adnedarn's reef tank....build and progress

[adnedarn]

Hello! You guys helped me rock scape it.... then I finalized the plumbing (I think) and it's been testing with RO water a few weeks now. All seems to be running good, but if you notice I did something wrong, please point it out. I will be having it filled with ocean water very soon! Thanks! Andrew

PS this video is when I had just filled it with tap water... It ran 2 days then got drained and filled with RO for flushing/rinsing/more testing
I hate talking in videos.


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[swords]

Looks cool! Lots of wiring & hoses!

 

[Odysseus]

I would switch the coral around.

Nah just kidding, this is looking awesome! Please keep the videos coming, complete with voice over. Going to be fun to follow the progress in this thread!

 

[SubRosa]

I can't see the whole system, but one word of caution. Make sure that your auto top off doesn't create a siphon while topping off. Having the end of the tubing out of the water as you do will prevent sw from backing up into the top off reservoir, but make sure that the top off water stops flowing when the pump goes off. Depending on where the reservoir is located, a tee to allow a vent line to allow air in to break siphon on the top off line may be a good idea.

 

[adnedarn]

Subrosa, the ato container isn't there yet... but it will sit in the open spot next to the sump. I had it in for the past few weeks and it worked flawlessly. No problem with any type of siphoning or anything... it's a good kit by Tunze.

Yesterday I drained the tank, finalized some mountings on the back, installed the black background, moved it into place, added live sand and had fishy bizness come and fill the tank with live water (water shipped in from Catalina Bay). With the start of live sand and water, I should be able to add a fish or two in about a month. I'm not supposed to have the lights on, but I did to take this picture. X-)

 

[Radagast]

It looks really cool. I'm eager to see it all finished and filled with cool fish.

 

[SubRosa]

Andrew there is no such thing as live water. The bacteria that perform biological filtration are found on surfaces, not free floating in the water column. If the water was untreated by either settlement or mechanical filtration the inevitable die off of the plankton will likely cause a small ammonia spike. Once that is metabolized the tank is ready for the frst inhabitants. If the water was so treated there's really no reason to wait a month before running the lights and introducing some snails,

 

[swords]

I'm pretty sure he means he put in live sand AND (salt) water. LOL

 

[adnedarn]

I kinda said the same thing... But they claimed it would make the startup go faster, I said whatever.

 

[SubRosa]

Lots of bs in my profession, sad to say..............

 

[boxofrain]

Live water is a very viable way to introduce many of the natural Flora and fauna found in the Ocean to a tank.
Better to use it for the first year of a new reef tank, then you can easily switch to some commercial salt such as Instant ocean, Reef Crystals etc.
By all means, purchase any book you can written by Julian Sprung and/or Charles Delbeek....money well spent.

 

[SubRosa]

Live water is a very viable way to introduce many of the natural Flora and fauna found in the Ocean to a tank.
Better to use it for the first year of a new reef tank, then you can easily switch to some commercial salt such as Instant ocean, Reef Crystals etc.
By all means, purchase any book you can written by Julian Sprung and/or Charles Delbeek....money well spent.

I think you mean live rock.......

 

[boxofrain]

I do mean live water.....there are very many constituents in Ocean water that enable the "live rock" to flourish.

 

[SubRosa]

Please name some of these constituents. I've been keeping marine aquariums since the early 80s and maintaining them professionally since the early 90s, and this is news to me.

 

[boxofrain]

I am no chemist or biology professor....but if you examine a cup of synthetic marine water and a cup of collected sea water, you will find many things in the natural not found in the synthetic.
Remember...this is simply my two cents.

 

[adnedarn]

I glanced at a couple different topics covering natural salt water, and they all seemed to agree that with the water just being stored, and not temperature kept, circulated, aerated all that... It's likely no better than synthetic water. I don't feel bad for using it... But it probably didn't provide me with any jump start. Oh well.

 

[SubRosa]

I have no doubt that the processors add the bacteria that they claim is in their product. But the fact is that the bacteria in question they add do not live in the water column, they are benthic in nature. In short order they form a biofilm on the surface of the container, and unless it's scraped off it doesn't enter the tank when the water is poured in. The things which boxofrain are talking about are the plankton normally found in seawater. They are filtered out before the water is packaged, because they would invariably die in the conditions under which the water is stored before sale. Furthermore, not everything floating around in natural seawater is something you would want in a reef tank. I used to collect natural seawater to perform aquatic bioassays at a lab I worked at, and after a day you can see a fine film of detritus on the bottom of the container which is the dead plankton. We then transferred the water to clean containers before using it. I have also collected seawater specifically for the plankton to be used in the rearing of captive bred marine fish. Two very different scenarios.

 

[DonH]

I agree with SubRosa. Even in freshwater tanks, the quickest way to cycle is to seed it with some gravel from an established, disease-free tank or pull some filter media from it and throw it into the new filter. Nitrifiers are in the water column but not in significant amounts to help the process.

adnedarn - What are you using as a nitrogen source to feed the tank as it cycles? Just the die-off from the LR and LS?

 

[jimscott]

Having worked for a tropical fish wholesaler in a previous life, I have had occasions to do experiments with 'aged water' and filter medium. siphoning a 70 gallon tank down to nothing and adding water from other tanks or even making a fresh batch from the salt mix, WITH the existing filter medium, works well enough. In contrast, 'aged' water with new filter medium is a set up for 'new tank syndrome' / re-doing the Nitrogen Cycle.

 

[adnedarn]

DonH. Yes I've added nothing else.