Hello All. My name is Pam. Live in New Hampshire. I'm setting up my first Salt Water Tank. I started reading and reading and READING some more in the middle of January. Finally learned enough to purchase my equipment at the beginning of March and I'm SO glad that I did a lot of research, because I didn't buy one thing that I was initally planning on buying. I spent a lot more money than I planned on spending, but I think I won't have to end up upgrading items because of hasty purchases. I have everything I need except for the lighting. Can't decide on that yet. I know I want T5's with a built in fan, but I can't seem to find anything with a built-in fan, that looks good, that's available right now....and I really want to get the tank going. I'm looking at the Elos Planet and the ATI Powermodule. I plan on filling up the tank and adding the Live Rock as soon as I return from a Dive Trip the first week of May. Pictures below of the Display, Sump, Skimmer, Auto Top-Off Controller....all made by Elos.
Pam
Last edited by pammy; 04-10-2007 at 12:31 AM.
Reason: Added pictures
nice, very nice. you can run amuck with that system, fresh water top off attached to the sump is a great touch. personally i would have prefered most used item towards the front though. eg skimmer
Getting closer to getting my first tank filled and cycling. Yay!
My Cured Kaelini Live Rock arrived yesterday, and it's sitting in a large
rubbermade with two powerheads and a heater until my light arrives and I can get it hung next week. Here's a picture of the rock (bought from Premium Aquatics). VERY happy with the rock. Lots of color and some great shapes to work with. In the second picture, you can see what looks to me like some dead macro (it's dry and brittle). Should I remove this? Nothing smells bad.
Finally have water, rock and sand in my 1st tank. SO EXCITING after several months of researching and staring at an empty tank. I had it in my mind, exactly what I wanted to do with the rock, and thought it would be easy, but with all of the rock piled in my tank, and so little room to work with, I didn't know where to begin or how in the world I was going to get it to look, the way I had imagined it. I tried several things that did NOT work at all, and then came up with what you see in my photos below. I will NOT be playing with my aquascaping because I'd NEVER get it back to the way I have it now. I'm totally happy with it!
I took the first picture before adding sand, because I knew that I'd be getting a big sand storm. The aquascaping looks much better in person, because it's hard to capture any depth in the photos. There's actually a nice large cave in the structure on the left with an overhang, and a smaller cave on the right structure.
I then added sand....and made mistake #1. Should have rinsed the sand!! What a mess it made. I expected the sand storm, but did not expect all the foam, and little particles of stuff floating, that you couldn't see when you looked at the sand. So...if you're debating on rinsing or not rinsing the sand....Rinse!! I let the sand settle for two hours (3rd picture below), and then turned on the skimmer and pumps. The last picture, was taken at 10:00am the following morning. Storm was mostly clear, and now I'm slowly trying to clean the sand off the rocks with a turkey baster. Just blowing off a little at a time, creates quite a mini sand storm. Trying to do a little at a time, so that I don't get a huge sand storm and have it all settle right back down on the rock. I added 3 lbs of live sand, and I have my first life in the tank! Have a snail! Thought it was dead, but it moved a good 5" in the tank with a deep trail behind him. Don't seem him this morning. Think he buried himself in the sand. His trail just stopped. Maybe he's hiding from the sand storm. Let me know what you think.
A couple questions....
Do you test water parameters when the tank isn't totally clear after the storm (as in the last picture). Not sure how sand in the water column affects tests.
There's one rock that I'd like a little more secure. Can you use Aquamend or Superglue Gel or something else underwater to secure one spot of one rock to another?
Are there any good tutorials on fine tuning skimmers? Directions with my skimmer were very minimal and didn't talk about adjustments at all. I don't know anything about skimmers, and how high the bubbles should be, how to make it skim wetter or drying etc.
Aquascaping on my 1st Tank before adding Sand:
Mega Sand Storm:
2 Hours after adding bagged sand, and 3 lbs of live sand
Hi Pam,
When I started my tanl, I just had it run withoput the skimmer for 10 days. The water went through a filter sock in my sump, and there was a bag of activated carbon in there as well. It cleared, slowly, but after 10 days with lights on just a couple hours a day and everything settled out by gravity, I got the skkimmer going. At first it made "tea." but after a while it made dryer foam, and this depends on the type of skimmer you have and many other variables. I wouldn't bother testing the water at all yet. Give that a couple of weeks. By then you should begin to see an ammonia spike, unless the rock is alreweady fully cured. The light trick prevents algae bloom.
Pam, I agree that you probably don't need to run your skimmer right now. Skimmers brands vary in their tuning so I don't have any advice on your Elos. I think the cryptic directions must be consistent from one brand to another because there are always lots of questions about tuning.
IMO, since you have had your rock curing for about 10 days, and started your tank off using some of that water I think I would go ahead and get a baseline set of NH3, NO2 & NO3 tests. This will also help you become familiar with the brand of kits you are using. Be sure to read the directions closely, some are very finicky about the type of light you read them under. I wouldn't worry about pH right now.
Depending on the type of snail it would not be surprising if it buried itself in the sand. What did it look like?
Thanks Carmie. I did run a Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate test last night, and about 3 days ago. Tests are all Salifert. Ammonia is still 0, Nitrates are 10, and Nitrites are 0. I've only tested the PH once, and that was 7.9 or 8.0 . Hard to read those gradient color charts, so I'll be getting a pinpoint monitor soon. Put up the light last night. Here's two pics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarmieJo
Pam, I agree that you probably don't need to run your skimmer right now. Skimmers brands vary in their tuning so I don't have any advice on your Elos. I think the cryptic directions must be consistent from one brand to another because there are always lots of questions about tuning.
IMO, since you have had your rock curing for about 10 days, and started your tank off using some of that water I think I would go ahead and get a baseline set of NH3, NO2 & NO3 tests. This will also help you become familiar with the brand of kits you are using. Be sure to read the directions closely, some are very finicky about the type of light you read them under. I wouldn't worry about pH right now.
Depending on the type of snail it would not be surprising if it buried itself in the sand. What did it look like?
Question for you all. What is the best way to position the maxi-jet in my tank (see picture above)? Right now, it's aimed somewhere around the center of the front glass.... and the water coming up from the sump is also aimed towards the front glass at a different spot. What it's doing, is pushing all the sand along the glass, a couple inches back. So the sand at the glass, is almost down to the bottom, with a big pile of sand a couple inches deep behind the trench. I've tried pointing the powerhead higher on the glass, lower, more to the right, more to the left etc. How can I position the powerhead, to not move all the sand away from the front of the tank? Should I try moving it lower....more behind the rocks which would also hide it. Should it be facing directly at the output from the sump, rather than the front of the tank? Should I put the deflector on it, or put in a smaller maxi-jet? This is a maxi-jet 1200, and I have a 900 that I use for mixing water, so I could reverse them. Just a FYI....the return pump is a Eheim 1260. Tank is 53g 31"x19"x19".
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