What would it take to make this a SW tank? Am I ready to go down this road?

[A. Nonymous]

I will whip out the duct tape then and strap on the power head. In my little pea brain it seems like overkill to turn over all the water 20 times in an hour, but I will defer to the experts. I need to work on why my HOB doesn't work. Haven't mixed the salt yet as I didn't want to run salt through my backup filters. I've got them churning on the tank now to filter out the dirt and debris from the sand. I was disappointed that the salt didn't come with any measuring cup of any kind. The implication was almost that it's designed to all be used at once. Oh well. I grabbed an old betta cup and made my own so I'm good.

 

[Branden_Pearson]

To much flow is very hard to achieve. It helps your fish stay healthy also because without having to swim against current they get lazy which can shorten their lives due to build up of fat in the liver.


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[A. Nonymous]

Here's a few pics of what I have going on. I forgot to get a background so you can see my wallpaper through the tank. I'll have to fix that. It's cloudy as the dirt hasn't filtered out from the gravel, but there's no livestock in there so I didn't care. You can see my big HOB on there in some of the pics, but it didn't work so I later replaced it with the two smaller HOBs you see later on. I'm using them just to filter out everything. Once I figure out what's going on with the big HOB that'll be my permanent filter for this tank.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1008...ms/5841457835739737009?authkey=CIW096XEmNqGLw

 

[A. Nonymous]

Well, I learned my first lesson. The hydrometer sucks. The instructions on Instant Ocean said 1/2 a cup per gallon of water. So I dechlorinated the water and, since it's a 29g tank, dumped 14.5 cups hoping that I paid enough attention in math class. The hydrometer went off the chart on the top end even after tapping it several times and it stayed there. I rinsed it thoroughly, tested w/tap and it stuck at 1.008 or so. I have no faith at all in it's accuracy. To be fair, people told me to get a refractometer to start with and I ignored that advice. So now I have to wait to add anything to the tank until I verify my salinity is ok. It's wait or run back and forth to the fish store until I get the ratio right. Live and learn. Also, my powerhead was dead. So I've got to order another one. Is it possible to go over the top w/the circulation? If I buy the biggest and baddest will that be too much?

 

[TL1000RSquid]

Sucks about the hydro being way off, I have a coralife one thats off by about .002, I use while mixing then do my final check with the refractometer. Mixed in the tank? Could be your salinity may actually be off im not sure if a 29g tanks volume is actually 29 on the dot, plus water displacment by the sand.

Not really possible to go over the top, I think i mentioned already I'd go with the 425gph atleast, and I run 2 of those myself on my 29g.

 

[A. Nonymous]

I didn't even consider water displacement by sand. I also left it 1-2 inches below the rim figuring the water would rise once I added my rock. Didn't even think about the sand. It is very likely I over did it. A refractometer will tell tell me for sure, but you've probably hit the nail on the head there.

 

[A. Nonymous]

So, the refractometer comes in tonight. SW test kit came in yesterday. Went out over lunch and bought a protein skimmer. Assuming I can get the salinity straightened out tonight, how long should I leave this running before adding LR?

Also, in adding LR, if I go with the 10 lbs LR, 20 lbs base rock should I just add it at once? Or gradually? My dream is to use the die off from the LR and accompanying ammonia spike as a way to cycle the tank, but I don't want to end up with 30 lbs of dead rock at the end of the day either.

 

[TL1000RSquid]

Once your salinity is in order, and the water is heated all the rock can go in at once. The skimmer isn't really needed untill after you're cycled, you can run it now though to get it through any break in period and start playing with dialing it in.

 

[A. Nonymous]

Ah, heated water. That's the other issue. I've seeing places tell me it needs to be 76. Other places saying 84. Which is right?

 

[Khemul]

The high 70s is fine. I personally stay around 77, although it was supposed to be 79 and I'm just too lazy to fix it.