First time marine

A lot of people may already no the score with me but for those who dont , i was keeping cichlids and plecs for the guts of 2 years and recently was suppose to be upgrading the tank for the cichlids as they were to big for it well plans went pair shaped so after a long think about it back and for from a planted setup or marine setup i went for marine i KNOW more money and time is needed but im up for it and the only way to get experience is to try well the past few weeks have just bin dismantling old setups and selling things on and reading a lot about marines iv used the money and ideas i got from selling and reading up on marines to get this far and some great help from gav in fffs hes bin sorting me out big time (cheers gav)!!! Heres a few pics of were im at now i ended up keeping the rio 180 i had and converting it
OLD SETUP WITHOUT ROCKS AND FISH

GOT IT DRAINED AND REMOVED SAND AND CLEANED

WENT AND REMOVED INTERNAL FILTER TOOK AGES

FULLY CLEANED AND STUCK BLACK VYNLS BACK AND SIDES WITH BABY OIL WORKED GREAT

BLUE ARCADIA LEDS MOUNTED


SOME EQUIPMENT!! i should probably state here that this will be a sumpless system with hang on skimmer and external filter with media striped and replaced with live rock, rowaphos and filter floss, some people may disagree with my media choice others will agree

ABOUT 2 TO 3 WEEKS DOWN THE ROAD SOME MORE PROGRESS EGG CRATE SORTED (might remove it)

SOME GREAT QUALITY LIVE ROCK FROM A WELL MATURED SYSTEM GOT SORTED OUT FROM ANOTHER FISH FREEK CHEERS GER

TANK WAS ALSO FILLED BEFORE ROCK WAS ADDED AND FINALLY

Rocks were only added today so they were just thrown in hope to get some epoxy and arrange them nicely over the weekend also have all the sand but im currently washing it out over the next day or 2 with RO water!!! Well thats me all comments welcome iv a long 6 to 8 weeks to wait before any fish go in here ill keep updating this thread as i go along
Cheers Paul

Is the egg crate raised or sitting on the bottom of the tank?

sitting on the bottom eggcrate is to brittle to be raised holding that much rock plus more to go in
why do you ask?

I thought the purpose of an egg crate was to allow for water movement underneath rocks etc, thus preventing detrius build up. Can't see what advantage it'll have sitting on the aquarium floor.

because 10 kilos of rock sitting on a sharp piece of coral under water can create a preasure point and can sometimes lead to a small crack , iv heard some storys so a few quid for piece of mind doesnt bother me iv ndver heard of any1 raising it??

Thats a class looking tank.. any idea what u wanna stock it with yet??

Ah right, you're using it to spread the weight. I thought you were setting up a reef flush system. When you said you were adding sand I guessed the rock would go on the sand and you'd use that to spread the weight. I had a reef flush system before in a previous marine system, it's great for preventing dead spot and keeping detrius from builing up anywhere.

Here's a good example of one, (not mine though)

www.reefcentral.co.uk/showthread.php/118...IY-reef-flush-system

alan61979 wrote:

Ah right, you're using it to spread the weight. I thought you were setting up a reef flush system. When you said you were adding sand I guessed the rock would go on the sand and you'd use that to spread the weight. I had a reef flush system before in a previous marine system, it's great for preventing dead spot and keeping detrius from builing up anywhere.

Here's a good example of one, (not mine though)

www.reefcentral.co.uk/showthread.php/118...IY-reef-flush-system

Ahh i see good idea as well!! im still not sure about it im paranoid the rock could damage my tank but than again im paranoid the sand wont be shifted enough by snails ,starfish and gobbies etc.... because loads of it will be in the squares everywere i still havent added my sand yet just for this reason!!! im going to have to make my mind up soon enough though

fishhead88 wrote:

Thats a class looking tank.. any idea what u wanna stock it with yet??

Cheers mate so far the fish wish list is as follows
usual cleaning crew Hermit crabs,snails,sand shifting starfish and shrimp
Green mandarin dragonet
Flameing prawn goby
A pair of pure black and white clown fish
Dwarf flame angel
A blennie of some sort
mayby a royal gramma not to sure ye and mayby another dwarf angel depends on how i stock it i hear if you try add them at different times the 1 who has settled into a territory first will rip the other 1 apart should be fully stocked than

To be honest with you, I wouldn't put sand down on top of the egg crate for the reasons you mentioned. As long as you have a decent covering of sand there's very little risk of rocks cracking the bottom of your tank.

sounds deadly man dying to see it when u have it up and running good luck with it

alan61979 wrote:

To be honest with you, I wouldn't put sand down on top of the egg crate for the reasons you mentioned. As long as you have a decent covering of sand there's very little risk of rocks cracking the bottom of your tank.

Really am back and forth with it at the moment all it takes is 1 sharp piece of coral sand under neath a large rock and the preasure of the water can make the rock act like a drill on the sharp piece of sand i think i might remove!!! to be honest if the tank was down stairs i wouldnt care id risk it no problem only its upstairs in a brand new extension we got done and if it cracked it would destroy everything up here and the roof in the kitchen , i hope to have made my mind up before the end of the week (i have to) and should have the tank scaped and filled with the sand ill keep updateing as i go along

Small little update!! I was unsure about the eggcrate so went and removed it all together should be fine??
finally found the time to actually do something with the rock today and add my coral sand!
This is the way it looks now but it could change ,never happy




well as i said thats the way it looks now so it could change plus i started on the 14th of this month so still a good bit of time to make any real changes before fish start to go in well there she is , it will do me

Looking good; nice imagination for the rockwork too

andrewo wrote:

Looking good; nice imagination for the rockwork too

Cheers man

Keep up the good work Paul. Are u starting with fish first and then down the line with some corals?

Mick...

Cheers mick i think im going to be adding both slowly whenever i can

Went ahead and hit the big elephant piece a smack of a hammer got some nice over hangs out of it and a nice bowl ,brilliant for coral placement in my opinion!!Still the same idea no rock touching any glass what so ever lots of room for waterflow im finished moveing it around shes done enjoy

Threads a bit dead hear but ill update it anyway just over 3 weeks now first wc done added some turbo snails a cleaner shrimp and feather duster worms real cool things some pics nothing special

Looks great Paul!

Looking forward to more updates as you stock it up!
Wish I had the €€ and the patience for Marine keeping myself!

Cheers man dont worry as long as there is something there 2 take pics of ill be there with the camera I was the same as yourself thinking of the money and time needed but to be honest man once your setup its cheap as chips its just getting it setup that hits the pocket and it might take a little bit longer than a freshwater tank to setup and stocked but it looks twenty times better and the characters in marine fish in my opinion are much better to freshwater fish but thats just me im still heavy into the fw stuff as well and hope to have 1 setup again soon

quick question, would the 205 provide suitable filtration for your set up? are you happy with it or would you be looking to increase the size of your filtration?. it is a lovely set up and a cracking thread. cheers

Cheers man no not at all the live rock is the filter in a marine tank you dont even need a mechanical filter like that its just a bonus , i have live rock in the filter plus the outflow is good for the waterflow in the tank

Small update on the go here nothing major yet still no corals but found myself a lovely pair of pure black and white ocellaris clowns the females already fully black and white she just needs to darken a little and the male still has a little orange on the face but it wont take long for him to mature black like the female Also picked up a blenny (flymo blenny) this little guys great full of character!! I have a pic or 2 but i took them with the phone so bare with me





Should more than likely be leaving stocked like that for another week or 2 to see how well the water params take to them and as you know yourself ill go from there

Nice pics there mate; hows the water parameters doing? what test kit are you using atm?

The test kit im useing at the moment is a nutrafin 1 and nitrite are o amonia 0 ,nitrate 20ppm ph is 8.2 i had it tested aswell with salifert test kits everything was fine 2 i dont have any corals yet so the nitrates are fine at that level im going to change the rowaphose this week see if that helps

Lookin great Paul, keep up the good work and keep us posted dude.

Mick...

mickdeja wrote:

Lookin great Paul, keep up the good work and keep us posted dude.

Mick...

Cheers mick i can see you turning to the salty side

Thats great mate; i suppose you cant wait to get the corals in now
but you are right to wait till everything is perfect; i learnt it the hard way

paul wrote:

The test kit im useing at the moment is a nutrafin 1 and nitrite are o amonia 0 ,nitrate 20ppm ph is 8.2 i had it tested aswell with salifert test kits everything was fine 2 i dont have any corals yet so the nitrates are fine at that level im going to change the rowaphose this week see if that helps

Tank lookin good m8, plenty of ledges for corals to sit. Rowaphos will absorb any phosphate and not the nitrate you would need the new type pellets in a reactor to reduce nitrate but yours is not too bad. Patience is the key, leave the system to balance and mature allowing the LR to get working (1kg LR to 10 liter of water). I know reefers who have added two dwarf angels at the same time of the same size and both got on ok , they sorted there own territory out and kept to it. Remember WAIT, WAIT and to be sure WAIT a little more to ensure good results.