Newbie Saltwater Aquarium General Suggestions

[EricR]

Newbie just curious if experienced aquarium keepers have any thoughts/concerns/suggestions about what I’m doing. (Lots of babble on the way — sorry, no one local to run this by).

Main goals is to keep it simple, as little maintenance effort as possible.

Main questions:

• Is there some kind of plant / macroalgae / seaweed that would be easy to add and be beneficial?
• I never stir the sand bed — should I?
• I use distilled water for minor top offs — I read this is bad but can’t find RO/DI water around me for some reason. How bad is this?
• I have some activated carbon packets but not sure what to do with them. I have one in the “chaeto soap dish” but should I put these elsewhere, like in the HOB pumps/filters?

Here’s what I have running for the last 4 months:

• 37 gallon tank with 2 HOB pumps <— woh,,, did I just use an acronym I learned on this site correctly?
• 1 small (approx. 1”) clownfish, 1 bicolor blenny
• 1 chocolate chip starfish, 5 micro brittle stars, 2 small hermit crabs
• Cultured live rock from PetCo that introduced a bunch of stuff (that seems cool to me) like 3-4 small snails, bristle worms, and copepods (I guess) that seem to be thriving
• Free ball of chaeto in soap dish near top — probably not getting enough light to be doing its thing but is still green and the copepods seem to love it
• About 2” bed that’s a mix of coarse aragonite sand and gravel
• All the decor (if you’d call it that) has just been randomly accumulated from smaller tanks that I progressed through

Additional notes:

• No immediate plans to add any additional animal life,,, was wavering on one more small clownfish but now I'm thinking no
• No plans to get into corals <--- Boo me?
• I’m using boxed Imagitarium Pacific Ocean water for water changes and some times dilute this with distilled water to bring down salinity
• Parameters that the API “Saltwater Master Test Kit” test for have been consistent (at least since May) as follows:
  • Salinity = 33-34 PPT (controlled by dilution as mentioned above)
  • Temp = 77-78 F
  • PH = 7.8-8.0 <— done nothing to increase this yet, but maybe I should?
  • Ammonia = 0.1 ppm
  • Nitrites = 0.0 ppm
  • Nitrates = 10-20 ppm

Here’s a short video to just a give a quick visual of what I have:

*if you made it this far (unlikely) and are curious how I got to this point, my background story is in the meet-and-greet forum here:

Hello - Newbie - Inverts Only (So Far)

Howdy,,, new to aquariums and found this site. Cool! I’m seeing discussions like, “running a QT, waiting on new DT, diatom and some GHA” …so far, my thoughts are What the heck? Also thought I accidentally redirected to NASA when I found something about “CO2 scrubbers.” Anyway, learning a...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[mrlavalamp]

Main questions:

• Is there some kind of plant / macroalgae / seaweed that would be easy to add and be beneficial?
• I never stir the sand bed — should I?
• I use distilled water for minor top offs — I read this is bad but can’t find RO/DI water around me for some reason. How bad is this?
• I have some activated carbon packets but not sure what to do with them. I have one in the “chaeto soap dish” but should I put these elsewhere, like in the HOB pumps/filters?

Chaeto is your macro algae, there are others but this is the most common one (and SUPER hardy imo, I pull mine and rinse it with tap water once a month then put 1/4 of it back, discarding the other 3/4 is a form of nutrient export). Lots of others out there, some have specific uses/requirements, mangroves are a really cool plant to keep in your saltwater tank, but they require some specific consideration.

its a good idea to stir the sandbed during water changes. When you do your water changes, just use the vac tube to get down in the sand and suck out the detritus. beware, if you didnt rinse your sand well before putting it in, you can get a cloudy mess for a long while, only way to "fix" the cloudiness you kick up is to wait, or remove the sandbed, rinse it, and return it. Search around on these forums for brandon429 and his posts about tank maintenance and rip cleaning, fantastic stuff for a new hobbyist to read.

The only good reason I have ever heard to avoid "distilled" water is that many distillers use copper equipment which can leave behind slightly more than trace amounts of copper in the water you buy. Not enough to make a difference to ANYONE except chemistry labs and us reefers so be careful, they will claim it is pure distilled water but it may not truly be. The issue is that if you used it as your sole source of water (both for top off and for saltwater making) over time the copper accumulates in your tank, however I read that your routine water changes are done with good saltwater, this will mitigate that to a point. Also, not all Distilled water suffers from this defect, it really depends on the source and the equipment they use.

Put the carbon pillows anywhere high flow, the HOB filters would be an ideal location. Placing them a passive flow spot (like just dropping them on the sand in your tank, or floating around with your chaeto) wont do much.

 

[EricR]

Thanks.
I'll use the carbon packets I have but, long-term (after I run out), are they worth buying and using on-going?

In a single tank system like I have (no refugium or sump or anything else), is it common to just have chaeto floating around the top of the tank? ...continuing that thought, are there any other common seaweed/macroalgae that are "anchored" (planted) that serve a similar purpose? (I saw "sea lettuce" mentioned recently but don't yet have a handle on how these grow in the main tank, if they're even ever used that way).

 

[Sump Crab]

Hey. If corals are not in your plan I think it would be cool to add some caulerpa prolifera to your tank. You could have a SW planted tank of sorts.

 

[EricR]

Hey. If corals are not in your plan I think it would be cool to add some caulerpa prolifera to your tank. You could have a SW planted tank of sorts.

Thanks for the tip -- will look into that.

 

[Sump Crab]

Thanks for the tip -- will look into that.

Ya that stuff looks like the prototypical "sea weed" it would add some nice movement and realism to your tank IMO. Good luck.

 

[EricR]

Ya that stuff looks like the prototypical "sea weed" it would add some nice movement and realism to your tank IMO. Good luck.

Got a $12 strand (with 6 big leaves) of caulerpa prolifera and anchored it -- looked nice for 2 days but then...

2nd night, my 2 tiny hermit crabs absolutely annihilated it!
Yummy....

Oh well. It was a fun experiment.