Slowly starting a salty tank

[Andrew_B]

I just got home from work and got it cleaned up. I was able to loosen my bulkheads then rotate them to remove the threaded pvc drain tubes. I'll need to alter them a bit before putting back on because that won't be easy to do when the tank is actually up against the wall. I ended up just putting an elbow between the exit of skimmer and gate valve so now it fits in my sump... fixes that issue. Doesn't leave a whole lot of room in that compartment for much more than the pump and maybe micron socks. It will be pretty busy.

Now, when it comes time to start up the cycling, just before adding rock, can I mix the salt in the aquarium? Or do I have to do it before it entering the tank. Then once it's at the 1.025 salinity, I'll add the rock. Also, my pump should be here by tomorrow, but my chloramines ro/di cartridges will be another week or so. Would I be okay using my ro/di as is for initial setup with the liverock as ill have those cartridges by the time I start adding corals?

[Darbex]

If there is no life in the tank then it doesnt matter but if you got life then I wouldnt do it.

[Andrew_B]

You considering live rock as life? Or just corals/fish/inverts

[Darbex]

If its true LR then yes. You will kill some of the bacteria with salinity that high or low. Which will increase the cycle time.

[Andrew_B]

Oh, were you saying yes to mixing the salt in the tank, or using ro/di water before my chloromines filter coming in. If you were talking about mixing the salt, yeah nothing would be in there until I reach correct salinity.

[Andrew_B]

Water is in the tank (just tap for now, to make sure everything is working and no leaks). Seems like everything is flowing good, but man, it's a pain in the kulo to get the drain/pump speed balanced. I cant seem to get my drain fully submerged so its making a large amount of suction noise. I ended up putting an elbow on my main drain too, but maybe 1.25" lower than the emergency drain. I need to rework my return so it's not lower than my drains. Looks like its going to take some tweaking. This sump, though a nice PM sump, is much smaller than I thought it would be. Holds maybe 14-15gal, half of what I was expecting to use as a sump so have to mess with drain heights a bit

[myjohnson]

Yeah, the ball valve is hard to adjust. it takes really fine tuning to get it just right. But once it's dialed in, you are set to go.

The elos drain is like your drain almost...I was able to flood the drain line completely and it became silent after that. You shouldn't need an elbow to do this. The drain opening does not need to be submerged to get it silent.

Also, you can have the return light output at any level just drill a little hole right on top or below you final waterline and that should stop the water from flowing backwards.

14-15g sump on a 30g tank is not bad dude! I have maybe 20g in a 30g sump. I would measure it to make sure.

[Andrew_B]

I added some pieces to the little caterpillar looking return thing (name has me baffled), so now its higher than my drains. I needed to add the elbow on the main drain as I calculated the holes to drain ~10gal water into sump if power went out. And since its a 15gal (instead of 30) gal sump and it's already ~60%full before an outage, it would definitely overflow. Im trying something with the drain now where I have the valve closed, going to submerge it completely and fill tank close to emergency drain height, open valve and start the pump to see if the drain keeps filled

[Andrew_B]

I guess the sump is bigger than I thought. I have the water level in tank just below the emergency drain and the sump is about 50% full. Just did the power outage test and pulled the pump plug and it still left me maybe 3-3.5gallons to work with in sump (which is good since my skimmer water level is on the low end).

[Andrew_B]

Seems like I have it down, the water lines are keeping their height for now. But man, this mag3 pump is loud as hell

[myjohnson]

You talking about lock lines?

I put my pump on a folded media bag.

[Andrew_B]

The water level of the tank and the water level of the sump aren't moving anymore, which i assume is good. And the power outage test was a success. Just need to quiet this pump and I'll be set for actual ro/salt water. I'll try letting it sit on something, but it seems loud when I move it so its freefloating in the water. Does it help if the pump is level? If so, I'll need to make it an all rigid return instead of half tubing, half pvc

[myjohnson]

Is the mag new or used?

It shouldn't be that loud free floating. If it is....there maybe damage on the magnet.

[Andrew_B]

Brand new, got it in the mail today through Amazon

[myjohnson]

Is it dialed back?