New marine aquarium setup.
Rich Triplett
I've been lurking in this newsgroup and have read up on starting a marine
aquarium. I've had all sorts of freshwater setups, from 10-30 gallon. I
broke down this weekend and got myself a 50gallon "Euro" setup (curves
slightly at front... I think it gives it a nice artsy look... like another
piece of furniture!).
So, I'm going with an undergravel filter with two 301 Powerheads. In
addition, I have a Whisper 3 stage powefilter that hangs on the back of the
tank. I might regret getting the UGF, as I hope to step up to live sand in
the future (I'm instead going with 40 lbs of "Seaflor" substrate for marine
aqauriums... anyone used this stuff? It's rather chunky and looks like a
mixture of crushed coral with crushed shells and stuff). But the future
couple be years away. I plan to incorporate some live rock, but probably
more along the lines of 1lb/gallon instead of the recommended 2lb/g.
I only plan to keep a few fish (for example: 1 damsel, 1 tang, 1 clownfish)
and perhaps some critters to keep the floor clean.
The archieves are great reading, but none match my exact setup. Anyone see
any blaring red lights about this setup? I plan to start cycling tomorrow.
I will be testing only Ammonia, NO2, NO3, and PH for now. I will concern
myself with other tests later. I will cycle with a handful of mollys in the
tank.
Thanks for lending the ear.... er, eye. Hope to be able to contribute to
this group before too long (i.e.: when I get a clue about how marine
aquariums behave.) :-)
-Richard
p.s. Will a freshwater ammonia/PH testkit be valid with marine samples?
Andy Weir
and 20 kg live rock covering that in about the same size tank. Has been going
for nearly 4 weeks now.
The live rock I got had been cured and was covered in purple coraline algae with
a mixture of caulerpa and macro algae and a few good soft coral specimens here
and there. It only went backward for about four days and has picked up well
since then. I am seeing new critters and algae species/regrowth every day and
some of the smaller soft corals ? have doubled in size. I have had no trouble
with ph but my SG has been at the low end so have been topping up with sea
water. I used fresh filtered seawater from an ocean farm to fill the tank.
For circulation I am using an external 1000 l/hr filter with a biological medium
rated about 6 times the capacity of my tank plus two ex filter powerheads
totalling about 700 l/hr for current inside the tank. I also have a DIY protine
skimmer connected to one of the external filter inlets. I'm not sure of it's
efficiency yet but the tank is looking crystal clear. At least it should achieve
good aeration and it does skim the surface well. Time will tell I guess.
I will be doing my first water change tonight as the nitrates have nearly
reached 20ppm. Probably should have checked sooner but everything was thriving.
This should help with the red slime algae as well but it does not seem to be a
big problem and I keep it on the move. I have been reluctant to do too much as
there are so many microscopic things going on I don't want to do any damage or
suck something away that should be left to develope.
Hope things go as well for you.
Cheers
Andy
PS. I have a Dupla pH test kit and it does both fresh and salt water but I
understand some don't. It should be mentioned in the instructions. Check the web
for your brand kit.
Jason
I, like you, have just switched from freshwater aquariums to a marine setup.
The advantage that I have is that I "inherited" a 55 gallon marine tank that
has been in operation for about 5 years now, so everything has gone
smoothly. I have just ordered a 135 gallon tank from Tenecor that I will
receive in about 6 to 8 weeks. At that point, all of the advice that I have
received from this newsgroup and from the books I have read will really pay
off.
A suggestion that I followed from this ng was to pick up a copy of the book
titled The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Fenner. I read this book
cover to cover last week and learned a tremendous amount of information
about marine aquariums. I also read two other books on the subject and
found this to be the hands-down best. I ordered the book from
www.ffexpress.com but I also saw it in a LFS that I visited this week. I
would HIGHLY recommend getting this book and reading it for any beginner.
Good luck!
Jason
Rich Triplett <rtri...@swcp.com> wrote in message
news:7t9aku$bkn$1...@sloth.swcp.com...
> Hello!
>
> I've been lurking in this newsgroup and have read up on starting a marine
> aquarium. I've had all sorts of freshwater setups, from 10-30 gallon. I
> broke down this weekend and got myself a 50gallon "Euro" setup (curves