I have been checking in here for 6 weeks but decided to join so hi to everyone. I have had large freshwater african cichlid tanks for ten years but with the recent move I left my tank for the previous homebuyer upon request of sale. This gave me the opportunity to embark on salt water for the first time. Below is what i have done and i want the experts to point out flaws or issues. Here is how it went and what i am encountering.
125 gallon (72 inch long) with dual offcenter overflows. I have a refugium that has the sock with 1 inch pvc pipes about 8 inches long pushed up into the water intake end to quiet the water splashing in the sock that works well. The firt part has the sock and live rock as much as i can fit with chaeta (spelling) algae. I also have a light on this part of the refugium that is on at night. The second compartment has the skimmer rated for 180 i believe as many of you believe this is the most important part. I also have as much live rock i could bye from reef tanks in there as well along with carbon and phosphate remivers. The second compartmemt are two rio 2500 return pumps but they are dialed back a little because one side of my overflow flushes. I tried everything and this is all the works. I also have a uv sterilizer thst pulls water from sump and dumps it back into the last compartment where the return pumps. The main tank has as much corraline algae covered rocks i could afford. Lets say 40 lbs and then a lot of what i guess is called base rock creating caves and shelves. I used 6 bags of live sand and had local fish store come and fill it with ro salt water. I have two hydro 1150 power heads in each corner and i am assuming standard lights as they have a white, blue, and lcd night time switches. I used stability for one month 6 caps a day and have been using prime 3 caps a day since i started the tank. I basically have left the lights off for the most part of the last five weeks. I didnt get a diatom bloom but i surely could of as obe day i had the tank on for an hour and algae started to grow quick but it brushed off so perhaps leaving the lights off helped me. I had amnonia week two but never over .5 and week 3-4 it went to zero. Didnt have nitates yet but then saw nitrites a little and then had both nitrites and nitrates in week 4. These have come down and when fish was added the amnonia and nitrite was zero and nitrate was small. At the end of the week i got 5 snails and five hermits. Assuming going to need a lot more. This is a fish only tank and currently has a lemon butterfly and foxface that i added a couple days ago. The clean up crew wiped any rock that started to get color back to white and the rocks with coralline seem to be spreading as the places that are touching are really puple which i find hard to believe as my lights have been out. Now bad news is that one snail was killed by a hermit and my lemon butterfly has ick. I used herbtana and had to shut my skimmer down as it went nuts. I am not sure how worried i should be with marine ich as i have never had issues getting rid of it in freshwater tanks and i am focusing on their diet and water conditions. I did get a small amount of nitrite reading today but it is hard for me to tell with how close the colors are to be honest. Also the fish store runs there water at 1.23 and i have raised it to 1.25 once i got my ro unit. My phosphates barely read and ph was 8.1 i would say so i am using a buffer to bring it to 8.3 but it is still lower then what i want. I was getting ready to add fish after these 5 and a half weeks but now with ick i guess i dont know i can.
Sorry for long post and who ever i put to sleep but any thing to pick apart please let me know. Perhaps the cycle was not done when i thought it was.
Thanks
125 gallon (72 inch long) with dual offcenter overflows. I have a refugium that has the sock with 1 inch pvc pipes about 8 inches long pushed up into the water intake end to quiet the water splashing in the sock that works well. The firt part has the sock and live rock as much as i can fit with chaeta (spelling) algae. I also have a light on this part of the refugium that is on at night. The second compartment has the skimmer rated for 180 i believe as many of you believe this is the most important part. I also have as much live rock i could bye from reef tanks in there as well along with carbon and phosphate remivers. The second compartmemt are two rio 2500 return pumps but they are dialed back a little because one side of my overflow flushes. I tried everything and this is all the works. I also have a uv sterilizer thst pulls water from sump and dumps it back into the last compartment where the return pumps. The main tank has as much corraline algae covered rocks i could afford. Lets say 40 lbs and then a lot of what i guess is called base rock creating caves and shelves. I used 6 bags of live sand and had local fish store come and fill it with ro salt water. I have two hydro 1150 power heads in each corner and i am assuming standard lights as they have a white, blue, and lcd night time switches. I used stability for one month 6 caps a day and have been using prime 3 caps a day since i started the tank. I basically have left the lights off for the most part of the last five weeks. I didnt get a diatom bloom but i surely could of as obe day i had the tank on for an hour and algae started to grow quick but it brushed off so perhaps leaving the lights off helped me. I had amnonia week two but never over .5 and week 3-4 it went to zero. Didnt have nitates yet but then saw nitrites a little and then had both nitrites and nitrates in week 4. These have come down and when fish was added the amnonia and nitrite was zero and nitrate was small. At the end of the week i got 5 snails and five hermits. Assuming going to need a lot more. This is a fish only tank and currently has a lemon butterfly and foxface that i added a couple days ago. The clean up crew wiped any rock that started to get color back to white and the rocks with coralline seem to be spreading as the places that are touching are really puple which i find hard to believe as my lights have been out. Now bad news is that one snail was killed by a hermit and my lemon butterfly has ick. I used herbtana and had to shut my skimmer down as it went nuts. I am not sure how worried i should be with marine ich as i have never had issues getting rid of it in freshwater tanks and i am focusing on their diet and water conditions. I did get a small amount of nitrite reading today but it is hard for me to tell with how close the colors are to be honest. Also the fish store runs there water at 1.23 and i have raised it to 1.25 once i got my ro unit. My phosphates barely read and ph was 8.1 i would say so i am using a buffer to bring it to 8.3 but it is still lower then what i want. I was getting ready to add fish after these 5 and a half weeks but now with ick i guess i dont know i can.
Sorry for long post and who ever i put to sleep but any thing to pick apart please let me know. Perhaps the cycle was not done when i thought it was.
Thanks
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