conversion from fresh to salt water

mytank

mytank

Member
I have a small 25 gallon fresh water tank that I am thinking of making into a starter saltwater to put my velvet damsel in. This past weekend he became very aggressive and aggiated toward everything. So we thought that we would set up his own little tank. My hubby wants is to have live rock and a sand bed. what would be needed for this to happen. Also, I currently have an 80 gallon with a crushed coral base, could I have live rock in there. What exactly is required for live rock. Does it need the sand bed or can it also do its thing on crushed coral. please help. talked with the LFS and got even more confused with what is required. :thinking:
 
mytank

mytank

Member
Sorry, another stupid question: on my 80 gallon tank the water is never clear, would live rock solve this problem???????? with the natural things growing on it?:happyfish
 
ricecookie

ricecookie

Member
What kind of filtration are you running on your 80 gal? If you don't have any chemical filtration you may consider getting some Black Diamond carbon from Marineland and putting it in your filter media. This will usually cear up cloudy water in a couple of days.
 
mytank

mytank

Member
well the 80 gallon already has the crushed coral in it and if I changed it now with the critters in it they would probably die with my luck and besides how would I change it with them in the tank
 
ricecookie

ricecookie

Member
I am still relatively new to saltwater, but from the research that I have done there are a few basic things that you need for a FOWLR tank.
1 enough wattage from your lights (probably 100 watts PC for your 29 gallon)
2 Protein Skimmer (This will remove excess nutrients from the water. It will also stop buildup on the surface of the water which interferes with the light)
3 A mechanical filter if desired. (This should clear up cloudy water)
I wish I could give you a definitive answer on the crushed coral issue. From what I have heard, crushed coral is a nutrient farm, but so is a sandbed that is too thick. My recommendation would be to have a sandbed that is 1.5 to 2 inches thick. What kind of kritters do you have in your current cc? I know that it would be a pain to take out all of that substrate, but it would probably be worth it. Also, what kind of fish do you have in your 80 gal?
As for the coudyness in your 80 gallon: I have read many bad reviews from people with prizm skimmers. How often do you clean out your skimmer? Do you notice microbubbles escaping from it? They are one cause of cloudyness. And what sort of filter media do you use in the Fluval? One last question, How old is the tank? If it is a relatively new tank (1-2 months) it may just be cycling.
 
jlem

jlem

Active Member

Originally posted by ricecookie
1 enough wattage from your lights (probably 100 watts PC for your 29 gallon)
2
Live rock does need more than normal output lights. You would want a 10K daylight bulb for a crisp look. Now if you went with corals then you would want more light but fish and live rock will do just fine with normal loutput ight.
As long as you vacumm out your C/C during water changes then C/C should pose no problems.
 
ricecookie

ricecookie

Member
I know that this may not pertain to saltwater, BUT: When I first got my tank i had it set up as an african cichlid tank with a crushed coral substrate. I had about 3 times as many fish in the tank as I do now that is a saltwater tank. I also did about 3 times the water changes. Every time I would vaccuum out the cc I could not believe how much nastyness was coming out of it. I never did get the ammonia down to 0 in that tank. Even so the fish were in pristine condition and my LFS gave me a little more than half of their resale value for them when i upgrdaded to a saltwater tank.
BTW Aaron - where in Ohio are you? I'm in Cleveland and know no other SW enthusiasts.
 
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