i need some help, im thinking of converting my 240 salt to fresh due to numerous issues in salt, looking for some advice of how to do this and what equipment i can salvage and what ill need. i have essentially an overflow going down to the sump however the tank was drilled for a closed loop system at one point. i have some powerheads inside for flow, few thousand gph. id like to go pbass and possibly a young arowana if i convert, looking for input please!
going from salt to fresh HELP!!!!
- Thread starter shark_curious
- Start date
Other then removeing the extra powerheads... not much you need to change in all likelyhood. Even then you may wish to keep them incase you do need to ever increase circulation in the tank. But few FW fish need the amount of current a marine system does. Most if not all of your filtration ect should be salvageable. I usually do a good soaking of white Vinegar to remove salt deposist ect on equipment. But even then you don't have to do a perfect job.
You may need to redo your sump depending on how you run it. IE take out any live rock ect and replace w/ bio-balls, scrubbies, ect.
You may need to redo your sump depending on how you run it. IE take out any live rock ect and replace w/ bio-balls, scrubbies, ect.
I did this with my 300g. It actually sat for would you believe for 7 years with saltwater and 300+lbs of once live rock. I had just shut the pumps off and it sat there for 7 years. The water had evaporated only halveway down cause it was covered. But I just pulled all the rocks out left the coral sand in. Just ran the water hose into the tank while at the same time pumping water out. I just stirred the sand up with the waterhose while pumping out till the water looked clear and clean. Now its a freshwater tank!
You should be able to use everything except the protein skimmer if you ran one. I used the coral sand for about 6 months before I changed it for some natural river gravel. I cleaned out my sump replaced with new bio material is all I really changed.
You should be able to use everything except the protein skimmer if you ran one. I used the coral sand for about 6 months before I changed it for some natural river gravel. I cleaned out my sump replaced with new bio material is all I really changed.
In my sump actually when it was a reef tank I ran an empty sump. When I converted to fresh I added two 5 gallon buckets of small bioballs which filled it halve way. Then I stacked the rest of the space up with filter pad material. This is not the blue stuff but its white 1.5" thick very stiff stuff. Later on I added two large capacity canisters as my fish stock increased. My current system is connected to a 100g tank that shares the sump. The 100g tank has two big canisters on it. So my whole system has four canisters and the sump.
shark_curious;4816323; said:how is your sump setup, are you running any filters as well?
I would go into the set up and filtration section and check out how us fresh water guys do our sumps. and wet drys. But the quistion is usually how to go from fresh to salt not the other way around on here. You can use everything that you have for your set up. Just has to be cleaned up. Was it all good. And most people get rid of the salt resudue and left overs with viniger. Then was it again real good to get rid of the vinigear. A protein skimmer will be useless on a freshwater set up. you can use the same lights if you have light t5's or other saltwater set up lights. Just change the bulbs if you want because you dont need those bright light on fresh water tanks. Most of us set our sumps us with mecanical filtration first. Then some kind of bio next as in bio balls or ceramic rings. Then your return pump in the last chamber. I would just go to the set up and filtration section and check out the set ups in there. Sure you can manage a fresh water set up pretty easy after doing salt. No more mixing salt is a plus. This is a picture of how i have one of my wet drys set up. only difference is i have it set up on top of my tank instead of under the tank. So were the drain back to the tank is you would just have your return pump instead.
