My first build... vertical!

[Captain Quint]

It already is a problem im trying to solve. Gravel vac will work, but only in about half of the substrate. Will a goby sift enough to stir the rest?

Welcome to R2R

A goby does best with a substrate between 0.5-1.7 mm grain size.

 

[Passedyouby]

Welcome to R2R

A goby does best with a substrate between 0.5-1.7 mm grain size.

That really is a critical factor? Im running a crushed coral substrate with a variety of size from .5 to 15mm

 

[DangerDave]

Great idea. I look forward to seeing how it develops for you. Have fun and good luck!!!

 

[Passedyouby]

Heres a video of the sandfall. YouTube lowered the quality it looks like

 

[Captain Quint]

That really is a critical factor? Im running a crushed coral substrate with a variety of size from .5 to 15mm

They require fairly small grain sand so they can sift it through their gills without damaging the membranes in their gills.

Unfortunately, with C.C. with its size and formation, it is difficult to even have most detrituavors because it can cut them.

You have built a unique cool tank.

 

[Passedyouby]

They require fairly small grain sand so they can sift it through their gills without damaging the membranes in their gills.

Unfortunately, with C.C. with its size and formation, it is difficult to even have most detrituavors because it can cut them.

You have built a unique cool tank.

I appreciate the support!
Hmm! Looks like hes out of the question... i guess i need to find some other sort of sifter that can withstand the more agressive fish that i enjoy

 

[norfolkgarden]

Your tank is extremely unusual and very cool. Looking forward to seeing it progress.


A couple thoughts, hoping I'm wrong.

Gas exchange happens at the surface.
You have the surface area of an average 20 gallon tank.

It was always my understanding that that should be one of the main criteria for your stocking levels. Hoping someone much more knowledgeable will chime in here.

You're sump will help that situation, but I don't know how much.

As several people have mentioned, I would stick to smaller brightly colored fish that will stand out in your tank.

5 azure damsels and a dottyback with a small cucumber in the substrate and a few snails.

I have this bizarre thought that it almost calls for t5 sidelighting, towards the back, on either side of the tank.
You would definitely want a dedicated flipper magnet on either side if you went that route.

Should be a very interesting build and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

The manmade rock work is pretty cool!

 

[NY_Caveman]

Love everything about this, especially that I am not the one maintaining it. Will be watching it though. Welcome to R2R!

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Hello everyone! Ive been creeping on the forum for a bit now and finally decided to reach out for advice and feedback on what to focus on next.

Ive spent the better part of 6 months building a really oddball tank. Ive needed something in my family room that adds height to the room, and decided "hey, i know nothing about fishtanks expect for a 5gal saltwater tank growing up, lets build something!"

Please excuse any beginner mistakes I've made... in fact the bad advice prob came from one of these forums!!!

Heres the setup:
Tank is 22L×11W×54H (55gal)
--1.25in overflow to a 3gallon "sump" purely for my heaters and for evaporation water.
--pipe pulls water from the "sump" (i really need a better name for that! Its def not a sump) and into a 5gallon bucket with lava rock at the bottom, .75in of filter floss above that, and 1.75in of sponge at the very top.
--water leaves bottom of the tank and flows to a check valve, followed by my return pump.
-- the return pump may be a mistake. I didnt realize yhere would be such a GPH loss from all that head pressure! Current pump provides 660gph and rated for 8.4ft head. Planning to pick up a bigger pump rated at 1098gph offering 13ft of head. Is this worthwhile?
--- leaving the pump i drop down to 3/4in pvc (worried about the new pumps flow) until i hit 3 ball valves. 1 valve flows up to the main talk as my return, one isnt being use yet but may lead to reactors etc down the road, and finally the last flows to my functioning sandfall (cheesy, i know, but i wanted to try).
What does everyone think about these pipe sizes? I understand technically they can handle the water flow, but am i drastically increasing head pressure? Or is the vertical tank my biggest factor here?

Lighting:
Just boring RGB led bulb connected via Zwave to my smarthome controls. Most of the day it runs at 6000k.
Once i hit the stage for coral i plan to pick up a kessil 360 and will most likely only put coral on the top two shelves. (unless there is a recommendation of something that penetrates deeper)

Whats in the tank:
Currently 2 very small damsels and a Moon Wrasse. This wasnt my preferred pick, but the local 4 stores withing a 1.5hr radius do not carry very many saltwater options


Here are my questions:
---For starters, what are the thoughts on my filtration for the time being? I have only had fish in the tank for 2.5 weeks and barely even have the slightest readings of Ammonia. cycling SUCKS!!!!!
Later i plan to add a skimmer and a reactor or two once needed.. but dont believe i am close to that yet?
--- plumbing, do i need to increase my pipe diameter for that new Jabeo 4000 pump?


Well thats the start to the zillion questions! Please dont hesitate to correct me, I'm new, but desperate to learn!

Andrew

Awsome, comrade

 

[Gobi-Wan]

Awesome build, love the upright display! Great job on the rockwork. Couple of thoughts popped up-
It's generally recommended to have 1-2 pounds of live rock per gallon of display to host enough bacteria for the nitrate cycle. Your man made rock wont help you much here, but your lava rock is what will serve that purpose. It probably has more surface area than most live rock so that will help you out. How much is in the bucket? I really dont have any conversion to go by as far as surface area between live rock and lava rock, but I'd say you want that 5gal bucket pretty full of lava rock to get lots of surface area for bacteria, which brings me to another thought. Most people wouldn't reccomend using fish to cycle a tank nowadays as even though hardy fish can usually take it, it's not ideal to make them live with ammonia in the water, even in very small measurable amounts. Since you already have fish I'd definitely second who ever suggested adding a culture of live bacteria. I'd dump it straight into the lava rock. One last thing- you mentioned check valves in your plumbing, and I've heard they dont do well with salt water. They will add a lot of resistance to your flow and also they tend to fail as salt deposits build up inside. With that all said it l looks like you've done a lot of research and put a lot of work into this build. Keep up the good work and welcome to the forum!

 

[Passedyouby]

Your tank is extremely unusual and very cool. Looking forward to seeing it progress.


A couple thoughts, hoping I'm wrong.

Gas exchange happens at the surface.
You have the surface area of an average 20 gallon tank.

It was always my understanding that that should be one of the main criteria for your stocking levels. Hoping someone much more knowledgeable will chime in here.

You're sump will help that situation, but I don't know how much.

As several people have mentioned, I would stick to smaller brightly colored fish that will stand out in your tank.

5 azure damsels and a dottyback with a small cucumber in the substrate and a few snails.

I have this bizarre thought that it almost calls for t5 sidelighting, towards the back, on either side of the tank.
You would definitely want a dedicated flipper magnet on either side if you went that route.

Should be a very interesting build and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

The manmade rock work is pretty cool!

Haha! Yes! The side lightinf did cross my mind! not sure how to keep it looking natural, and how it may confuse the fish though.

As for gas exchange. This is a big worry for me as well. Currently i believe the water falling 6 feet through my overfloe is allowing lots of time for the exchange, plus the "sump" has the same additional surface area as my tank. HOWEVER one of my next steps is to build a hood out of the same black material the base, and cap the overflow with a silencer. Im worried that the air inside the hood will get stale and reduce oxygen further.. may need to add a computer fan to the back of the hood to allow fresh air to enter.

Other the Fish coming to the surface, do you have other suggestions on how to monitor oxygen levels?

 

[Passedyouby]

Awesome build, love the upright display! Great job on the rockwork. Couple of thoughts popped up-
It's generally recommended to have 1-2 pounds of live rock per gallon of display to host enough bacteria for the nitrate cycle. Your man made rock wont help you much here, but your lava rock is what will serve that purpose. It probably has more surface area than most live rock so that will help you out. How much is in the bucket? I really dont have any conversion to go by as far as surface area between live rock and lava rock, but I'd say you want that 5gal bucket pretty full of lava rock to get lots of surface area for bacteria, which brings me to another thought. Most people wouldn't reccomend using fish to cycle a tank nowadays as even though hardy fish can usually take it, it's not ideal to make them live with ammonia in the water, even in very small measurable amounts. Since you already have fish I'd definitely second who ever suggested adding a culture of live bacteria. I'd dump it straight into the lava rock. One last thing- you mentioned check valves in your plumbing, and I've heard they dont do well with salt water. They will add a lot of resistance to your flow and also they tend to fail as salt deposits build up inside. With that all said it l looks like you've done a lot of research and put a lot of work into this build. Keep up the good work and welcome to the forum!

Thank you for the support and ideas!

Yes, i am past the point of no return on cycling without fish! But i will def try that method next time.

Lava rock-
I have that sucker 75% full of lava. Its extremely light and a lot of water can be added to the bucket, suggesting it is wildly porous so i believe its a good substitute for live rock.

Tank health-
I have been traveling for 5 days with the fish home alone. During this time i let my house fall to 50 degrees, and the tank dropped some, but never fell below 74. Worried about the fish canabalizing each other i may have minorly overfed with the auto feeder. Upon arriving home i had a massive outbreak of orange-ish brown algea :/ (brown Diatom?).

I scrubbed the surfaces to remove 80% of the pest, did a 10gal water change (most my RODI can process on the spot), and cleaned out the sponges/filter floss on my filtration. While doing so i realized there was a decent amount of excess food my auto feeder had sent into the overflow instead of feeder ring.

For the first time i had nitrites and nitrates in my tank. (Suggesting i am now cycled?) The alarming part is that while Ammonia was almost unregistered, and nitrates were barely there, my nitrite levels were pretty high!! Almost 20ppm!! I tested it twice to be sure. I assume the bacteria that converts nitrite to nitrate is still developing?



Thoughts from anyone on the oxygen, algea, nitrites, etc?

 

[Passedyouby]

Love everything about this, especially that I am not the one maintaining it. Will be watching it though. Welcome to R2R!

Haha! Yes!! That part sucks!!! See below with current problems, and let me know if you havesuggestions of how to keep the substrate clean! Gravel vac is goingto be next to impossible

 

[norfolkgarden]

Dissolved oxygen meter. $100ish

I was hoping the water fall down to the sump would help you considerably.[emoji846]

I think that will help even more than the surface area on top of the sump or the tank.

Reminds me of high O2 river tanks for fresh water sucker fish.

Hoping that will be the case.

 

[Gobi-Wan]

You are going to have outbreaks of algae and diatoms, etc. for quite a while. Diatoms are pretty much harmless and will go away on their own. Your tank is cycled when you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. Since you started without live rock that has an established bacteria population, you will have to go slow when adding fish. One at a time. I wouldn't add any more until its cycled but once you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite, each fish you add will require the bacteria population to catch up with your new bioload. Kind of a mini-cycle. As for the sand bed I would get some nassarius and conch snails. They should keep it clean and disturbed anough. I would resist the urge to get a sand sifting goby- with the small footprint your tank has I dont think it's enough sand to sustain one. It would be very hard to get food all the way down there as well if you did manage to find one that will eat frozen or pellets.

 

[Passedyouby]

You are going to have outbreaks of algae and diatoms, etc. for quite a while. Diatoms are pretty much harmless and will go away on their own. Your tank is cycled when you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. Since you started without live rock that has an established bacteria population, you will have to go slow when adding fish. One at a time. I wouldn't add any more until its cycled but once you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite, each fish you add will require the bacteria population to catch up with your new bioload. Kind of a mini-cycle. As for the sand bed I would get some nassarius and conch snails. They should keep it clean and disturbed anough. I would resist the urge to get a sand sifting goby- with the small footprint your tank has I dont think it's enough sand to sustain one. It would be very hard to get food all the way down there as well if you did manage to find one that will eat frozen or pellets.

Thanks for the assurance on the algae! I felt like a terrible fish owner at first!

 

[Passedyouby]

Wow! On paper this looked great, now that shes built im realizing exactly how much SPACE i need for proper filtration!! Im worried i made a big mistake my not running with a true sump design, and worried that i am going to make too many compromises on choosing skimmers etc with a small footprint purely due to space.

I live on the water so i have an extremely shallow crawlspace, but there is an unused closet in a guest room aprox 20ft away. Is it a smart idea to scrap the current filtration and put a sump in there? I could run the overflow through the floor and then a return line back. Would prob have to upgrade return pumps for the 3rd time this build. Smh

Is moving everything over worth it? Currently i have the 5gal of lava rock in the bucket, upgraded the overflow container to 3.5gal, and added a carbon reactor. Currently im trying to pick a protien skimmer which wil already put me past my allocated space... by a lot... how much more equipment are you guys gonna try and talk me into? Lol. Help me see into the future...

 

[count krunk]

I think that would be worthwhile to set you up for a display tank upgrade down the road.

 

[Passedyouby]

I think that would be worthwhile to set you up for a display tank upgrade down the road.

Sure. Whatcha mean by that? As in build a sump so that later i can replace the current display tank?

FYI i plan to move in a year and a half or so. At that time a ton of changes can take place

 

[McFly]

Careful using lava rock, there is a reason no one really uses the stuff. Once you move to live corals I would change it out for marine pure balls/blocks and run carbon heavy for a bit.