First Marine Aquarium - getting levels right

Scottmac · Jun 10, 2020

Hello,

I have had tropical fresh water aquariums for decades, but decided to finally make the jump into marine.

My new tank is the Superfish Home 110 (26gal), and the LED lighting is great. The internal filter is fairly good, but I have added an additional large external filter Jebao 502 to keep the water crystal clear and healthy.

I have been running it for about 5 weeks now, 2 weeks with the addition of coralline live rock which has some GSP, mushrooms and two large feather worms as well as lots of those tiny ones that are multiplying in the sand, and last week I added some green/blue Duncans and a torch. All is growing fine except my Mushrooms and the Torch turned from purplish blue to brown (seem to be growing in size though).

All parameters check out except pH which is at 7.6. I have ordered the required tetra product to raise the pH to 8.3, but my worry is that this change will affect the corals and nematodes. Can anyone here please advise if I should do this gradually?

Also, with regard the browning coral, I've read the cause can be a number of things. Temp is set at 26, salinity is set at 1.026, nitrite and nitrate are almost zero, and I added coralline purple cx for trace minerals.

I want to get it perfect before adding fish and inverts. Any advice?

Thanks

Scott

nereefpat · Jun 10, 2020

Scottmac said:
My new tank is the Superfish Home 110 (26gal), and the LED lighting is great. The internal filter is fairly good, but I have added an additional large external filter Jebao 502 to keep the water crystal clear and healthy.

I have been running it for about 5 weeks now, 2 weeks with the addition of coralline live rock which has some GSP, mushrooms and two large feather worms as well as lots of those tiny ones that are multiplying in the sand, and last week I added some green/blue Duncans and a torch. All is growing fine except my Mushrooms and the Torch turned from purplish blue to brown (seem to be growing in size though).

All parameters check out except pH which is at 7.6. I have ordered the required tetra product to raise the pH to 8.3, but my worry is that this change will affect the corals and nematodes. Can anyone here please advise if I should do this gradually?

Also, with regard the browning coral, I've read the cause can be a number of things. Temp is set at 26, salinity is set at 1.026, nitrite and nitrate are almost zero, and I added coralline purple cx for trace minerals.

I want to get it perfect before adding fish and inverts. Any advice?

Thanks

Scott

Did you cycle the tank? If you added enough live rock, it might not going through a traditional cycle.

Usually, we don't use "filters" in saltwater tanks...just rocks, flow, and sometimes skimmers and/or fuges.

pH can't be effectively controlled easily, and most of us don't worry about it or even measure it. Adding products that 'raise' pH actually usually just raise alkalinity instead, which you don't want. You should test for Alk (dKH) instead. Keep it between 7-10, and keep it stable if you are keeping corals.

Coral browning can be from not enough light, although mushrooms don't need a lot of light. Could use tell us more about your LEDs, like the specific fixture, how many watts, dimensions of light and tank, etc?

Scottmac · Jun 10, 2020

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply. I cycled the tank for only a few weeks as my friend has a running marine aquarium who gave me some sand, rock and bacterial water from his filter as a quick booster.

I hadn't realised that marine aquariums don't usually use filters - is there a specific reason for this? When planning the tank I researched the filters from sites like this: https://smartaquariumguide.com/best-saltwater-aquarium-filter/

The filter specs say they are suitable for marine aquariums. I do intent to add a refugium eventually as from what I have read it would be a good source of live food and biological filtration, but as my tank does not have an overflow i'd need to purchase a hang on for the rear and some equipment to return the water, and i'm tight for cash at the moment due to the covid 19 over reaction madness!

Its interesting that you mentioned mushrooms don't need lots fo light as the tank my live rock with the mushrooms was from was positioned in a dark location, perhaps its too much light. Does the same apply to Torches?

The LED light specs for the Superfish Home 110 are 12V, 27W, 12964 lux, 990Kelvin.

Thanks

Scott

Big G · Jun 10, 2020

Welcome to R2R!

Silverfish · Jun 10, 2020

Welcome to R2R.

tmcd94 · Jun 10, 2020

I recently set up my first saltwater reef tank. I used a combination of live rock and cured rock. When cycling my tank I utilized Bio-Spira which was able to give me nitrate readings within a week. I also did water changes religiously to help establish a baseline.

I would recommend an automated top off (ATO) if you haven't installed one yet. This helped a ton with stabilizing the water level and other parameters.
Also installing a light that is able to be scheduled helps to ensure proper alkalinity rhythm if you have photosynthetic creatures.
My best purchases have been the ATO, Hanna Alk and Calcium checkers, a light able to be scheduled and recently a dosing pump since my corals have been consuming the carbonate faster than the calcium.

I think the key to reefing is consistency, testing, and informed decisions.

fishface NJ · Jun 10, 2020

Welcome to R2R! I had used a Fluval FX6 filter on my 90g. I couldn't drill it. Had the filter running for 4 years. I had no problems with Nitrate or phos. levels in the tank. I had two Mars LED lights, dosed by hand and did water top offs by hand also. The Mars lights supported SPS and LPS.

Scottmac · Jun 10, 2020

Hello,

Thanks all for the kind welcome. I haven't been on an internet forum since the old days of MSM, showing my age!

Do you think my light specs good enough for a reef tank or should I attach extra LED lighting? (I have spares from the tropical tanks thankfully.) There is a way to feed the built in light remote into a timer, I just need to figure it out, but when turned on it has a gradual dimmer simulating sunrise to avoid stressing out the life.

Thanks for the advice, I will look into what you have suggested regarding ATO as I have not read about that. I am very used to the ryhthm of doing regular weekly 10% water changes for my tropical freshwater tanks, so I will probably continue doing so with my marine tank unless there is a reason to do it less frequently.

Theres a quote I heard a long while ago, that a good aquarist is good at keeping water, everything else is icing on top which I think is a good way of looking at it. To be honest i'm more interested in the corals and inverts, the fish are mainly for my kids and to occupy otherwise empty water levels.

Thanks again for the welcome and advice, I know where to come for any more advice/info.

Thanks

Scott

tmcd94 · Jun 10, 2020

Scottmac said:
Hello,

Thanks all for the kind welcome. I haven't been on an internet forum since the old days of MSM, showing my age!

Do you think my light specs good enough for a reef tank or should I attach extra LED lighting? (I have spares from the tropical tanks thankfully.) There is a way to feed the built in light remote into a timer, I just need to figure it out, but when turned on it has a gradual dimmer simulating sunrise to avoid stressing out the life.

Thanks for the advice, I will look into what you have suggested regarding ATO as I have not read about that. I am very used to the ryhthm of doing regular weekly 10% water changes for my tropical freshwater tanks, so I will probably continue doing so with my marine tank unless there is a reason to do it less frequently.

Theres a quote I heard a long while ago, that a good aquarist is good at keeping water, everything else is icing on top which I think is a good way of looking at it. To be honest i'm more interested in the corals and inverts, the fish are mainly for my kids and to occupy otherwise empty water levels.

Thanks again for the welcome and advice, I know where to come for any more advice/info.

Thanks

Scott

I am not familiar with your led lighting. If you plan on sticking with soft corals, such as zoas, the light requirements are much less.
Another part I forgot to mention is the importance of RODI water. Removing as many impurities out of the water before mixing it will greatly help with your water parameters.

I like your quote on the importance of keeping water!

There is an enormous wealth of information on this site and it has helped greatly with my set up.

Big G · Jun 10, 2020

Yep. Water quality and stability comes first. The ATO helps tremendously: Tunze . . .

Scottmac · Jun 10, 2020

Big G said:
Yep. Water quality and stability comes first. The ATO helps tremendously: Tunze . . .

Hello,

I have been searching the web for ATOs, and, although not as expensive as Id feared, I can't find a decent explanation for their addition benefit if I am already used to doing weekly water changes/top offs. Can anyone fill me in please?

Cheers

Scott

Big G · Jun 10, 2020

Here's a pretty good video that may help: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/video/view/5-minute-saltwater-aquarium-guide-ep20-evaporation/

Bosreef · Jun 10, 2020

Scottmac said:
Hello,

I have been searching the web for ATOs, and, although not as expensive as Id feared, I can't find a decent explanation for their addition benefit if I am already used to doing weekly water changes/top offs. Can anyone fill me in please?

Cheers

Scott

Stability is the key to this game.
As your tank evaporates its losing fresh water (not salt water, good thing to know for survival) which means the salinity of the tank is gradually rising, bad thing you want to maintain consistent salinity in your tank at all times.

Now an a.t.o (automatic top off) Is not necessarily a necessity but boy does it make things a whole lot easier, and I can bet you 100 percent you will kick yourself for not buying one earlier.

nereefpat · Jun 10, 2020

Scottmac said:
Do you think my light specs good enough for a reef tank or should I attach extra LED lighting? (I have spares from the tropical tanks thankfully.) There is a way to feed the built in light remote into a timer, I just need to figure it out, but when turned on it has a gradual dimmer simulating sunrise to avoid stressing out the life.

27 watts of LED really isn't very much light for a 30" x 15" footprint. If you want corals, I would look into coral lighting. The cheapest LED option would be one of the "black box" type lights, like marsaqua or viparspectra.

Your inhabitants don't care about gradual dimming, so don't worry about that, unless you want it.