Just Started My First Salt Water Tank! My Journal

Ill give you a brief history real quick.

My dad has had salt water tanks since I was probably 8 years old. (im 23 now and live on my own)

My dad now has two 125gallon tanks that are 5+ years mature at least---

For my birthday, my parents gave me a 75gal tank, stand, hood, and lights- rest was up to me.

Its been an adventure that has consumed all of my time over the past week- From finding a spot that the fiance wont be mad at me for putting the tank, to filling it with salt water, finding out I put too little salt, adding more salt, and then being just a tick over in the SG of the tank. (its good now... .022-.023)

I also have to reinforce the crawl space below the tank because when I walk near the tank, there is a little movement that I can see because the water in the tank wobbles a little bit. (no biggie I am told as long as I brace it with cinderblocks and beams supporting the floor joyst)

I have 60 llbs of the marine gravel in the bottom of it, a penguin emprorer 400 on the back of the tank now (eheim 2236 on the way) along with a seaclone 100 skimmer. I started up the tank on saturday 1/15/06.

I think Ill keep a journal/blog for anyone that wants to read and throw in some advice here and there...

Pics are to follow shortly.

Will it be a reef or a fish only?

The water was really cloudy after filling the tank (even after pre-washing the gravel)

The cloud didnt clear up until Monday.

Temperature reached 75 degrees sunday before I went to bed.

I have a wisper 60 heater on the tank. I am currently fighting it tring to get it to hold a stable temperature. If it keeps fighting me, Ill have to replace it with a higher end one.


I am still waiting on the Eheim ecco 2236 and seaclone 100 skimmer that I bought from BiAlsonline.com (ordered on saturday after filling up the tank)




Today (1/17/06) I stopped by a nice pet shop on the way home from work and picked up a red sea test kit that had Nitrate, Nitrite, PH, alk, and amonia test kits in it. All of them had at least 45 test in it... should last me for a bit.

My dad also gave me about 30 lbs of lava rock that he used to have in his tank, but has since become rocks in my moms rock garden. He instructed me to remove as much debri from them as possible and soak them in a bucket for a few days with a capfull of bleach in it. After a few days, rince them off and refill with water and declorinate them.


My question is- will this be safe to put in the tank at this point? One or two pieces had moss growing on them- the rest looked fine. Any help on this would be appreciated.


Hopefully my canister filter and skimmer come soon- Id like to put a few damsels and the rocks in the tank this weekend. (rocks first of course)

RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah said:

Will it be a reef or a fish only?

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for a few months- it will be a fish only tank with clean up crews of course.

Shortly, I want to put some live rock in there- my dad has those two 125 gallon tanks that have tons of live rock in them- Looks really nice...... So I guess eventually it will mold into a FOWLR tank.

I have another question to toss out there-

I didnt use RO water- used tap water- All of my available test came out fine. (nitrate, nitrite, ph, amonia and alk. ) I will get a copper test done to do that as well.

What are the issues for using tap water again?

Well first off it seems to me that you are rushing a little too fast into all of this. You may want to slow down a little. It is good your dad has been succesfully keeping marine tanks and its an awesome benefit for you to have that kind of information available. The one downside though is if your dad hasn't kept current in the hobby there are many new theories, equipment, and paractices in todays hobby that you may want to research and also incorporate into your plan.

Now as to RO vs tap water. You really should invest in the RO as it will give you less headaches to deal with in the future. Tap water usually has a bunch of "stuff" in it that can do various things in a marine tank environment. The most common is to cause unneccesary algea blooms. But it can also lead to low or high pH and heavy metal poisoning.

crazyelece said:

Well first off it seems to me that you are rushing a little too fast into all of this. You may want to slow down a little. It is good your dad has been succesfully keeping marine tanks and its an awesome benefit for you to have that kind of information available. The one downside though is if your dad hasn't kept current in the hobby there are many new theories, equipment, and paractices in todays hobby that you may want to research and also incorporate into your plan.

Now as to RO vs tap water. You really should invest in the RO as it will give you less headaches to deal with in the future. Tap water usually has a bunch of "stuff" in it that can do various things in a marine tank environment. The most common is to cause unneccesary algea blooms. But it can also lead to low or high pH and heavy metal poisoning.

Click to expand...

Really think I am going too fast?? I thought I was taking it really really slow. There is a post in another thread about a guy that bought a 215 gallong tank and filled it up and within a week was putting expensive fish in it----

It will be a week or longer before I put DAMSELS in the tank- And I dont plan on putting any more fish in it for weeks or months after that.

What am I rushing?

The only thing that I think I rushed on was buying a protein skimmer and Eheim canister filter before they were really needed.

My dad is against canister filters and prefers sump pumps for his tanks-

Today, I went and got some dead rock and cleaned it off real good. they were 6 small pieces a little larger then a baseball and oblong- made a little cave.

I also brought a zip lock back full of water to the pet shop so I could check the quality with their testing stuff.

They said everything was decent, amonia was present but not too much. They did mention that my PH was low (7.5) However, doesnt water temperature effect Ph? The bag was cold by the time I got to the fish store.

My red sea marine test lab I bought (test nitrate, nitrite, ph, and amonia...) the PH test in that kit said I was at 8.2 last night, and again 8.2 before I put the fish in. I followed the directions to a T....

I didnt notice what brand of test chemicals they were using. The lady used her finger to stop up the test tube when she shook it- And she didnt even hold up the card to verify the reading, she just looked under the counter and said "yep, your a little low- 7.5" I said- "are you sure? It was 8.2 last night according to the lab kit I got"




They said I could put 5-6 damsels in the tank to get the cycle started.

I picked up:

Two Four-stripe damsels
two blue damsels
and two yellow tail damsels

I acclimated them for about 45 minutes. and slipped them in- I waited about an hour and slipped them some frozen brine shrimp to make sure they would eat. All 6 of them ate. Thats a good sign I guess. When I was a kid, I used to watch my dad bring home fish and watch him acclimate them- and then feed them shortly after. If they didnt eat the first time- they were usually dead within 48 hours. The ones that ate usually made it past 2 weeks.



This leads me to a funny story- I have been watching about 4 or 5 pet stores to see how their survival rate of damsels were while in the store. I narrowed my "choice" stores down to 2 or 3 locations that I thought the fish looked healthy ( the dorsal fins were erect and the fish were scared when I slowly put my finger up to the glass---ran away--- and then came back to see what was going on....

One of the stores I was going to get fish from wouldnt let me buy any damsels after I told them I needed some starter fish/damsels to cycle the tank. The fish girl told me " You have to fill the tank with water and salt and stir it up, and then wait 3 weeks....no filters running, no lights, no heater, no nothing- After 3 weeks, through a dose of bio cycle in the tank and start up the filters. After 24 hours, come get fish." I shook my head puzzled and walked out the door. I did buy some rocks there though.

3 weeks, no water movement, no nothin- I think thats asking for a stinky bad chemistry tank. What do you think?

i agree here. slow down. how long has our tank been running? three days and you have already bought fish? your tank is not even close to being cycled or gone through all of its spikes. you yourself said you were going to wait a week or longer before damsels. its been three days. your filters havent even had enough time to build up any benefical bacteria or anything.

also if your damsels do not make it.. do not replace them. there are many other fish that will work just as well to help cycle your tank. damsels are notorious for being aggressive.

good luck and keep everyone posted so we can help.

I dont get it, why not ask ur dad for some liverock right now? You already bought fish and theres nuthing helping the tank cycle if u added some live rock it would cycle ur tank a little faster.

Well first off you added dead rock, you need to wait until it has become live and filled with the neccesary bacteria to sustain inverts let alone fish. If you have any readings of ammonia your cycle is not even halfway done as ammonia blocks the bacteria that break nitrite into nitrate. After your tank has fully cycled then you need a cleanup crew to control the algea that will start to form due to nitrates. After the tank has stabalized from this then and only then do you want to add fish. After you get to this stage you should add one or two fish at a time in one month increments.

You can rush a little bit but only if you are careful and constantly monitoring the water parameters.

I read your post before I went to bed last night and I was worried that all of my fish would be dead by morning.

Luckily they were all alive and happy and they ate.


Water perameters-

Yesterday afternoon (after work)-

PH- 8.2
Amonia-1
nitrate-0
nitrite-0
alk- 1.7-2.8 (in the good range, right in the middle according to the kit.


This morning I tested again- only 2 test though- some of them I guess you arent supposed to do every day-

Ph- N/a
Amonia- .5
Nitrate- n/a
nitrite- .05
alk- n/a





Yesterday, I added a dose of the bacteria to the tank as per directions, so hopefully that helps keep them alive-

I also spent about 2 hours under the house and put 4 cinderblocks in a diamond pattern. I cut 4 boards to go between the blocks and the bottom of the house. I then shimmed them up and the floor doesnt squeak, and I can barely notice any movement of the water in the tank if I lightly jump up and down 2 or 3 feet from the tank. I am going to go to the hardware store and get some shims to finish leveling off the tank- It as level when I put the gravel and 3-5 inches of water in the tank. I guess it squished the carpet more so in some spots rather then others. Its not off by much any more after jacking up the house. I just want to make sure its done right.



The Eheim canister and the protein skimmer are scheduled for delivery today. Im going to cut out of work early to make sure I dont have to go to the delivery company to pick them up.



I do have a question though.... I understand amonia is supposed to spike- but what exactly are the chemistry trends that I am looking for that are positive at this point? What test should I do daily besides amonia and nitrite?

Thanks for the help!

You have been given terrible advice from your LFS & you seem to have done no reasearch on marine keeping at all

Cycling with fish IMO goes against the very idea of this hobby

& Now after you have added livestock you are asking the questions that should have been asked during your FISHLESS CYCLE

Chac said:

You have been given terrible advice from your LFS & you seem to have done no reasearch on marine keeping at all

Cycling with fish IMO goes against the very idea of this hobby

& Now after you have added livestock you are asking the questions that should have been asked during your FISHLESS CYCLE

Click to expand...

Ive done my research-

Am I going a little faster then one is supposed to? Yeah- I didnt put 20-40 dollar fish in the tank. I put 3.99 damsels.

My question about water test was more geared to saving the test themselves- rather then which test are necessary. I KNOW they are all vital- but some of them wont change until others do first. You dont really get a nitrate spike until you get a nitrite spike. So there isnt a need to test nitrate OFTEN until you get more nitrite.


Will I lose fish? Most likely.



How far into the cyclin process do you want to turn on the skimmer?

Sorry but a $4.00 dollar fish, suffers as much as a $20 - $40.00 one does, Cost IMO isnt what I rate livestock on


The results you need to be keeping a note of are

Ammonia
Nitrate
Nitrite
Phosphate
Ph
Sg
Temp


Personally I would switch the skimmer on now

You will see a spike in Ammonia & Nitrite (which MAY kill your livestock) & then a drop back, after this drop back this is normally when livestock is fine to be added not before

Incase I missed it - are you using any Live Rock as your Bio Filtration ??

Chac said:

Sorry but a $4.00 dollar fish, suffers as much as a $20 - $40.00 one does, Cost IMO isnt what I rate livestock on


The results you need to be keeping a note of are

Ammonia
Nitrate
Nitrite
Phosphate
Ph
Sg
Temp


Personally I would switch the skimmer on now

You will see a spike in Ammonia & Nitrite (which MAY kill your livestock) & then a drop back, after this drop back this is normally when livestock is fine to be added not before

Incase I missed it - are you using any Live Rock as your Bio Filtration ??

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info-

I will be adding the live rock this weekend. Damsels are fine so far- one had some damage to his lip when he came from the store. He is probably not going to make it because disease usually gets fish with any damage. That damsel is still eating, but Im not expecting him to live. The rest are all fine so far- breathing is normal. Amonia is in the tank, but isnt climbing too quick... nitrites are forming and are present, havent spiked yet.

I know the skimmer removes unwanted nutrients from the tank. About half of the people I have talked to say to leave it off until the cycle is complete, the other half say to turn it on. Whats the philosophy on that?