Fetch's Reef Build

[Fetch]

Hello, and welcome to my build thread. I hope to maintain this thread as I move forward with my build. Actually, I wouldn't call it a build, per se, but rather a refurbish.

I plan on editing this opening post with links to my latest changes and pictures, which I plan on having Facebook host for me. (We'll see if that works well or not).


First, a little about me:
I have always wanted a reef tank, ever since I was a kid. Until very recently, I never had the money to even consider getting started. The parents of a friend of mine were getting rid of their 55 FOWLR tank for $200, and I saw this as a great way to spring into the hobby.

I quickly found out there was a LOT more to keeping a reef tank than there was to keeping freshwater fish. I have been learning like mad trying to come up with a strategy for my build. In general terms it follows:

Build Strategy:
1. Water
The more I read about reef tanks, the more I realize that immaculate water quality with specific amounts of specific additives is the most important thing. Keeping this in mind, I wanted a reliable way to get pure water for water changes and topping off. When I first got my tank a few months ago I was using distilled water from Wal-Mart for $0.84 per gallon. This was pretty aggrevating to always have to go and buy so much expensive water. I got a RO/DI filter to fix this.

2. Sump
My tank isn't drillable (and I wouldn't want to mess with it since it's in use already), so I need a weir and a sump. This will by my next build or purchase. (Skimmer will be part of this step.)

3. Deep Sand Bed
This kinda goes with #2, but I want to put a very DSB in my sump. And my aquarium. Right now the bottom is gravel. Not sure how to move out all the gravel and put in the DSB without disturbing the live rock. More on this later.

4. More Live Rock
I want to get some good live rock to add to my overall live rock quantity. This recommendation came from this forum.

5. ???
I don't know what would come after this. I guess it would be to start adding animals?


Please feel free to comment on my progress!

[Fetch]

The Early Days
Here are some of the first pictures of my tank. All these pictures are from 10/19/09

The whole tank.


Under the hood.


The canister filter- Fluval 404


The only resident.


Fake plants galore. Close up of the live rock.

[Fetch]

Here is my tank after a 20-gal water change. The nitrates were sky-high thanks to the Fluval. See below.

My water change process:

I had to do this water change very manually. Here is my equipment--

A bunch of buckets. I filled them up with water from the hose outside. Turns out, I should have only put 4 gallons into a 5 gallon bucket. Much easier to handle that way. I put some chlorine eliminator chemical in the water as well as my salt mix. It was pretty tedious. I tested the hose water for nitrates (what I was battling this weekend) and found it had a nitrate level around 10 ppm already. This solidified my resolve to get a RODI unit. I siphoned the water out of the tank using a piece of a garden hose. It took a while for me to prime-- I'm guessing because it was about 20 feet from the tank to the toilet I had it drain into. I will have a funnel on hand to pour water into the "out" end of the hose next time. Once I got the siphon going, it drained down to about 1/2 way very quickly. I wanted to do a 50% water change, but mis-judged on how much water it would take to fill up the tank. Apparently 1/2 way up the glass is only about 20 gallons. I still have 1 of the buckets with about 4 gallons of ready-to-go salt water sitting in the laundry room. It's the one on the right.

A couple of other quick notes on my first big water change:
* I did not heat this water like I normally would for 2 reasons-
1. It was in several buckets and I only had 1 heater.
2. The heater I did have has a crack in it somewhere. Need to get a new one.

* I also did not aerate the water before putting it into my aquarium.
After I got through this change, I bought (from Wal-Mart) a 50-gal air pump, 25' of air hose, and several air stones and T's. I plan to make an aeration system that I can put 1 stone in each bucket overnight to give it enough air.

* I increased the total amount of water in my tank with this change. If you look at the pictures from October, you'll see a waterline. I did a survey on this site, and most people had water lines very close to the top of their tanks. I upped min. I moved the Fluval's outflow toward the top, in order to give me some surface movement and help aerate the water. My clownfish hasn't seemed to complain.


The clown has dug himself out a house in the gravel. I think he likes it because 1. the draw from the Fluval is right there, 2. it's in the corner, 3. the fake plants I left help make the edges higher.




I cleaned out the Fluval and this is what was in it. Here's why most people prefer a protein skimmer, I guess.


Yeah, all that was in my skimmer. No wonder they nitrates were so high. I had a nitrate warehouse under my tank!.


I would love to hear what the TRT community has to say on my experience! I'm a beginner and would love the insight.

-----------------------------------------------

OK... I haven't gotten any feedback yet, so I thought I'd stir the proverbial pot a bit.

1. How can I know if my live rock is alive? I got it with the tank and fish and I'm not convinced it's got anything inside it. When I add more LR, it will go on the right side in front of the powerhead.

2. How big of a sump should I have for my 55 gal tank? Is there a rule of thumb? Also, it seems I have to know what skimmer I want so I know what water level in the sump to maintain. Is this correct?

[Fetch]

reserved 3.

[jberd]

OK where do we start?
1) It it is best to get rid of the the canister filter and get either a sump or for now just get an aqua clear 70 hang on back filter.
2) It is a must to use RODI water as tap water has to many impurities.
3) A skimmer is also a must. CPR, Octopus, something to get the pooo out.

Start with these three things and life will get much easier.

Do a 5 gallon water change every week.

Also when your water level in the tank goes down DO NOT add salt water just add RODI water. As your water evaporates the salt stays in the tank.

[Fetch]

Originally Posted by jberd

OK where do we start?
1) It it is best to get rid of the the canister filter and get either a sump or for now just get an aqua clear 70 hang on back filter.
2) It is a must to use RODI water as tap water has to many impurities.
3) A skimmer is also a must. CPR, Octopus, something to get the pooo out.

Start with these three things and life will get much easier.

Do a 5 gallon water change every week.

Also when your water level in the tank goes down DO NOT add salt water just add RODI water. As your water evaporates the salt stays in the tank.

Thanks for the comments jberd, but I wanted to clear some things up that I guess I didn't make clear above...

1. I'm working on getting a sump and skimmer to sit in it. I don't want to waste $ on a HOB skimmer when that's not my ultimate goal.
2. I know I need to use RODI water... that's why I bought a purifier. It's in the mail now.
3. answered in #1. I might add that the RODI unit cost me $110, and that's pretty much my aquarium budget for this month. I'll have to keep the canister till December, when I can get some more money to put into building a sump and buying a skimmer.

Yeah, I always use fresh water for top-offs. Using salt water would just add to the salt content, which is not a good thing (unless it's low for some reason, I guess).

I plan on doing another 20-gal change this week in order to get nitrates down some more.

My nitrates were at 80 ppm last night when I tested, which is only about 1/2 what they were before the change. This was expected. My nitrates really spiked about 10 days ago. I thought my tank was cycled, since I basically inherited an established tank, but I guess it wasn't. Another few weeks and I'll be down in the acceptable range again. I have some hair algae growing again, but I'm not sure now is the time to add a maintenance crew. I think that should be done after the sump and skimmer are included, so the crew doesn't all of a sudden go hungry. Any thoughts on this?

[iceslinger]

Ok lets start with the most pressing issues...

1. I agree with Jberd. Get rid of the canister now. It is only effective if you clean it daily. It acts as a nitrate factory. Your LR is your filter! It looks like your bioload is low with only one fish. Make 5 gallon water changes weekly unitl you get a good protien skimmer.

2. I would continue to buy distilled water and buy a protien skimmer instead of a RODI system. In my opinion it is the most important thing on your to buy list.

3. LR does not mean things are alive within the rocks. It means the rock contians bacteria which will convert your ammonia to nitrites, then nitrites to nitrates.

4. Someone with more experience will post answers to your sump questions

Also, get rid of the fake plants!!!

[bcrum51]

not to mention getting rid of the gravel asap or atleast cleaning the gravel everytime you do your water change.

[Fetch]

Originally Posted by iceslinger

Ok lets start with the most pressing issues...

1. I agree with Jberd. Get rid of the canister now. It is only effective if you clean it daily. It acts as a nitrate factory. Your LR is your filter! It looks like your bioload is low with only one fish. Make 5 gallon water changes weekly unitl you get a good protien skimmer.

2. I would continue to buy distilled water and buy a protien skimmer instead of a RODI system. In my opinion it is the most important thing on your to buy list.

3. LR does not mean things are alive within the rocks. It means the rock contians bacteria which will convert your ammonia to nitrites, then nitrites to nitrates.

4. Someone with more experience will post answers to your sump questions

Also, get rid of the fake plants!!!

Thanks for the feedback! The problem I'm running into regarding the skimmer is that I want a sump too. Doesn't make sense to get a skimmer until I have a sump to put it in. I've already purchased the RODI system. It should be here by the weekend.

Regarding #3, I think "live rock" means exactly that things are alive within the rock-- the bacteria. I don't think my LR has much (any?) bacteria in it because it's not handling the small bio load very well. Anyone know of a way to check this?

Originally Posted by bcrum51

not to mention getting rid of the gravel asap or atleast cleaning the gravel everytime you do your water change.

I'm trying to figure out a way to replace the gravel with a DSB without disturbing all the live rock. I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and take it all out and redo the substrate. I do clean the top bit of gravel when I do water changes, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

Thanks for commenting.

[mxracer19]

Your live rock is only as "live" as your tank...bacteria like any other organism needs a food source. With a closed ecosystem, what you put in the tank stays in the tank until you take it out with water changes, a skimmer, or an algae filter. You feed the fish, the fish eat the food, poop it out, the bacteria ingest the waste as it breaks down, and in return poop THAT out...then the algae ingests the nitrogen and phosphorous compounds and produce oxygen...thats how the whole system SHOULD work, in brief.

That being said, with limited supply, production is limited.

What you have is a tank with high nitrates, low stocking, a cannister filter and no skimmer. This is what I would do...

1. Install your RO system and get that running. You ordered it, it's needed, so set it up and get it cranking.

2. Fill a few buckets with saltwater, remove the rock and fish from the tank, throw away the gravel and replace it with sand. Do this now before you put anything else into the tank because it's relatively lightly stocked and you won't want to do this when you have anything else in the tank. It's easy to do now compared to later. Your fish can't burrow in gravel, gravel traps detritus and junk, contributes to nitrates, and allows nuisence(sp) algae to take hold.

3. Build a sump. www.toofishy.com sells Rio pumps for dirt cheap(1100 for $23), 10-gallon tanks are <$15 at petsmart, and PVC is easy to work with. You can substitute a tupperware tub or container in lieu of the 10-gal fishtank. It's cheaper and it'll hold more volume. If you have a router, build your own overflow and save money. Don't waste cash where you don't have to. Plans are abundent, consult www.melevsreef.com for tips on working with acrylic. Acrylic sheet can be bought at Lowes @ $14 for a 2'ish X 2'ish sheet. Building a sump will increase your water volume, help to stabilize your tank, and give you a place to put some type of BETTER filtration.

4. Since you don't have the cash for a skimmer right away, remove the fluval and build whats called an algae scrubber. With a low bioload and high nitrates, this may be perfect for your current situation. An algae scrubber is a sheet that you allow algae to grow on. The algae eats the waste...same as nature. Once a week you scrape off half the algae, permanantly removing the waste the algae has used to grow. Algae scrubbers are composed of a sheet of "plastic canvas". You can find this at a crafts store, it's used for needlepoint. A thin layer of water is allowed to flow over this sheet. Light the sheet with a cheap 2100k flourescent spotlight to fuel photosynthesis. I built one and the total cost was around $20. So far my results have been excellant. Google search "turf algae scrubber".

5. If all you're hoping to keep in the tank are a few fish, this system should be sufficient. If your goals in the hobby are to set up a fishtank to watch the fish, then minimize costs...a $1000 system is not required for a few fish and some rock. If however, your goal is to possibly get into reefkeeping, or you've adopted marine aquariums as a HOBBY and you see progression in your future, then you'll want to buy a protein skimmer at some point.

Start with those things. Some people will discount the algae scrubber, but algae will form in your tank regardless....you'd might as well put it to use out of sight. It's nature's way of filtering water and getting rid of junk. It's an older idea but it's making a comeback. I've found that things grow best when kept naturally, and thats one more step in the natural direction.

Hope this helped, these things should cost you less than $200 and will get your tank into shape.
-Matt

[RobbW]

Good post, Matt. I think I may look into this algae scrubber idea now that I'm finally setting up a sump for my new tank.

[iceslinger]

I agree. Good information. I am also going to look into the algae scrubber.

[RobbW]

Never mind, I just read back through some old posts and related links.

[bcrum51]

I think matt has the right idea also if its just the one fish give him to a friend or LFS and forget about it if your worried about killing him then start from scratch

[Fetch]

OK, it's been a few days and here's the current situation--

I've emptied the tank and will clean it out after it warms up this afternoon. All my live rock and my fish are in buckets awaiting the clean tank. Poor fish is pretty freaked out. The RO/DI unit came in yesterday and I'm close to getting it setup. Gotta go to Lowe's and get a little tubing to be able to put it where I want. I've been looking at my stand dimensions and it's not conducive to putting a standard 10 or 20 gal tank in it as a sump. The dimensions just don't let that happen. I've thought that since I have the tank off the top that I could drop in a standard 10 gal tank from the top. (A 20 gallon won't fit no matter what). I was wondering if this is a good idea. The other option would be to drop in a custom sump made from acrylic I get from Lowe's. In order to get any sort of useful volume from the sump, I'd have to drop it in from the top. Can anyone recommend a good in-sump skimmer? I'd like to size it for a 90-gal, as that is what I would like to upgrade to one day.