uh oh what did i get myself into lol

thattimeofyear4 · Jul 27, 2014

Well first of all let me start out with saying thanks in advance to any comments, thoughts, answers and also suggestions are strongly advised.
So I decided to start a reef tank on July 14 of this year and after finally getting some time to do a little research I realize the buddy I had advising me is well just wrong.

I was advised that it would be fine to use my tap water being as I have a whole house water softener as long as I added some water conditioner too it
I ended up using a brand called ULTIMATE "my research says my "friend" was wrong.

He also said it would be fine if I just put the sand in the tank along with the water and some type of circulation that too would be fine so that's what I did. The sand is ultra fine and its the brand that pet smart has also I used their brand of salt as well.

after 1 day the tank began to clear up and 4 days later it was more clear. On the 19th I added 20 lbs of live rock and about 40 lbs of base rock that I got from a salt water store and the next day the water was noticeably clearer
also I got a really good deal on some lights im not sure on the wattage but the smaller ones are blue and the larger are mh the guy at the store led me to believe that whatever I would want to grow these lights would do the trick.
also on the 19th I added the Tom rapids pro series rp3 wet/dry filter.

thattimeofyear4 · Jul 27, 2014

well its been about 13 days since I started and at about day 10 I noticed some brown looking algae and well today I decided to start a thread.

water temp is 78
ph is 8.2
nitrate reads less than 5.0 ppm im not sure exactly but test read in between that and 0 closer to the 0
salinity 1.024
calcium in between 480-500 ppm
kh is 179-196 ppm
phosphate .25 ppm
chlorine 0
total alkalinity 210 ppm
nitrite between 0 and 0.5
kh 190

I only had the api master reef test kit along with a pool test kit also with the strips so gonna get the api salt water test kit as well soon I can
so I guess any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated and again thanks in advance

thattimeofyear4 · Jul 27, 2014

also I was wondering about placement of water movers the actual name escapes me for some reason but heres the way I have them setup
also the a/c unit Is no longer there

thattimeofyear4 · Jul 27, 2014

Oh yeah before I forget
a friend gave me 2 peppermint shrimp an emerald crab and about 5 blue leg crab along with 5 snails that he had in his tank and wanted to get rid of
also there was some sort of damsel and a clown fish. these have all been in the tank for about a week almost and are doing fine

well except for the snails only one is alive now. i noticed the shrimp appearing to be eating the dead snails. also the shrimp have molted once and im not sure but a couple days ago the crab looked to be having babies
it was spitting out something from its bottom that appeared to be eggs and also appeared to be swimming around

but im almost positive the damsel ate them :-(

as I watched it eating what was swimming around I tried to keep it away but didn't work to good.

fishroomlady · Jul 27, 2014

tank looks good and it sounds like you have a nice beginning - I might suggest that you may make a couple of "stacking" of rocks, maybe in two different islands. I think girls notice things like that first. what do you have in the wet/dry filter? the sand bed looks pretty deep, are you going for that method of filtration? not too late to start using RO/DI water. I'm not familiar with 'ultimate'. MH lights do pretty much growth anything but they do get hot, you'll need to keep that in mind in terms of temperature control. Also, do you know how old the bulbs are? You want to make sure you have a nice "reef" spectrum to reduce potentials for algae growth.

Hmmm.....just a few random thoughts lol HTH welcome to this very addicting hobby

thattimeofyear4 · Jul 28, 2014

Well hello fish room lady

Thanks for your input

In the wet/dry filter there's
A tray flowing water over a carbon cloth pillow lol (user guide term)
Under bio balls and then sintered glass bio-cylinders
As far as sand bed I put in
120 lbs of ultra fine (125 gal tank)
No planned type of filtration with sand it's just what I had and was aiming for a 2 inch level of it

I'm definitely working on a ro/di along with my wish list of other things
But life and a kid that plays basketball at a high level ( recently got scholarship offers to Nebraska and Georgia amongst others with 2 more yrs of highschool left) well travel isn't that cheap lol.
As far as temp control the heater I had didn't work and we'll I keep the lights right on top of the tank and it's been in between a high of 80 and low of 76 lately been having lights on about 6-8 hrs a day
Not sure on how old bulbs are but will be replacing atleast mh ones on 8-1
Thank you very much for responding
Hopefully my answers will give you the ability to provide me with more knowledge

I do have protein skimmer questions as well
And also about moving rock around as I add more
But I think they can wait lol
Ty again

jason g · Jul 28, 2014

Looking good. I myself used MH lights and men do they grow coral quick. The downside as shroom lady pointed out is they will fluctuate your temp in water and hog up the electronic bill. Lol just warning you now. Nice setup though. I can't wait to see your tank progress.

Zero Nitrates · Jul 28, 2014

Looking good. Can't wait to see more pics.
A RODI unit is one of the best pieces of equipment I have got for our tank.

pickupman66 · Jul 28, 2014

All in all, a good start. you will get so many opinions here about your tank it will make your head swim. dont get lost in the fuzz.. this forum will help you beter than any store around.

my thoughts on it.

1. I dont like the trickel filter. they can become detritus traps and lead to increased phoshpates and nitrates. be sure to keep it cleaned. especialy the bioballs. The beauty of creating a reef tank with a good amount of rock is that it becomes live. you will have more backeria here than the bioballs. FWIW, most of us have moved away from bioballs.
2. your lights will indeed grow anything and everything you want. metal halide is a very proven technology around here. I used them. that said, they do generate heat so keep that in mind. the only Negative I see on you lights is the power compact bulbs. while they will provide you with a good actinic supplementation, they really arent powerful enough to do much else. you would be better off adding in a retrofit down the road or not even running them. you need to know the wattage of those halides. Ill bet they are 250 watts each. it should say on the bulb. Look to replace those with something in the 18k - 20k range if you want a nice blue hue and dont run the other two bulbs.

3. tank cycle. I do hope you put something in there to feed the bacteria. a raw shrimp? if so, then your cycle is almost done. Check ammonia and nitrates.
4. your Phosphate is what many consider elevated. it can be brought down with GFO. read up on that. Get the ATO as a PRIORITY. your tap water is not good enough to be successful. if not, you will be plagued with algae isues.

lastly... READ.

J Rog · Jul 28, 2014

You also might want to get another power head so you have one on each side and you can keep the 3rd one on the back wall. Flow is very important

thattimeofyear4 · Jul 28, 2014

Wow I really wasn't expecting this many responses lol thank you all very much
I did have what looked like an oily film on the top of the water so I moved my power heads around a little bit and the oily film is gone now
I didn't put anything dead like a piece of shrimp tho
I was under the impression that the couple of fish I had and other things would take care of that
I guess that kinda leads to my protein skimmer questions tho lol
Its bubbling and everything but it's basically clear in the cup and in the waste bottle as well
Is it because there's hardly anything in the tank?

Mmsetta · Jul 28, 2014

Make blowing off you rocks with either a turkey baster or (better) a power head an essential part of your water change routine. You will avoid major algae outbreaks on your rocks by doing this.

thattimeofyear4 · Aug 2, 2014

wow how time flies lol
so a little update im thinking last I wrote that I had been in what appeared to be a diatom bloom
It seems to have stopped and appears to be clearing up except for some clumps of it around the tank and on the sand

I ended up getting the api saltwater test to go along with their reef test kit so the new water tests go like

water temp: I've been keeping at 78-80 which is up two degrees since last tests on the 25th of July and all tests im doing are measured against those dates.

salinity: 1.024 low and 1.025 high about the same

PH: 8.2 stayed the same

ammonia: never tested this before but for now its a little high between 0 and .25 little hard to determine that color (for me anyways)

nitrite: .25 first time testing this

nitrate: between 5-10 ppm last test was less than 5

calcium: 400 ppm almost down 100

KH: 143.2 down about and around 50

phosphate: .25 and that stayed the same

now I know some of these levels are high lol but I do have a damsel, clownfish and emerald crab

I had some blue leg crabs they appear to be dying though, and 2 peppermint shrimp idk which one molted but i have cleaned out 2 shells so far

added another about 10# piece of live rock

and well just waiting it out
I was wondering what these things growing out of my live rock are though if any one can tell from the pics kind of looks like WACKY SWAYING ARM GUY except with more arms lol

im not sure what's going on with them as far as health though, they seem to be shrinking and they seem to get bigger and then shrink down or even disappear and kinda light or dark brownish clear colored ( if that's a color) lol

well that's all I can think of at the moment and as always thanks in advance for any replies, comments and advice its greatly wanted and even more so appreciated

thattimeofyear4 · Aug 2, 2014

oh yea also noticed there was a starfish crawling around no idea what kind it is though or where it even came from for that matter lol

FL_Reefer · Aug 2, 2014

That's a pest nem and if you can get it out, do so. Hopefully the peppermint shrimp you have will take care of it. With your test showing ammonia and nitrite the tank is still cycling, and will continue to do so till you show no ammonia and nitrite. Do your self a favor and get rid of that damsel, there the devil! Lol. Other than that your off to a great start. After the cycle is complete get yourself some more snails and hermits for your clean up crew.

FL_Reefer · Aug 2, 2014

O and pull out the little starfish (asterina), could be a bad one, you dont really know now cause there's no coral in now

Scribe · Aug 5, 2014

Damsels could be the next craze in damselnato....they can be very mean. I had a 3 stripe for 14 years....killed anything that came into the tank fish wise. Might want to get rid of that. Also might want to consider better test kits as. you progress. I've heard API isn't to accurate. Don't know if you need to worry about Red Sea or salifret kits though until you get that bad boy loaded with corals. Good start though. Enjoy it, that the important thing.