New build, need advice

mk7169 · Mar 3, 2017

Greetings,

My name is Mike. I am new to the saltwater community, although I have had various aquariums throughout my life, mostly African Cichlids. My 9yr old son (Ethan) has taken an interest, so we decided to look for a tank and found a good deal. We just bought a pre-owned 125 gallon saltwater tank setup from a local bowling alley for $400 :
metal stand
100 lbs of live rock and 3 fish (niger trigger, clown and butterfly)
a bunch of marine sand
2x Marineland led light strips
sump tank with sump pump
Octopus skimmer
2x rear-hanging Penguin bio-wheel filters
a bunch of cool looking fake coral
a bunch of Fluval brand carbon bags (70gal rated), and a mid size bag of bio-balls

He said the tank was running for over 5 years, but as you can see from the photo, it was poorly maintained. The good news is that (after a good cleaning) most of the stuff seems to be in decent condition. I decided to take a bunch of his saltwater and have it stored in 5gallon Lowes buckets with the lids closed. His live rock was not populated with any living coral, but seems OK. I have the live rock and 3 fish in a 30gal temporary tank with one of the Penguin hanging filters running just a Fluval activated carbon bag. Photo shown.

We are planning on doing a custom built-in style aquarium and have the prefect spot for it. One of the things I enjoyed most about keeping Cichlids was that I created an almost zero-maintenance system with a Fluval canister filter and under-gravel plates. I would like to keep this saltwater setup as low maintenance as possible.

I am thinking about using very little sand (if any), there's a video on youtube that uses no sand, and just a bunch of small asterina starfish. He also has it set to low-flow during the day which encourages polyps expansion and looks really cool. I'd like to keep the sump tank simple like his - sock, skimmer, heaters and pump. Not sure what all of his mounted controllers are for, but seems like two of them are for the wave makers, not sure what else. youtube.com/watch?v=pBXdjIBjXvg

I read the "redundancy" post on here and I think there's some good ideas which I want to incorporate into my setup.

I plan to sell the Penguin filters, led lights and fake coral on ebay and put that money towards:
API Saltwater Master Test Kit
good lights
a better quality sump pump?
a battery backup system for just the sump pump and maybe 1 wave maker
2x Jebao wave-makers w controllers (the low power ones)
2x heaters for the sump

What do you guys think? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

sbash · Mar 3, 2017

The fish are going to have a hard time swimming in that first tank!

Great score. I regularly check the used market for tanks, a great way to stock a tank. I like your methodology to keep it simple and get rid of the extra gear.

DC pumps are dramatically dropping in price, and for an under-tank sump, they will keep the noise down quite a bit. The battery backup is going to be tricky to size; pumps drain batteries quickly, heaters may too...

Lastly, do the research and get a good light (good, not necessarilly expensive). There are lots of options out there...

mk7169 · Mar 3, 2017

Thanks, and yes the fish aren't really swimming as much as just surviving. It would be nice if they make it to the big tank (we've got our fingers crossed). It's going to take me a few weeks to sort out the new tank since it's an in-wall build with no rear access, so I need to engineer the space properly first. I'll post some photos once things start progressing.

In the meantime, I will be doing more research and figuring out equipment. So far I am looking at the Apex monitoring system and Vortech MP10 wave maker. I plan to get an overflow box with continuous siphon feature. Also, the Sicce Silent sump pumps seem to be a good choice after watching a few youtube vids. The battery backup would connect to the Apex which will reduce power consumption to maximize survival in case of a power outage (at least I think that's how it works).

I plan to get decent LED lights after everything else is working.

sbash · Mar 3, 2017

mk7169 said:
Thanks, and yes the fish aren't really swimming as much as just surviving. It would be nice if they make it to the big tank (we've got our fingers crossed).

You could store 3/4 of that rock in a plastic bin to allow some room for your fish to swim and be a littler happier... A small heater and a power head is enough to keep the rock healthy...

KJAG · Mar 3, 2017

Sure hope you don't have any fish in that first tank photo. If so, Might I suggest donating them to your LFS.

mk7169 · Mar 3, 2017

There's 3 in there, they are doing OK so far with a powerhead moving water around a bit.

KJAG · Mar 3, 2017

Shameful.

sbash · Mar 3, 2017

Shores805 said:
Shameful.

It is freaking me out too...

@mk7169, what you have shown us here is like taking a dog to the park and leaving it in the crate... and then leaving it in the crate for several weeks... Sure it can eat and do, you know, biological things, but its quality of life will be so poor there is no way it can be comfortable. Fish, unlike dogs, are much more delicate to stressful situations. Based on your set up, you are looking at several weeks before you are set up and good to go. 24 hours sure, even 48 hours I could see being fine; but you have three fish, two of which require large tanks to live crammed into a rock filled (40 gallon?) tank waiting to be put in their new home which will take at least a week (realistically more) to come into fruition.

Now, I do not want to make you feel guilty, for all we know, this is your first rodeo. I have unfortunately ended many little lives due to my own ignorance. Please, on behalf of the others on here, make your fish comfortable.