20 Gallon Tank Set-Up process

[fighting0]

Hello all! I used to post on this board under another name back about 2 years ago.. SquirTTboater. I forgot my userid/pass so, I had to start this one. As promised back then, I was going to post each and every step of setting up my tank. I've finally gotten around to doing it! I'm stoked up!!!!
So far, here's what I've done:
Thoroughly cleaned the tank
Set it in place
Filled with water
Gradually brought the temperature up to about 76-78 degrees
Started gradually bringing the salinity up to 1.024
Turned off powerhead/heater/filter(without bio media - just for water movement purposes)
Added Play sand (Oldcastle - 1 bag - 18lbs)
Waiting for sand to settle
The sand bed depth is about 3" at the moment. I'm going to seed this with Live Sand when it comes time to add live sand and live rock.
I'll be putting about 30lbs of live rock in as well. Maybe 40, not sure yet.
I have pictures of each step so far as well.
I'm going to adjust what I have, when I need it.
Currently, I have one powerhead that moves 85gph, a 100Watt heater, and a Penguin Bio-Wheel (mid size). The filter WILL get changed out to a CPR Back Pak 2 with Bio Bale when I get around to it (just as an FYI ).
Well, lemme know what you think. Any suggestions are more than welcome! I'm here to learn like everybody else!
-Scott

 

[exile415]

sounds good. haven't every tryed the seeding of "play sand." but sounds goood

 

[fighting0]

Originally Posted by exile415
sounds good. haven't every tryed the seeding of "play sand." but sounds goood
Yeah, the play sand by Oldcastle (at wal-mart) is only $2.98. If you search on it on this forum, you'll hear of others using it as well. So if it's volume of sand you need, spending millions of dollars on live sand doesn't make sense when you could just 'seed' it with just one bag of live sand. Once I add the live sand to the tank, my sand bed depth with be about 4".

 

[fighting0]

Well, too much of my shagrin, I had to completely take out all of the saltwater mix that I had in the tank, just to be able to clean a big sand 'dust' problem I was having. This stuff was waaaaaaay too fine to ever completely settle out, and if a fish would ever swim by it, I'm sure it would kick up a cloud of disaster. So, my only option was to either filter it out (didn't want to do for fear of clogging/ruining my filter) or to get all of the water out and rinse the sand. That's what I had to do. I had to get the saltwater out, carry the tank with the sand in it outside and proceed to rinse the sand out. I probably went through about 100 gal of water until *I believe* that the water was at an acceptable, normal cloudiness. Granted, I know that sand is going to cloud up the water when agitated, so I got the water cloudiness to what looked like a 'normal' cloudiness. It's NOWHERE near what it was before when it would cloud up.
From here, I'm just going to mix up batches of saltwater and get the water back into the tank now. If there is any 'fine' dust left over, I'm hoping that the filter will take care of it.
-Scott

 

[shiby1510]

Yes Scott you should rinse your Old Castle sand first before putting it in the tank..
I also have the same stuff... I rinsed about 4 times... and then I added it in my tank and it was cloudy for no more than a day tops.

 

[trainfever]

In two years, that's all you've done? When they said you have to be patient in this hobby, they didn't mean to be that patient.