Slowly starting a salty tank

[rage]

Well, from the pictures, the tank was cloudy, that can only come from either the sand or the salt getting stirred around or both.
It's no big deal, it should settle in a day or two or even earlier but the point is from reading this thread, there are a number of things that are done the hard ways. It shouldn't be this hard to set up a tank.

It's a trial and error process, I guess but I would like to think we/ you want to know what's good practice and what is something we want to avoid if we could. If we don't learn anything, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes.

[Andrew_B]

Yeah, I basically shake the stuff into the tank and have 2x k3s down near the sand, pointing up to opposite sides, so its like a little whirlpool. My first scoop hit the sand, but nothing else touched it really

[Andrew_B]

How big of temp swings can I have and still be safe. I'm not using a heater currently starting off (but can if needed). It looks like I'm jumping between 77-79 or so. So far the lowest I saw, first thing in morning was 77.4 and the highest is 79.8. Is that too large of a daily swing?

[Bedlamer]

That temperature swing should be fine. I would add a good quality heater at some point set to maybe 76 F.

[eklikewhoa]

Depending on what you are keeping you might want to minimize that temp swing. Reef tanks and some of the reef fish don't do too well with fluctuating temps and being that it's a small tank it might be happening faster than the inhabitants would accept.

[eklikewhoa]

btw, I've always kept my reef tanks around 78-82, within a deg or two within those numbers and found it to be best for me.

[Darbex]

My tank goes between 78 - 81

[Andrew_B]

Yeah, mine will potentially get a good bit warmer too unless I come up with a better idea with pumps. Since the mag3 was loud as the return pump, I tossed on the rio and it's silent. I put the mag3 on the skimmer but I haven't had it turned on very long. That pump and this skimmer is a pretty loud combo. Plus I bet the temp would rise another 2 degrees at least with that pump.

Considering staying skimmerless for the sake of temp and sound. Seen a lot of very nice tanks with just good lights and fuge. I'll run the skimmer for a day or two and see how badly the temp gets messed with. Maybe I could have skimmer on at night only to make up for the temp decrease for loss on light. Not sure.

[eklikewhoa]

Having the skimmer run momentarily like that I would assume, be more hassle than it's worth.

Temp swings
water level fluctuations
nutrient levels bouncing back and forth
flooding waste cup/collector
skimmer never building appropriate bio-film and never breaking in

[myjohnson]

Well, from the pictures, the tank was cloudy, that can only come from either the sand or the salt getting stirred around or both.
It's no big deal, it should settle in a day or two or even earlier but the point is from reading this thread, there are a number of things that are done the hard ways. It shouldn't be this hard to set up a tank.

It's a trial and error process, I guess but I would like to think we/ you want to know what's good practice and what is something we want to avoid if we could. If we don't learn anything, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes.

What would you have done differently?

[Andrew_B]

Yeah, I'm sure there are easier/cheaper ways to go about it. I told myself from the start of this that I was going to do it the right way and hopefully not need to do any major changes or upgrades outside of technical upgrades (ATO/controller/wavemakers) all easy stuff to add later on. Obviously not top of the line stuff, but sufficient for most anything I want to do with the tank.

I took this pic this morning, less than 24hours after adding sand and about 12 hours after adding salt. Pic doesn't do justice, it's as clear as can be and salinity is 1.025 up top and the same in the sump.

What would you have done differently?

[Darbex]

Skimmer depends on your bio-load. If you dont have a lot of fish and dont feed a lot then you are fine. On my JBJ I didnt run a skimmer but I only had like 5 small fish. In my 330 I wouldnt go without the skimmer. Much heavier bio-load and I dump a bunch of food in for the corals and fish.

Not to be harsh but you need to rescape that and unless you dont care make sure the rocks are as far away from the glass so you can fit a scrubber in between because you are going to get coraline and other algae build up between the glass and rocks that you will never get off once you start putting corals in. Also take it from my experience before adding anything to the tank make sure the rocks are in place with acrylic rods or very secure with epoxy. I didnt because I was running FOWLR and didnt care but once I switched to reef and got crabs and urchins I now wish I did because they knock everything down.

[Andrew_B]

No worries, its why im posting here. That big void space in the pic is going tobe filled with another 40-50lb of live rock. Whats in there now is just the dry pieces. Im sure there will be more rearranging when i get evrything

[Darbex]

Ok just trying to make this a booboo tank free world one tank at a time.

[myjohnson]

Yeah, I'm sure there are easier/cheaper ways to go about it. I told myself from the start of this that I was going to do it the right way and hopefully not need to do any major changes or upgrades outside of technical upgrades (ATO/controller/wavemakers) all easy stuff to add later on. Obviously not top of the line stuff, but sufficient for most anything I want to do with the tank.

I'm with you. I think you took the right steps in building a reef. A whole lot better than jumping right in. And you are asking the right questions.

NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT YOU ARE TO ME! :)

p.s. my question as directed at Rage's comment and not you, Andrew.