Need Help Starting Up New Tank

[ANIM4L]

Ok, so i have a 60 gallon tank that was previously used for african cichlids, but the fish are moved into a new tank and now i have a tank sitting her with no idea what to do, so then i decided since i had a lot of the stuff i need to start a saltwater tank. i currently have this stuff for the tank:

80lbs of carib-sea crushed coral
150lbs of lace rock
rena xp2 canitser filter (75 gallons)
rena xp3 canister filter (175 gallons)
marineland emporer 400 biowheel (80 gallons)
rena 300 watt heater
4x 40watt Flourescent bulbs (2 actinic blue, 2 daylight)


and then i have these also (for saltwater purposes)

marineland venturi protein skimmer (100 gallons)
60 Gallon UGF
Aquaclear 70 gallon powerhead
90 gallons of saltwater salt mix

I really want a saltwater tank, and if possible i would like to set up a reef tank, but i know i need extra lighting, woudl that be enough or would i be better off with a fish only tank?

i want to have inverts, but i just need to know, what do i need to do to start setting up the tank? Will the lace rock eventually turn into Live Rock? I have been doing my research and stuff, and i just dont want to screw this up! Now a big question is with my filtering, ill have the skimmer on the tank, but i have the two rena canisters, the emporer, and the UGF with one powerhead, what do i use for my tank?! Also, on the renas, should i have them set to power head output or spray bar? also, would the crushed coral work? or do i need to invest in some aragonite sand or something?i dont know what other questions i have... o about the extralighting, what is the most inexpensive way to get the lighting for a coral tank, or is that 160watts enough? thanks for your help, i just need someone to hold my hand through this please! thanks !

 

[steelhealr]

Whew...a lot of questions ANIMAL. I recommend that you look up the books I recommended in the Realm of Knoweldge pin and read them. I'll try and tackle a few of them and let other jump in:

1) I would NOT use crushed coral. Can be inhospitable to certain marine inhabitants and can trap detritus
2) I"m not familiar with lace rock..is that pumice or lava stuff? If so, it wouldn't help in buffering capability. However, it could probably be colonized over time. I would be concerned tho if it is too porous re: collecting detritus. LR is the best
3) No biowheels and not a fan of canister filters for marine aquariums
4) Not familiar with the rena brand, but the heater itself is OK
5) UGF are nearly extinct for marines
6) Not a fan of spray bars
7) Powerheads, yes
8) lighting is OK for FOWLR, but, low for anything else.

SH

 

[ANIM4L]

ok so what do i need to do (filter wise, light wise, substrate wise, etc.)?

 

[Jodie]

Hi ANIM4L,

Filter wise, I would use Live Rock. You will need quite a bit though (at least 60lbs). This is the best way to filter a marine tank (I believe!).

Substrate wise, I would use sand, or aragonite. You probably want 1 inch or less. I think live sand would be excessive if you are going to be using Live Rock.

For Corals (or a reef tank) you would be best advised to look into purchasing Metal Hallides, although these are expensive. The other option is PC or Power Compacts, which I believe are slightly cheaper.

Hope this helps.

 

[Navarre]

Good answers from above

OK I think i know that these were not the answers you were looking for but you have done the right thing by coming here and asking first before setting up the system and then we have to work around the elimentary mistakes that are all to often made from people that cross over from freshwater to marines.

Lets try and answer a few things in more detial and see why the membrs above have said "yes or no" to them.

Lace rock.. never heard of it If its not designed for the ocean then i would not put it in the tank. Lots of rock is used in freshwater but once put in sea water there can sometimes be a reaction which allows unwanted toxins or gases to filter back into the tank and of course kill the fish/inverts. Live rock is made fromdead organisms over many years and forms a porous structure which is in turn colonised by bacteria. I know that liverock is expensive but im afraid i would advise you to get liverock over any other form of filtration for reasons i will give further down this post.
If you cannot afford liverock then i advise to get a small quantity and then purchase "Reefbones" as this is basically liverock that has been dried out. It will turn back i nto liverock once its been put into a tank and seeded with new liverock. Its about half the price ytoo so kinder on the pocket.

Cannister filters... Now these "can" work but many people on TFF are advocators of the berlin or natural methods. This means they rely on liverock as their only form of filtration I used to run a canister filter next to my liverock and it did work... However, i also had the dreaded rise in nitrates and this can be a little more important to a reef keeper than freshwater keepers. Almost all mechanical filtration is very efficient at reaching the nitrate stage of the biological cycle but poor at reducing nitrates and turning them to nitrogen. Your cannisters could become nitrate factories where they will effectively turn waste to nitrate but there is no other form of filter in the tank to reduce the nitrates to nitrogen and thus they rise to unnacceptable levels. Water changes are needed more frequently and this can cause all sorts of problems with stability.
I would usggest that if you must opperate with cannisters for thetime being.. i would prefer you to wiat for good liverock however. Once you start adding liverock to the tank, over a period of a few months, slowly remove all the internal sponges bit by bit so that eventually you only have liverock filtering the tank. If you remove it all at once you are depleting a serious amount of bacteria fromyour bioogical capacity.
By all means keep the cannisters running and attached to the system even if they are empty. This creates extra flow (so important in a marine tank) and should the need ever arise to add things such as carbon etc for your tank then you can simply pop open the canister and add it. The empty canisters also make great cryptic zones where sponges, tunicates and seasquirts will colonise in the darkness and further filter your tank naturally.
Liverock has a big advantage over mechanical filtration.. It can finish the biological cycle.. this means that liverock can change the nitrates into harmless nitrogen gas and make the need for constant water changes like our freshwater cousins a thing of the past! Dont get me wrong, i dont mean you never need tochange your water, your inverts and other lifeformw will deplete the salts trace eliments in the tank so this needs to be kept on top of but you will find you wont need to change as often thats for sure.

Your powerhead seem fine. What you must try and aim for is a volume of 10x turnover per hour. so a 100 gallon tank should be looking at a minimum of 1000 gph turnover. I would recomend that you aim even higher than this and look for 20x if possible.. i know of some people that operate on 40 - 50x turnover! FLow is vital in a marine tank. It provides the liverock with the flow that will push the water through it and thus strip it of waste. Corals love it as they have been designed over millions of years to feed, clean and live in a turbulant habitat.

The skimmer .. I dont know much about this skimmer but do some research on the net to discover how good it is. Any skimmer is better than none at all of course so dont worry too much

UGF.. throw it away as its very outdated now. Yes the ydo work and there are tanks stilloperating today on them but its old knowledge with old technology that is not without its problems. Use good quality liverock instead.

Lights... you want a reef? Then upgrading the lighting is important. Now you must decide what type of corals you want at an early stage of your setup. Different corals require different typs of lighting and of course, the different types can vary in price by a great deal. IF you are happy to keep soft corals and a few easy long polyps hard corals then power compacts will suffice. However the plating corals and hard finger corals like acroporas etc will require intense lighting such as halides. Now i say that you should decide early as to which corals you want becuase there is no better waste of cash then optiong for powercompacts only to decide a month later that you really wanted the harder corals and then have to go buy new lights all over again. If you went straight for halides then its easy to create overhangs where less light can be created and thus accomodate lower light corals. But it practically impossible to create a higher lighting area for a coral in a weaker lit tank.

I hope this helps answer a few of your questions. )

 

[ANIM4L]

WOW THANKS! that helps a lot! Lace rock is a porous rock that is used in saltwater and freshwater, i didnt know if eventually it would turn into live rock ro not though, but now i understand if i put it in the tank with all ready cured LR then it shoudl turn into it. How much rock do i put into the tank? I understand that now if i went with the lights i have, i would be able to do soft corals, which is fine, i just wanted a natural set up. I found power compacts quad tubes for 250 online, so if i need to i might get that, its made about 4.5 wpg for the tank i have. What do i do about the substrate? do i use aragonite sand? or something else?

about the cannisters, i will let them run for a couple weeks when i set it up for the LR to get a jump start, but could i keep them running constantly if i have 2 cannisters and an HOT filter? if not that si fine, i can use them for pushing water around atm i would have 350 gph with the rena xp3, 300 gph with the rena xp2, and about 400 gph with the powerhead. so i will go get a bigger powerhead, since this is only 1050 gph. how many powerheads would i want on the tank? if i kept one canister so that things can grow inside of it, how many more powerheads should i use, is there a too much (making ti hard for anything to move int he tank)?

the kinda f fish i want are peaceful reef fish, but i want starfish and crabs and shrimp as a cleanup crew! How would i set this up for them? How much rock do i put it the tank, when i see pictures of peopel setting up thier tanks, they put a few rocks, do i watn only a couple so the fish have LOTS of swimming room or do i use a lot? thanks for the help, and anything else you can tell me/help me with would be greatly appreciated!!! thanks again!

 

[Jodie]

If you are using the rock as your primary filtration then I would advise about 60lbs of it.

If you aquascape it so there are plent of little caves or tunnels so that your inhabitants have somewhere to hide or shelter or whatever they want to do.

I would advise using regular sand or aragonite (about 1 inch) for your substrate. You don't need Live Sand as the rock will eventually seed the sand.

Once you start seeing algae on the rock and your tank is cycled, then you can start to add the cleaners.

HTH

 

[ANIM4L]

ok so i talked to a few people at a really good fish store that i honestly trust and this is what i came up with after talking to them for over 2 hours....

i will use the rena canister filters to filter out the tank in the beginning while it cycles, and the emporer too since they hold all the biological bacteria i need for the tank. I will start off with about 20 pounds of live sand and finish it off with about 40-60 pounds of aragonite sand. That or i will just use 60-80 pounds of aragonite and let the live rock fill it in, if that is possible and doesnt take too long...

i will be making a base of rock out of the lace rock and putting some live rock ontop of that, between 30-60 pounds of it probably, that should suffice, or do you think i should do some uncured live rock plus some live rock??? an dhow much

about the lighting, i may just keep it at the 160 watts, and do soft coral and then MAY BE down the road, move the soft corals to the bottom of the tank and then upgrade the lighting and then put hard corals on top. but that wouldnt be for a while. until then i will run the lights i have and then see how that goes. i will see how that goes and then go from there, i will let it cycle, i know it might be 30-60 days till it is safe, but i can wait.

anyone else have any ideas of what i need to do or what you think of this plan??