeared to be the actual crab corpse. Only one of them was left alive and I figured he was next.
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Oct 7, 2011 06:25
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arioch posted:Yes. Only the "tail flap" will be open, that's their escape hatch out of the exoskeleton. Crabs are loving weird!
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Oct 8, 2011 02:05
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So there are things growing in my sump. I don't know what they are. They weren't down there a month ago, but now there are probably two dozen of them. They seem to prefer growing on the glass. My sump isn't lighted, so I guess they're just pulling nutrients and stuff from the water? I snapped a few blurry pictures, but it's hard to illuminate them properly. They range from 1/8 to 1/4 inches long. Here's the best picture I could get:  A few more pictures in the album here. Anyone have any idea what these are? Should I be worried? I haven't added anything to my tank in over two months, so I'm bewildered by why these would show up all of a sudden. Anony Mouse fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Dec 19, 2011 |
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Dec 19, 2011 08:31
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Brittle stars are good... right?
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Feb 25, 2012 08:08
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What the gently caress is this and why is it in my tank: It was stuck to the glass last night, and has since disappeared. It wasn't very big, only about 1 cm from tip to tip. I assume it's some kind of weird worm... should I be worried about this crawling into my ear canal in the middle of the night and taking over my brain? (Or more realistically, hurting something in my tank?)
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Mar 3, 2012 04:47
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Spotted another polychaete worm on my glass today. Now that I know what they are, I think they're kind of cute. 
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Mar 8, 2012 08:46
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I'm moving my 75 gallon tank 7 miles across town this Friday. Does anyone have any advice to make things go as smoothly as possible? My current plan is this: - Borrow my friend's Zipcar pass to get a pick-up truck - Empty as much water as possible into 5 gallon buckets and 10 gallon Rubbermaid bins - Put live rock in the bins and the corals and fishes into double-bagged 1 gallon ziplocks - Load the empty tank, stand, sump, equipment, etc. onto the truck - Drive extremely carefully for 7 miles. This ought to be fun as Seattle is very hilly I plan on having about 20 gallons of premixed saltwater on hand at the new location to replace any loss. Is there any conceivable way to help prevent water from sloshing/spilling out of containers during the move?
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Apr 18, 2012 07:56
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Melchior posted:Lids for the buckets should help you with most spillage. Just make sure that you don't reuse the sand (if you have it) as depending on how deep the sandbed is it can contain a TON of toxins. When you refill the tank you'll be stirring up all of that gunk, so you may want to do one of the following to ensure you don't have a nitrate & ammonia explosion: I have eggcrate on the bottom of my tank to cushion the rock; including that my sand bed is between 1 and 2 inches deep.
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Apr 18, 2012 21:01
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Well, my plan was to empty the tank as much as possible and leave the sand bed and a small amount of water on the bottom untouched. I should be able to move the tank fairly easily with help even with the sand still in it. Total move time will only be like 2 or 3 hours. Do you guys think that's feasible?
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Apr 19, 2012 04:59
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Well, my tank is all moved and set up again. I ended up discarding all of my sand and putting fresh stuff in as people recommended. Now I have a Rubbermaid bin full of 60 pounds of used sand that I'm not sure what to do with. Rinse it and store it somewhere for the next time I have to move? I could probably keep it outside somewhere and it'd be fine. Someone on Reefcentral nailed it with their advice about how much water to have prepared at the new location... I was woefully unprepared on that front. In fact I think that was my biggest mistake in moving: I didn't even have enough water to immediately fill the tank and put all the rock/livestock back in. Everything sat in 25 gallon Rubbermaid bins for 3 days (with heat and circulation at least.) I finally just went to the Seattle Aquarium and got the water I need from the 24/7 dispenser. Fortunately, everything survived the move and seems to be doing well. My birdsnest coral frags are kind of my canary in the coalmine, and they're starting to extend their polyps quite nicely. Water tests show that the chemistry is good, except for ammonia being higher than I'd like, and I think that will settle down once the bacteria is back to full strength.
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May 1, 2012 21:30
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Is the drain making the noise in the overflow box because it's sucking in air? For my tank, I just have a ball valve for the drain that I've fine tuned so that the drain volume closely matches the return pump volume. So the water line in the overflow box is 2-6 inches below the lip which helps cut down on trickle noise, and it doesn't suck air because the drain is completely submerged. There's an emergency drain standpipe in case the main drain becomes blocked - plus my return pump is in its own chamber in the sump, so if the display tank gets too full there simply isn't enough water to flow into the return chamber, and the pump runs dry (not exactly a desirable state either, but at least the tank won't flood).
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May 2, 2012 21:20
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I just glued all of my healthy coral frags into their permanent homes in my rockwork. I'm going to take some pictures today so that I can track their growth. Looking forward to seeing before and after pics! 
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May 3, 2012 21:56
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Melchior posted:I use BRS 2 part + mag, and regular instant ocean salt (not reef crystals, though I may switch to it at some point despite hearing bad stories about salt changes).
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May 28, 2012 21:56
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nwin posted:This sucks.
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Jun 22, 2012 00:17
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Alright I can't take it any more. My protein skimmer is too drat loud. I need to either replace it or figure out how to cut the noise. The two biggest sounds are the air intake tube and the rattle of the pump against the bottom of the sump. I'll try cleaning the tube, and I'll attach some suction cups to keep the skimmer firmly secured to the glass, but I'm doubtful it will help much. This thing is LOUD. Does anyone have recommendations for skimmers that are a good balance between price, performance, and noise? Emphasis on the noise, though. Preferably under $200. My tank is 75 gallons and is pretty lightly stocked with fish, just 7 small guys, a growing collection of SPS and soft corals, and future plans for a maxima clam.
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Jul 25, 2012 08:29
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Internet Explorer posted:Good luck. As far as I can tell that poo poo is like Herpes. If you have it, you have it. Just a matter of managing it.
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Aug 2, 2012 04:52
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:44 |
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arioch posted:Peppermints worked in my big tank, but were worthless in my 20gal, I ended up nearly carpet bombing the 20gal with concentrated kalk paste.
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Aug 2, 2012 12:52
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