HOW TO SET UP A TANK, condensed verions (retitled)

[asid61]

You measure salinity, and when it's at the desired level you mark the water line with a marker. Add top-off water until the water reaches that mark.

[SGrim80]

Originally Posted by asid61

You measure salinity, and when it's at the desired level you mark the water line with a marker. Add top-off water until the water reaches that mark.

I assume that keeps the salinity the same? Because when the water evaporates the salt remains in the water effectively raising the salinity in the tank. Then when you top off with fresh ro/di water to the previously marked location the salinity matches what it previously was at that marked location, right?

FROM SK8R:---exactly. I have a piece of duct tape on my sump. If the water is below the top edge of that tape, I check the AutoTopoff reservoir and refill it. Incidentally, if you have a tank of any size at all, an ATO is one of the first pieces of equipment you'll want to set up: and use reducers to get your topoff hose down to 1/4 inch tubing. That means only teaspoons of new water enter your system, no dumping half a bucket in at once. The salinity stays very even.

[bryanh]

Great thread, Sk8r! Excellent quick and dirty on the startup process, a perfect lead-in to the stickies that everyone should read. You share a wealth of information and we are lucky to have wonderful people like you that are willing to share.

[dsn112]

Originally Posted by SGrim80

I assume that keeps the salinity the same? Because when the water evaporates the salt remains in the water effectively raising the salinity in the tank. Then when you top off with fresh ro/di water to the previously marked location the salinity matches what it previously was at that marked location, right?

Right, salt stays/water evaps. Filling with RODI to the line keeps you in check

[Dbroncos]

Lights on or off during cylcling?

[Sk8r]

I turn them on (on timer) because I want to get the temperature balance (day/night) straightened out the way it will be when it's operating: you sure don't want it bouncing violently between too hot and too cold when you have livestock in there. Plus chemistry runs faster in an 80 degree tank than in a 70 degree one.

[schatzi]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

You can start a fish in qt 4 weeks before you expect your tank to be ready.

If the main tank isn't ready what water would you put into the QT? I was thinking you had to complete the cycle and then use that water in the QT for your first fish. I'm about to begin my cycle and was going to let a sponge soak in the sump for use in the QT HOB filter after the cycle had run it's course.

[Sk8r]

No, just mix new salt water for at least 12 hours with a mixing pump (I use a Maxijet 1200) before you use it, to make sure it's all dissolved.

I don't like cycled qts, because if you have to treat, your treatment is going to kill a bunch of bacteria and add that biomass to a now-dead filter, and further stress the fish. My advice is get some oldfashioned filter floss, wrap it around a little carbon (which you don't use during a med dose!)--and simply change it out every time you spot a brown stain. Use an ammonia badge (I think that's SeaCHem) on the qt and always have salt water mixed and ready. A 10% water change will lower ammonia, and if you're ready to do one, and have some Amquel on hand in case of a Situation, you're well equipped.

Build into your instincts the notion that the best place for specimens in a crisis is a bucket of sparkling clean salt water, and new salt water always trumps the water of a tank in a water quality crisis. Aeration is essential. Watch it especially with tangs, which have a high oxy requirement. And don't pick an angel as your first fish, imho: they're difficult to qt, oversensitive to copper treatments, and many require live rock to nibble and are skittish eaters. Tangs are right behind them because of the high oxygenation requirement. Likewise---do not expose fish to aeration bubbles: put a piece of eggcrate between them and any really frothy bubble stream, so they don't get into it. Exposure over time (given an obsessive fish) can cause problems.

[schatzi]

perfect, thanks!

going with a tank bred clown for the first fish.

[Garage1217]

Excellent post! The only thing I disagree with is keeping or targeting the tank at 80F. IMO only and others feel free to disagree, target your heaters at 76. I personally target mine even lower at 74.5 and have never had an issue with fish, corals, or anything else. If it drifts a little over no big deal and nothing wrong with tanks around 80 especially in the summer with the house being warmer. However targeting 80 is a waste of electricity and depending on house temp and tank size, it can cause everything to feel humid and nasty!

[Sk8r]

What corals are you keeping, and what is your growth rate? I'm not challenging what you're saying, only wanting to know if the same species are growing the same. I'm mostly lps, doubling in size about every 3 months; and where I live (eastern WA) we don't have humidity issues. So the temperature can, yes, depend on where you are, and there's nothing wrong with a steady 78. I find 80 an easy stability to maintain without much effort from the heater, because of the pumps and lights, even in winter, and we keep the house at about 68 in that season. [Note that my lights are metal halide, and yours are LED, which is much cooler. Mine are like a furnace.]

THis I will add, however: 62 is lethality from cold, and 85 begins lethality from heat, depending on the lighting conditions at the time the tank reaches that temperature. You want to avoid both of those! So pick a balance that your region can easily maintain, that will never creep into the danger zone. Remember that your sand and rock are a heat-retarder: once heated up, they take a while to cool down and vice versa, once chilled, they take a while to warm up.

This means, if you think about it, that if the power goes out, your fish hiding in the rockwork are doing a very smart thing. And it helps coral survive such an event, because they're close up against the rock.

[Garage1217]

No worries, as stated that is my opinion only. I have always targeted heaters lower temps and had a pretty decent frag / growout setup under 1000W of halide a few years ago. I kept mainly SPS with a lot of LPS and softies, full mixed setup. My growth was excellent and I was able to turn out a lot of fully encrusted and branching frags every month and my lps grew plenty fast

Here in Az with a very dry climate, you can get quite sensitive to humidity levels, probably much more so than other areas in the country. The tank at 80+ significantly raised the humidity levels in the house, verified by a meter I have vs 75-76F. Basically any time the tank was warmer than the air in the house, the humidity would rise and I HATE humidity!

Also I feel it is important for tanks to have a temp swing every day rather than a dead on temperature regulated by chillers / heaters. I have found previously that corals were more resilient when temp varied +/- around 4F daily. Again that is my opinion and findings. For example, My old setup running 1000W of halides "4qty of 250w" would drop to around 75-76 at night, but in the day would drift up to around 79-80. So heaters would never kick on until it would hit my specified low temp of 75. They were set for a 1 degree spread and would raise the temp to 76 and shut down. If I had targeted them at 80, they would be fighting to keep the tank warm all night and since I do not know many that like to keep their home at 80F, the heaters would see a lot of use and depending on the size of the setup and heater wattage which will cost a lot of $ for no real reason.

My new setup is just that, brand new. No corals right now and not even any fish. She is 7 days old and looks to be a long cycle and ammonia is barely starting to drop just last night.

I guess overall my point is that corals will grow VERY healthy and plenty fast at lower temps. Evap will be lower, energy bills will be lower if your heaters need to run to maintain a higher temp and I noticed algae growth on the glass is reduced on the glass at a lower temps. Could corals grow at a slower rate? Yes, for sure they could but I never experienced anything I would consider as slow growth!

But back to your main post, Nice writeup that will be of great use by many hobbyists starting out!

[Sk8r]

@garage1217, your post is sensible and a valuable contribution. Environments vary, and it's very useful to know the tolerances. I've run at 80 for years because that's where I can make it balance, but in winter, as a whole, top tends to be 78. And while 78 is a fine temperature to be at consistently, and so is 80, ---82 is NOT a good place to park, because it is just a little accident away from 85. New hobbyists: note that chemistry runs faster in higher temperatures, but this is not all good: the ability of water to carry oxygen DIMINISHES as heat rises. So if you overstock your tank and then make a mistake with your heater---as the season changes, or the day your ac goes out, your water overheats, goes short of oxygen, and your fish die, starting with those with the highest oxygen requirement and finally getting down to the gobies and blennies. Of course, then ammonia starts---and the whole tank goes, in an indescribable and smelly mess.

This is why I urge people to run all their equipment 24/7 during cycle, and work at that temperature balance early, because it is not the easiest thing to figure out, it *is* dependent on where your tank is, geographically, and what you're keeping and what your resources are---and while it is a fairly broad parameter, when you start having fish and corals, you really want that parameter to be under steady management, and doing what you intend it to do.

Heaters are the WORST and most dangerous piece of equipment we pretty well have to run...a broken one can leak voltage and silently kill your fish; or spike temperatures and kill your fish with heat, turning the tank into a toxic, oxy-short soup; or stop working and kill your fish slowly by chill; it can catch fire and destroy your tank; or burn your house down. Do not skimp on heater quality. Do not trust a used one. Do not mess with one with a loose housing. This is no piece of equipment to mess with.

[jcuervo96]

I am a newbie to reefs, planning on purchasing and setting up within the next month or two. What a great post, bookmarked and THANKS!

[Sk8r]

Let me add one that I just thought of: understanding your salt mix.
The reason it's called 'salt mix' and not just 'salt' is that it *is* a mix, of which salt is the main ingredient. [Now and again we have a new hobbyist ask if they can use Morton Salt. The definitive answer is no.]

Fish, inverts, and corals not only breathe water to extract oxygen, they drink it constantly as a source of nutrients which support life. Read the label on your salt mix: you'll find it's a chemist's workshop of other elements, primarily salt (sodium chloride), calcium, magnesium, and a buffer; then an array of such elements as boron, iodine, selenium, and so on down.

The salt mix intended for fish-only tanks costs less: it contains less calcium, for one thing. The salt mix intended for reefs is more complex, and has about the balance of elements you can see listed in my sig line. All creatures with skeletons or shells use calcium---but stony coral and clams use it to build with. They use it so fast you end up having to dose more in, even with regular water changes.

The Big Three items that are in a locked relationship in seawater are: calcium, buffer [which you read as 'alkalinity'], and magnesium. If magnesium is low, the calcium and alkalinity readings will start going down and down, no matter how much calcium and buffer you add. Raise the magnesium first, and your additions of calcium and alk buffer will stay in solution and become available to fish and corals. Coral keeping is just that simple: just keep those elements available, and don't neglect the water changes that supply the little trace elements as well. Selenium is a tiny trace---but without it, corals may 'bail' from their bases. Iodine is another: without it, your crustaceans have trouble in molt.

NEVER, EVER, EVER try to dose trace elements as a beginner: just do your water changes, and these micro-trace elements come in with the salt mix, in perfectly adequate supply. NEVER DOSE ANYTHING YOU DON"T OWN A TEST FOR. When you start to supply calcium, alk buffer, and magnesium for corals, get those 3 tests.

Just as you draw that 'fill line' to help you keep up with salinity, a LOG BOOK, in which you write your test results for these various minerals, will help you see at what rate, say, calcium is declining in your tank. First you think: if calcium or alkalinity is falling, that means my mag is low. Test that. Add sufficient to reach 1300. Then your calcium dose will 'take'. And when you have kept that written record for a while you will find those numbers are regular as a heartbeat: they tell you about the chemistry going on in your water column, how your corals are eating, whether they're eating, and so on. When the numbers change rate---something is going on.

If you're fish-only, this part is simpler. Just do your water changes, 10% a week, forever, and you're good. This is where you have the advantage over reefers, who don't have a filter to change. EVERYBODY gets to do water changes. And the one test I recommend for fish-onlies is alkalinity. You can see by what I just told the stony-reef-folk that alk doesn't exist on its own, and it has to be in balance. But if your fish aren't happy and your ph is weird, alkalinity is a very good thing to check. Likewise: softie coral folk: you're kind of like the fish-only folk, in that you only have to do water changes, but again---if things aren't going well, check your alkalinity. If it's off, take measures as described above.

And if you want lots of pink coralline (acrylic tanks beware, because it gets on your tank walls as well) just raise your magnesium to 1300. You'll see it, if there's any in your tank at all.

[rich_one]

So Sk8r, I just want to make sure I am doing this right.

I do not have a large container to do my saltwater mix... but since I am just setting the tank up, I'm not sure it is a big issue. Hopefully you can help me figure the best way to do this.

It seems like the messiest way to do it, but I think I'm going to have to fill the tank with the saltwater mix first, then add the live rock and live sand... correct? Or should I add the live rock and sand first, and then add the mix bucket by bucket intially? I'm just afraid to any live rock to get dry, if this process is too slow. Thanks in advance for your insight!

-Rich

[Sk8r]

base rock down first: I use lighting grid underneath to prevent point load on the glass and to keep the rock from rolling. Then WASHED sand. THen lay down a garbage sack flat out and pour your water in on that---it will float as the water rises, and prevent your sand from kicking up hugely. Last of all, place your finest live rock on top of the rock.

If you don't wash your sand, you'll have so much dust you won't see your rock for a week. The good news is the dust will acquire a bacterial coating and stick together and sink eventually, but it's just easier to wash it, few cups at a time, in a large bucket. Lowes has 5 gallon poly (white) paint buckets. You'll find them very helpful. Mixing water is only one use. Washing things, a rescue tank for a problem, etc. Very useful, and they stack. You can set your best live rock to wait in your first mixed bucket of water while you deal with your sand and first rock layer, but keep aeration going in that, or you may start to have dieoff. Just keep mixing water and adding. Then just put your rock in and keep adding water as you get it mixed. Stack your rock higher as the water gets deeper.

[rich_one]

Cool... appreciate that. Thanks!

-Rich

[Captainfester]

kill the other stickies... this is the end all be all of down and dirty noob tanking!

[PoeticInjustice]

Nice thread. I've been looking around the web for the information that you posted about anemone. Thanks a lot!

[swflfisher]

when your mixing your water do your need to be 100% acurate on salinity in each bucket? or close and make sure the salinity in filled tank is perrfect?

[mssvp]

great thread...picked up important info to get things started the right way.

[NckHtn]

When topping off you should use your ro/di water without salt mix, when the water evaporates from the tank the salt is left behind. So you need to dilute your tank water to get back to your desired SG.

[Robert1.0]

Wow, I just registered for this forum and I am uber impressed. The knowledge is perfect for people just starting salt like me.... great job

[jason10012]

SK8r,

Thank you for posting this I cannot tell you how often I refer to it and I even have it bookmarked. I'm just starting down the path to reef keeping and saltwater fish. I've had freshwater tanks for quite a few years now and decided to take the plunge into saltwater and being able to find and reference information from seasoned saltwater hobbyists has been very valuable in the use of my time and the direction I want to take.