Various questions from newbie

[nevpugh308]

First of all, "Hi all !". I've just registered, and I've got a feeling I'm going to be an active member of this forum :)

I'm currently in the process of setting up a Marine tank, and I'd consider myself a complete newbie (I HAVE had a SW tank before, but it was > 10 years ago and I've forgotten most things, so I'm effectively starting from scratch, plus lots of practices have changed recently). I'm currently waiting for the custom cabinet to be made for my tank, hope to get it within 1 to 1.5 weeks then I'll be setting up.

My set up is going to be as follows (if you're interested) : 60" L x 18" W x 21" H tank, EHEIM 2028 Pro II external filter, Triton 48" tube + Marineglow 48" tube, live rock, 2x200w heaters.

I have various random questions which I'd be ever so grateful if anyone could pipe up with answers to .... (I've had a search through the history and can't find answers to the following) ....

1) Is the flow from the EHEIM going to be enough, or would you put (1 ? more ?) powerheads in the tank just to give water movement. If the latter, what size of powerhead(s) ?

2) I'm going for live rock. My local retailer sells "high quality" Fijian rock at 250 GBP per 20kg (cured). He recons that I will need 100kg for a tank of my size (ulp !). That's 1000 GBP (about 1600 USD !) and is way above my budget ! Is he right at 100kg ? How much would you put in the tank ? Is 20kg (about what I can afford after buying everything else) going to look lost ? Can you add more live rock later, once you've a populated tank, or are there dangers involved in that ?

3) How long would YOU leave a newly set up tank to run before a) putting in the live rock b) starting to stock with 1 or 2 fish ? (I was thinking of starting the filters off artificially first (chemicals, fish food etc)

4) Protein skimmer ? Absolutely essential or can wait a bit ?

5) Live sand (new one on me today) ... yes or no ? Does live sand last "forever" like live rock ?

6) RO water, is it worth all the hassle ? Will it really drastically reduce algae growth ? (our tap water isn't fantastic)

7) Live rock can bring in nasties, how do you catch / elimiate these nasties ?!?

Many thanks, no doubt I'll have loads more questions as time progresses (I'm reading like mad at the moment) but that's a good start .... thankyou !

Neville Pugh
Ashby de la Zouch, UK:)

[Oakley]

Hi Nev, good to see a fellow Brit here :)

I too am a newbie but have been doing alot of reading and have found a few great threads on fourms and also some great articals.
From everything i have read, water flow is everything, i have a fluval 404 and was recommended to add 1 or 2 powerheads to the setup.
There is a great artical on Deep Sand Beds that i found, give loads of info about it, here is the link

Deep Sand Beds (http://www.rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm)


I have also read that it is better for the fish and you if you dont cycle with any fish in, just put a piece of shrimp in and watch it rott.
The LR seems very expensive, im not sure on this one, but i think if you do not have any fish in your tank when you add LR, you can cure it yourself, i would guess this would mean the LR would be less expensive. ??

[Max]

I'll try to answer some of your questions . I'm sure that more experienced people will chime in. I think if I were you I'd shop around some more for my rock! You could probably get it shipped from Flordia for less than what your paying for it. I think that you're probably useing metric messures so... hmm my conversion will be off but , 1 kilo of live rock per about 2.5 litters of water should suffice. Also any porus tank safe material will turn into lr if you seed your tank with some of it. I usually wait for 2 or 3 days prior to adding my lr. The deep sand bed will act as an additional bio-filtration and will help balance you ph and ca levels.
I've tried a couple of differnt methods to cycle my tanks but, would reccomend useing food or a small amount of sea food or something to cycle with.
Hope this helps
Chris
:)

[nevpugh308]

Hi and thanks for the replies :)

Oakley : Tx for the link, I'll read that. I've been doing some searching on the net and some people do LR at 200 GBP, which is a bit cheaper I guess. I've thought about curing myself, but a) I believe it's a bit of a faff to do and b) apparently it stinks to high heaven, and this is in the living room, so I can't imagine the missus being too pleased ;)

max : 1kg per 2.5 litres of water .... that works out at 140kg ! Eeep !

[Decz]

I was still working out the math when maxiliar replied, and I got a different number.... Can someone verify if my method makes any sense?

I have always gone with the rule of 1 pound of live rock for every 1 gallon of water. Maybe that is where we are differing?

so at 1 pound of live rock to 1 gallon of water..... that equals
0.45 kilo of rock to every 3.78 litre's of water.

If that's the case, then is the final number not something more like:

1 kilo of rock for every 7.5 litre's of water?

And this being a 98 gallon tank (371 litre's), this tank is going to need 49.5 kilo's of live rock. This is based on the measurements provided (60X18X21)

Does this makes sense?

I used http://convert.french-property.co.uk/index.htm for the math.


Someone, please correct me if i'm wrong!

_Decz

[Kurt]

so at 1 pound of live rock to 1 gallon of water..... that equals .45Kg for every 3.78 liters of water.

You are right. maxilaria's tank would be overflowing with rocks. LOL. I find when I try to price rock shipped from the USA extra shipping costs and customs make it completely out of price range.

[Oakley]

1kg = 2.2 lbs if that helps

[mogurnda]

1) Is the flow from the EHEIM going to be enough, or would you put (1 ? more ?) powerheads in the tank just to give water movement. If the latter, what size of powerhead(s) ?

You definitely want more flow than that. If you want a reef (which would require a serious upgrade to your lights) then 1000 gph would be about minimum.

2) I'm going for live rock. My local retailer sells "high quality" Fijian rock at 250 GBP per 20kg (cured). He recons that I will need 100kg for a tank of my size (ulp !). That's 1000 GBP (about 1600 USD !) and is way above my budget ! Is he right at 100kg ? How much would you put in the tank ? Is 20kg (about what I can afford after buying everything else) going to look lost ? Can you add more live rock later, once you've a populated tank, or are there dangers involved in that ?

That is an awful lot for live rock. If a reef is in your future, you will probably want about 1.5 lbs/gallon, which I work out to be about 65 kilos. The benefit of adding it all now is that you can use uncured rock to cycle the tank, and get it cheaper. Also, if you get it online (which you should at the prices your LFS is charging), it will save you shipping if you do it all at once. The danger of adding it later is that things on the rock might die in transit and pollute your tank.

3) How long would YOU leave a newly set up tank to run before a) putting in the live rock b) starting to stock with 1 or 2 fish ? (I was thinking of starting the filters off artificially first (chemicals, fish food etc)

Depends. If you are getting uncured rock, then you can put it in right away. Otherwise, you will probably want to do a fishless cycle, then add the rock.

4) Protein skimmer ? Absolutely essential or can wait a bit ?

In my opinion (not universal) it's godo to cycle with a skimmer. Breaks it in, and will help keep the nitrogenous products from wiping out everything on the rock.

5) Live sand (new one on me today) ... yes or no ? Does live sand last "forever" like live rock ?

Live sand is definitely good. I would put down a layer of playsand, then seed with 20 lbs of good live sand. You may also be able to sponge some from local reefers from their tanks.

6) RO water, is it worth all the hassle ? Will it really drastically reduce algae growth ? (our tap water isn't fantastic)

I use it. Our tapwater has too much nitrate.

7) Live rock can bring in nasties, how do you catch / elimiate these nasties ?!?

I got a lot of hairy crabs, and had to pull them out by hand. It really depends. Some people get lucky and don't have problems. These days, a lot of "nasties," like bristleworms, have been redefined as beneficial scavengers.

If you will be going with corals, you will definitely need to upgrade the lights. Minimum 300 watts of compact fluorescent or metal halide.

I hope some of this helps.

[Kurt]

You also mention using only 2- 40 watt lights. So that would have to be upgraded as well. Maybe to 3 or 400 watts. You can check out Halide, power compacts , or VHO flourecents.

[nevpugh308]

Thanks for all the replies people, all very useful info. In no particular order ....

Lights : I actually have 2x34w lights. The dealer said that would be enough for what is initially going to be a fish & live rock tank (very few or no IVs). True or false ?

Side question : If I get fish which are generally no-nos for IV's (for example Picasso Trigger) can I get away with some clean up crew (for example turbo snails, hermit crabs) or will they get eaten ?

I've just been reading the book I bought today (Marine Aquarium, Nick Dakin, Interpet) and he strongly recommends novices NOT seeding a tank with live rock, and that live rock should never be added to a tank more than 5-10kg at a time ... thoughts ?

If I bought tufa rock to "pad out" some of the back of the tank (the lower and underneith stuff) would the LR "goodies" migrate to it with time ? (and thus turn it into LR effectively)

<<probably want to do a fishless cycle>> You mean run the tank for a week or two ? (I was going to do this, plus throw in the odd bit of foodstuff as mentioned above, just to get the bacteria going)

Sorry for soooooo many questions (you must get it a lot from newbies) but it REALLY is appreciated :)

God, I'm so excited now, can't wait for the tank to arrive ! :bounce:

[Max]

opps sorry about my metric conversion skills or lack there of.

[ben72227]

a book i would recommend nevpugh, is Robert Fenner's "Conscientious Marine Aquarist". Most fishkeepers consider it to be the "bible" in marine fishkeeping.

as in most cases in this hobby, you will get about 15 different opinons on one thing, but as for seeding a tank with live rock, most people add it all at the same time. and the bacteria from the live rock will spread to the tufa rock, but dont expect the tufa rock to have a bunch of coralline algae on it (it won't look "live").

as for cycle - throw in about 2-3 raw cocktail shrimp from the grocery store. then wait for your readings, ammonia mainly, to be at 0.

[Cearbhaill]

I've just been reading the book I bought today (Marine Aquarium, Nick Dakin, Interpet) and he strongly recommends novices NOT seeding a tank with live rock, and that live rock should never be added to a tank more than 5-10kg at a time ... thoughts ?
I am not at all familiar with that title, but I do know that this hobby is evolving almost daily and many opinions that are only 5 years old are woefully out of date.
It is no slam on the author- but hard copy publishing just cannot be as cutting edge as is needed in a rapidly expanding knowledge base.

Almost everything I have seen suggests adding all of your live rock and getting the tank cycled first thing. The live rock is the "rock upon which this tank is built"- it is central to almost everything from aquascaping and coral placement to the all important biological filtration.
Every time you add more live rock there will be some die off that will once again throw the tank into a mini cycle. Why not just get that part done once and for all?

Once the rock is in and the tank is cycled then begins the long process of the tanks maturation- I strongly urge you to read this thread (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=249112) on another forum.
This alone convinced me to set up my tank, add the live rock and clean up crew, and just let things be for a few months. I feel that in the long term view this will provide my reef with the best chances for success.

[captainE]

I read the Marine Aquarium by Dakin as my fist source of information. although it was copyrite 1996 and updated for reprint in 2002 I had to forget much of what was explained about equipment/start-up. I also found several inconsistancies through out the book.