My first saltwater build. 65G FOWLR (for now)

[mysterysnail]

Hey all,
So first off thank you to everyone for your feedback on my previous posts. I've washed the tank, cleaned and repainted the stand and finally set everything up.
So heres what i got so far.
65 gallon tall 36" x 18" x 24"
Aquaclear 70 (will be upgrading to 110)
2 hydor circulation pumps
Caribsea Eco-Complete African Cichlid Sand
85lbs Live Rock
250w Jagger heater
4 bulb 36" T5 fixture
Will be cycling for the next month then cleanup crew will go in.
Cant wait.
The light fixture has two bulbs not working. Tested switches and cleaned connectors but no luck. If anyone knows someone who repairs t5s cheap let me know. Will be doing DIY LED soonish

[mysterysnail]

Heres the pic so far. Will update as things progress

[Mike L]

 Keep us posted.  Looks good so far. Do the lights go on at all. The problem is either the starter or the ballast but sound like ballast.  Either can be picked up at home depot for  a reasonable cost.
Mike

[GuyFawkes]

Nice looking set up


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mysterysnail]

Thx guys. Cant believe 85lbs only gave me that much height.
And ya mike ive swapped bulbs and leads to power switch and same two dont work. I dont want to sink too much into this light as im probably going to try the diy led lights route, less power more light.
Will look into how much a balast is and give that a try. Thx

[ReefMaverick]

Check out this link: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2380454

Some people started doing home made Radion module using old puck from upgrades !

[Darth]

Thx guys. Cant believe 85lbs only gave me that much height.
And ya mike ive swapped bulbs and leads to power switch and same two dont work. I dont want to sink too much into this light as im probably going to try the diy led lights route, less power more light.
Will look into how much a balast is and give that a try. Thx

Yeah that doesn't look nearly like 85 lbs that rock must be extremely dense which is not going to be the best for filtration. Where did you get it. I'd look for a lot more porous rock to fill it

[goldfish]

Just a little concerned on the rock.it was live when you got it?

[Sharbuckle]

^^^^ wondering the same thing.

[mysterysnail]

I guess liverock is inacurate in a certain sence. As i stated in a previous post i got the rock and tank from someone else. It was half drained and not turned on when i picked it up, but manny of the rocks had coraline algae on it at the time. I got home and rinsed the rock in saltwater and left it in 2- 5 gallon pails filled with saltwater (levels wern't tested but used enough salt for 4 gallons in each)and one circulation pump in each pail while i cleaned tank and painted stand. As for porisity i would only be concerned with the two largest pieces. The rest had divets of sorts or caves if you will and when filled with water they drained pretty quick. The two largest rocks had the most algae, and i assumed that added to the weight.
So technically not true live rock as in from the ocean, but live in terms of hopefully still full of nitrifying bacteria

[mysterysnail]

Sorry when i say not from the ocean, i mean not fresh from the ocean. Based on the markings i presume they are all fossilized coral rock as they all look extremely pourous. Ive taken some close ups for reference.

[goldfish]

So throw a cocktail shrimp in and let it decompose. Test for ammonia etc watch your levels. When they are 0 your ready to rock and roll. Best way if you have some patience!

[mysterysnail]

Levels are all good so far. ammonia topped out at 1ppm and started to drop. Now its been at barely 0.25 for about 4 days without any change. Nitrate still shows as 0. PH is perfect at 8.3, salinity is 1.024-1.025 using hydrometer. I picked up some more live rock, which ended up coming with some blue leg hermits, green star polyps and another unknown coral as well as a few other goodies (and the dreaded Glass anemone)
Since I wasn't set up or planning on coral just yet, I may finagle something, or split them off into my 10 gallon I'll be using for a quarantine tank.

[mysterysnail]

So figured id give an update. Apparently the tank cycled extremely fast. I assume its due to the live rock being from existing tank. Also i was using api freshwater test, and didnt know the level of yellow is slightly different when using to test sw. So amonia hit .5 one day and then zero the rest of the week. Nitrate and nitrite were both still zero.
So had als test and came up zero. Added 2 clowns yesterday and another 9.5lb piece of LR.
Tuesday ill be adding a cleaner shrimp and that will be all for a bit.(will add some cleaners though)
Ill post more pics as things develop.

[DrReefer]

Love the look of the substrate ! but I'm also doubtful about the rock you are using, the fact that it does not hold water lets to believe that is it not that porous enough to provide good filtration. Good live/dry rock will be able to hold water for a long period of time after it is soaked and it will see a massive increase in weight. If Nitrate and Nitrite did not show up then your tank has not cycled no matter how live or dead your tank was. Not sure how freshwater cycles work but here is no such thing as a quick cycle or a small cycle in a marine aquarium. Your tank after a cycle should be able to process 2PPM of Ammonia in +/- 24hrs. The fact it stayed at 0.25 for 4 days is clear that your tank is not mature enough to process it to Ammonia --> Nitrite --> Nitrate. You would of seen those other values raise in the process and the nitrate would be fairly high and require a few water changes to bring down to safe levels after it cycled properly. It took me 26 days to properly cycle a 70G from scratch with a piece of raw shrimp as ammonia source. I also cooked the dry rock for 2 weeks in rubbermaid bins before putting them in the display so +/- a month and a half.

You were on the right track on the 13th when you posted that you would cycle your tank for a month and then add the CUC but yet 8 days later you already added some fish? Patience is key in this hobby and hopefully your 10 Lbs of additional LR will help he clown stay alive. Its possible that you don't get die off and it wont re-cycle with the fish in but go slow and wait for your biological filter to beef up before making any other additions. I'd keep a bottle of prime and some RODI/salt mix prepared just in case. I would also get rid of that rock with the Aiptasia (glass anemone) ... you don't want to have that problem down the road, trust me.

[mysterysnail]

Thx DrReefer.
Thanks for the info you made extremely valid points and I agree I moved faster then I would ever recommend to others.
I do disagree with you slightly on the "no way to quick cycle" comment, as given the right scenario you can completely cycle a tank near instantly. For example buying a fully cycled tank, or moving a fully cycled tank. While you may have some dye off in transit, you can completely support a small group of fish off the active bacteria on the live rock you get.
Another perfect example of this would be the temp hospital tank, or temp quarantine tank where you take an empty 10 gallon, add 15lbs of rock from your display tank. Take the media from your HOB filter and add a circulation pump, and bobs your uncle you have a perfectly cycled tank. It has the circulation needed. the proper seeded live rock and the extra seeded media from the hang on filter. This setup can handle almost any quarantine single or group of fish you would need to add provided its a fraction of your display's current bioload. ( eg 5 fish in display and 2 new fish in quarantine)

I am in no way a marine specialist as this is my first ever saltwater tank, but everything I read from forums and data sheets said "live rock" as in seeded rock from tank with inhabitants or from the ocean comes with the beneficial bacteria and may never spike ammonia depending on amount added. Since mine went up to max 0.5-1 PPM then immediately back to zero and never rose slightly again I felt it was safe to assume there was sufficient BB on the rock in the display to handle the first additions.

Again, I could be wrong and the tank could now spike out of control killing everything.
In any case people move tanks constantly and do not sell all their fish and start from scratch cycling the tank. Since I purchased a fully established tank that was running for years, and was maybe down a few days with water still flowing the entire time I felt I could justify taking the chance.

Onto the other point, I do believe about 10% of the rock is solid rock and make up at least 20% of the original 85lbs of rock I originally had. I also didn't weigh the rock alone and weighed them in the buckets as soon as I got home with them, with me on the scale holding them and water/sand still covering the rock. (about 1/4" water in bottom of pail) which as you all know is the most trusted scientific way to measure total live rock quantities... I'm using the more solid rock as the foundation to give me some more height.

Sorry for the long post..... felt I had to get out my opinion

Time for an update.
In any case I'm on day 5 with the clowns and their doing great so far. I have a total of 6 astrea snails, and around 7-10 blue leg hermits, there is also a random white startish (maybe asterina) and a few random snails.
The random coral seems to be doing great in the light with only the 2 T5's. Still need to identify one of them (Mushroom anemone of some kind) and its spreading like wildfire)
I added the cleaner shrimp.... LOVE THEM. He tries to clean my fingers lol.
Will post lots of pics today

[mysterysnail]

Some pics.

[mysterysnail]

Also a few of the un-identified mushroom anemone theres atleast 10 plus now and a few small ones starting to poke out

[mysterysnail]

Oh also happy to say i used aiptasia x to kill the glass anemone. Havent seen any new ones as of yet

[DrReefer]

Great update ! Even tho i'm skeptic about a tank move I do agree that it can be done without a cycle or re-cycle IF done properly Your new rock looks more like what we are used to see in the hobby and should be sufficient. My main concern for the rock was that if its not porous enough you wont get as much bacteria population for filtration..... Lets say you have 5 pounds of rock that is very porous, well this 5 pounds can filter out more than a 10 pound rock that is less porous thus needing more rock to have the same effect. The more porous rock will give you lots of diversity in aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. Your quote on live rock is spot on don't get me wrong , but some properties of  the rock will render it more efficient to the purpose we use them for.

For a ID on those mushroom anemones I would say 99% Majano anemones from the last picture (20160218_182624.jpg). They are also considered a pest like aiptasia and they can get very hard to control if left unattended . Unfortunately they do not have any natural predators like aiptasia. The best way to take them out is by injecting them with a hypodermic needle with a mix of either kalkwasser or hot/boiling white vinegar directly in the mouth/stalk. You will find many information and videos on how to do so online.

Happy Reefing and keep us posted !