Complete Noobie Exploring Unknown Territories

[superman1]

Hello

well i have been keeping tropicals for the last 2 years and have decided to move into the marine dept.
when i was young i had goldfishes but moving to tropicals was a big step for me when i entered the hobby.
2 years ago i had my first tropical tank which was a 36 litre hex which i had about 20 fishes in.. this including sharks etc etc. (fishes that should never have been put in there)
after doing some homework i then changed my 36l tank to a 90 litre tank. this to me seemed huge so kept me going for a while untill i snapped up a cheap aqua one 180 litre tank.
about 4 months ago i changed this to my current 4ft tank which holds about 220ish litres
now this has been going quite successfully for about 4 months with the stocking below and i have managed to learn alot since my time in the tropical hobby but now think i am ready to tackle the marine side

i will be converting my tropical into a fish only marine tank

currently i have my fishes advertised along with the decor inside and food. so for the time being i am just gathering all the stuff that i need. i will be taking my time with this and doing as much research as possible.

below is the tank in its current state that i will like to convert.

currently it has twin t8 40 watt lights. i have ordered a marine blue light which shall sit along side the purple light.

so my first question is should this new blue light fit along side the white light or the purple light

i will be running the tank with my current tetratec ex700 untill i can afford live rock and will be using live fine coral gravel and will be using ocean rock. about 25kg of the stuff.
i currently have a spray bar at one end of the tank but will be adding in a powerhead at one end at the moment.

i will also be ordering a refractometer and a 24kg tub of tropic marin sea salt.

so to summarise i will be running a fish only set up with and external filter and will be using live sand and ocean rock as decor and a powerhead which is unknown yet for water movement.

when i have a bit more money i shall be changing the ocean rock for live rock and will then remove the external and add on another powerhead at one end.

i would to have snails, crabs and a pair of clown fish and maybe a few more other fishes but will be keeping stocks relatively low.



for the time being will wait untill all fishes have been rehomed before i get to have some fun so watch this space... .any advice would be much appreaciated as i am a newbie in this dept.

thanks for looking.

 

[VictorMeldrew]

I run t8's at the moment, 4 x 58w, 3 white and one blue, I have my blue light at the back of the tank, not sure if it really makes any difference. When i was starting out I checked out lots of journal's on here, you can pick up loads of info that way, I also read a few books, the salty side is a challenge but not to hard if you do your research, good luck

You could keep some coral aswell if you add another T5 and a powerhead or two, if you can, get LR from the start and you will be well on your way to keeping a full reef tank.

VM

 

[superman1]

I run t8's at the moment, 4 x 58w, 3 white and one blue, I have my blue light at the back of the tank, not sure if it really makes any difference. When i was starting out I checked out lots of journal's on here, you can pick up loads of info that way, I also read a few books, the salty side is a challenge but not to hard if you do your research, good luck

You could keep some coral aswell if you add another T5 and a powerhead or two, if you can, get LR from the start and you will be well on your way to keeping a full reef tank.

VM

yeh i would love to have live rock at the start but currently cheapest i have found is £7kg for LR. i reckon due to the size of the tank i would be looking at about 20kg ish.

currently will not be able to afford it but im hoping by the time i get the basics up and running i will be able to put in some LR.

fingers crossed. i will eventually go into the Corals side of thing but that wont be for a while.

 

[SkiFletch]

To the salty side . Starting slow is never a problem. Do yourself one favor though, if you do want to have a reef someday, don't pick fish that nip corals .

Also if I may suggest, "Live" sand is a complete marketing gimmick. Do NOT buy it. No matter what the LFS tells you, just get plain aragonite sand

 

[VictorMeldrew]

live sand like Ski said, don't bother

 

[Trod]

Will follow your progress with interest

Have you looked on UR there is some LR on there at £4kg

 

[superman1]

Will follow your progress with interest

Have you looked on UR there is some LR on there at £4kg

whats UR by the way...

really didnt know that about the live sand. i read somewhere that that helps increase bacteria.. lol

well its only £17 for 24kg anyway so is actually cheaper..
i found this at warehouse aquatics website.

 

[ben1987]

UR is ultimate reef.

Some childrens play sand is arogonite sand, Thats only usually £4-5 for big bag.

 

[TigerIssey]

A word of warning about Live Sand, I used it to set up my nano tank and then switched it into my upgraded tank. The upgrade was only just over 2 months from set up.

I ended up with an awful layer of Red Cyano all over the live sand. I had to do immense amounts of water changes and use doubled up phosphate remover on top of removing a hell of a lot of that live sand before the algae resided.

It seems to be packed full of nutrients that you are trying not to get into the tank. I knew it would not be live but used it to see if there were any other benefits, I wish now that I had never used it.

 

[superman1]

just to update i have been doing a little bit of window shopping and i have currently ordered a


marine 42" T8 marine blue light = £13.00
TMC fine coral Gravel 25kg = £17
25kg of ocean rock of ebay = £30 including delivery
Tropic marin sea salt 24kg = £44

the refractometer will be coming once i have sold all of my fishes and tropical equipment.

once all these arrive i will then be looking to get hold of the powerhead, marine testing master kit, and refractometer at end of the month.

hopefully by then my tank should be close to being empty.


quick question to you more experienced people. do i cycle my filter again from scratch with new media or is it better to remove the compartment that holds the carbon and replace with as much bio rings etc to gain maximum benificial bacteria. or could i just load up the external filter with Live rock rubble.

 

[Trod]

Anguilla82 Has covered this in another thread, he said take everything out and replace with LR. I must be honest I think its a great Idea, my only concern would be the lack of light. PM Anguilla82 and I'm sure he will point you in the right direction

 

[Anguilla82]

hiya,

yeah no problem with adding live rock to an external filter. You can if needs be add a light into teh external but this requires drilling a hole into the lid of the filter and sealing it back up.
Best to not light it but use it as a cryptic zone. This way you will get an array of sponges and animals growing in there that you might not in other areas of your tank, that will help with filtration.

Wouldn't use this method as the main filtration for a system but if you've got the filter anyway you might as well put it to good use. It'll also add a few extra litres to the overall system capacity (never a bad thing).

 

[superman1]

hello all

thanks for all the info people..

well the update so far is the coral gravel arrived today and am just awaiting the tropic marin from warehouse aquatics.

i have also fitted a Blue 42" 38w lamp to run alongside the purple lamp. i tried the white lamp and didnt quite like the look of it.

im also going to purchase a saltwate master test kit and hydrometer from charter house aquatics as there the cheapest i could find.

i have a chap coming over this week to take alot of my fishes. so thats a start

on the way back from birmingham earlier and thought id pop over to coventry aquatics and see what the fuss was about. they had a great selection of corals and have really got me wanting to get live rock. so after alot of searching on aquarist classified i have found a chap who is breaking his tank down.

he has offered me 2 korali 1 powerheads for £35.

20kg of Live rock which he has offered to me for £80 which is a bargain personally considering coventry aquatics were charging £12 per KG

and frozen foods for £1 per pack.

would you say i should snap this up. he claims to be moving house end of the week so really needs to get rid. its been in his tank so im pretty sure must have plenty of life in it.

ive also ordered 25kg of ocean rock but i may just use some of that as a base and cover with Live rock.

so considering i may be getting some live rock i may just continue to use the external as normal.

on a different note though i saw on aquarist classified an advert for live rock saying live rock going vvery cheap due to tank breakdown.

so getting all excited i emailed the guy to ask how much he would charge for 3 kg as he said he had loads and he said £35 ............ for 3KG. am i right in thinking thats expensive.

this is how it looks with the new Lamp

 

[bagu]

looks like you are getting some awesome bargains mate!

 

[rabbut]

The deal from teh first tank break-down sounds very good for the rock, ok for the food and about right for the pumps I'd go for that if you can You'll still need more flow for many corals, but it will get the tank cycled and keep the rock live for now

The 3KG for £35 is a rip off, I'd pass at that.

HTH
Rabbut