Preparing For Salt

[wildechild_01]

I am currently looking into converting one of my tanks to Salt Water from fresh, the plan is to to a FOWLR tank for now but may in the future want to go with full reef but not sure yet, following is a list of the equipment i have and am currently looking at for the conversion, i am wondering how it looks to people. Any Suggestions are greatly appreciated. I am hoping to find out what equipment i need so i can spread the purchases out over the remainder of the year while i find suitable homes for the current tank inhabitants, and set aside the money for the live rock.

80 USG Bowfront Tank
Drilling the tank is not an option so i am leaning towards a design like this Overflow Box
i figure i have all the tools and time to do a fair bit of this DIY so why not.

20 USG Tank, Standard only 2 feet long
-I was hoping to use this for the Sump, with the 80g tank i am not too concerned with adding water volume so was hoping to use the sump mostly to hide equipment, that said i think i will need a Refugium (sp?) if i want to hide the heater and such below the tank. With this being the case i am not sure if the tank is long enough to divide into refugium and still have room for the skimmer and such so am thinking i may need to get a 20g Long... but if i need to buy a new tank am i maybe better off to just have a sump built for me? Mostly i am wondering if you think cost wise i am better off buying the a new tank and all the DIY stuff or just getting a pre-made setup..... now that i typed that really i will have to do the research on that one myself haha

Skimmer - From my readings other than the Live Rock it seems this is the most important part of the salt water setup so not planning on skimping here i am looking at either
Coralife Super Skimmer-Needle Wheel-125 Gallon
Price: $249.99
or
Instant Ocean - Aquarium Systems Seaclone Protein Skimmer- 150
Price: $149.99
Obviously with a price difference of $100 i have to wonder if one is really that much better than the other - any thoughts on this? or any recommendations?

48" HO-T5 Light fixture 2x54 Watt lamps
This seems to have been adequate lighting for the fresh water setup the fish and plants all look amazing, the lamps are different spectrums, i'd have to go look so see ratings, but both are recommended for both fresh and Marine set ups. My concern is that this is not enough light for the marine although with the FOWLR setup i don't know that i will need more.... really though to add another fixture is not a huge deal

Fluval 405 and 105 Canister Filters
- Initially i was thinking i could avoid getting power heads, but i dont think the flow rates here will be enough, so not sure if these are of any use at all to me.

Power Heads - I don't currently own these and am unsure what i will need.. i have read everything from 5x tank to 20x tank for flow rates... also not sure if i need to include the Sump capacity in this or not. the ammount of flow needed will definitely influence what power head i need, i would think it better to have fewer with higher flow?

Wave Generator - Do these serve the same purpose as the power heads? just to have circulation.. if so am i better off with these or power heads? or a combination of both?

Live Rock - Only question here is how much do i need? I will be purchasing Tank Raised already cured live rock.

Well i think thats all for right now.. haha

again any thoughts and suggestions are definitely appreciated.

 

[-Nemo-]

Apologies that no one has replied to you yet, I myself did not notice this topic until now.


First, Welcome to the saltie side

I am currently looking into converting one of my tanks to Salt Water from fresh, the plan is to to a FOWLR tank for now but may in the future want to go with full reef but not sure yet, following is a list of the equipment i have and am currently looking at for the conversion, i am wondering how it looks to people. Any Suggestions are greatly appreciated. I am hoping to find out what equipment i need so i can spread the purchases out over the remainder of the year while i find suitable homes for the current tank inhabitants, and set aside the money for the live rock.

80 USG Bowfront Tank
Drilling the tank is not an option so i am leaning towards a design like this Overflow Box
i figure i have all the tools and time to do a fair bit of this DIY so why not.

Definitely do-able


20 USG Tank, Standard only 2 feet long
-I was hoping to use this for the Sump, with the 80g tank i am not too concerned with adding water volume so was hoping to use the sump mostly to hide equipment, that said i think i will need a Refugium (sp?) if i want to hide the heater and such below the tank. With this being the case i am not sure if the tank is long enough to divide into refugium and still have room for the skimmer and such so am thinking i may need to get a 20g Long... but if i need to buy a new tank am i maybe better off to just have a sump built for me? Mostly i am wondering if you think cost wise i am better off buying the a new tank and all the DIY stuff or just getting a pre-made setup..... now that i typed that really i will have to do the research on that one myself haha

More water volume is ALWAYS better, no matter how big of a tank you have already. I agree that the 20G is probably going to be too small to really do too much with... I just put in everything for my 75G into my 29G sump (30" long) and it was really tight.

I think you might be confusing the sump and refugium... The sump is the whole tank you'll be using with everything in it. The refugium is just ONE section (called a chamber). It can have many different things in it, but most people put in a deep sand bed and macroalgae with a light over it, to help reduce nitRATes and phosphates.

I wouldn't waste money on buying a sump, those things are wicked expensive! It is just as easy (and sometimes less of a headache) to DIY one. That way you can make sure all of your equipment will fit in and everything will be as you want. If you're looking for a place to start with this, http/www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html
That is a great website with a lot of different designs. You'll notice it's the same website you pulled your DIY overflow from, it's all-in-all a great resource.



Skimmer - From my readings other than the Live Rock it seems this is the most important part of the salt water setup so not planning on skimping here i am looking at either
Coralife Super Skimmer-Needle Wheel-125 Gallon
Price: $249.99
or
Instant Ocean - Aquarium Systems Seaclone Protein Skimmer- 150
Price: $149.99
Obviously with a price difference of $100 i have to wonder if one is really that much better than the other - any thoughts on this? or any recommendations?

Coralife is a great skimmer, I have used these personally. A bit of a pain to adjust, but you're really only to be adjusting it once so not a big deal. I have no personal experience with Instant Ocean's, but they're known to be decent as far as I know.



48" HO-T5 Light fixture 2x54 Watt lamps
This seems to have been adequate lighting for the fresh water setup the fish and plants all look amazing, the lamps are different spectrums, i'd have to go look so see ratings, but both are recommended for both fresh and Marine set ups. My concern is that this is not enough light for the marine although with the FOWLR setup i don't know that i will need more.... really though to add another fixture is not a huge deal

If you're just starting out as FOWLR, this light be perfectly suitable for that. Your tank is pretty tall, so if you decided to do some corals later on you'll have to be careful about getting a good light, but you might even be able to get away with some hardy soft corals under this one...



Fluval 405 and 105 Canister Filters
- Initially i was thinking i could avoid getting power heads, but i dont think the flow rates here will be enough, so not sure if these are of any use at all to me.

Only reason for these would to be to run media like carbon and phosphate remover in it. Other than that, not much else for it. You can also run that media in the sump or through a reactor in the sump.



Power Heads - I don't currently own these and am unsure what i will need.. i have read everything from 5x tank to 20x tank for flow rates... also not sure if i need to include the Sump capacity in this or not. the ammount of flow needed will definitely influence what power head i need, i would think it better to have fewer with higher flow?

You want to create the least amount of "dead zones" (No flow spots) as possible. Therefore you definitely want at least two powerheads. If you want to do corals later on, I would go ahead and just buy the powerheads you will need or them now. For most coral tanks you will want 20x flow in the tank. So your tank is 80G (don't include sump), therefore you want around 1600gph TOTAL. So you can do two 800gph powerheads, or you might want to do more powerheads to decrease dead zones around your rock structures. For no corals, you could do less flow (10-15x). But like I said, if you want to maybe do corals in the future (which you will ), plan for it now.


Wave Generator - Do these serve the same purpose as the power heads? just to have circulation.. if so am i better off with these or power heads? or a combination of both?

Yes, same purpose as powerheads, just to move the water around. Most wave makers are usually expensive (so that's one factor), some are great and some are crap (another factor). There are also some expensive powerheads that have control boards where you can control the flow exactly to what you want (Vortech powerheads, for example). You can certainly look into them, but I don't think you'll be better with or without them. Koralia brand powerheads are great and work well.


Live Rock - Only question here is how much do i need? I will be purchasing Tank Raised already cured live rock.

Eventually you'll want around 1lb per gallon, so 80lbs. It is expensive stuff, so you can start with less (but definitely wouldn't recommend less than 40lbs starting) and gradually add more as you go. It's always best, however, to add as much of the 80lbs as possible at the beginning to cycle your tank.


Well i think thats all for right now.. haha

again any thoughts and suggestions are definitely appreciated.

If you haven't already, take a look at the journals on here. Some of them are invaluable resources. Here, http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/327281-marine-aquarium-journals-listed-by-volume/, we have them listed by volume in case you are looking for tanks similar sized to yours.

Hope to see yours there soon

 

[wildechild_01]

Thanks for all the input Nemo, it is very appreciated, i will definitely check out the journals, fresh water i did my learning as i went but definitely want to do as much learning before hand this time around.

 

[wildechild_01]

I was looking around my LFS checking prices on equipment to build my sump system when i came across a sump package its pretty much everything i'd need for a quick set up, down side is that it really doesn't do much for water volume also i wasn't planning to buy a sump so much as a tank that i could use for a DIY setup to make sure all my equipment fits and can have some chambers.. i really like the Refugium idea, as i would like to have as little equipment in the display tank, and if i can put my heater in the sump thats one less item visable. I do however like the auto fill for toping off the tank. really its the price tag that i like, provided its a decent skimmer and pump and such this is probably the quickest easiest route to take which leaves me with more $ for live rock which by the way i am getting here it is all man made aquacultured rock that is ready to go out of the box. I was thinking once i have all my gear i would set up tank with substrate and water, and order rock that day, then the tank would have a few days for me to make sure things were working and things like temperature were stable.. then when i get my live rock, possibly add some inverts like Cleaner shrimp or something like that, let it run for a bit to let rock establish in tank, and stuff to spread to sand, then slowly start adding fish... i will probably start with a pair of clowns... im not sure what all i want for fish but i figure i will add 1 or 2 at a time and at least 3 weeks apart to make sure everyone settles and the tank has time to adjust... i did the too many fish to fast thing with fresh water as a newbie and would rather not lose fish this time around... hahaha.... anyway just thought i would see what people think about the sump kit.. and also the live rock

Thanks again

 

[-Nemo-]

I'm not quite sure what's going on with that "sump package"... I've never heard of that Tom Pro company and so I have no idea how their products are.

As for the Live Rock, it looks like it will be OK.

Make sure the live rock has fully cycled your tank (0 ammonia, 0 nitRITe, <20 nitRATes), before adding in any inverts.

 

[wildechild_01]

Haha.. okay so i feel like i am posting a lot and asking a lot but hey thats what forums are for, so here goes.

I did a little more digging on that sump system and decided against it, people do seem to like it for the most part but say the skimmer isn't very effective and there is no way to add a different one so that pretty much did it in for me... everyone does love the overflow box though that apparently has a small pump to restore function in even of power outage, but thats another topic.

I've been digging around Mels Reef site and have decided to build my own sump so i can make sure it will fit the equipment i want and my needs, also due to the bow front tank the stand has a little less room in it than would be ideal. So now my question has to do with progression of water in the sump system, i am going to have 3 compartments, to accommodate a Refugium, a decent sized skimmer and a return area, obviously the return area is at the end of the system haha but i am curious as to if i should have the water go into the refugium before the skimmer area or if its better to have the skimmer first... really it only affects the design slightly.. i am working on a design now incorporating various aspects of a couple of the ones on the site... is fun... i am also hoping that by designing my own i will be able to have room in the stand for a top up system...

anyway if anyone knows if there is a preferential water sequence would be appreciated.. thanks

 

[-Nemo-]

I went through the same exact debate and finally decided to place the skimmer before the refugium.

AK77 and John O convinced me in my journal.
Here are their posts.

Looking very good NEMO
...What are you going to have in your sump DSB?

If so I would recommend having your skimmer before the DSB, one of the benefits of a DSB is the amount plank tonic larvae which come from the reproduction of the sand bed. So as I say I would recommend placing the skimmer before the DSB and not after or the potential is there for a large proportion of the beneficial food to be skimmed off.... “What a waste” ...

I'd also recommend that you go with the skimmer section before the DSB. A lot of nutrients will still make it through into the refugium section, more than enough nitrates and phosphates for the chaetomorpha and the anaerobic bacteria.

I would recommend that you drape filter wool over the baffle between the skimmer section and the DSB. I used to do this for a couple of reasons on my old sump in my Juwel 180L. Firstly, it stopped virtually all the food particles from entering the refugium section and contaminating the sandbed. As a result I never once had to clean it to prevent it crashing. It also inhibits microbubbles from progressing any further through the sump and back into the display tank, as the water would wick through the wool. It also meant that the sand (and more importantly the anaerobic bacteria) wasn't disturbed by what would have been cascading water.

After a few weeks, the wool would become pretty dirty, so I would simply replace it with fresh stuff. The amphipods also feed on the tiny food particles that colleced on the wool, which is probably why I had such an abundance of them in my sump

Hope this helps

 

[wildechild_01]

haha that was quick.. also.. i guess that settles it, definitely makes sense with the skimmer removing the potential food.. i never even thought of that... haha that takes care of one of the designs i was toying with... so looks like i will go Intake/Skimmer---->Refugium---->Return pump. Ok so really i could ask this at LFS but... if im going to have an operating water level of around 10 inches in the sump will the skimmer need a platform to sit on, or can i submerge the majority of it... obviously if the skimmer isn't that tall it would need a platform but other than that?

Thanks for all your help Nemo

 

[-Nemo-]

All that needs to be above the water level is the collection cup and the air intake. So whether or not you need a platform, will depend on the skimmer you get.

I ran into a problem this past weekend putting my skimmer in that it was too short so just took some bunched up eggcrate pieces and stuffed it under the skimmer lol.

 

[wildechild_01]

how much flow do i want through my sump? im assuming its a ratio to tank volume like with power heads... funny i didnt think of this earlier

 

[-Nemo-]

The flow through your sump will be decided on how many tubes and how large (diameter) the piping is going down into the sump. Most overflow boxes will state around how much flow they will support or if you are going to make your own a little math will be involved to figure it out.

I would aim for at least 800gph going down to the sump and coming back up to the tank and supplement the flow with powerheads.

 

[wildechild_01]

Well i went to the LFS today to actually take a good look at skimmers and how big they are... most of the ones that seem like they would be suitable for my tank are listed as 8"x8"x20-26 tall depending on the brand.. with the 8x8 i figure i probably need at least a 12x12 area for the skimmer to sit in the sump. Given the dimensions i have to work with due to the Bowfront stand i am concerned about having room for the Refugium so i am considering not having one but am tweaking some Sump designs too, other concern is that i want to leave the return section large enough that if i am unable to incorporate an auto fill right away i will be able to leave it for about a week without a top up. If i bail on the Fuge i will probably just end up buying a 29g tank and some glass sheets to make a bubble trap. So do you think i am better off with a smaller return and a small refugium or am i better off abandoning the fuge?? Maybe i should just build a new stand... haha

 

[wildechild_01]

Hmmmmm I just found this

100 Gallon (48X18X26) Tank, Black background, overflow, 2 holes & Bulkheads: $300.00

its from a custom tank builder who supplies tanks to the LFS's who has decided to sell privately as well.... needless to say i am tempted to just sell my entire 80g setup and go from there. Of course i'd need to buy a stand too but i figure i can sell my current setup for more than the new tank and stand would cost.

 

[wildechild_01]

well, my better half has veto'd the DIY sump .... maybe minds will change while pricing out pre-made sumps