The Start Of A New Journey...

[Spinal]

Well, I've been pondering on swapping a tank to SW for a while now, and a recent trip to a friend with a SW tank pushed me over the edge. Given that my finances are (very) limited, I'm planning to do this over a few months. My questions:

1- I have a 45/50litre hex tank which was used for a crayfish once-upon-a-time; it fits quite well under my main aquarium, (260litre), can I use this as a sump or is it too small?

2-While I wait for the bits and bobs to drop into place, can I use the aforementioned hex-tank to fill it with base rock and seed it with a small amount of live rock? This should cut the costs of filling the main tank (live rock seems quite expensive...) What would I need? I have read quite a few how-to's on making base rock, but no-one mentions what I need to "make it live". I'm guessing a quantity of live rock (5%/10% by weight?) and some lighting, right? Any specific lighting?

3-Im planning to use a eheim 2215 as a mecchanical/chemical filter, and the LV as a the bio-filter, am I right in assuming that for a 260litre tank, I will need rougly 50kg of live rock?

4-Protein Skimmer... can't find much info on these other than they are noisy Do external models exist? Can I place it in the sump (always assuming my hex tank will be a suitable sump) instead of in the aquarium? Finally, what models would you recommend? (noise isn't a factor, its a dedicated fish-room)

5-Lighting... I have a dual-T5 starter(55w) and a T8(36 or so W) starter on the tank. Can I place some marine tubes or do I absolutely need metal halide lights?

6-Finally, one last question on live rock. Say I use the hex to seed some base rock (after curing it obviously), do I need to inject ammonia the same way as when cycling a fresh-water tank? I would prefer not to put any fish at risk while I seed my rocks....

Thanks in advance,
Michele

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Well, I've been pondering on swapping a tank to SW for a while now, and a recent trip to a friend with a SW tank pushed me over the edge. Given that my finances are (very) limited, I'm planning to do this over a few months. My questions:

1- I have a 45/50litre hex tank which was used for a crayfish once-upon-a-time; it fits quite well under my main aquarium, (260litre), can I use this as a sump or is it too small?

2-While I wait for the bits and bobs to drop into place, can I use the aforementioned hex-tank to fill it with base rock and seed it with a small amount of live rock? This should cut the costs of filling the main tank (live rock seems quite expensive...) What would I need? I have read quite a few how-to's on making base rock, but no-one mentions what I need to "make it live". I'm guessing a quantity of live rock (5%/10% by weight?) and some lighting, right? Any specific lighting?

3-Im planning to use a eheim 2215 as a mecchanical/chemical filter, and the LV as a the bio-filter, am I right in assuming that for a 260litre tank, I will need rougly 50kg of live rock?

4-Protein Skimmer... can't find much info on these other than they are noisy Do external models exist? Can I place it in the sump (always assuming my hex tank will be a suitable sump) instead of in the aquarium? Finally, what models would you recommend? (noise isn't a factor, its a dedicated fish-room)

5-Lighting... I have a dual-T5 starter(55w) and a T8(36 or so W) starter on the tank. Can I place some marine tubes or do I absolutely need metal halide lights?

6-Finally, one last question on live rock. Say I use the hex to seed some base rock (after curing it obviously), do I need to inject ammonia the same way as when cycling a fresh-water tank? I would prefer not to put any fish at risk while I seed my rocks....

Thanks in advance,
Michele

welcome to the salty side of life!!!

i'm no expert but i'll try and answer your questions

1 - i think it depends a little on what you want the sump to do, if you simply want to house equipment outside of the main tank out of site then as long as you can fit the heater, skimmer etc in (/ hanging on) then it's fine. If you want to use it also to house a large quantity of your live rock so you don't have to have it in the tank then the size is dictated by how much LR you want to put in. If you want to add a significant volume of water to your overall capacity for added stability then bigger is better. So you need to assess exactly how you want the tank to look and run, then you can see if it's big enough

2 - yes you should be able to, you get a little bit of cured LR and the base rock will seed from it, I don't know exactly what conditions you need to do this though (lighting, heating etc)

3 - I wouldn't bother with the Eheim at all, you can filter a SW tank really well with just a decent amount of LR and enough powerheads to give you 20x turnover.

4 - yes you can get hang on protein skimmers, i think it's the prism one's that peple have problems with the noise. If your in the UK look into the TMC and Deltec ones. Not sure what the exact dimensions of your hex are so you'd have to look into suitable models to fit it, sure you can find something though.

5 - Your lighting requirements depend on if you want to keep coral's and what sort you want to keep, there's 3 main groups, softies, SPS and LPS, do a bti of research and decide whast you want, then you can tailor your lighting requirements to what you want to keep.

6 - Not 100% but i don't think so, Just having some live rock should be enough to keep it going, once it's all been cured that's the same as your tank being cycled (not mature... so you need to stock slowly, but OK to support some life) so you can start adding livestock.

 

[Spinal]

Perfect, thank you very much I was planning on using the hex tank/sump only to banish the equipment there, I quite like the look of live rock in the tank (and as I'm making my own in large part, I plan on having quite a few caves...)

Regarding the turnover, 20x?! That much?! I was planning on 3x to 4x the volume of the tank (so for a 250l tank, roughly 1000lph..). I guess I'll need to get quite a few bigger pumps...

2- ok, so now I need to figure out what the live rocks need to keep going. I'm guessing a heater, and some lights, but I'm not totally sure... Anyone have any input? Also, how many lights? In a 50litres tank, a 55W tube will be like... 5WpG.... is burning the rocks/creatures a possibility? (I've had my experiences with burning plants in FW... never EVER put twin T5's on top of a nano tank "just to see what would happen in a 50+WpG environment...

Also, what skimmers would you reccomend? At its widest, the hex tank is just over a foot wide (50l). Also, would I need a skimmer just to get the base rock seeded from my live rock? (or do I just need water-flow?)

Thanks again,
Michele

quick edit: while browsing for some more info, I noticed someone (in the US) put an inflatable pool full of rocks outside during summer... now, I realise that the weather here in the UK is (very) different, but I was thinking, if I do the same thing in my shed, put several heaters around the pool and have the powerheads all pointing in the same direction (thus forming a "vortex" of water currents) would this work?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Perfect, thank you very much I was planning on using the hex tank/sump only to banish the equipment there, I quite like the look of live rock in the tank (and as I'm making my own in large part, I plan on having quite a few caves...)
[/qoute]

i like the look of LR in the tank too, just personal preference though isn't it!

Regarding the turnover, 20x?! That much?! I was planning on 3x to 4x the volume of the tank (so for a 250l tank, roughly 1000lph..). I guess I'll need to get quite a few bigger pumps...

yup, really 20x the tank volume. i think that's minimum too, we have nearly 25 i think.

2- ok, so now I need to figure out what the live rocks need to keep going. I'm guessing a heater, and some lights, but I'm not totally sure... Anyone have any input? Also, how many lights? In a 50litres tank, a 55W tube will be like... 5WpG.... is burning the rocks/creatures a possibility? (I've had my experiences with burning plants in FW... never EVER put twin T5's on top of a nano tank "just to see what would happen in a 50+WpG environment...

i think just a steady salinity and heating and 'standard' lighting, you don't need to worry about metal halides, t5's etc until you've got corals.

Also, what skimmers would you reccomend? At its widest, the hex tank is just over a foot wide (50l). Also, would I need a skimmer just to get the base rock seeded from my live rock? (or do I just need water-flow?)
[/qoute]

i don't know which model but research the deltec and TMC skimmers, they're the best and reasonably priced ones over here from what I've found out.

Thanks again,
Michele

quick edit: while browsing for some more info, I noticed someone (in the US) put an inflatable pool full of rocks outside during summer... now, I realise that the weather here in the UK is (very) different, but I was thinking, if I do the same thing in my shed, put several heaters around the pool and have the powerheads all pointing in the same direction (thus forming a "vortex" of water currents) would this work?

sounds promising, wait for someone else to give they're opinions though!

 

[Spinal]

Thank you very much

My plan of action is this; after work today, I'm heading over to B&Q to buy some cement. I'm also going to call some poultry farms and see if I can buy 25/50kg of crushed oyster shells from them (from what I've found, 50kg from a poultry supplier shouldn't cost me more than £20, which is quite reasonable for that quantity!) This weekend I'll mix up my first batch of rocks, I'm going down the 5-shape highway:
-Arch
-Cave
-Branch
-Ledge
-Tunnel

I'll then adapt some caves and tunnels to fit the powerheads so they are hidden. I can't really thing of any other equipment that I would have IN the tank (as a pose to in the sump) so I'll just make 2 more tunnels to hide the in/out pipes... Then lots of interesting things... I'll be sure to post pics/progress.

I'll cure them for... oh, say 3/4 months in a kiddie pool in the shed with weekly water changes and strong aereation. Then I'll figure out a way to seed them... hopefully sunlight will be sufficient, otherwise I'll need to pass a power chord to the shed... (aereation is provided courtesy of my 100litre reservoir on the compressor )

Thanks for the help Now the only real question I'll have (in a couple of months) will be, what do live rocks need to live... (no philosophical debates please). From what I've gathered:
-Water flow (20x+)
-Heat (temp? I'm guessing 22-28C)

Do live rocks need a skimmer? What about light? Is (British) sunlight enough (stop laughing in the back, we DO get sunlight every now and then!) or should I supplement it with some T5/T8 marines? (I have so many starters from my planted tanks that I'm SURE I can spare one...)

Thanks again,
Michele