Cincyreefer513
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- Feb 10, 2020
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Below is a long account about jumping into a reef tank. It's rather humorous looking back. I have waited 26 years after getting my first aquarium to finally get a salt tank. 17 years of freshwater helped, but I learned more in the first 48 hours of salt than I did over several years in fresh. For those of you who want a lengthy read, strap in...
About 2 years ago I was on the hunt to start my first reef tank, a 75 gallon. Slowly, but surely equipment was being acquired, but there seemed to always be several other items I'd need so it was taking forever. Then, 2020 happened. My whole project got put on hold. Nothing was moving forward and stuff was just taking up room and collecting dust. Fast forward to 2021 and we were looking to move so I sold the 75 tank and stand. I kept the rest just in case. The move didn't happen and honestly I was pretty happy with all of my freshwater fish, well, that is until the first week of January 2022. I had just spent $100 on 3 dream freshwater fish. My wife was with me and as we were looking at the saltwater stuff she told me we should just get a salt tank. I said nope. We're still trying to move and I'm not setting this up just to move it later this year. She said why not a small one? I said I'd rather wait. Well, the thought sort of stuck with me and I took a peek on FB marketplace. Within a couple days I found a 32 Biocube, full setup with livestock for $300. I thought this is it! Sadly m wife hated the dimensions so I watched as it sold shortly after. No biggie. I'm not really buying anything. I'm just looking or something. I sorta accidently messaged a guy about a 32.5 Flex with pretty much everything. It was only a year old and included the following:
Tank
Stand
Return pump
(2) Hydor wavemakers
Marineland heater
UV sterilizer
2 different protein skimmers(Fluval and Coralife)
Inkbird temp controller with fan
His asking was a bit higher than I wanted to pay so he said make an offer. I figured it was easier to give more of a lowball offer, him say no, and I wouldn't have to worry about it because after all, I'm just looking, not buying. That is until he accepted $280 for everything. Shoot, I guess I'm buying this thing. Alright so I'll buy it, set it up and take my time. Or so I thought. I arrive and he shows me the tank that he had just broken down a few hours before. It also included full established media, about 12-15lbs of live rock, sand and 3 corals. Alright then, I guess I'm about to learn really quickly because I don't want this stuff to die. I did my research awhile back, but haven't read much in probably 1.5 years and had forgotten things.
So there are a couple gallons of water to keep the sand wet and the media is sitting in it. The rocks were mostly out of the water. After I leave his house, I stop at a fish store to get some premade saltwater. Thankfully I brought a 5 gallon bucket, but didn't have lid so I only dared putting 3 gallons in. I figured I would set the tank up and pour the water in to keep things wet. This was Thursday night. I would be unable to fill the tank completely until Friday night. So I have 5-6 gallons of water in the tank. No light, no flow, no heat. House is about 72 degrees. The corals looked terrible. I didn't know at the time what they were(now I know they are a toadstool mushroom, paly, and likely a hairy mushroom).
Friday I had to work late. I got off, picked up some 5 gallon jugs and headed to the LFS to get 25 gallons of RODI water, a box of Fritz RPM salt, new sand, a screen top kit, calibration fluid, and some other supplies just before they closed. I didn't get started with the tank until about 9:30pm and worked on it until 4am. Lots of cleaning, changing out the sand, my wife did the rockwork with dryrock we already had and the liverock, as well as setting up everything minus the light. The worst part was mixing saltwater. I bought a used BRS refractometer 2 years back. The readings were incredibly difficult to dial in. I had calibrated the refractometer beforehand and filled the tank with water I thought was 35ppt salinity. Little did I know the refractometer was bad... I went to bed and woke up to a clean tank with temp at 79 degrees and really bad looking corals. I checked the salinity and it's reading like 45ppt. Holy smokes! How did that happen? I had some extra water already made up so I did about a 3 gallon water change. Check again. Now it says 20ppt. Something ain't right here. I literally went from calibration fluid to saltwater back and forth about 5 times each. I got it to where I thought it should be 35ppt...
Great, now let's get them some light. I have 2 Ocean Revive T247 lights from the 75 pile. The tank did not come with a lid so using one of these is perfect. I couldn't mount it yet so I set it on top of the tank for 3 hours. In that time, the temp shot up to 87 degrees! This saltwater stuff sucks lol There is no way these corals will survive all of this abuse. I turn the heater and light off and turn the fans on. Temps cooled and I broke out a brand new heater since the old one potentially didn't shut off. Either that or the light is really that hot. It took about 90 minutes to cool down to 80. I left for the LFS to have them check my salinity and refractometer. I also bought more water. Test came back with salinity at 1.021 and they said the refractometer was shot. If you so much as twist, bump etc it would change the reading. This definitely explained a lot and so a new one was purchased. I slowly raised the salinity back up to where it should be. I also bought shelving brackets and mounted the light off the wall. It sits 12 inches off the water. Finally, everything was stable! Salinity at 1.026 or 35ppt and temp at 78.2-78.7. That was one wild ride and really tested me those first couple days. The following day while looking around at another LFS the guy recommended some snails and hermit crabs to test the water and help with cleanup so I added 2 hermits, 2 nassarius snails, and 2 margarita snails. They did/are still doing great. I tested everyday for a week. Everything was really solid and I didn't have any ammonia or nitrite spikes so I guess there really wasn't any die off and the established media I was given was still good. Nitrates were around 5ppm.
The transformation of the below coral is pretty incredible.
About 2 years ago I was on the hunt to start my first reef tank, a 75 gallon. Slowly, but surely equipment was being acquired, but there seemed to always be several other items I'd need so it was taking forever. Then, 2020 happened. My whole project got put on hold. Nothing was moving forward and stuff was just taking up room and collecting dust. Fast forward to 2021 and we were looking to move so I sold the 75 tank and stand. I kept the rest just in case. The move didn't happen and honestly I was pretty happy with all of my freshwater fish, well, that is until the first week of January 2022. I had just spent $100 on 3 dream freshwater fish. My wife was with me and as we were looking at the saltwater stuff she told me we should just get a salt tank. I said nope. We're still trying to move and I'm not setting this up just to move it later this year. She said why not a small one? I said I'd rather wait. Well, the thought sort of stuck with me and I took a peek on FB marketplace. Within a couple days I found a 32 Biocube, full setup with livestock for $300. I thought this is it! Sadly m wife hated the dimensions so I watched as it sold shortly after. No biggie. I'm not really buying anything. I'm just looking or something. I sorta accidently messaged a guy about a 32.5 Flex with pretty much everything. It was only a year old and included the following:
Tank
Stand
Return pump
(2) Hydor wavemakers
Marineland heater
UV sterilizer
2 different protein skimmers(Fluval and Coralife)
Inkbird temp controller with fan
His asking was a bit higher than I wanted to pay so he said make an offer. I figured it was easier to give more of a lowball offer, him say no, and I wouldn't have to worry about it because after all, I'm just looking, not buying. That is until he accepted $280 for everything. Shoot, I guess I'm buying this thing. Alright so I'll buy it, set it up and take my time. Or so I thought. I arrive and he shows me the tank that he had just broken down a few hours before. It also included full established media, about 12-15lbs of live rock, sand and 3 corals. Alright then, I guess I'm about to learn really quickly because I don't want this stuff to die. I did my research awhile back, but haven't read much in probably 1.5 years and had forgotten things.
So there are a couple gallons of water to keep the sand wet and the media is sitting in it. The rocks were mostly out of the water. After I leave his house, I stop at a fish store to get some premade saltwater. Thankfully I brought a 5 gallon bucket, but didn't have lid so I only dared putting 3 gallons in. I figured I would set the tank up and pour the water in to keep things wet. This was Thursday night. I would be unable to fill the tank completely until Friday night. So I have 5-6 gallons of water in the tank. No light, no flow, no heat. House is about 72 degrees. The corals looked terrible. I didn't know at the time what they were(now I know they are a toadstool mushroom, paly, and likely a hairy mushroom).
Friday I had to work late. I got off, picked up some 5 gallon jugs and headed to the LFS to get 25 gallons of RODI water, a box of Fritz RPM salt, new sand, a screen top kit, calibration fluid, and some other supplies just before they closed. I didn't get started with the tank until about 9:30pm and worked on it until 4am. Lots of cleaning, changing out the sand, my wife did the rockwork with dryrock we already had and the liverock, as well as setting up everything minus the light. The worst part was mixing saltwater. I bought a used BRS refractometer 2 years back. The readings were incredibly difficult to dial in. I had calibrated the refractometer beforehand and filled the tank with water I thought was 35ppt salinity. Little did I know the refractometer was bad... I went to bed and woke up to a clean tank with temp at 79 degrees and really bad looking corals. I checked the salinity and it's reading like 45ppt. Holy smokes! How did that happen? I had some extra water already made up so I did about a 3 gallon water change. Check again. Now it says 20ppt. Something ain't right here. I literally went from calibration fluid to saltwater back and forth about 5 times each. I got it to where I thought it should be 35ppt...
Great, now let's get them some light. I have 2 Ocean Revive T247 lights from the 75 pile. The tank did not come with a lid so using one of these is perfect. I couldn't mount it yet so I set it on top of the tank for 3 hours. In that time, the temp shot up to 87 degrees! This saltwater stuff sucks lol There is no way these corals will survive all of this abuse. I turn the heater and light off and turn the fans on. Temps cooled and I broke out a brand new heater since the old one potentially didn't shut off. Either that or the light is really that hot. It took about 90 minutes to cool down to 80. I left for the LFS to have them check my salinity and refractometer. I also bought more water. Test came back with salinity at 1.021 and they said the refractometer was shot. If you so much as twist, bump etc it would change the reading. This definitely explained a lot and so a new one was purchased. I slowly raised the salinity back up to where it should be. I also bought shelving brackets and mounted the light off the wall. It sits 12 inches off the water. Finally, everything was stable! Salinity at 1.026 or 35ppt and temp at 78.2-78.7. That was one wild ride and really tested me those first couple days. The following day while looking around at another LFS the guy recommended some snails and hermit crabs to test the water and help with cleanup so I added 2 hermits, 2 nassarius snails, and 2 margarita snails. They did/are still doing great. I tested everyday for a week. Everything was really solid and I didn't have any ammonia or nitrite spikes so I guess there really wasn't any die off and the established media I was given was still good. Nitrates were around 5ppm.
The transformation of the below coral is pretty incredible.
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