Converting My Tropical Vision 180 To Marine

[matt p]

Hey everyone,

This is my first venture into the salty part and id like to run a few ideas ive had past you guys

Last sunday i came home with another tank, much to the annoyance of the other half its a Aquaone 620. I had the intention of building a nano reef with this, nothing to complex just some soft corals, clean up crew and a few gobbies and or blennies

But,

I've come home tonight while having a brew and im sitting here looking at my tropical tank and thinking of converting this to marine then rehousing some of the fish that wont be required and the rest will have a nice shiny new home that will have some more thought put into it regarding substrate and plants etc.

Currently the tropical tank runs two external filters with a total turnover of 1250lph, 2x35w T5 lamps with reflectors and a 600lph powerhead.

The idea is to strip the filter media out of the externals to use in the new tank and fill them backup with live rock coupled with adding live rock inside the tank to have somewhere to eventually start adding the soft corals too. I already have a blue LED lamp for night time. Water is being supplied by my LFS at 1.024 and only £5 per 25ltr drum

Other than the addition of a protein skimmer which im picking up on sunday do you think that the above is a good place to start from?. If this not such a good idea ill put together a planted tank and move all my tetras across to free up room in the big tank.

All thoughts and ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Matt

 

[ben1987]

£5 per drum??? dont go there!

mix your own....get an ro unit and a bucket of salt. then you have it always available. in the long run it will save you an absolute fortune. you will also need fresh water for top ups so the ro unit covers you on both!

 

[seffieuk]

Matt to the salty side

Looking forward to watching your tank come to life, any thoughts on stocking?

Seffie x

 

[matt p]

Hi Ben,

It's only for the initial setup I'm buying it like this, I'm looking into an R/O system but at the moment I can get the for free from my LFS

 

[matt p]

Matt to the salty side

Looking forward to watching your tank come to life, any thoughts on stocking?

Seffie x

Hey seffie,

Thanks for the welcome Me too I can't wait even though its going to be a long time till the tank will be finished.

I was at my LFS yesterday buying some more live rock and having it put to the side. I managed to pick up a protien skimmer and 2000lph powerhead to put some flow in. As for stocking I think I'm will just keep to some soft corals, I did see some lovely polyps but nothing will be going in unroll the new year. I think after the live rock has been in the tank and external filters for circa 3-4 weeks I'll start adding in corals at a rate of one a month

The guy at the shop did mention that for every coral/piece of liverock it's worth adding a shrimp or hermit crab as part of the cuc, would you say that this about right from personal experience?. I was thinking first off to add 2x cleaner shrimp and 2x blue claw hermit crabs.

Lighting wise I run a juwel T5 35w daylight and a juwel T5 35w nature light, if I can find one I'm looking for the acintic light but because of the funny size of the light this might be a tough ask.

Any recommendations or hints/tips will be great I'm moving out of my comfort zone a little so I'm just reading and reading and listening to peoples experiences. I'll geta journal going from next Thursday as i have a couple of days off to carryout the change over and get loads of pics.

Regards

Matt