Stratoquarius' Salt tank progression

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Stratoquarius

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Oct 22, 2011
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Calgary
thought it would be interesting to document the progression of my salt tank.
Yesterday it was a 65g bowfront african cichlid set up. and today it is a murky, argonite sand and salty tank on its way to becoming marine. I have a powerhead in there moving everything around and helping the surface to be broken and not bubbled over.

Right now the tank is at .030 SG. will this level drop as the salt dissolves more into the water or will i have to change out some of this water for fresh?

I am aiming to keep a Fish only tank, with live rock being a likelihood too. I know the SG should be around .024-25, if the SG won't drop any further on it's own, how much water would you recomend taking out and replacing with freshwater?


This wouldn't be a good thread without pics so here we are, crappy pics.

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I would like to add that I have had experience with marine before, both reef and fish only.
 
I would probably replace 2-3" of the current water with freshwater and see how much it lowers and adjust after that. Because it looks like you have a lid so it would take a lot longer for the water to evaporate, but I've only had my fowlr tank for less than half a year so don't just take my word.
 
thanks for the reply JaSamper, i think I will take your advice and I'll update with the results later tonight/tomorrow
 
Okay so set the tank up with live rock and its been sitting for a while now. about 1 week into the cycle and I am seeing Ammonia and nitrate/nitrite (i don't remember which)
I've been told to wait for them to peak, and then they will drop down to 0 thus completing the cycle after a quick waterchange. The live rock has all manner of cool creatures including:
2 bristle stars
various feather dusters and tube worms
a small piece of leather coral, that seems to be thriving in the current.

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Have you considering cycling your fish tank with seachem stability or tetra safe start? I can vouch for seachem stability because that is what I cycled my tank with in a week. Though I have also heard from numerous people that Dr.Tim's one and only/tetra safestart has worked well. Here is the video on youtube that I recommend you check out. GL with your tank remember to keep us updated with pics!
 
Thanks JaSamper! I think I'm going to just do it the natural way and wait for the tank to cycle. judging by how fast It's going the ammonia and nitrate should peak by next weekend meaning the tank would be considered "cycled".

any suggestions for stock? I like these fish
Triggers
Wrasses (especially Ornate wrasse)
tangs
Gobies
Foxfaces

the ordinary fish only species that are not overly aggressive.
I think I'm going to get 1 or 2 fish at first as to not overload the system. Would the wrasse be a good starting addition? I want to leave the trigger til the end because I know if I add one first it will become overly territorial.
 
I started off with a yellow tang during the time I was cycling my tank and he is still doing great, really hardy and great looking fish. I'm not sure if you could house him for life in your tank though, probably depends on who you ask. Might want to check it out.
 
Yeah I do like yellow tangs. I've never seen one above 4" personally. and when I worked in an LFS they had some display ones that were around 5" and they were in a huge tank for about 6 years.
I've found that because a lot of marine fish are wild caught the sizes that are used online or in books are usually their wild size, which they usually don't attain in the home aquarium unless kept in a 300 gallon tank or so.

I have an okay sized tank its directly between 55-75 so its got an adequate amount of space. I'm going more for a low stocking but with medium large sized fish as apposed to lots of small ones. Will also be adding the fish quite slowly to avoid any catastrophe. I think the yellow tang would be a perfect first fish. any other tang species you could recomend instead?
 
I know they are really hardy but I added my fish with a bacteria supplement so that probably had something to do with it but if your readings are good you could probably do fine with just adding one.
 
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