New Marine Tank

[WestTex]

So I finally did it. I have been wanting my own salt aquarium for as long as I can remember and now after 10 years of keeping freshwater, I finally bought the live rock, marine salt, hydrometer, and sand. The tank I'll be using is a 20 gallon long. The lights are nothing special, just the run of the mill standard light system you would pick up at petsmart. I hope to upgrade them as I go along.

For live rock I went with 15 pounds of live rock and 5 pounds of shelf. I purchased 3 pounds of figi rubble for the two marineland hang on back filters. The self was $9 a pound and the live rock was $4 a pound. It all looks good, nice and purple. One filter will hold a filter cartridge and rubble and the smaller of the two will hold only live rock rubble.

Be it the fact that I don't have high speed lighting for corals I will stick with FWLR. I am also seriously considering a purple spot mantis.

So the plan for now is to let the tank cycle for 4 weeks until around November 10th. I'll test the water and see if its good to go. That will give me some time to decide for certain.

Have a couple of questions. One; 20 lbs of live rock did not go quite as far as I had thought. I put the rock in first, then added the sand so that it was resting on the bottom. Should i get more rock? I know more is better up to a point. If I do get more I assume I will need to cycle the tank longer if it is later in the process? Should I do a water change during the cycle?

What would you salty veterans suggest as a starter critter for this tank? I have always been fascinated by the symbiotic relationship between gobies and pistol shrimp. I have also always been fascinated with the mantids..my concern with the mantis shrimp is the fact that it will be species only for the most part and that the tank will get overgrown due to the lack of a cleanup crew.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

West Tex

 

[bcfd144]

If you are thinking you need more live rock, I would get it now. if you add more later, your tank will start the cycling process over and will take you longer to get it ready for fish.
Being its such a small tank, its going to need more water changes in my opinion. The smaller the tank, the more you will need to watch the water prms and maybe even more cleaning. I myself have never started with anything less than a 65 gallon for a salt tank...
When your tank is cycles (and yes to water changes every two weeks (10%) while it cycles), start with hermit crabs, pepperment shrimp.. See how they do. Then in time, add the smaller less exp fish you want to add into your tank. This way if there is a problem, you wont be losing a 40 dollar fish. Add one fish in a week (every two weeks would be better). Do not cycle your tanks with fish, esp damsels. Damsels are a pain in the butt unless you plan to keep only damsels.

 

[WestTex]

Thanks for the advice. I made up my mind on staying away from a mantis for now. I think I'll learn more about marine tanks in general if I keep a small community. I'll go ahead and get a few more pounds of rock and then see about posting pics as I go along.

 

[Otherone]

I've cycled 2 Saltwater tanks (30gal and 210gal) with just LR and sand - took about 7 weeks to get to Nirates 20ppm for fish. During the process I did zero water changes just topped of the tank to keep salinity in check. Bacterial colonies grow to match it's food source w/c's remove their food. Also no skimming was preformed for the same reason. Because obnoxious Macro algaes flourish in high nitrite and nitrate enviorments I kept the lights off. The week prior to adding fish I did my 1st 10% w/c - the lights ran 8 hours a day and the skimmer was running.

I'm partial to the peacock mantis myself but they are true tank busters. I'd fear in the 30 gal w/ 3/8 inch glass the mantis would crack it - in the 210 gal. 3/4 inch tempered glass I'd fear the Mantis would kill off my live stock - awesome species tho - good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[WestTex]

I am so amazed at the amount of life in the tank after just over a week. I went ahead and bought a maxjet 500 for the tank to help circulation, I bought another 5 pounds of liverock, and added a AquaC Ramora Protein Skimmer. In addition I ditched my smaller hob filter and placed the rubble into the aquarium. Looking good so far.

 

[BIGgourami]

For live rock I went with 15 pounds of live rock and 5 pounds of shelf. I purchased 3 pounds of figi rubble for the two marineland hang on back filters. The self was $9 a pound What is 'self' and why is it twice as expensive as LR?and the live rock was $4 a pound. It all looks good, nice and purple. One filter will hold a filter cartridge and rubble and the smaller of the two will hold only live rock rubble.

Be it the fact that I don't have high speed lighting for corals I will stick with FWLR. I am also seriously considering a purple spot mantis.
Petsmart has T5 lights, at least the ones around here do, you should be able to pick up a dual bulb set for about $100. but that can wait (and I think they only carry the Hagen GLO line of lights)

So the plan for now is to let the tank cycle for 4 weeks until around November 10th. I'll test the water and see if its good to go. That will give me some time to decide for certain.

Have a couple of questions. One; 20 lbs of live rock did not go quite as far as I had thought. I put the rock in first, then added the sand so that it was resting on the bottom. Should i get more rock? I know more is better up to a point. If I do get more I assume I will need to cycle the tank longer if it is later in the process? Should I do a water change during the cycle?
Yeah, a lot of live rock can be misleadingly dense, try to look for Fiji LR, it's rather low density and have a LOT of nooks and crannies. If the rock you're adding isn't cured, I would only add like a pound or two at a time. Alternatively, you could set up a little 10G rubbermaid or something and cure it in there, then just add directly to the tank.
If you can get cured live rock from your LSF you can just add it directly to the tank. If you ask them and they say "What does' cured' mean?" shop elsewhere
A water change during the cycle is pointless, unless there are some cool corals etc growing on your rock that you don't want to risk killing,(seeing as you don't have a light and don't care about corals right now...) but WC's will lengthen the time it takes to cycle.

What would you salty veterans suggest as a starter critter for this tank? I have always been fascinated by the symbiotic relationship between gobies and pistol shrimp. I have also always been fascinated with the mantids..my concern with the mantis shrimp is the fact that it will be species only for the most part and that the tank will get overgrown due to the lack of a cleanup crew.
Spearer mantis species won't really mess with your clean up crew too much (but you may need to replace the occasional crab or snail) so try to nab one of them. If you don't go the stomatopod route, fire fish are a perennial favorite, and usually cheap to boot. Gobies and shrimp are always a good combo. Royal gramma, cardinal fish, swales bass a myriad of other non-symbiotic gobies and nano gobies, cherub angelfish, six or 4 line wrasse… I could go on… what sorts of things do you like?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

West Tex

RED

 

[WestTex]

Self rock was a typo. its shelf rock, just a flat piece of rock.

I have made up my mind to not go with a mantis shrimp. Be that this is my first salt tank, I want to learn as much as I can and about as much as I can. So, with that in mind I will go ahead and pick cheap but possibly reef compatible inhabitants to include a yellow watchman gobie, a pistol shrimp, a fire fish, and a small cleanup crew. This should allow me to keep my options open. Thanks for the suggestions on stocking. I'll look into those species.

I have a marineland biowheel 150 in there now, a AquaC Ramora Protien Skimmer with a Maxi Jet 1200 powering it, i also bought the overflow box for it which seems to work well, added a bunch of rubble to the outflow portion of the box. I removed my Maxi Jet 400 from the tank bc I feel with the skimmer and the 150, I have enough movement. If you guys think otherwise I'll throw it back in. I have the skimmer running since its brand new and will need some time to break in and start to produce results. I have found that both maxi jets are very loud and require some tweaking to the propeller assembly to get them whisper quiet. I picked up the ramora bc it looked as if I could use it when I decide to upgrade to a larger tank, say up to 70 gallons, and it would still do the job.

Figure i'll wait another two weeks bf I add a few members of the cleanup crew. There are a ton of isopods, small worms growing in/on the live rock, the coraline and green algae have been growing well. I have noticed a little bubble algae growing here and there, but as the bubbles form i have been removing them without popping them to try and keep them down. Its been amazing how much life is already in the tank. Alot different from the freshwater world. There is also a couple dome shaped, lima bean green, spoungy looking growths that I have been unable to identify.. Learning alot. Thanks for yalls advice so far.

 

[WestTex]

On a side note...be it that I'm still used to sticking my hand in a freshwater tank to work with things...I was taking some rubble out of the floor of the tank to place inside the output side of the overflow box...when I picked a piece up, I guess a pretty good sized isopod decided to run across my hand...all i felt was what felt kind of like a fly walking on my skin...you talk about freak me out haha...was not expecting that

 

[Purevil21]

Welcome to saltwater, it is horribly addictive. A 20g is going to be a relatively difficult first SW tank, obviously it can be done and the fact that you have had aquariums before helps. Your going to need more rock, and you want porous rock no dense (More surface area for beneficial bacteria). You want 1-2 lbs. per gallon, preferably closer to 2. In your tank I would recommend at least 30 lbs., more rock is going to mean more stability. I would def. go with coral though, FOWLR really limits you in that size tank as there aren't a ton of fish species to choose from. A really neat fish that you might look into is a pygmy wrasse. Feel free to ask me any questions, I will help to the best of my ability.

 

[BIGgourami]

Just wait until you get a cleaner shrimp O_O