reef tank setup
Submitted by Paul G on Mon, 2013-07-22 20:57
Have decided to make my tank into a full on reef tank with corals and fish .I have a 550lt tank. I have made a syphon drain from pvc 20mm pipe ,draining into a sump with micro bag and protine skimmer. Have done full water change and added sand, shale substrate.Will add some live rock in a few days .Will add pics as I stock the tank from start to finish,for anyone intrested.
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Paully
Posts: 3246
Date Joined: 15/08/09
how good is that
Something I've always had am interest in looking forward to more pics ~ well done :-)
fincher
Posts: 150
Date Joined: 23/10/12
Looks good Paul will be
Looks good Paul will be watching this one work with birds and fish but specialise in the birds more than fish but know a lil bit bout marine set ups but more tropical a and big pond setup. Also maybe try a water cleanser block will help but down the maintenance off the tank and is WA made we use them at work ( being Big koi and goldfish seller Many ponds and tanks our maintenance has been halved since using these and less fish deaths
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tim-o
Posts: 4657
Date Joined: 24/05/11
Ahh, been there, nearly got
Ahh, been there, nearly got me a divorce, bit of a challenge the ol reef tank, slowly slowly, takes 3 months for a reef tank to truely stabilise, at only 550l dont want to over do it, shit can go wrong quick. You're going the right way tho. Lots of live rock, get some power heads in there, need plently of circulation. Id get rid of most of that sand, just a light coating on the bottom is ideal. What are the lights? Fluros will keep live rock and some soft corals happy, halides are the way to go tho, cranks up the coraline alage and the corals will love you for it. What fish are you planin on keeping? I see a little bat fish? I loved our tomato clown (agro to any other clowns tho) that enjoyed the company of an anemone (that never wanted to stay put grrrr). I had tangs, and emperor angel in juvi to adult transition, one of those funny fukn wrasse with horns, cow fish, coral banded shrimp, so many cool fish and inverts to have, but the best was a valentina puffer fish. He always would get in your face when you stood and viewed the tank, funny little bugger. If you hear loud clicking in the tank at night, like something is trying to break the glass in your tank, youve prob introduced a mysis shrimp in with the live rock! I had to pull my whole tank apart to find it argggghhh! So inpect each piece carefully before putting it in. Deep pockets and time is what you need, but once you learn the water chemistry and get your tank to stabilise, it is a beautiful thing. Look forward to seeing more Paul!
I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.
fishy fingers
Posts: 1719
Date Joined: 28/04/07
reef tanks
kept them for many years and as nice as they are became a pain in the arse...everything costs a fortune
for them (and i got my stuff at cost...mates owned an aquarium shop) but theres nothing worse then waking up in the morning and finding the fish you bought a year ago and paid 60 or 70 bucks or more for floating upside down
with no apparent reason just got too much, they can be swimming about and feeding quite happily one day
and drop dead the next with no apparent warning they are sick and its always the expensive ones not the damsels.
corals are difficult too and expensive and eventually die off, in short be prepared to spend a lot of time maintaining it
replacing lost stock and water changes....they are like a boat (a hole in the ocean you pour money into) but in your lounge room, i wish you luck but they lose their gloss after a while and just become a pain.
CityFlicker
Posts: 524
Date Joined: 31/01/13
Should be good to watch your
Should be good to watch your progress, they can be awesome once you get them up & going. I had a couple of reef tanks for a few years when I was about 20. Eventually it got to the stage where I didn't have the time to look after them properly so sold them off & ended up with a few freshwater set ups. These days it's just a single 6x2x2 freshwater tank for me but I've got an extremely cool fish (yes he's all alone in that tank) so it's all good.
Just because I smile & nod does not mean I believe the crap coming out of your mouth.
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Walfootrot
Posts: 1385
Date Joined: 23/07/12
Looking forward to watching
Looking forward to watching this progress, I was breeding seahorses some years back then swiched to coral and fish.
To me the most important thing is getting your bio filter established, I used about 7lt of dead coral in the sump tank, adding ammonia daily, till all readings for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite dropped to 0 within 12 hours, then adding all the live rock and fish in one go. takes about 10-12 weeks to do but its worth it IMO.
Good luck! will be watching this one
Pete
More drum lines, kill the bloody sharks!
hlokk
Posts: 4292
Date Joined: 04/04/08
If you had no nitrates and
If you had no nitrates and you only had "dead rock" in there, what happened to the nitrogen? What did the nitrates get converted to?
For anyone with a sump, if you get sick of the gurling and/or want to make sure its a fail safe system, you can use a siphon/overflow setup like what I did. What you do, is install two lines, both with ball valves. One you set up to siphon, and you control the level of the water in the overflow to maybe about a 1/4 to 1/3rd of the intake height (using the ball valve on your siphon line). The other ball valve is just to close the overflow off when priming the system. On the outside of the overflow I had a t junction and a closeable top plug (I left it open most of the time though.
What happens is the siphon takes the bulk of the water silently (as theres no air in it), with the flow rate controlled by your ball valve. The tiny bit of overflow balances it and because its trickling down it doesn't gurgle. In mine, I used a weir box then the outlets in the box (as it skims the top of the water surface and allows a higher tank water surface). Its a good idea to put coarse mesh at the top (like plastic chicken wire type stuff) to stop snails getting in, and a fine but not too fine mesh grill over the siphon intake (for small fish that may jump over.
In the sump, put in partitions and baffles so bubbles don't reach the pump in the last compartment and make the pump compartment volume small enough so if your overflow stops working, the tank can take however many liters from overflowing.
Then you size your sump to take the regular amount of water plus everything above the drain height (heres where the overflow box helps).
Then you end up with a system where any failure wont cause an overflow. Pump or siphon fail doesn't equal a problem (but pump will start to run dry). Of course, with the sump system with an overflow weir in it, you can top up fresh water to a specific marked level and keep salinity constant easily, plus your main tank water level is always the same.
Took me quite a while to find a system that "achieved it all". Hope the description makes sense?
mjohns
Posts: 337
Date Joined: 11/01/07
So what happens when the
Hlokk, So what happens when the power cuts out for 5-10 minutes (enough to stop your siphon)??
Your overflow cant keep up with the pump and your pump and sump run dry...
Just make a decent overflow and you wont have any problems... noise, loss of power etc. etc.
Siphons and sumps dont go together.. siphons are used for draining your tank nothing else.
hlokk
Posts: 4292
Date Joined: 04/04/08
The overflow has enough
The overflow has enough capacity to drain the pump inflow (and the extra water required to get it going is accounted for in the sump design). It'll gurgle at the overflow but let you know due to the noise. All failure methods were thoroughly tested ;)
Both outlets are in a overflow box that only contains a liter to two, so the siphon cant remove any more than that plus the "overflow sheet".
I tried just overflow using 1" parts (didn't want to drill larger in the glass) and it still made noise. The siphon-overflow method adds advantages without disadvantages (as your system is fully redundant if the siphon fails).
I wouldn't run just a siphon to a sump though, as you mentioned.
JoRn
Posts: 368
Date Joined: 20/11/07
Paul If you want a small
Paul If you want a small bubble anemone hit us up
Mine keeps multiplying
Matt T
Posts: 875
Date Joined: 19/11/07
Looks good
Can't wait to see it come together mate - good work!
Swompa
Posts: 3900
Date Joined: 14/10/12
Nice one. I had a small tank
Nice one. I had a small tank when growing up and would love a big tank but wouldn't have the time or patience.
Paul G
Posts: 5215
Date Joined: 12/12/07
Have had the tank running
Have had the tank running for the last six month with crays ,flounder,snapper,brake sea cod and some glass shrimp..All good will now take the next step will be adding live rock this week or weekend will post up pics.All new to me so slowly slowly and lots of trips to the shop and watching youtube for info .time got plenty of that after work .Jesse and I will be building a 2000lt tank down the track I think a nice dhuie and some snapper would be just great.Thanks for all your tips and advice .Not sure on fish and coral yet will get the basic rock layout done then start adding in a few weeks.
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sunshine
Posts: 2620
Date Joined: 03/03/09
Just be careful of gorgonians
And remove any from your live rock - they appear to have a toxin capable of killing any life if they start to die, I put some in a tank years ago which was long established and lost everything overnight - all brown bread
Gave it away after that but still keep tropicals
Paul G
Posts: 5215
Date Joined: 12/12/07
Just put 15kg of live rock
Just put 15kg of live rock in today will add some more next week ..rocks will get moved around over the next 4 weeks until im happy with there look. then we start adding corals.
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pale ale
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Date Joined: 02/01/10
more??
more??