My New Marine Tank From Week 1

Juwel Rio 240 with painted black background with two t5 marine bulbs and reflectors, 2 aquaray 500's led blues, 25kg lr, deltec mce 600 skimmer, 2 power-heads 5800lph from the two, 1 jbl 1501 external with floss and jbl micromec, carbon, 1 eheim ecco pro 2036 with floss and a v2 vecton 300 uv connected to it, 300w heater, I will be using no-pox. to keep down the nitrate and phosphate (live sand to be added at the weekend)

Here is a few starter pics and il update as i go (looks a bit boring now but sure it has to start somewhere)

So Wk. 1

Well done Jeff.
Will look even better with the sand .
Keep the photos coming.

Greg

Welcome to the salty side

well done jeff looks great

Thanks lads,

20lbs. of live sand and aragonite, here is a few more pics. how its looking now starting its week 2

Looks great Jeff.
What are you using to mature the tank.
Red Sea products maybe?

What test kits did you get for the initial setup.

I will be setting mine up soon hopefully and just wondering what advice you have received so far for eatablishing the new Marine aquarium.

Greg

Cheers Greg
Haven`t been told use anything for now just let the rock do its thing for around 6 weeks lights on for about 2hrs. a day to support the coralline algae thats their and keeping an eye on the basics once i get get water and rock in good shape i can add my clean up crew, plus i wont be going near corals for a good while till i get more experience
only thing im adding is a quarter dose of nopox to keep my nitrate under 5
just using api test kit for now going to get a test kit for everything in a week or two
fair play its great setting up a new tank crap buzz seeing no fish doh
getting good advice out in sh telling me its not as hard as a lot of people have said and the thing is that its much easier now that ever before, so im just going to keep my fingers crossed for the first year if i make it that far il be delighted

what have you been told to use to mature the tank

hi jeff

liking your setup alot..im also starting a tank up but olny small 100ltr tank for now all the best with the new adventure !!

Hi Carpman thanks very much and best of luck to you to

Jeff,
I have not got to that stage yet but I believe there is a Red Sea Reef Aquarium 21 day mature kit.
I am currently setting up power sockets required at the back of the tank.
I bought 2 x 6 socket blocks with surge protection in Argos for 30Euro.
I will come close to using at least 10 of the sockets.
Hopefully my sump will be ready soon from Seahorse.
I want to have the tank cycling over Christmas all going well.

Greg

Hi Greg
I wouldn't waste me money on that mature kit just to save 3 wks. or so and id be staying away from corals for a while till the tank can handle the fish first but thats just me and all i keep hearing is take your time take ur time thats seems to be the most important thing
never thought of them sockets thats a great idea and a good price (gona get me some of them too) cheers
yeh i have 8 plugs on this tank now where before i only had 4 and could have done it on 3 if i hadn't kept dirty A/Cichs
ring s/h and tell them to get their finger out of their strolls, ha
yeh be nice for yeh to get it running before xmas, im the same im thinking new yr. new fish project nice start to the new yr.

can anyone give me an id on these please
this is white with green on the tips and its growing everyday



this is opened a bit in this one

this one is closed

sorry about the pics. its the best my camera can do

Just found out that the first pic. is Green star polyps, second pic. is green button polyps and the third is a clam, so happy days all is good

found this out off the guy who sold me the rock (dont think he,s on this site)

Just a little update added my Aquaray blue led's as you can see in the photo they are just held on with cable ties, does the job

Looks great jeff.
Love the blue lights.

I have 2 Arcadia T5 dual controllers so I will have one Marine blue; one Pink coral and 2 Marine Day lights.

I am having problems getting live rock cheap so will probably go the full price route.
I've asked Seahorse to get me some of the Figi rock like they have in their new large marine tank.
I have a couple of complete Seahorse cards and some cash from selling items from my old setup so that will help towards the live rock purchase.

How much live rock do you have in your tank.
The recomendation seems to be 1KG per 10L of water. So my 38K is probably what I need for my 5 foot 380L setup.
I may build up the rock over a period of time and not buy it all at once.

My custom sump will not be read for another few days.

Greg

Thanks mate

yeah id say the pink would make a difference alright
ah its always the same your looking for rock now and their is none around and when you get it a load of it will be their, the guy i bought my skimmer off had just giving away about 30kg few days before we met and had gave away his live sand and loads of stock, always happens to me
the only good deal around at the mo is fish-antics dun laoghaire their having a sale on loads of stuff €10 a kg for figi rock seen it today looks great loads of coralline algae on it too
nearly certain s/h stamps can only be used on livestock but maybe im wrong

i now have just over 25kg now which is plenty the tank is the juwel 240 but now only 200ltrs. in it

hope ur sump wont be to long id be on the phone everyday

Tank is looking well looking forward to seeing it finished

Looking good there; what are the stocking plans?

Jeff,
Thanks for the heads up on Fish Antics.
I will phone them tomorrow.

Greg

@ck1 thank you

@andreewo thank you still not 100% sure what is going in it as i keep finding stuff i like as cause its not a huge tank i dont want to rush my list and end up regretting it and the thoughts of catching a fish to change him for another with the way the rocks are id say it would be a disaster, and i found out that their are some fish if they go in first and settle in that i could have probs adding other fish, so still alot to learn yet

@greg no probs think their open at 10am 2moro

Jeff,
In went to Fish Antics this morning.
First time there.
Staff were very helpful. I bought 27Kg of Figi rock at their sale price.
Some lovely shapes and plenty of red colouring.
I also bought some sand they recommended and they use in their own tanks not live sand.
My tank is not ready yet for a few days.
So I have the rock now in a large bath type container with salt water and a small Koralia pump also a heater at 25 degrees. I'm keeping a lid on the container to avoid too much light so that unwanted algae will not take hold.

Greg

Howye Greg
yeh the lads are sound, great little shop so it is
id say ur delighted you got the rock today and such a good price to get good stuff too
yeh ur doing it the right way with storing it until ur tank is ready, but i was told to give it some light (not direct sun light) cause you dont want any coralline algae to die off on ye, sure the shops have lights on it all day, apart from that happy days biggest step forward for yeh, cool

Update: Clean up crew went in today great to get a bit of life into the tank

15 Blue legged hermit crabs 2 Green emerald crabs 6 Turbo snails 4 Turban snails 4 Spiny shell snails 1 Nassarius snail 2 Cleaner Shrimp 2 Sand sifting Star Fish,,,, 2 Pepermint Shrimp (paid for but not in stock should have them in a couple of wks)

After xmas i will add my first fish

I want this she wants that the kids want the other, i will have to see how good they are to me over the xmas to see who wins the first fish

might be able to get a few better pics 2moro when all has settled down and the lights go on

Great looking pictures; I forget what they looked like nowadays always hiding

You must be looking forward to adding some fishes

Jeff,
Great progress.
How do you decide on the size of a cleanup crew and types to use?
I heard that all shrimp, crabs and even snails are very sensitive to water change so acclimate them slowly, two hours with a drip line is the way I do it.
How did you manage the transition from shop to the tank.



Greg

Thanks andrew very true she was looking at me last night going you spent all that money and ye cant see a thing, ha, yeah i cant wait now but il wait a couple of wks. see how its running any probs and that so far so good their only on day 2 but alot of sh1t in their already turbos never stop its mad when their on front glass you can see it all getting pushed from shell was not expecting that all but its deadly learning and seeing new stuff

Lol I had the exact dull look; all the money and the creatures hide themselves1?!? hahahah

Thanks Greg to be honest have heard to many different opinion's so i decided again just go with s/h they have different size packs for different size tanks i went for the 200ltr one thats whats in my thank after lr went in. im sure alot of people even on here will say thats to much but im not taking any chances, the stock i got was worth 280e if bought singly and i got it all for 180e which is good imop

Yeah their very sensitive to change and to be honest i was a bit parro when i had 9 bags floating in my tank biggest acclimation i had to ever do and it does not help when ur other half is prowling around 'with that look and half a smile and me going whiter by the second

But i got it together i made sure all the bags had the same amount of water (roughly) i judged the amount of water that was in all the bags siphoned roughly that amount out of my tank into water drum
I had loads of air line so i cut it into 9 strips and put nots in them
Used pegs off the washing line to hold the air line and bags to the side of tank
The 9 air lines were then put into drum raised from the tank and secured with a cloth pushed into the open just to stop them falling out
Then i siphoned 1 pulled the knot so it was on a slow drip and so on till their all going
And it worked out that they all after 2hrs. 2? mins. had got over a 50 50 mix
I then poured out half each bag floated them again and done what we would do with fresh water fish every 5mins gave the big a dip done this for half an hour or till it was 50 50 again
Then i poured each bag over a net over a basin and popped them in and put a small bit of brine shrimp in which the crabs and shrimp went mad for

I will do a 10% wc next week then the week after i may put in the first fish or pair if the water is still the same

Update: Kids won, First pair of fish in now very small clowns (or should i say nemo's)

nice this is making me want to go marine.the young fella would love a nemo