Saltwater set up...what's next?

[MalawiCich]

Hey ya'll,

I've finally made the change to saltwater and was wondering if one of you intelligent guys and girls could help me out with the next step in setting my tank up. I'm doing a fish only tank (I know, I know...but seriously I do not like live corals or the looks of live rock). It is a 70 gallon tank with live sand, an Eheim 2217 and a 2213 and a heater and a regular PowerGlo lamp. I have about 50 lbs of white honeycomb rock and some white dried corals. I set it up 2 days ago and it is almost all clear from the live sand sediments. I checked the salinity, ph, etc and it is all good (obviously no nitrates/nitrites or anything since there's nothing in it besides the live sand).

My question is...what's next? Shold I add some Damsels to start the cycling? Or some crabs? How many Damsels/crabs?

Thanks for any info you may want to share!

Josh

[Tsukiyomi-sakura]

You can Do it without live rock but, Prepare To lose many many fish and inverts, Live Rock is Pretty Much essential to SW.

Never cycle your tank with fish you will have to get rid of; LFS will tell you to buy damsels but it's just to get your money.

If you do want a damsel, Go for a Blue devil, Not horribly aggressive, very nice blue color, and gets to a max of three inches. ( I keep one and I love him, He's got some great personality)


and FYI you need to wait minimum 1 MONTH. before putting anything in, Or prepare to lose it.

I personally would wit three.

[lost_at_sea]

do you have any ability to hook a sump into the setup?

That way you could overload your sump with Live Rock, get the filtration and keep the display clean.

Also have a look at this product, it might be very useful to you... never tried it but certainly would help in your application:

http://www.tankgadget.com/2009/05/instant-oceans-bio-spira/

[MalawiCich]

Thanks for replying!
So if I understand correctly I need to leave the tank as is for a month or more? Without any living thing in it? How about starting the cycling process?

I was thinking of blue/green chromis instead of the blue damsel, I hear they are not aggressive and I'd be ok with keeping them after the tank is cycled.

[MalawiCich]

@ lost_at_sea : Cool product, wonder if I can find it at BA.  A sump would be nice, but the expense of setting one up and drilling the tank puts me off.

[Severum]

I'm not sure how much cycling your going to get without any live rock. Thats what the bacteria in live rock does. You'll also be doing tons of frequent water changes to keep your parameters in check.

[lost_at_sea]

You could try a fishless cycle with straight ammonia.

Google it there are tons of articles out there (http://www.csupomona.edu/~jskoga/Aquariums/Ammonia.html) for starters.

[MalawiCich]

Thanks for all the input.

My thing with live rock, besides the fact that for me aquarium is also decoration and live rock is ugly, is that fish stores sell the thing for so darn expensive and it comes with both desirable and undesirable creatures. Then you bring it home and many of those creatures die anyway, so you end up with a porous rock where you can cultivate beneficial bacteria...but can't that same thing happen with coral rock (0.17 cents a pound at Cohen and Cohen) or honeycomb rock (beautiful and at $3/lb)? Or why can't the bacteria grow in the Eheim filters as it does with freshwater? If live rock is so good for filtration, then why use a protein skimmer?
Could the business of selling live rock/skimmer be too lucrative to just let it go and tell people they can do without $10/lbs of dirty rock? 

[lost_at_sea]

If live rock is so good for filtration, then why use a protein skimmer?
Could the business of selling live rock/skimmer be too lucrative to just let it go and tell people they can do without $10/lbs of dirty rock? 

They do different things... the LIve rock bacteria break down ammonia waste from the fish and convert that through the nitrogen cycle to nitrate... The skimmer actually removes organic proteins that get attracted to the waters surface... essentially removes 'guck' from the water.... 2 totally different things.


Shop around you can get live rock for much less then 10/lbs... I pay $4-6/lbs.... and yes you can get 'dead' live rock for very cheap and just buy much less 'live' live rock and over time the bacteria will spread. 

Key point is you need something to 'seed' the rock for the bacteria to grow and multiply.

[Tsukiyomi-sakura]

Thanks for all the input.

My thing with live rock, besides the fact that for me aquarium is also decoration and live rock is ugly

The live rock you see in stores has not colored up, When you get it home, after awhile it will look like this: http://tsukiyomi-sakura.deviantart.com/art/Gobie-Hang-out-129611194

That's My little neon gobie on a nice piece of LIVE ROCK!

see all the purdy pinks and purples? and the awesome greens?

[Hookup]

Hey MalawiCich;
 You have a good plan for your system, or at least a clear goal.  Just to be sure I understand you, let me re-quote what I think you are asking.

1) a Fish only system
2) minimal rock-work
3) No starter live rock
4) bleached corals for a "clean look"
5) a canister filter for "filtration"

So assuming I'm correct in understanding you, I would say you are on a good path to accomplish what you want.  It's going to be using techniques that are very dated as far as the hobby is concerned, but that's ok, there really isn't much of an option, without a huge sump where you would hold the LR. (which, if you can swing it, is the way to go, but i'm assuming you cannot/are not going to).

Basically you can filter a salt system in the same manner as a FW system, just you have to monitor your nitrate levels because hard particulate will get into the filter and rot, causing nitrate.  Fish-Only SW can sustain much higher levels of nitrate than corals, I would imagine 10ppm is an upper limit, but maybe others can suggest a reasonable target... ive heard of people with 20ppm, though not sure if there are long-term effects.

One other thing to consider is internal tank flow, or turn over.  The logic here is that you want to keep all "rotting stuff" suspended until it can be filtered out.  This is done via two main methods.  a) biological filtration (done in your canister filter for your setup) and b) protine skimming via a protine skimmer (which you should have on your system).

Getting ~10x to 50x turn over (100 gall system, get 1000gal/hr to 5000gal/hr of flow inside the tank) will keep things suspended, but there is NO formual, you are trying to get the "junk" suspended, so based upon your rockwork (or lack there of) youll need more or less flow...

I think to be successful with your system you'll have to be right on top of weekly water tests, espically for nitrate and change out the filter-pad in the canister on a weekly basis, just to keep things "clean and healthy".



As for LR vs non-live rock.

Put 4 damsels in your tank.  Test every 3 days Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate.  Wait till Ammonia and Nitrite are at 0ppm (prob 4-6 weeks)... Your cycle is complete.  This is OLD-SCHOOL and it works.  100% garuenteed (no money actually gaurenteed   )

If you plan on taking your bleached white corals out every few weeks to keep them white, this is no problem at all!  Use JAVEX to clean them.... and wash them in HOT water.  Javex breaks down in Hot Water quickly.  After you get the piece clean, fill a sink/bucket/etc with scalding hot water and submerge the piece... wait till the water cools to room temp (2hrs id' guess)... do it again... then a third time... then you'll be "clear" to put the peice back into your tank..   Within 24hrs the Javex will have completely broken down and gone away.


Do consider a protine skimmer, they really are considered manditory by most people these days.

[MalawiCich]

Great info guys. And thanks for not pouncing on me with "dried coral is murder, you're going to hell" "why the hell would you not WANT live rock?", etc, which is what I got elsewhere. I remember walking on the beach in Hawaii and seen so many of what looked like dried/bleached coral washed up on the beach and thinking, wouldn't it be cool to have it in a tank?

@Hookup: I'm researching protein skimmers and will add one soon. Thanks for the detailed tutorial as well. Someone has been saying on this site that skimmers are sexy, so I definetely want to be sexy too.

@Tsukiyomi-sakura: I can see the appeal, cool rock, just not what I'm looking for.

Here are a couple of pics found on the web of what I'm looking to set up (though these probably have a sump):



[attachment deleted by admin]

[Tsukiyomi-sakura]

lol in that last Picture there is a big chunk of LR.

I think it's there to help make the bleached coral seem whiter

and yeah, Skimmers for the win!

[Severum]

Wow. those chromis must be in there as feeders for the lionfish and puffer.

[Hookup]

Yep, i've had one of those tanks before... it was my first run at salt-water and I really didn't know what I was doing...  They are probably one of the hardest types of tanks to keep running IMO, so stay on top of those tests!

You're system will go thru a cycle, it will get brown and yucky after a few weeks and clear up by month 3 or 4 (or longer is possible)....

Sexy people have skimmers, but not all skimmers are sexy!  Buyer be ware there is a tone of CRAP skimmers out there, and I mean CRAP...

A sump would be a HUGE help to your system... and honestly, i'm kind of looking forward to your build, i do think that if I were to have a fish-only system it would look very much like the ones you posted.


oh, one more thing;;;;
   OMG YOU KILLER OF CORALS!  DAMN YOU TO DAMNATION FOR EVEN THINKING ABOUT THEM!!!  OUR OCEANS ARE PRECI... ok, i'm tired so just imagine some tree-hugging green-peace fanatic dread-lock sporting blond haired white kid with baggy clothes finisihng this rant...  LOL

[MalawiCich]