Your Opinion going freshwater to saltwater

Let me set you guys up with a little backstory, and then I would love some input on thoughts.

I'm currently running a 110g freshwater cichlid/loach/pleco/eel tank. All the fish, rocks, gravel, driftwood, etc. are leaving me later today. My roommate is also leaving later this week, and I plan on moving the tank into his room, and make it a study area/fish room for me. I am a graduate student, eventually planning doing some PhD research in Bimac octopuses (or mimics if I get lucky enough but there is too little to study at the moment).

I got the tank so I could become experienced in live care, but wanted experience in all aspects, so I decided to start with a freshwater, move to salt, FOWLR, and then start at the octopus. This is years in the making so don't think I'm jumping into this, I am reading loads of research papers, forums, meeting people at my local aquarium/zoo, etc.

My biggest worry is my housing, being on the 2nd floor apartment, its a lot of weight and a lot of water. The first thing I want to do no matter what is to reinforce my stand with some more wood and metal brackets once I empty the tank out and take it off the stand. I kind of want to do my freshwater to saltwater conversion as a slow process once he leaves, and spend the next year doing saltwater until I move out. I have heavy canister filtration, heaters, lights, all the jazz. I even picked up a protein skimmer a few months ago because it was going for so cheap.

Here is where your opinion comes in --

1) IF I do the conversion, I am going to buy 2 more tanks, one for a sump, and one for a quarantine tank. What size should these both be if I am running a 110g?

2) My 110 gallon high is one of those old school ones with metal bracketing around the top, my air bubbles have started causing a little rust, should that worry me for this tank holding up for another year?

3) Would you trust the 2nd floor apartment in strength to hold now the additional weight of the sump underneath my aquarium?

4) Would I need to do any drilling before adding a sump? Once I "graduate" to a Bimac, I will be doing a custom tank with drilling to make sure it will be escape proof, but can you set up a sump without any drilling in the glass?

Thank you guys, I'll be sure to make a good progress thread if I end up doing the conversion, because I am always asking for more advice!

 

Ultimately a drilled tank is best when using a sump system however drilling an existing tank is very hard and risky. They do make hang on back overflows which is probability what you will have to do until you buy a new tank.

 

Of course these are all my personal opinions, but also based on lots of research and experience.
1) Many think you're sump should be 50% or more than the size of your DT. I personally think a 40-50g would be fine though for sump size.

2) As long as the rust isn't in the water and rusting completely through anywhere I'm sure it's fine. It's sounds mostly on the surface and cosmetic. I would get some CLR and try to clean it up as much as possible while the tanks empty. CLR is non-toxic and many of used it to remove calcium build up on tanks, including myself. Just make sure you rinse it off very well before refilling. CLR will inhibit a lot of the rust from continuing to spread.

3) That's a tough question to answer without knowing the age of your building and what the floors are made out of(some are wooden joists and some are thick concrete). Often times, your lease will even have weight restrictions listed in the contract. I would also just ask the landlord for their advice.

4) Drilled tanks for the sump are by far the best. Most people I know that started with the HOB overflow eventually goes drilled. It's up to you if you want to start with a HOB and then just buy a new drilled tank down the road or if you want to take that tank into a shop to have it drilled. Personally, I'd ask around LFS's to see if I can get a price on a drilling service and go from there. I've heard some places will even take the tools to your house to drill it, so you don't have to lug your tank around.

 

Thank you both for the advice, and Nanologist good thing I was asking for personal opinions!

I will talk to my landlord and check out the lease for some info on the building, but I think all the possibilities for risk are a little to high for me to commit to my conversion at this point. I think I will work on the rust, issue, finish out this lease with freshwater, continue compiling info and Saltwater equipment so that my next place will be where I start the saltwater attempt.

Last question though:

Do you take in the size of the sump when looking into filtration and stuff? For example, if I got a 50 gallon sump, should I be looking at filtration for 160g of water or for 110g of display? And what are your thoughts on when I upgrade, to get a 75G display and use my 110G as a sump with a refugium? Is that stupid?

 

Sounds like a good safe plan to me.

Do you take in the size of the sump when looking into filtration and stuff? For example, if I got a 50 gallon sump, should I be looking at filtration for 160g of water or for 110g of display? And what are your thoughts on when I upgrade, to get a 75G display and use my 110G as a sump with a refugium? Is that stupid?

Definitely! You'll also want to get the measurements of any equipment like skimmers, heaters, reactors and so on that you plan on storing in the sump to make sure it meets the height and width requirements.

Haha! I wouldn't say stupid but definitely backwards than what most would do. If you plan on keeping larger creatures in the refugium then by all means go for it, then you could keep a super clean minimalist DT for coral or whatever! I'd kill to see a "DT Refugium", because I'm actually into seeing the algae, CUC and dirtier side of the hobby. I'm all for leaving refugiums out in the open for viewing. Many flashy new fuges(and equiment involved) are being built for this reason now. It just all depends on what you plan to keep in each tank and I definitely don't have much knowledge about keeping an octopus!

 

Nanologist He will require very good filtration (3-4x normal) a great protein skimmer, and high quality carbon for the inking, and any invertebrates will just be a snack, so I figured I would do a big fuge with my clean up crew in there.

Anyways, thank you all for the input, that got me going in a good direction, and I think it cemented in the plan to eventually turn my current DT to the sump/refugium. Look out for my eventual post in here again when I finally make it back to a first floor place!

Cheers

 

Nanologist He will require very good filtration (3-4x normal) a great protein skimmer, and high quality carbon for the inking, and any invertebrates will just be a snack, so I figured I would do a big fuge with my clean up crew in there.

Anyways, thank you all for the input, that got me going in a good direction, and I think it cemented in the plan to eventually turn my current DT to the sump/refugium. Look out for my eventual post in here again when I finally make it back to a first floor place!

Cheers

Well ... your sump and whatever live rock you use IS your filtration. You don't use another filter on top of that. You'd ditch the canister for the sump. Some people choose to use something like Matrix or Marine Pure media for extra bacteria housing. If you are needing good carbon I'd look into a dedicated carbon reactor (not the double gfo carbon one because hey have different requirements regarding flow and such) and good, high quality carbon. BRS sells both.

I personally would keep the DT larger and the sump smaller. This would give your Octopus the most room. If you are needing high filtration I'd definitely go with as large a sump as you can fit. More water volume = more dilution of pollutants.

If you are planning on upgrading to salt later, I'd keep my eyes peeled on Craigslist and at LFS for people selling large systems. You can often get some awesome deals on full sw setups and can sell off any equipment not needed. I'd definitely go drilled over HOB overflow. I haven't used one but have heard of them losing suction and causing problems. If you don't want to buy a new tank, you CAN drill them yourself. There are kits you can buy and I've heard it's actually not that hard but anytime drilling glass there is risk of breaking it whether you do it or someone else does.

I've never seen someone's personal Octopus tank. I can't wait to see this evolve in time!