my new tank!! Sooo excited!!

[hawaiiguy]

I'm looking for some advice about my new tank. It is 65 gallons with a 250 watt MH bulb and ballast, a strip of two regular fluorescent actinics, protein skimmer, RO\DI filter...

First, I've never done salt water before but I've been reading up on it for a while now. I plan to use live rock and eventually I'd like some corals. I'm wondering how some of you would start!

Here's some of the mishaps I've had so far
Yesterday, I added some aragonite coral to the RODI water I filtered previously. Unfortunately, I didn't rinse it well enough and the tank was filled with fine sediment (see pic). I've drained the tank and I'm about to rinse it thoroughly.
Then, I was testing the MH bulb over the tank and within a couple of minutes, the glass top sheet cracked in half!! I guess it wasn't tempered :? Oh well, I wasn't planning to use that glass top anyways.

So, here are my main questions (feel free to give me advice on anything though):

1. What order would you do things in?
2. What species would you include and when?
3. Is it possible to use plywood for a small pendant to house my 250 watt MH bulb (see pic)?
4. I also have a Fluval canister filter and a H.O.B. AquaClear filter; would you use either of these?
5. Anything else?

 

[Anonymous]

First of all with that DE bulb you must use a shield. I like the sunlight supply reef optics 3.

For what I would do in order

1. Get the system right
2. Add live rock and cycle (wait)
3. Add snails (wait)
4. Add 1 hardy coral (wait)
5. Add 1 hardy fish (wait)
6 repeat 4 and 5 until stocked (wait)

Take you time with all of these steps and ask lost of questions before proceeding.

 

[hawaiiguy]

Thanks for the reply!

when you say wait, do you mean a week, a month....

Also, can you get a UV shield cut to a specific size through sunlight supply?

 

[Anonymous]

One more thing. Don't panic if the water's cloudy when you add the sand. No matter how much you rinse the sand, there'll always be some cloudiness. Things to do include putting a filter sock over the bottom of the overflow pipe to remove the sediment and not turning on additional water circulation (powerheads etc) for a while to let things settle. You should find it clears up in 24 hours or so.

PS: You should remove the filter sock once the water is clear and run it through a washing machine without detergent to be used later as and when it's needed.

 

[hawaiiguy]

speaking of powerheads, how many should I use? I have 2 that I could hook up, plus a powerstrip that is on a timer for wave making.

 

[hawaiiguy]

One other thing, has anyone bought live rock from this e-bay store:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SUPER-PREMIUM-CURED ... dZViewItem

They are called Oceanpro Aquatics Inc. Do they have quality rock?

Does anyone know about brokerage fees, duty, customs, etc. for shipping live rock to Canada? I've been dinged more than once for things coming from the US.

 

[Anonymous]

speaking of powerheads, how many should I use? I have 2 that I could hook up, plus a powerstrip that is on a timer for wave making.

Depends entirely on what you want to keep in the tank. Tell us which powerheads you have, what water flow they are rated for (gallons per hour) and what you want to keep in terms of coral/fish etc.

Certain coral, like SPS, require large water turnover, best achieved with expensive and powerful powerheads. Others, perhaps more suitable for the beginner (leathers, zoanthids, mushrooms) can make do with less flow (though also benefit from pretty high turnover).

BTW, the best thing for all corals is diffuse flow, achieved by the Tunze Stream and Seio Superflow powerheads. The Tunze is very expensive, the Seio less so.

The best budget option is to use Maxijet powerheads. They don't give diffuse flow, but are pretty reliable, and you can buy several for the price of one Tunze/Seio.

BTW, I wouldn't use those filters myself. If used as traditional biological filters, they tend to leach small quantities of nitrates back into the tank. Not a big issue for fish only tanks, but potentially damaging to a wide range of corals and your anemone! One might be useful in the future if you need to filter the water with activated carbon, but that's about it.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply!

when you say wait, do you mean a week, a month....

Also, can you get a UV shield cut to a specific size through sunlight supply?

Depends on what you are dooing. IMO atleast a month after adding live rock, need to check parameters and do a couple of water changes. A week between corals, and a few weeks between fish. You need to give your system time to adjust to the new additions. Most glass will filter out UV. You can pick it up at an glass shop. You can build a shell if you want just make sure that all light is filtered or blocked.

 

[Anonymous]

3. Is it possible to use plywood for a small pendant to house my 250 watt MH bulb (see pic)?
4. I also have a Fluval canister filter and a H.O.B. AquaClear filter; would you use either of these?

3. - At 250w, I would not attach that light directly to wood. - Too much risk IMO. -- Wazzel mentioned a Reef Optics III pendant fixture to put that bulb in.. Him and I both own these already and recommend them.

4. - As burntom hinted at with the filter sock, I would not use anything that could collect/trap detritus except a protein skimmer. - That said, I DO use a cannister filter myself, but only as a place to run carbon from and also to do some occasional vaccuming (which is not needed very often at all..) --- Don't know if you've read this already or not, but they're (cannisters) are sometimes referred to as "nitrate factories" which can make keeping a balanced system a bit tricky.