Hi Everyone! First post here so please be gentle with me! I have been reading everything I can find and researching out questions as they come to me... but seriously, I am a total newbie here and I am finding myself seriously stupid about this whole thing, at least at the moment.
To tell you just how dumb I still am, I bought a used tank and some used equipment from a local guy who has been in this for a long while, and whom I believe is a member on this forum somewhere... at least we discussed this place during our chat. Along with the tank he sold me a wave pump a heater and a light... and I was all set for my grand entry into this hobby.
So, I bought 3x 20# bags of living sand and dumped them into 25 gallons of my newly mixed reef water... with the wave pump in the tank and running. I heard the motor fail.... sort of a pop and a zap at the same time. Lesson learned. Sand and impellors do not mix well. One would have hoped that I had been smart enough to know better than to do this... so there you go... I am the quintessential dumb newbie at this moment in time, doing extremely dumb things.
Two more wave pumps arrived yesterday and I got them installed, along with a backup 300w heater and a good thermometer. The picture I am going to share later was from yesterday just after installing the new pumps, now moving a good circular flow around the tank. The cloudiness is still there while the sand continues settling to the bottom, and as of this morning, with the much better circulation, the water is beginning to clear very dramatically.
Along with the 60 pounds of living sand, I have 2 large living rocks and a few small ones that another friend sold me, totally dried out with all the microbes in hibernation, but I am confident after all my reading on this forum so far that after a couple of weeks the rocks will have living microbes on them again, especially with all the living sand now in the tank. I plan on being patient, cycling this new tank as long as it takes, but I don't expect it to take too awfully long because of the $100+ sand investment. I will do the test of adding in some ammonia to see if the microbes can deal with it, in a week or so, just to see where I am at. Other than salinity, I have done no other measurements or tests yet on my new water, which all came in via 1 gallon jugs of RO water from the grocery store and mixed with the reef salt in 5 gallon buckets. I did add the microbe packets that came with the sand, and I have added the appropriate cap full measurements of water conditioner.
I have also purchased a 10g long to use as a refugium and I have ordered a $50 kit to build in the partitions and sock holder, and am reviewing plans to make a DIY pvc tubing spillover and gravity return to the lower tank.
So far, it is my belief that things are going well. The tank is still sitting solidly on my new DIY 42" high table and refugium cabinet and the tank itself did not spring any leaks after its 25 mile move across town in the back of my pickup and filling it with 25g of water.
As of now, I have also formerly introduced myself to what seems to be the greatest forum on reefing that I have seen, and all seems right with the world... at least for now, before I have managed to kill any living things. It seems that here in the beginning, the trick is to throw enough money at the project to get things balanced, and then work slowly up to a point of adding life (more money), hoping to maintain the balance as we move forward. I am sure I will screw things up at some point, but hopefully with the help of the knowledge available at this special forum, my inexperience won't turn this project into a total disaster.
Later today I will post a couple of pictures, showing the sand clouded water from yesterday along with a picture this afternoon of a lot clearer water and with a happy new reef enthusiast behind the lens. Thank you everyone here for sharing all of your knowledge and experience. A special greeting also to my new friend in LSMO, who should recognize himself from my description above!
To tell you just how dumb I still am, I bought a used tank and some used equipment from a local guy who has been in this for a long while, and whom I believe is a member on this forum somewhere... at least we discussed this place during our chat. Along with the tank he sold me a wave pump a heater and a light... and I was all set for my grand entry into this hobby.
So, I bought 3x 20# bags of living sand and dumped them into 25 gallons of my newly mixed reef water... with the wave pump in the tank and running. I heard the motor fail.... sort of a pop and a zap at the same time. Lesson learned. Sand and impellors do not mix well. One would have hoped that I had been smart enough to know better than to do this... so there you go... I am the quintessential dumb newbie at this moment in time, doing extremely dumb things.
Two more wave pumps arrived yesterday and I got them installed, along with a backup 300w heater and a good thermometer. The picture I am going to share later was from yesterday just after installing the new pumps, now moving a good circular flow around the tank. The cloudiness is still there while the sand continues settling to the bottom, and as of this morning, with the much better circulation, the water is beginning to clear very dramatically.
Along with the 60 pounds of living sand, I have 2 large living rocks and a few small ones that another friend sold me, totally dried out with all the microbes in hibernation, but I am confident after all my reading on this forum so far that after a couple of weeks the rocks will have living microbes on them again, especially with all the living sand now in the tank. I plan on being patient, cycling this new tank as long as it takes, but I don't expect it to take too awfully long because of the $100+ sand investment. I will do the test of adding in some ammonia to see if the microbes can deal with it, in a week or so, just to see where I am at. Other than salinity, I have done no other measurements or tests yet on my new water, which all came in via 1 gallon jugs of RO water from the grocery store and mixed with the reef salt in 5 gallon buckets. I did add the microbe packets that came with the sand, and I have added the appropriate cap full measurements of water conditioner.
I have also purchased a 10g long to use as a refugium and I have ordered a $50 kit to build in the partitions and sock holder, and am reviewing plans to make a DIY pvc tubing spillover and gravity return to the lower tank.
So far, it is my belief that things are going well. The tank is still sitting solidly on my new DIY 42" high table and refugium cabinet and the tank itself did not spring any leaks after its 25 mile move across town in the back of my pickup and filling it with 25g of water.
As of now, I have also formerly introduced myself to what seems to be the greatest forum on reefing that I have seen, and all seems right with the world... at least for now, before I have managed to kill any living things. It seems that here in the beginning, the trick is to throw enough money at the project to get things balanced, and then work slowly up to a point of adding life (more money), hoping to maintain the balance as we move forward. I am sure I will screw things up at some point, but hopefully with the help of the knowledge available at this special forum, my inexperience won't turn this project into a total disaster.
Later today I will post a couple of pictures, showing the sand clouded water from yesterday along with a picture this afternoon of a lot clearer water and with a happy new reef enthusiast behind the lens. Thank you everyone here for sharing all of your knowledge and experience. A special greeting also to my new friend in LSMO, who should recognize himself from my description above!