Saltwater Aquarium N00b Needs Help

[FLESHY]

Absolutely no idea. Never kept a nem with anything other than MH.

Sorry. Maybe someone else can chime in here.

 

[Wiggles92]

Absolutely no idea. Never kept a nem with anything other than MH.

Sorry. Maybe someone else can chime in here.

Well, thanks for all the advice so far!

I'm thinking that the anemone is going to have to go; there's no way that my dad will spend the money required to get the proper lighting ($400+ by my estimates from various websites). I think that it will be happy in a marine system at college that I'm pretty sure has the proper lighting; if not, then I'll see what other options are available.

Everything else in there should only need moderate lighting, correct?

 

[FLESHY]

Mh lighting doesnt have to be expensive...

I just lit a 125g with 300w of MH and 320w of VHO for probably under $400, including the build of the canopy.

 

[Wiggles92]

Mh lighting doesnt have to be expensive...

I just lit a 125g with 300w of MH and 320w of VHO for probably under $400, including the build of the canopy.

I see that now; I thought that they only came in the double ended variety instead of also having a screw-in version. Part of my high estimate was from the cost of the fixtures, but if making the necessary equipment will be reasonably better priced then I'll look into it.

 

[FLESHY]

I dont know if double ended or mogul (Screw in) is cheaper...but there might be a difference there. I have never used any mogul type bulbs on any of my tanks.

 

[Wiggles92]

I dont know if double ended or mogul (Screw in) is cheaper...but there might be a difference there. I have never used any mogul type bulbs on any of my tanks.

I think that mogul might be cheaper when it comes to the hardware for it; the bulbs themselves are about the same price.

 

[Wiggles92]

We went and got about 30 lbs. or so of cured live rock today. I'm pretty sure that at least three out of four of the pieces are from Fiji; I believe that one of the pieces is cultured Atlantic rock (it had some really nice algal growth on it). There were some snails and small starfish attached to some of the rocks. I thought that there was only one more new anemone with the live rock, but I found another one when I accidentally put my finger on it and got stung, so there are at least two more new anemones.

The additional live rock was the good news from this shopping trip, but there is some bad news. The LFS was out of aragonite and Instant Ocean (they sold out right before Christmas ), and my dad decided to also get a juvenile pair of false percula clownfish. I'm hoping that the clownfish do fine and help with keeping the anemones alive, but I guess we'll see.

I'm going to go looking for more Instant Ocean and aragonite tomorrow, so I hope that we can do a 100% water change, add the new live rock, replace the substrate tomorrow, and fill the aquarium up all the way tomorrow.

My dad also plans on getting the proper lighting ASAP, so everything should be good soon.

Would I be able to put the current sand through a strainer to separate out the three different types of sand in order to potentially reuse some of it in this aquarium?

Any recommendations on how to proceed?

 

[nonstophoops]

We went and got about 30 lbs. or so of cured live rock today. I'm pretty sure that at least three out of four of the pieces are from Fiji; I believe that one of the pieces is cultured Atlantic rock (it had some really nice algal growth on it). There were some snails and small starfish attached to some of the rocks. I thought that there was only one more new anemone with the live rock, but I found another one when I accidentally put my finger on it and got stung, so there are at least two more new anemones.

The additional live rock was the good news from this shopping trip, but there is some bad news. The LFS was out of aragonite and Instant Ocean (they sold out right before Christmas ), and my dad decided to also get a juvenile pair of false percula clownfish. I'm hoping that the clownfish do fine and help with keeping the anemones alive, but I guess we'll see.

I'm going to go looking for more Instant Ocean and aragonite tomorrow, so I hope that we can do a 100% water change, add the new live rock, replace the substrate tomorrow, and fill the aquarium up all the way tomorrow.

My dad also plans on getting the proper lighting ASAP, so everything should be good soon.

Would I be able to put the current sand through a strainer to separate out the three different types of sand in order to potentially reuse some of it in this aquarium?

Any recommendations on how to proceed?

You should not do a 100% water change with livestock in the tank. This will cause a mini cycle(or major) because you are removing too much bacterially established water at once. IMO you should do a series of 25% water changes at most, no more than 25% at once. If you could do a series of these every 4 to 7 days to get the nitrates to a manageable level that would be good.

I would not use the sand over again, for what you need you will be better off just buying one bag of sand for the bottom of your tank that is clean. The old stuff is going to be very very dirty and without a very thorough cleaning will just be putting wastes back into your tank.

Here is what I think you should do to switch the sand and get the tank to where you want it:

You could then take almost all the water and put it into a holding container with your livestock while you remove all the old sand and put in the new. Once the new sand is in, you could add the new rock too(if you don't already have it in). Then you would replace all the water in the holding container and fill up the rest with new water, so in essence a water change. You would then put all your livestock back into the tank.

This is not ideal, but considering your situation I think it should work.

I may be missing something here, so I hope someone else chimes in and fills in anything I missed.

 

[Wiggles92]

You should not do a 100% water change with livestock in the tank. This will cause a mini cycle(or major) because you are removing too much bacterially established water at once. IMO you should do a series of 25% water changes at most, no more than 25% at once. If you could do a series of these every 4 to 7 days to get the nitrates to a manageable level that would be good.

I would not use the sand over again, for what you need you will be better off just buying one bag of sand for the bottom of your tank that is clean. The old stuff is going to be very very dirty and without a very thorough cleaning will just be putting wastes back into your tank.

Here is what I think you should do to switch the sand and get the tank to where you want it:

You could then take almost all the water and put it into a holding container with your livestock while you remove all the old sand and put in the new. Once the new sand is in, you could add the new rock too(if you don't already have it in). Then you would replace all the water in the holding container and fill up the rest with new water, so in essence a water change. You would then put all your livestock back into the tank.

This is not ideal, but considering your situation I think it should work.

I may be missing something here, so I hope someone else chimes in and fills in anything I missed.

Okay, I will not do a 100% water change. It will have to be a 50% water change on account of the aquarium still only being half-filled; I'll just fill it the rest of the way up with clean saltwater.

I guess I will not see about cleaning the sand then.

Thanks for the help so far everyone!

 

[FLESHY]

Most of your bacteria is in your filtration, rocks, and sand.

Large h2o changes tend to create big swings in h2o parameters that can be harmful to your inhabitants.

However, I look at it this way.

You are overloaded on chemicals that will eventually kill your animals. You need to get those levels down pronto. You are also replacing your substrate, taking out a lot of your bacteria the way it is. I would say that with these circumstances a 50% h2o change would be okay. None of your animals are going to complain about h2o quality getting better at this point.,

Like to see some pictures of the tank eventually, glad that we sort of have this on the right track now. (Hopefully.)

Look out for your new anemone's. They might be aptasia which will spread like crazy and can sting other inhabitants.

Not cool.