The Big Switchover

[qwikimpss]

I'm sure some of you have seen me either lurking around or have seen my couple questions in the past couple weeks as I was thinking about switching my planted 75 gallon into a FOWLR tank. Well it has been done and I'm going to chronicle all of my massive mistakes and screw ups in this spot for ALL TO SEE!

LEARN BY DOING!! (my personal motto)

Stick around, this should be fun.



This was my starting point. A 75 gallon, high tech planted tank. Had pressurized CO2, HO T-5 lighting, aquariumplants.com's own substrate, liquid ferts and all the goodies. All this is going to be swapped over to a 55 gallon that is sitting unused right now as soon as I get a stand and light for it. My plants were growing incredibly, although my 'scape was pretty poor. I thoroughly enjoy freshwater and will not be abandoning my quest for a beautiful planted tank but after several years of pondering a saltwater switch I finally had to bite the bullet and go for it.

LOOK DADA, FISH! (I assure you that's a big, goofy smile, she's not crying) My kid loves my tanks. She helps me feed my fish and giggles, it's pretty awesome.

I spent a couple hours tearing down and cleaning the tank. Scraping and scrubbing everything. I actually found a huge dragonfly larva scurrying across the substrate as I was draining the tank. I have no idea how it got there but it was pretty cool, I had an invertibrate and didn't even know it!

I later went on a shopping spree. Not pictured here is the 65 lbs of aragonite sugar sand that was already put in the tank at the time I snapped this pic. I also switched over my T5 lights from two 6,700k tubes to one 10,000k and one actinic.

I might have completely forgot to rinse my sand. Stupid noob mistake. It took a couple days to clear up after I threw some poilishing pads into my canister filter, and it's still not completely clear. It should clear right up after a couple of water changes, not too worried about it.

I did buy a few pieces of live rock. One piece was actually sold to me out of a huge 400 gallon tank that the store actually used as their biological filtration, apparently they don't sell any rock out of it but the clerk that was helping me was new and didn't know. I have noticed some Aiptasia anenomes on the smallest of my three pieces of rock. I'm debating to try to eradicate them or not. I figure I could just take the rock out for a couple weeks and let it dry out. I also noticed this guy pictured. A little six-legged brittle star. Should I worry about these guys? I have noticed that there are quite a few of them on one of my pieces of live rock hiding in the nooks and crannies.

So this is where I'm at right now. Tank is running. SG of 1.023, PH is right at 8.2. Unsure of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, I havent tested for them yet as I figure my cycle is just starting out so I havent bothered testing for it yet although I plan on testing today since I'm home from work.

I have very little LR in there right now. I would have more but realized too late that the PetCo nearest me sells 30 pound cases of Fiji rock for $99.99. That's a cheap $3.33 a pound! The little LR I bought was 7 bucks a pound, DOH! With my next paycheck I plan on picking up a box.....or two, of it.

I am in the process of planning out a sump/refugium. I plan on using a spare 29 gallon tank I have sitting around and making my own baffles using plexiglas. I'm planning on using an overflow box sourced from MarineDepot.com, I think a 300 GPH one should be ok for my setup as the next step up is a full 600 GPH. Should I try for more flow through my fuge/sump? I was also thinking that a return pump with a 300 gph setup would be less expensive than one for a 600 gph setup since I'm looking at a head height of around 4 feet.

Anyway. Here are my tank and hardware specs right now.

Tank: 75 US gallon

Heater: I forget what it is but I know it does the job. I will be switching to two smaller heaters in my sump when I get it up and running just to eliminate the clutter in the tank.

Filter: Running a Fluval 305 on it right now. This will be coming off when I get my sump going

Water Circulation: I have an Aqueon pump rated for 1,250 gph, this seems a tad excessive when I turn the thing on.

Lighting: Coralife T5, 2x54 watt, 1x 10,000k, 1x actinic.

I'll snap some more pictures later on.


IT'S ALL SO EXCITING!!!

 

[ZoddyZod]

great write-up! Thanks for sharing and looking forward to the progress.....

 

[qwikimpss]

My buddy swung by today, he's pretty much my only friend I have that keeps a saltwater tank and he brought me an urchin that was irritating him by continuously knocking over rubble as well as some hermit crabs. As I had to run out to the store to grab some frozen food I asked him if he'd like to come with.

I ended up walking out of PetCo with just the frozen brine shrimp I went in to grab. He walked out with an ocellaris clown and a blue chromis that I assumed were for his tank. He then informs me that he was buying them for my tank! He said he was sick of looking at my empty tank.

Looks like I'm going to really have to keep a close eye on my water stats as my tank hasn't cycled yet and I didn't want to turn down his generous gift (although I probably should have.)

I'm toying with the idea of emptying my 29 gal, making it into a refugium, and putting it right next to the main tank. This idea, of course, is still in its infancy. I'm still planning on making a sump, however, and if I go with the 29 gallon refugium idea I may make the sump out of a spare 10 gallon I have chilling out right now. It's nice having several empty tanks and equipment sitting around.

Here's a full tank shot as it sits right now with so very little rock in it. Pretty barren if I say so.

Blue chromis

The clown

 

[wildechild_01]

Definitely keep an eye on the stats.. as well now that you have fish in the tank adding more live rock can be an adventure... i killed a 30g tank by adding 1 fairly small rock i thought was cured already and well it wasn't... so definitely make sure you cure any live rock you get in one of your other tanks before adding it to the display... your empty tank makes me want to move all my LR to my sump and have an almost rockless scape in my tank.. hahaha.. look forward to watching your progress, its definitely a learning curve but one with amazing results at the end

 

[qwikimpss]

I'm glad someone likes my (nearly) rockless tank. It looks barren and boring to me!

 

[wildechild_01]

I'm glad someone likes my (nearly) rockless tank. It looks barren and boring to me!

haha im tired of the scape in my tank... i am actually re-doing it this weekend

 

[qwikimpss]

Checked my water stats tonight. Holding at a steady 79 F which is good, 0.25 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite. I didn't bother testing nitrate once I saw zero nitrites. I'm actually quite surprised at the low ammonia. I figured it would have jumped up more than that with my two fish, hermit crabs, urchin and the assorted snails and stuff that came on my rock. Oh well!

I spent a while tonight just staring at my tank. As I type this I'm actually in a chair, facing my tank, 2 feet away. It's amazing how many little critters are in there. I constantly see little copepods and amphipods crawling around on my rock and substrate. I also noticed a pretty big snail that chills out in one of my LR chunks. Why did I wait so long to switch to SW??

My two fish are doing quite well. Fins are fully extended, active, and eating heartily. Hopefully I can make the cycle as easy on them as possible. Fingers crossed.


I won a drawing at work today for a $100 Mastercard gift card, you know, the ones you can use anywhere like a debit card. My first thought was "SWEET! That's a 30 pound box of live rock!" Then the grown up part of my brain slapped me and said that I should use it for gas and some food for the house for me, the wife and my 19 month old.

Stupid grown up responsibilities!

 

[qwikimpss]

This morning's tests:

Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0.25 ppm
Nitrate: 5 ppm


We are swimming along nicely.

 

[qwikimpss]

It's been a few days and there are a couple developments. There is a healthy covering of diatoms all over the sand. My water parameters have leveled off at zero ammonia and nitrite and just 5 nitrate, leading me to believe that, for what is in the tank right now, it's all cycled. Too bad I still need about 50 to 60 more pounds of live rock.

On a sad note, the blue chromis that my buddy bought me died. I kind of expected it. However the clownfish looks fantastically healthy.

I'll be adding roughly 30 more pounds of live rock this weekend and possibly making my 29 gallon into a refugium (that last bit depends on how motivated I feel).

 

[qwikimpss]

Well, my buddy Craig did it again. I haven't been to my pet shop yet this weekend to pick up any more LR but he stopped there tonight. Guess what he did, he brought me a hermit crab. I know it may sound far fetched that I have a friend that keeps bringing me stuff for my tank, but I really do, and he's a pain in the butt about it. I don't know what kind of hermit crab this is and I never impulse buy an unknown species of anything.

I will say that this hermit crab is awesome. Super colorful, really hairy, and crazy active. It buries himself and then sifts so much sand that it's actually clouding up my water a little bit. Any I.D. help would be great, as I said, I didn't pick out this guy so I don't even know what it is!

Pic time!

A closer pic to aid in identification.

 

[qwikimpss]

So after a little googling it looks like I have a White Spotted Hermit Crab on my hands here. Uh-oh.

Everything I've read says that it is predacious, has a voracious appetite and will readily hunt and kill small fish.

I would definitely put my 2.5 inch long ocellaris clown in the "small" fish category.

THIS is why I do my research before buying something for my tank. I NEVER impulse buy but my friend does. Worst of all he impulse buys stuff for MY tank.

Looks like I need to bring this agressive little SOB back to PetCo tomorrow.

 

[Donya]

Dardanus megistos. See my 55-gal journal for examples of the shenanigans and havoc these crabs can cause. They can be great fun, but they do not belong in a standard community or reef tank without many precautions being taken to crab-proof the tank (not stacking rocks, keeping fragile things inaccessible, etc.). Even then, they can pull incredibly unpredictable stunts, as my most recent post in that thread demonstrates. Unless you plan to build the tank around this animal and its strength/aggression, I suggest you re-home it or return it to the store.

Pain in the behind or not, please tell you friend not to not buy things for you if he doesn't know what they are or how they behave. It is not fair to the animals he buys and potentially not fair to animals you already have. Also, if YOU don't know what it is, don't accept it and, if you have no choice, definitely don't put it in your main tank until you've IDed it. If your friend had brought you some other large, unidentified Crustacean, you could have walked in to find it polishing off a fish carcass instead of being amused by sand-sifting antics. Similarly he could have gotten you something toxic that could nuke the tank if it croaked.

 

[qwikimpss]

Yeah, I gotta talk to him and lay down the law.

My plan is to toss the crab in a tupperware container I have with some salt water already mixed up until I can retun him in the morning.

On the up side, I should be able to swap him for some stuff I actually want.

 

[Donya]

I recommend keeping the crab in-tank unless you either have a very warm room (>70F overnight) or have a spare bucket of larger volume that you can keep warm somehow. You can also use a couple large freezer bags nested one inside the other, fill halfway with tank water, and bull clip (or even tape on the outside of the tank) one edge of the open bags to the side of the tank so that it floats in the water to remain warm (just making sure to leave the bags partially open for gas exchange). Anyway, it would probably be fine free and in-tank too for a while. Fish-catching for this species is largely myth, save for cases of injured/dying fish. People see them eating an already dead fish and assume the crab killed it.

 

[qwikimpss]

We keep our heat set to 72 all the time. It may seem warm but we have a basement apartment so it's actually quite necessary. The water should be plenty warm for the little dude for the night.

I'm actually kinda sad I can't keep it. He's really cool but I want a nice, peaceful tank. I don't want to design an entire setup around one hermit crab, yanno?

I do have an empty 10 gallon tank doing nothing right now but no heater or stand for it. So I think it's best to trade him back in.