Long time listener, first time caller here.
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with the water. I grew up fishing freshwater in South Florida, and as soon as I had first contact with saltwater, like most Florida natives, I was addicted. Fishing, free diving and being a beach bum is in my blood. We had a few freshwater tanks when I was a kid, and I remember always wanting a saltwater tank, because I was fascinated by the diversity on the reef.
Well, here we are, several decades later, and I've setup my first tank.
I was fortunate enough to find a forum member who was getting out of the hobby, and the deal was too good to pass up. All in, I picked up the following:
- IM Nuvo 75 EXT, manufactured late 2018.
- IM Aluminum factory stand,
- octo 130 skimmer,
- two gyre 330s and a wifi controller,
- refugium light with wifi controller,
- 4 head dosing pump,
- two 300 series silent return pumps,
- small powerhead
- two 200 watt externally controlled heaters,
- a small internally controlled heater
- a bunch of dosing chemicals, test kits, a refractomoter and filter socks,
- an 8 bulb ATI fixture (bulbs are old),
- an ATO controller and ATO tank,
- a few wirelessly controlled power strips, and manual power strips, and other miscellaneous things
Came with the folllowing livestock:
- a pair of mated designer clowns,
- a pink streaked wrasse,
- a cleaner shrimp,
- a yellow-tail damsel, plus a clean up crew (snails and hermits. probably 20-25 of them in all)
- about 80 lbs of live rock. (rock had a ton of algae on it, but that's fixable)
So, this thread will inventory my journey into the world of saltwater tanks. Please do drop comments, suggestions, pointers, or hate mail here.
The booty:
Shortly after unpacking this stuff from the truck, and scraping off the inside of the tank, I realized I had a ton of work on my hands. Here's the mountain of stuff that was staring back at me:
You get the idea...
The unpackening: new recycled tank edition:
First thing I did was go over everything and separate stuff out into its respective pile, and fill to tank with water to check for leaks. After scraping off all the growth on the tank, I plumbed it up, filled it with tap water, and let everything rip. To my pleasure, nothing leaked, and everything appeared functional.
Here's a picture of the triton sump that it came with, humming away:
I then setup the RODI system that came with the tank, and started making water, in preparation for moving the tank into the house:
My house water pressure is pretty low, and since I don't like waiting, I immediately ordered a booster pump. I strongly recommend one of these. It's well worth the 100 bucks. In fact, TDS out of the membrane went way down after I connected it, in addition to dramatically speeding up the watermaking process. I estimate that I'm able to produce 80-90 GPD with a 75 gallon membrane with this system now. It comes out of the box tuned to 90psi, so I turned it down to 80, and it did its job very nicely after that.
The fishening: RTIC cooler edition:
Did I mention live fish came with this setup? Here's a photo of them in their temporary 70 quart RTIC cooler home. I put in a small powerhead , a heater, and two pieces of the live rock that the tank came with. Thankfully, the rock was still full of good bacteria, and I didn't struggle with ammonia. I did 80-90% water changes each day while I was bringing the tank online to make sure that I didn't kill the critters. Here's a photo of the clowns in their doublewide:
The fishtank was coming from inside the house!
Being reasonably sure that I wasn't going to flood myself, I went ahead and conscripted a friend with a strong back to help me move things inside, and had the perfect spot for the new critters. Here's a photo of its temporary resting place:
Cloudy water runs deep:
My first mistake was not washing out the aragonite and live sand that I put into the tank. I ended up mixing about 40% sand and 60% aragonite by weight for the substrate. So far, I'm pleased with the final outcome. To get rid of the cloud, I turned the Gyre X330's that came with the tank so that they pointed down, set the phasers to kill, and let them rip for a day or so, stirring up the sand really well by hand every 2-3 hours. I ran the pump while doing this, and loaded up the sump with a filter sock and filter floss between each baffle, and cleaned them out 3-4 times per day. It made for some interesting craters:
Happy to report that the next morning, all was well with the cosmos. The agitation of the substrate seems to have gotten 99% of the silt out of the tank, and things were looking nice and clean. So, I went ahead and cleaned as much of the algae as I could from the liverock by scrubbing it with a hard brush in a bucket of saltwater, and dropped a few bits into the display, and piled as much as possible in the sump. Following this, I dumped in a bottle of Fritz Turbostart 900, and in went the inverts. I figured if I had to sacrifice anyone as tribute, it may as well be these guys. Happy to say that they survived, except for 1 or 2 snails that became hermit crab food, and it looks like I lost a small urchin as well. Poor little dudes.
I've since added more liverock to the sump and tank, and plan to move things back into the display tank once the algae dies off on the bits in the sump. Once that happens, I'll drop in a few marine pure bricks, and eventually, a "poor man's nitrogen reactor" to keep nitrates in check with minimal oversight.
In retrospect, I kept the live rock in buckets of saltwater during transport, and probably didn't need the turbostart, but what the heck. Can't hurt. Special thanks to @brandon429 and @Dr. Reef for their articles on quickstarting a tank. That helped me out a LOT and helped me to understand water chemistry and the modern way to cycle. You guys are legends.
The fishening:
After adding some rock and bac juice, in went the fish. Here's some glamor shots for your viewing pleasure:
And lo, the fishkeeper said let there be light, and there was, and the fishes saw that it was good, and there was much rejoicing:
Although the system came with an ATI T5 8 Bulb fixture, I decided to go with LED's instead. I found three of these Viparspectra setups on marketplace for 200 bucks and pulled the trigger. I have one on the tank as a temporary solution sitting on 2x4's (the fishtank equivalent of an old Nova on bricks in the front yard, you say?) until I can build an adjustable hood, which I'm planning to create using 1515 T-Slot aluminum, bolted to the lower cabinet, with rollers designed for linear motion present. This should allow me to raise and lower the lights at will, and will also look "factory" if I do it correctly, since the stand is made from the same material.
I have to say, I'm pleased with the light so far.
Rate my rock pile. What can I be doing better here?
Odds and ends:
I also finished setting up all the under cabinet/sump gear, tuning the gyres, tuning the skimmer, installing the ATO, etc. ATO is eating about a gallon per day to evaporation at the moment. I have to say, this is the first ATO I've had, and I don't think I'd have a saltwater tank without one.
Future plans and to-do's:
- Continue to monitor ammonia, ph, nitrite/nitrate and get a baseline for how they change.
- Begin monitoring other params (alk, o2 capacity, calc, etc) using the testers that came with the gear I acquired.
- Wait 3 months
- Add an emerald crab if the algae doesn't get eaten by the snails
- Finish arranging the rock and epoxy it together
- Add 4-5 corals
- Build a UPS that will support the bare essential life support systems for 24-48 hours
Conclusion:
Our livingroom is at least 40% more comfortable with swimmy creatures present. This has been a cool experience so far, and looking forward to continuing to learn and grow with the little slice of paradise that now resides in the home of yours truly.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for all you gals and guys post on the forums here. Definitely helped me as I was figuring things out.
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with the water. I grew up fishing freshwater in South Florida, and as soon as I had first contact with saltwater, like most Florida natives, I was addicted. Fishing, free diving and being a beach bum is in my blood. We had a few freshwater tanks when I was a kid, and I remember always wanting a saltwater tank, because I was fascinated by the diversity on the reef.
Well, here we are, several decades later, and I've setup my first tank.
I was fortunate enough to find a forum member who was getting out of the hobby, and the deal was too good to pass up. All in, I picked up the following:
- IM Nuvo 75 EXT, manufactured late 2018.
- IM Aluminum factory stand,
- octo 130 skimmer,
- two gyre 330s and a wifi controller,
- refugium light with wifi controller,
- 4 head dosing pump,
- two 300 series silent return pumps,
- small powerhead
- two 200 watt externally controlled heaters,
- a small internally controlled heater
- a bunch of dosing chemicals, test kits, a refractomoter and filter socks,
- an 8 bulb ATI fixture (bulbs are old),
- an ATO controller and ATO tank,
- a few wirelessly controlled power strips, and manual power strips, and other miscellaneous things
Came with the folllowing livestock:
- a pair of mated designer clowns,
- a pink streaked wrasse,
- a cleaner shrimp,
- a yellow-tail damsel, plus a clean up crew (snails and hermits. probably 20-25 of them in all)
- about 80 lbs of live rock. (rock had a ton of algae on it, but that's fixable)
So, this thread will inventory my journey into the world of saltwater tanks. Please do drop comments, suggestions, pointers, or hate mail here.
The booty:
Shortly after unpacking this stuff from the truck, and scraping off the inside of the tank, I realized I had a ton of work on my hands. Here's the mountain of stuff that was staring back at me:
You get the idea...
The unpackening: new recycled tank edition:
First thing I did was go over everything and separate stuff out into its respective pile, and fill to tank with water to check for leaks. After scraping off all the growth on the tank, I plumbed it up, filled it with tap water, and let everything rip. To my pleasure, nothing leaked, and everything appeared functional.
Here's a picture of the triton sump that it came with, humming away:
I then setup the RODI system that came with the tank, and started making water, in preparation for moving the tank into the house:
My house water pressure is pretty low, and since I don't like waiting, I immediately ordered a booster pump. I strongly recommend one of these. It's well worth the 100 bucks. In fact, TDS out of the membrane went way down after I connected it, in addition to dramatically speeding up the watermaking process. I estimate that I'm able to produce 80-90 GPD with a 75 gallon membrane with this system now. It comes out of the box tuned to 90psi, so I turned it down to 80, and it did its job very nicely after that.
The fishening: RTIC cooler edition:
Did I mention live fish came with this setup? Here's a photo of them in their temporary 70 quart RTIC cooler home. I put in a small powerhead , a heater, and two pieces of the live rock that the tank came with. Thankfully, the rock was still full of good bacteria, and I didn't struggle with ammonia. I did 80-90% water changes each day while I was bringing the tank online to make sure that I didn't kill the critters. Here's a photo of the clowns in their doublewide:
The fishtank was coming from inside the house!
Being reasonably sure that I wasn't going to flood myself, I went ahead and conscripted a friend with a strong back to help me move things inside, and had the perfect spot for the new critters. Here's a photo of its temporary resting place:
Cloudy water runs deep:
My first mistake was not washing out the aragonite and live sand that I put into the tank. I ended up mixing about 40% sand and 60% aragonite by weight for the substrate. So far, I'm pleased with the final outcome. To get rid of the cloud, I turned the Gyre X330's that came with the tank so that they pointed down, set the phasers to kill, and let them rip for a day or so, stirring up the sand really well by hand every 2-3 hours. I ran the pump while doing this, and loaded up the sump with a filter sock and filter floss between each baffle, and cleaned them out 3-4 times per day. It made for some interesting craters:
Happy to report that the next morning, all was well with the cosmos. The agitation of the substrate seems to have gotten 99% of the silt out of the tank, and things were looking nice and clean. So, I went ahead and cleaned as much of the algae as I could from the liverock by scrubbing it with a hard brush in a bucket of saltwater, and dropped a few bits into the display, and piled as much as possible in the sump. Following this, I dumped in a bottle of Fritz Turbostart 900, and in went the inverts. I figured if I had to sacrifice anyone as tribute, it may as well be these guys. Happy to say that they survived, except for 1 or 2 snails that became hermit crab food, and it looks like I lost a small urchin as well. Poor little dudes.
I've since added more liverock to the sump and tank, and plan to move things back into the display tank once the algae dies off on the bits in the sump. Once that happens, I'll drop in a few marine pure bricks, and eventually, a "poor man's nitrogen reactor" to keep nitrates in check with minimal oversight.
In retrospect, I kept the live rock in buckets of saltwater during transport, and probably didn't need the turbostart, but what the heck. Can't hurt. Special thanks to @brandon429 and @Dr. Reef for their articles on quickstarting a tank. That helped me out a LOT and helped me to understand water chemistry and the modern way to cycle. You guys are legends.
The fishening:
After adding some rock and bac juice, in went the fish. Here's some glamor shots for your viewing pleasure:
And lo, the fishkeeper said let there be light, and there was, and the fishes saw that it was good, and there was much rejoicing:
Although the system came with an ATI T5 8 Bulb fixture, I decided to go with LED's instead. I found three of these Viparspectra setups on marketplace for 200 bucks and pulled the trigger. I have one on the tank as a temporary solution sitting on 2x4's (the fishtank equivalent of an old Nova on bricks in the front yard, you say?) until I can build an adjustable hood, which I'm planning to create using 1515 T-Slot aluminum, bolted to the lower cabinet, with rollers designed for linear motion present. This should allow me to raise and lower the lights at will, and will also look "factory" if I do it correctly, since the stand is made from the same material.
I have to say, I'm pleased with the light so far.
Rate my rock pile. What can I be doing better here?
Odds and ends:
I also finished setting up all the under cabinet/sump gear, tuning the gyres, tuning the skimmer, installing the ATO, etc. ATO is eating about a gallon per day to evaporation at the moment. I have to say, this is the first ATO I've had, and I don't think I'd have a saltwater tank without one.
Future plans and to-do's:
- Continue to monitor ammonia, ph, nitrite/nitrate and get a baseline for how they change.
- Begin monitoring other params (alk, o2 capacity, calc, etc) using the testers that came with the gear I acquired.
- Wait 3 months
- Add an emerald crab if the algae doesn't get eaten by the snails
- Finish arranging the rock and epoxy it together
- Add 4-5 corals
- Build a UPS that will support the bare essential life support systems for 24-48 hours
Conclusion:
Our livingroom is at least 40% more comfortable with swimmy creatures present. This has been a cool experience so far, and looking forward to continuing to learn and grow with the little slice of paradise that now resides in the home of yours truly.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for all you gals and guys post on the forums here. Definitely helped me as I was figuring things out.
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