So I have a question for you....

[redwetar666]

Here's the deal this is my first saltwater setup, I have had several cichlid tanks for a few years, but never salt. I have a 33 gallon flat back half hex, running two magnum 350 canisters and a 300 watt heater. I had the tank setup for about six months with african cichlids but I wanted a change, i moved them and most of their water to a 29 gallon. I kept all of the original aragonite that I had for them in the 33 gallon along with most of the rocks. I used the salt and its measuring about 1.022-1.023. I set it up last night. Im wondering is it ok that I just left the freshwater established rocks in there? Will that hurt anything? Also the tank is still a little cloudy but not really bad. Will this clear up on its own or what? Thanks in advanced guys

BTW I'm starting with FOWLR so I dont really need special lights or a protein skimmer or anything special do I? Should I remove the aragonite and use just live sand or does it matter?

 

[KellyFrancis]

Aragonite is good. Popular opinion among the pros is that live sand is only good for an ammonia spike. Everything's dead.

I can't speak to the rocks. I do know that the rocks you want should be really porous for bacteria. And it would seem to me that freshwater and saltwater bacteria would be different but I'm no pro. you should seed your rock with live Rick though to kick start the cycle. And remember, at least one pound per gallon.

Canisters are the devil with salt. Keep an eye on them or just replace them all together.

The cloudiness should go away. Your SG should be 1.025 when you're done and settled. Right now, you don't need a protein skimmer or epic lights, but if a reef is in the future, you might as well skip over lesser lights and just save up for the epic ones, you know?

Hope that helps, good luck!!


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[redwetar666]

So should I buy live sand and live rock or just live rock? Also the rock im using from the cichlid tank is lace rock, texas holey rock, and lave rock, that should be fine for bacteria right? Also the canister and lights im only using because I have 4 extra canisters and a ton of extra lights and I didnt wanna pour a ton of money into this yet. Will I be fine using canisters or what? Also I cant use a UV sterilizer on a salt tank can I? I tested my ph and it was like 7.3-7.5, anything I should do? I want inverts and fish with live rock, what should my levels be at? Sorry to be totally clueless I just have no idea yet

 

[TheRealCramer]

Not to hijack your thread but I'm starting my first saltwater (with a 3 gallon picotope, because they said it couldn't be done!) and I actually had that same question sort of why have another thread?

In preparation for my eventual saltwater I have been collecting the things I will need slowly and I've had dry coral rock that came with a tank I got off Craigslist in my freshwater sump for over a year because it's surface area is supposed to be sooo spectacular. It's now seeded with freshwater bb but is that the same? Can I throw it in with all my extra ceramic rings I keep down there?

Also, the published books I've been reading say beginners should do fish only but I'd rather do corals only. Certainly the lower bio load must make up for the sensitivity of the corals? What's the consensus now that picos have become so popular? All the books I downloaded were published before 2000 and dont even mention nanos or picos.


And I'm reassured to hear you're going from Cichlids to saltwater because for a long time I've gone back and forth on whether or not to go real saltwater and all that headache or fake saltwater with cichlids that look sw and it'll be a breeze. If the cichlids didn't satisfy you then I'm not satisfied either for no other reason to justify my decision.

Here's my fake sw 3 gallon cube from Walmart. With yellow tail guppies cuz they look the most sw of tiny fish





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[redwetar666]

Yeah I'm not sure man I just started myself, Cichlids were awesome for a few years but I just want to step up. Also, one thing I can suggest is that if you dont have at least a decent amount of experience with fresh I definitely wouldn't try salt yet but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

 

[KellyFrancis]

I've got next to no experience with fresh and started with salt cuz a buddy was retiring from it and gave me a killer deal on an already running tank complete with three of his fish. I don't think your experience with fresh matters all that much, but it probably helps.

To answer the questions I can with any sort of confidence(like I said, no pro here): No on the live sand. Lets be honest, you're buying aquatic creatures/bacteria in dry bags...how live is it really gonna be? Right? And as far as canisters go, they are regarded as nitrogen bombs. I don't know the specifics, but that's what the pros say. One would imagine though, if you took out the media and filled it with live rock and just cleaned it out ever two weeks or so to get the big stuff out, you'd be fine. I don't know...I'm curious to see what some of the other guys here will say about that.

The less confident answers: I would assume that the bacteria in freshwater and saltwater would be different and therefore intolerant of the other condition. By putting salt into an already running fresh system, you may have just killed all the bacteria in the tank. That is what seems most logical to me anyway. On the bright side, there you have a source of ammonia for the new bacteria....

Hmm...I am curious about this now...In my reading on this site, I have not come across this question before...My best suggestion for you is to read as many of the salt threads as you can. A lot of these questions have been asked and been answered fabulously. not to shoot you down or anything, by all means, ask away. Just to give you a better platform for your questions, you know?

 

[TheRealCramer]

I've been doing fw forever. And every time I wanted to up the ante in some way all the experts try to scare me out of it. I find in many hobbies and in business and life that the experts think they are open to helping beginners but are subconsciously instilling doubt and fear for both benevolent and malevolent reasons. Like not feeling guilty if they get you in over your head and you fail or just feeling part of an exclusivity they prefer to hold over you and keep you from knowing they actually don't do crap. Lol that's a whole different topic!

I'm sure like my ponds and aquariums I've had it won't be as crazy as they tell me or at least if the warnings were accurate, the extra work goes by almost unnoticed until you look back at everything you had to do. I'm sure it will definitely be more interesting and thus more rewarding.

I have all the time and energy to get it right too! And what's interesting to me is large freshwater aquascapes and small colonies of ecosystems. I'm definitely lacking on the latter. Unless I put on googles/snorkel and look in the gravel of my ponds. My 125 is too sterile. It's over filtered with sump/canister/diy protein skimmer (yup) and algae turf scrubber. Just big carp and turtles.

I can understand you wanting a fish only. I'm 50/50 right now. Id like corals for the ecosystem aspects to study and would love a little damsel but don't what to over do it till I learn all those little things we've learn about the hobby that are rarely written about. Like how every one of us could use the same filter but different media for our individual tank needs


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[Wiggles92]

Get new aragonite sand; it sounds like yours has lost its buffering capacity based on the pH (which needs to be at 8.0).

Keep the lace rock & Texas holey rock, and ditch the lava rock; you can use the lace rock & Texas holey rock as base rock. Buy some high quality dry reef rock & a small piece (don't even need a pound) of high quality live rock (make sure it has coralline algae); the dry rock is cheaper than live rock & should match the rocks that you already have, and the live rock will seed other rocks with beneficial bacteria & coralline algae.

Get a sump & ditch the canister filters. PetCo is supposed to be having their "Dollar per Gallon" sale, so you can easily get an aquarium to use as a sump for cheap; a 10 gallon will work, but a 15 gallon, 20 gallon, or 20 long are better options as they'll give you much more space. Saltwater is all about biomedia, and canister filters tend to turn into nitrate factories in this setting; a sump will allow for more live rock as well as a refugium for chaeto algae ("eats" nitrates & phosphates). If you don't want a sump, then HOB filters (AC 110s work nicely) filled with live rock rubble, Purigen, & chaeto algae (one filter for each media) will work nicely as well although you may have to replace the impellers after a while as saltwater can be hard on impellers.

Buy a protein skimmer. I can't stress enough how much easier it will make your life as it's the number one most important piece of equipment to have on a non-nano/pico saltwater aquarium.

It's okay to have the salinity at 1.023 for a FOWLR, but you'll want to take it up to 1.025-1.026 if you decide to go reef. Oh, and make sure that you're using a marine salt mix; plain old aquarium salt & other salts will not work!

Get a powerhead or two in order to improve circulation & keep the water well-oxygenated.

As for your lighting, at least get a dual bulb T5HO fixture & get a daylight reef bulb (maybe 10000K or more than that) & an actinic bulb as that combination will make the fish look their best plus it will let you grow coralline algae (the pink, purple, white, & lime green beneficial algae) on the rocks which in turn helps to prevent nuisance algae.

In short, if you go cheap on saltwater, then you will most likely fail & will get mad when spending a little more would have resulted in a system that pretty much runs itself once it's up & running.

 

[TheRealCramer]

What's the reasoning for the "nitrate factories" if the canister filters are only doing their job of converting ammonia? Nitrates show they are working. If the bioload is low then bb colonies will be low and won't produce much nitrate.

It seems that if the system is producing too much nitrate then that is a sign there is a lot of ammonia production and in that case all the bioballs/rings in those filters saved the tank.

Just sounds like "don't bother with the bullet proof vest, they collect to much lead fragments"


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[redwetar666]

I have a wet dry/sump, I just dont have the actual punp, do you think a 250 gph would do it? Also, without filter media could I just use the canisters as powerheads, and lastly, could you possible tell me exactly which skimmer I should use? Like I said its a 33 gallon flat back half hex.