Newbie

[phinsfan7676]

Hello everyone,
I am completely new to saltwater tanks, and I am still stuck on the planning stage. I have been trying to do some research and starting to get hung up already. I am familiar with fish as I have been actively breeding african cichlids for the past 5 years. I sold my rare F1 Kitumba "violet" Frontosa and just used the money from them to purchase my wet/dry filter. The filter I purchased is a proclear pro 150 wet/dry. It has a built in protein skimmer and was priced decent. I also will be using the tank that I had been using for my cichlids, which is a 125 all glass with a custom built stand. The lighting is the part that i am getting very confused on... I have a compact flourescent that has 4 55w bulbs in it. I have been told that if I plan on doing a fish and coral set up that I will be needing roughly 4-6 watts per gallon. soo... 125 X 4 = 500 watts. The lighting I have now is a 48" w/ 4 55 W's so thats roughly 220W. I understand that i will be needing a lighting upgrade before I can do corals, but I am unsure of what kind of lighting to get. I talked to a guy at a local pet shop and if I understood him right there are T5 High Output lights and the wattage on them is technically doubled so a 36W is really 72W. I am very confused on this and hopefully someone can clear this up. I was looking on ebay and saw a 36" 156W Power HO T6 Aquarium Reef Light low profile SM
36" 156W Power HO T6 Aquarium Reef Light low profile SM - eBay (item 160248468615 end time Jun-13-08 12:29:58 PDT)
This is a T6 High Output, and if I understood the concept of the T5 HO right would that carry over for the T6? I don't want to spend $200 on lights that will not be sufficent. From what I have been looking at the best way to go with my 125 would be to get 2 36" lights. I am on a somewhat tight budget but if I could find a reasonably priced light that I could use with my 48" that I already own until I get started on coral I would be interested. I am still very confused and hopefully can get some good insight from you guys. I also traded the rest of my cichlids in for a 5 gallon bucket of sea salt (160 gal) Please send any insight my way I am looking to start cycling my tank this weekend if all goes well. Thank you for any help in advance I will be looking forward to hearing from you.

[thesaent14]

well ill be the one to say welcome to TR

and second try to use t5 you won't go wrong

[BrianG]

Welcome to TR.
First for the lighting issue. The 1st thing that you need to deciede is what kinds of Corals you will be keeping in your tank. Get a good general idea on this, because different types of corals require different amounts of light. Also how deep is your tank? Knowing this will help narrow down of the strength of the lighting that you will need. As for the watts per gallon ratio ignore it. It does not work. It does not take into account tank depth so it can give you a missleading number. T5's work well but if you have a deep tank, and want to keep high light sps corrals they may not. You would have to keep that type of coral high in the tank in order for it to get the enough light. You may want to go back into the old podcasts on this site that Rob has done. He did I think 4-5 diffent shows specifically on lighting. Listening to those may help you understand what you need better.
As for starting and cycling your tank. If the tank is empty, you can mix your salt directly in the tank. Aim for a 1.024-1.025 sg. Make sure your filtration and power heads are on as this will help in mixing the salt and also oxygenating the water. After it is all mixed you can start cycling your tank. One method is to use a piece of raw shrimp from the grocery store and float it in your tank for a couple of days and do regular water perameter checks. Once you see a spike in ammonia you can remove the shrimp. This has been one of the easest and safest way to cycle a tank that I have found.
Also placing LR in your tank will also help cycle it. The general rule is 1-2lbs of LR per gallon.
IMOP the best thing you can do is go back and listen to the old Pod casts on this site. There are a lot of information, and they will help lead you down the right path.

[phinsfan7676]

125 Gallon Length: 72 1/2 x Width: 18 1/2 x Depth: 23 3/8
As far as corals go I'm not completely sure what i'm going to do i've heard soft corals are the easier ones to start. Will I put the live rock in like the first day I start cycling? I was looking at possibly getting some tonga branch live rock. http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...401&pcatid=401
I think with the depth of my 125 this will help because it is longer. I do plan on listening to some podcasts today so hopefully that will give me some guidance. Thanks for all your help
-Andy

[Amphibious]

Welcome to TR, Andy.

You have a slight advantage over most newbies to reefing converting from FW to SW. The skills you learned in FW will definitely help you adapt to SW, particularly in the area of plumbing and filtration. There are enough differences, however, to take you on a learning adventure.

I wish you'd of come to TR and asked about wet/dry filters BEFORE you made the purchase of the Proclear. Wet/dry filters are not recommended in SW with the exception of fish only systems. They are great for providing the necessary aerobic (oxygen dependent) bacteria for converting Ammonia and Nitrite to Nitrate BUT they stop right there. Your Nitrates will climb out of sight. In order to convert Nitrate to Nitrogen gas, the final stage in the cycle, you need to provide an area for Anaerobic (lacking oxygen) bacteria. All is not lost though. It is recommended to do away with the bio balls and replace them with LR. This helps a great deal.

Are you going bare bottom (BB), shallow sand bed (SSB) or deep sand bed (DSB) in the DT. If you are going SSB or DSB (recommended) be careful of your choice of substrates. Crushed coral (CC) is a no no. It traps excess food and detritus and does not provide the necessary environment for conversion, again allowing Nitrates to build. The recommended sand is pure Bahamian Aragonite sand. You have to be careful here, too. Some companies are mixing aggregates of other gravels in with the Aragonite and giving them exotic names. Be sure what you buy is Pure Bahamian Aragonite sand. If you are unsure of what you are buying, you can find the real thing on my web site here - Pure Bahamian Aragonite Sand By the way, we The Cultured Reef are a proud sponsor of Talking Reef. The only forum we sponsor!!! (A shameless plug)

A DSB is what many reefers, myself included, recommend for elimination of Nitrates. Since you are in the "learning" stage of all this, you will want to read an informative booklet called, "Sand Bed Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek. Dr. Ron is the Guru of sand beds. It's a short article. The link is on my web site here - Sand Bed Secrets, then click on the book's thumbnail picture.

You might want to read my tank thread for much more information on setting up your reef tank. It starts at the beginning, including how I converted a wet/dry to a sump/refugium, and continues through recent additions. You can find it here - Amphibious' 135 gal Reef - It is loaded with plenty of pictures along the way to help understand things, such as the RIGHT WAY to set up a DSB.

Again, Andy, welcome aboard.

Dick

[KAN]

to TR

Well I don't know to much about lighting. But you don't need lighting to get your tank cycling. With a tank that size and the sounds of it your going to make your own water.
So 1. your going to need a RO/DI ( tape water is not safe at all for sw, a ro/di will make the water as clean as you are going to get it and it good for you to drink it to ) 2. something to mix the water in 3. a heater ( so the water you add to the tank is a close to the same as in the tank ) 4. power head 5. refractometer ( a hydrometer in no good just save your $10 and buy a some thing that works) 6. salt ( it doesn't mater what kinda salt you use, but reef salt has more ca in it ).

Now for your substrate. I like DSB of aragonite sand 4in or more. Now it don't need to be live sand it will come alive on its own after you add your live rock to.

So now for your live rock. You don't need to have all live rock you can buy say 50lb of live rock and make the rest base rock which is usely dried live rock. Now from what I understand you don't need to add any thing to start your cycle if you use live rock. But if you do what most people do and get the tank setup with no rock and want to get it going before you add your rock add the shrimp then it is a good way to get it started.

Now you say you got a wet/dry. Take the bio balls and put small live rock or base rock ruble in were the bio balls were. The bio balls like to trap detritus and become a problem down the road.

If you have allot more questions after listing to the podcasts come join us on Jun 15, at 7:00pm here. Then at 8:00 at TalkShoe Community Call Voice Chat Group Calling Teleconference Calling. Go sign up and if you have a mic you might want to make sure that it will work with talk shoe. Allot of people have problems with talk shoe on their first time. Now we do a after show chat and a chat here before the show here. So if you would like chat to us in real time then just in post come join us.

[CarmieJo]

Hi Andy and to TR.

I second the advice about using a mixture of LR and base rock. Check out MarcoRocks, a TR sponsor, for some great rock! You won't be disappointed.