First Reef p Please Help

[oscar]

Hey Guys,

New to this forum. I'm an experienced aquarist having kept and bred tropicals, American Cichlids, and African Cichlids over the past 10-12years. I understand freshwater aquariums very well. Currently breeding discus in a 250gal planted freshwater tank.

Anyway, i figured i might give salt a go. I live very near the Great Berrier Reef in Queensland Australia.

I'm currently looking to set-up about a 7gal nano-reef. If i get that sorted out and under control i may then also set up a reef in a spare 50gal tank that i have.

Anyway I have a few questions about salt water tanks:
1. What sort of filtration am i likely to need on this tank. I understand that in addition to filtration, powerheads are used to create current. How much of that do i need.
2. What is the general rule of thumb for light intensity.
3. How do you cycle a salt tank. How do i get it started, and at what stage to i add things.
4. How do i calculate bio-load in a salt tank. Can people please give me an idea of the rough amount of Live Sand, Live Rock, Coral, Cleaners, and Fish this tank is likely to be able to house.
5. Bare bottom or substrate. What to use as substrate, and how thick should it be.
6. What are the Essential things to put in the tank to have a stable eco system.
7. Where i live, heat is more of a problem than cool. I mean the tank is likely to only get down to about 19deg celcius but most likely to hover around 24-26 deg celcius. Can anyone suggest appropriate livestock that won't need a chiller.

If there is an Australian Forum for this sort of stuff, i'd love to know the URL as that may be easier with species related questions.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[brandon]

Welcome! :mrgreen:

The rule of thumb for most reef tanks is 1-2 pounds of Live rock (LR) and 1-2 pounds of live sand (LS) per gallon of water. This will provide your biological filtration.
For the powerheads, depends on what kind of coral you want to keep. You can also run carbon but most people change that weekly

The general rule of thub for light also depends on what type of coral you would like to keep, such as soft corals (mushrooms, leathers, zoanthids, colts), large stony polyps (LPS such as frogspawn, blastos and acans) and small stony polyps (SPS, such as montipora, acropora and millepora)

You can cycle a saltwater tank many ways, but the preferred way is to use live rock and live sand and let it sit in the tank, it will cycle (amount of time will vary depending on how "cured" the rock was). Or you can do the creul method and use a damsel to cycle the tank. The principle is the same as freshwater, just have something to cause an ammonia spike to get the bacteria going.

You can choose if you want substrate or not. If you go barebottem, you would have to siphon out the detritus and the like weekly or so. For a shallow sand bed (SSB), you can have clean up crew such as nassarius vibex to help clean the sandbed. For substrate, most people use sand or live sand

The most ESSENTIAL THING to nanos are water changes, water changes and WATER CHAGNES :mrgreen: A clean up crew is also helpful for algae control. Current from a powerhead or the like is also a must. Having a refugium stocked with macroalgae, such as chaetomorpha, will also help alot. another ESSENTIAL thing is PATIENCE :mrgreen:

I do not know much about the heat issue but this board is awesome so im sure someone will chime in soon :lol:

Welcome aboard again!
and wish you the best of luck
Brandon

 

[EDGRAY]

:welcome to NANOTANK.COM

 

[oscar]

I've been thinking about it and i may well just go straight to the spare 50gal that i have. I suspect the larger water capacity should provide a bit more of a buffer.

So, in addition to the questions above, what would be a reasonable filtration set-up for this size tank.

I have a 145GPH cannister, and 925GPH submersible pump as spares as well. Can i use these in the reef? If so, what media should go in the cannister?

 

[drty811]

welcome top nanotank

 

[TimSchmidt]

A lot of people put live rock rubble in the cannister. Carbon or phosban (phosphate chemical reducing media) or filter floss. With enough live rock, live sand, and macro algae I believe very little else is needed for filtration. Carbon is always nice to run chemipure or purigen is popular right now. 10-20 times the water volume an hour would be the slowest flow I would run for LPS corals and such. I would still have a heater in the tank just to keep temperatures within a degree. Instead of a chiller a fan may be more economical. (however you will have to top off with freshwater more often to make up for the evaporation). I hope this answers most of your questions. If you still have a few there is a search button near the top of the page that should be able to help if you want more info. oh
:welcome to Nanotank.com

 

[oscar]

Sorry, my questions never end...

Currently considering my options.

Considering turning my 8'x2'x2' (Approx 250gal) into an invertibrates tank (with a couple of fish). The tank has 4x4' T8 fluoro's, 2x24W UV Sterilisers, 2x Hydor 400W Heaters, and a Fluval FX5 Cannister and AquaOne Aquis 2400 Cannister.

I have my suspicions about extra gear required but if anyone can give me suggestions based on more knowledge about salt than i have.

e.g. how necessary is protein skimmer.

I really want to run a relatively sparse tank, i like the look. Planning to try and create the look of sea bed with a couple of bommies. Therefore i'm going to have very small bio load. Is it feasible to reduce amount if live rock so i can create this look?

By the way - Can't get Live Sand in Australia. From what i understand Calcium Carbonate "sand" (about 3mm diameter) is my next best option.

 

[Anonymous]

Considering turning my 8'x2'x2' (Approx 250gal) into an invertibrates tank (with a couple of fish). The tank has 4x4' T8 fluoro's

- by inverts do you include corals?? if so lighting will be your first major upgrade

I have my suspicions about extra gear required but if anyone can give me suggestions based on more knowledge about salt than i have.
how necessary is protein skimmer.

- there are a lot of options here but so long as you cover all the bases your good
1) mechanical - need some way of getting detritus out of water, a tank that size would be hard to do without a sump (and i recommend this) but your cannisters may cover this area
2) chemical - carbon or similar product - again your canisters will work
3) biological - live rock is all you need here, sand and a few bommies is enough for a small bioload
4) protein skimmer - i ran my 125 for 10 years without a protein skimmer so it certainly can be done but today my preference leans toward using them on all my tanks - i think thats because he quality of skimmers out there is so much better today - so my recommendation is to buy the best you can
5) flow - you will need to add some power heads and some sort of surface skimming box to keep the surface clear for O2/CO2 exchange.
the surface skimmer can be incorporated into your protein skimmer, pumps/PH, or sump

I really want to run a relatively sparse tank, i like the look. Planning to try and create the look of sea bed with a couple of bommies. Therefore i'm going to have very small bio load. Is it feasible to reduce amount if live rock so i can create this look?

- yes this will be fine - some of the coolest tanks i've seen pictures of are like this. you may want to research deep sand beds with a plenum, which aids in NO3 export from the system. adds to the look your going for too

By the way - Can't get Live Sand in Australia. From what i understand Calcium Carbonate "sand" (about 3mm diameter) is my next best option.

i only use dry sand - if you can get it down under caribsea has a lot of choices but i prefer their special reef grade which is like 1 - 3 mm

good luck - you have a cool project ahead of you - do a lot of research first, and it will save you headaches