First Saltwater setup - 75Gal+15Gal quarrantine+Refugium

My first saltwater setup (have had freshwater fish for about 30 years - with my current tank going continuously for 20+), have wanted to get a saltwater reef tank for a long time, almost as long as I've had freshwater fish, but events recently conspired to allow me to do so. I picked up a 75 Gal used tank (in kinda rough shape) for cheap, refinished it, and figured I would acquire pieces gradually and spread out the price pain. Then a saltwater store in the town my wife works in went out of business, so I got most of the stuff super-cheap and after a couple more months of putting it all together(and building the quarrantine tank stand on the right) - I'm now cycling (and addicted to researching everything I'm gonna put in it).
My basic philosophy is that I'm building it from the ground up with regards to trophic levels, and trying to maximize sustainable biodiversity - so I'm going to stock it well with several species of copepods, amphipods, and feeder algae/phytoplankton, building my way up to captive bred fish species (end goal - a mated pair of mandarin dragonettes).
I've got the tank in early cycling mode now, trying to build up denitrifying bacterial levels, have plenty of base rock, and going to seed it with some live rock to get a start on coralline algae growth (hopefully along with some copepods). I'm patient and got a good deal on the base rock, so interested in seeing its development over time.
Not sure how soon to add the seed rock though, as I've added some of the tank cycling bacteria, and have been "feeding" the tank flake food to get it moving along - now seeing very slight ammonia levels (the faintest hint of green in the yellow - Sera testing kit. maybe 50ppb at 8.4pH), no nitrite but some measurable levels of both nitrate and phosphate. I'm thinking that I've probably got all the bacteria that I need, just not at the levels I need - so adding some live rock or chaetomorpha+pods might help it cycle faster with the initial die-off.

 

Bump!

Thanks!

Ken

 

Go ahead and add the live rock. it will help seed the tank with bacteria and pods as well as coralline algae and you may get some interesting hitch hickers as well. When you add the LR it will have some die off and will cause another minI cycle. so the earlier you add it the better so it doesn't cause any harm.

I started my tank with all live rock from an established tank that I helped break down and I set my rocks in the tank less than 2 hours after I got them out of the tank. had a little die off but my cycle was completed fast like that. I have a large pod population as well that came with the established rock. I did add a few pieces of base rock to mine to add to the amount of rock. its been in the tank about 2 weeks maybe and already has spots of coralline growing on it.

What are you planning to stock with to start?

 

Well I ordered some chaeto w/pods that I'm gonna start in the refugium, and getting a bloom of brown algae(diatoms) at the moment. Depending on how the new equilibrium settles out, gonna add some coralline algae and reef plankton from Indo Pacific Sea Farms next, along with some of their reef amphipods if the ones coming with my chaeto don't have a taste for diatoms.
I've kinda moved away from seeding with live rock, I want a little more control over the microbiota in my tank, I don't mind taking the extra time to build up the ecosystem carefully.
In the long run I actually don't mind the diatoms, though they are growing too fast at the moment, been doing a little water changing with my new RO/DI filter to try and reduce silicate levels.

 

They wil die off with time. You can get shells for hermits or snails that are covered in coralline its probably cheaper and beneficial at the same time by adding cuc members that will spread the algae that way. Never used the bottled algae before so not much help there.

 

This isn't the bottle stuff (so far as I could figure out, nobody sells actual algae in the bottles, just micronutrients that help algae spread). Getting a couple of the algae impregnated slabs that Mike pointed out to me in my other thread.

The snails sounds like a pretty cool idea too though, probably a good thing to check out to see if I can find some of the rarer colorations to supplement with later.

 

Let me know where you find them at. Would be interestimg for next build.

 

What is that in your sump? Looks like a carbon bed?

 

Arag-Alive Hawaiian Black Sand, think it was 2 bags when that picture was taken, have added a third since then (so 60 lbs). Still working on the water flow a bit, now have a homemade filter keeping the lighter stuff from kicking back up into my gleaming white sand in the display tank (also have added 40 lbs. of "west carribbean reef" arag-alive to the quarrantine tank). The display on the quarrantine tank hides a pretty deep bed for such a small tank, so should serve as a good secondary filter while it's in-line (and primary filter when it's taken off-line in quarantine mode).

 

Updated pictures (#1 is quarrantine tank, 2*.4 watt LED lighting, #2 is refugium, 9 watt LED fuge light, #3 is the main "pillars of creation" display tank with lighting off (2*36 watt LED setups for the moment))

 

Tank is starting to fill out, just got a nice package from Indo Pacific Sea Farms with Reef Plankton, Reef Amphipods, Coralline Algae Boosters, and these happy fellas - a bristle worm just introduced already poking around the rockwork in my quarrantine tank

 

Added my first corals today:


Toxic Green Platygyra, first night in the quarrantine tank and he's got the cnidocytes out already, feelin around (threw in some tigris pods along with the pods I already had in there, should get a snack if he's patient).
Pinwheel Candy Cane hasn't opened up yet, but I'll give it a few days before I get worried. The water they came in was reading at 1.030, so gave them a long acclimation to get down to 1.025 and a long revive dip.