54 Corner budget build

[Indytraveler83]

Hey all!

A few of you have seen me posting in the newbie sections, but now that I’m building the tank, it’s time to continue things here

This is my first salt tank, but I’ve had freshwater for years. I’m looking to build a tank with lots of live rock, some of the easier corals, and as much diversity as I can get. I’m especially interested in some of the invert diversity, which is highly lacking in freshwater.

The biggest restraints on my build are this:
1) Money: I’m not putting it together from scrap, but I certainly can’t afford the high end equipment.
2) No major leaks: The better half is a clean freak. 20 or 30 gallons of water on the floor from cracked glass or a filter blowing an intake line would result in all my aquariums on the curb. :-<

As far as equipment, I’ve got a few pieces of used mixing in with the new.

The tank is an aqueon 54 corner with wood stand and glass lid. I’m running a T5 light on it, that hopefully will do the jobfor some of the easier softies.

I’ve got an oversized protein skimmer on the back, and a pair of powerheads rated at around 500/gph in the tank (not sure how much I believe that...).

I saw wildly different estimates for sand in this tank, so I purchased 80 lbs of live sand, and threw in another 10 lbs of dry sand, hoping to get to 3 inches. Well... I never opened the last 40 lb bag of live sand, as the 50 lbs got me to the depth I wanted.

I’ve got 40 lbs of dry rock in the tank, which I will supplement with true live rock once I know my water parameters are good and the tank has heated up.

Last night I got the rock placed and the tank filled. The water was cloud as expected, so I temporarily added a mechanical filter with a thick sponge filter to help clear things up. By morning this morning, the water was pretty clear, and the tank was nearing its temperature goal. A few thoughts moving forward:

1) Where do you guys typically add live rock to dry? On top? Next to? Does it matter?

2) I’ve seen a lot of competing thoughts on filtration, from almost nothing to science lab sumps. A sump may be an option down the line, but isn’t right this moment. However I’ve also seen a lot of people run tanks with just the skimmer and powerheads, with no mechanical filter at all, saying the live rock and CuC need what the filters remove.

Any thoughts on which way to go here?

 

[Mjrenz]

I have some suggestions for you;

I would recommend getting rid of the glass lid, a net top or even egg crate will be better. The glass will get dirty and block light for the corals and it may cause overheating issues as well as prevent proper gas exchange.

Did you put the rock in before you added sand? The sand can blow around and be moved around by certain critters, if it's not sitting firmly on the bottom it can end up collapsing when the sand moves.

I doesn't really matter where you add in the live rock, all of the rock will be live soon enough.

For a filter you could use something like an aqua clear HOB, it gives you a lot of options for customizing your media

Hope this helps!

 

[Indytraveler83]

I did make sure to get the rock in before the sand. I also got the rock secured together so that I don’t have pieces falling later down the line.

Filtration/skimming is becoming an issue. The powerhead onthe skimmer is so loud and shakes so bad it causes vibration all the way into the stand. The usual tricks to quiet down a loud impeller make minimal difference. It’s almost like the impeller and magnet are too small and bounce around the housing. There’s even a gouge forming in the magnet from all the bouncing.

I knew I was gambling trying the Seaclone 100, but all the negative reviews mentioned long break in periods and it being finicky to dial in. No one mentioned it sounded like a jackhammer had been inserted into the aquarium.

Going to have to go back to the drawing board on that one, and box the skimmer back up to be returned before I smash it out of anger...

 

[Indytraveler83]

***Deep breath***

Beginners hurdles aren’t fun. I packaged up my earthquake machine/skimmer for a return and I’m going to have o re open my options, even looking at sumps and similar systems.

In the meantime I’ve got a spare HoB filter on the tank now. Going to head out tonight in search of live rock to get this cycle really started. I figure I can run backup filtration on the system for now while I plan things out. The important part is getting this cycle underway!

 

[Indytraveler83]

Ok guys. A few developments so far:

I decided to head out and get some live rock today, while still unsettled regarding my filter situation.

The only nearby store that carries saltwater is PetCo. I headed in to look at live rock, but wasn’t at all happy by what I saw. Most of it is “premium” rock, which is fake stuff that’s been painted purple. Thus, it’s nearly impossible to see if coralline algae has formed or not. What was worse, is it was mostly covered in various types of slime/hair algae.

With no intention of introducing that into my tank, I bit the bullet and drove 40 min to a family owned shop I’ve never visited before.

This place isn’t the best looking from the outside, but once inside their reef section looks legit. I quickly identified about 5 lbs worth of live rock with coralline algae blooms to add to my tank. (While placing it, either a bristleworm or scaleworm pokes its head out near my finger and scared the crap out of me!) While there, I spoke with the owner about my filter concerns.

We came up with this:

Option 1) Reef octopus skimmer combined with some sort of high volume mechanical filter.

Option 2) sump style Refugium. I gave the owner my information, as he deals in used equipment and is going quote me a price for a full Refugium with skimmer.

I’m pretty excited about option 2, as he seems experienced and will build a full system rather than me trying to piece together parts on my own.

Until then, here’s a picture of my tank as it is:

***Yes, my rock is secured together and can’t shift!***

 

[Retro Reefer]

Looks like your off to a good start! I like your aquascaping

 

[Indytraveler83]

Looks like your off to a good start! I like your aquascaping

Thank you! I got some truly great pieces, and spent far more time than is sensible figuring out how to make it work!

 

[Indytraveler83]

Well just a small update:

Running lights about 12 hrs a day, and ghost feeding to help get this cycle going.

Salinity is at 1.024, ph at 8.1, temp at 79 right now.

Only other test I’m really running atm is ammonia, which is just barely starting to register on the api kit.

I’m seeing all kinds of signs of life on the live rock I bought, small creatures running about that are just barely big enough to see. (assume they are copepods) also seeing some sort of tiny tentacles or shoots showing, so I don’t know if it’s algae, coral or invert yet.

Heading out of town for the weekend, and I think I may try to buy a little more seed live rock to get even more variance to what’s in there.

Working on a plan for a custom 10 gallon sump/refugium build like I’ve seen many of you do, but may change my mind again (and again and again) before this is all over.

That’s all for now!

 

[Indytraveler83]

So I’m out of town and found a really nice place that has a monster reef section. I was looking to buy live rock to diversify what I’m seeding my tank with...

I get really excited when I’m told they just opened up some space in their display tank and have several pounds of live rock that just came from it. I buy it, get it ready for transport and come back to the in-laws house excited and telling them how excited I am about the cool stuff growing on these rocks.

“You paid $40 for dirty rocks?”

You might have a problem when...

 

[Indytraveler83]

Alright, we’ve got life in the tank!

In addition to some coral that is apparently trying to re-animate from my live rock, the clean up crew arrived this evening!

The hermit crabs showed up starving, which works out well because I’m in the middle of a full algae bloom. They got to work immediately.

I also got a few macro algae’s for the tank, and I’ll see how they do before I try for more. My stocking list for fish is semi-settled, but I will probably wait at least a few more weeks to be sure everything is stable before I add anything except inverts.

 

[Indytraveler83]

I haven’t been updating this thread enough:

Since the last post, I accidentally flooded the room by trying to use carbon pads I. The return of the used Bak Pak I got from my lfs. On the positive side, I was buying about $200 worth of things that day, and when I asked him how much I owed him for the Bak Pak, he said to just have it!

The flood ruined the electric ballast on my t5 lightbar, and I decided to invest in the Vipar 165 black box, since coral is on my radar.

As far as livestock, I first ordered a CuC online, but they all arrived very small, and GHA was over running the tank, while diatoms were covering the sand bed.

At the lfs, I bought a few emerald crabs, some very large snails and one monster hermit crab I named “Bowser” since he destroys everything in his path. Within a few days the diatoms and GHA was gone, and I started to see coraline algae blooming.

As far as other livestock, my eyes got big and I bought a maxi-mini anemone. He’s got great color, and seems to be settling into a partially shaded rock overhang (for now).

Fish wise- the first thing I put in the tank were some black mollies that were getting bullied in my freshwater tank. These guys still are in the tank, but despise the flow. They will likely find a new home soon, since they won’t survive the bullying if they return to the freshwater tank.

I also picked up two blue-green chromis from the lfs last night (it looks like I’ve added everything all at once but this is a long progression, I swear). I kept trying to talk myself out of ten, but they are thriving in the heavy current I’ve got going and I was trying to find some blue colored livestock for this tank that wasn’t an aggressive damsel. Maybe I’ll do a school of these guys!

That’s about it so far, lemme know what you guys think if you want!