Beginner Info

[erics3000]

Hi I am new to the Hobby. I have had these 2 swim only tanks for about a year. I have just last month finally become hooked. Although I have had a 75 and 55 gal tank for a year. I feel since February I have just started learning since I have been researching the web. I have made all the typical rookie mistakes for the last year. I always added salt to most of top off water. Anyway I am now already hooked starting to do my first little diy skimmer from snail mans page.

I am in the plans of building a 375 reef tank in the wall and use my 55 as sump to start (that will be another post after I get back from vacation the end of next month). I hope to get started on this in the next couple months. I figured while I am planning everything I might as well see if I could get some more progress in my 75 so I can have some live stock to transfer over to the new big tank after it has cycled and all that good stuff.

Here is some info on my 75 gallon going for about 1 year bio balls wet and dry. It has a hang on back filter with carbon and little filters in it. I am trying to get some coralline growth since I haven’t had any the first year. I just purchased some good lights February and some new live rock since mine was dead. I bought a few pieces with clams, and a little brain coral on them. I have just started using sea chem products. I am using Reef builder, calcium, reef complete, and purple up. In about the last 3 weeks with the lights and 2 weeks of additives I have seen some coralline growth on my rocks. I bought a little mushroom, and some candy anomie. Please correct me with this.

I just remembered I had a couple fish die with ick last year after. A little after it was up. Another rookie mistake I put copper in the system from the lfs guy. It has been a year a since. I bought a poly filter to remove it and it has been in for the last year. I just removed it. I went ahead and tested it just now and it had about a 1.5 reading from the fastest kit. I have well water and just bought an RO unit.

I am also working on the diy skimmer and hope to have this up and going when I return form a business trip the end of the month.

1. Am I on the right track?
2. More Light? Before I bought my light I was using an old iguana light that had uv for him. I guess it was almost like having a uv? I am not sure if I should use this in combination with my lights or should I change the bulb to something else?
3. Is the hang on back filter hurting me?
4. Should I start putting any food in for the stuff I have now?
5. Is my live stock hurting anything? I queen angel, 1 yellow tang, 2 clowns, 1 damsel, 1 sea shell crab, 1 shrimp, 1 crab, a couple feather dusters,
6. Can I put some garf grudge on the old rocks to bring them back to life or will it shock my tank?
7. Input on the bio balls?
8. Should I put a light and some rock in my little sump? Maybe I can bring back some rocks life for the new tank and do this in my sump?
9. Should I start checking calcium now that I am adding it? I regularly check ph and salinity and nitrate and nitrite
10. I plan on starting to get some little frags to start with?
11. Coper issue, I am now going to only use ro water and want to test my well water for copper.
11. Any other helpful hints


My main goal is to try and get this tank growing in the next few months so I can have some addition to my new tank. Then I am going to put my lion fish in it and just turn it into a swim tank. Thanks for all the advice and help.

[bertoni]

[welcome]

Well, a lot depends on what you want to keep in the various tanks, especially the lighting. The queen angel is not reef-safe, I believe, so that's one problem. The hang-on filter (with bio-balls) might add some nitrate to the water column, but if the tank is measuring okay there, I'd just leave it.

You'll need calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium test kits for your reef. This article covers a lot of ground:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

Personally, I wouldn't add any corals to a tank that's been dosed with copper. The copper can be bound to the rock, and then released later. Same goes for adding the Garf Grunge.

[erics3000]

Thanks for the info, great link.

Maybe I should just start with everything fresh on the new tank.

I have been thinking about getting an aquacontroller or a biotope. I there any reasonably priced tester or probes for an electronic testing. Preferably something I can hook up to a PC.

Thanks Again for your Input

[bertoni]

For hooking to a PC, the aquarium controllers are the cheapest approach. You could look at lab supply companies like labsafety.com and Cole Parmer for other test units.

[erics3000]

I finally started a thread

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1164144

Thanks,
Eric