just turned on my new 90

willie

willie

Member
Hi all I have been reading the posts on this forum for several weeks in preparation for setting up my new tank. I have seriouly read so much that I feel like I know some of you! so let me introduce myself. My name is Will and I love aquariums! I have been active in the hobby most of my life. My dad gave me a 29 gallon tank when I was 9 and I have had one ever since. I have most of my experience in freshwater but did have a reef tank for about 4 years. 6 years ago I sold all my tanks (sad day) and moved across the country. I told myself that when I bought a house I would do another saltwater setup. We we are all settled in and my wife let me pull the trigger. I am working on a tight budget so my equipment is the finest stuff i can wheel and deal off of craig'zlist and I have a lot of motivation to do everything right the first time.
SOOOO I have a 90 gal tank and a 30 gal sump with a reef octopus 150 skimmer. My desired tank is only a few non agressive fish but I want to fill it with live rock and eventually corals. I just filled it with high quality h2o and the hydrometer says 1.021. I have not yet bought lights as I spent my dough on the tank, pumps and salt. I am starting a meshbag of shrimp enhanced cycle tomorrow and intend to buy a couple chunks of live rock to get the ball rolling. I am sure I will have tons of questions but for now only a couple.
1. Do I need to run my skimmer durring cycle or should i start it at a certain time?
2. Can I put in live rock before I have a light?
3 I am looking at several light solutions but one that keeps coming up is a current usa 48 inch 4 bulb pc setup. I have read several posts that say pc wont cut the depth of my tank (24 inches) but as with all forums i have heard otherwise as well. Wanted you get your feelings about the matter.
Look forward to your suggestions and thanks for all the info I have already benefited from.
 
michaeltx

michaeltx

Moderator
first welcome to the board!!! and congrats on the new home and the new tank.
1. Do I need to run my skimmer durring cycle or should i start it at a certain time?
you can run it while cycling but it wont do much good till you have some bioload for it to pull out the organics in the water column its best to turn and leave it on after the cycle but I would use this time during the cycle for test runs on it so you know its setup right and going good for when there is something to pull out.
2. Can I put in live rock before I have a light?
yes you wont have the coraline algae growth and great coloration but the bio filter that makes live rock special and organisms will still be there.
3 I am looking at several light solutions but one that keeps coming up is a current usa 48 inch 4 bulb pc setup. I have read several posts that say pc wont cut the depth of my tank (24 inches) but as with all forums i have heard otherwise as well. Wanted you get your feelings about the matter.
really your going to be limited on what you are going to be able to keep in there with PC lighting. Look into t-5 lighting which is ruffly the same price range give or take or if you can swing it the new LED just have to do a lot of research because they are not made the same and some are cheap.
you can lower the cost on lights by using retrofit kits that can hang in the canopy if you have one.
HTH
Mike
 
willie

willie

Member
Thanks guys! Im glad to be here. I think i just scored a bunch of live rock so tomorrow the fun begins. I still need to get a light so I can see the stuff but at least I wont have to list my current inhabitants as a bag of chopped up cocktail shrimp for much longer...
 
willie

willie

Member
It was a great day in fishtank town! A local reefer is moving and was clearing out his gear and among lots of other cool stuff I got 55lbs of some pretty sweet looking live rock and set up the foundation for the reef. It came with a pretty decent little cuc and I have already seen a bunch of feather dusters and random polyps poke their heads out to take a look around.
I am going to look at a light tomorrow but I had a couple of questions about it.
First off it is a dual 175 metal halide (pendant?) with 2 blue vho light and I think he said that it has 2 polar ice cap ballasts.
1. with 2 good fans running on both sides of my open back canopy will I still need to run a chiller?
2. will having 2 metal halides running make my electrical bill go through the roof?
3. Would I be better just to get a 4 bulb t5 setup going if my main intention is to just do live rock and soft corals?
Just to clarify I am running a 24 inch deep 90 gallon tank. Thanks again for your help!
 
reeferchief

reeferchief

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by willie http:///t/389038/just-turned-on-my-new-90#post_3435912
It was a great day in fishtank town! A local reefer is moving and was clearing out his gear and among lots of other cool stuff I got 55lbs of some pretty sweet looking live rock and set up the foundation for the reef. It came with a pretty decent little cuc and I have already seen a bunch of feather dusters and random polyps poke their heads out to take a look around.
I am going to look at a light tomorrow but I had a couple of questions about it.
First off it is a dual 175 metal halide (pendant?) with 2 blue vho light and I think he said that it has 2 polar ice cap ballasts.
1. with 2 good fans running on both sides of my open back canopy will I still need to run a chiller?
2. will having 2 metal halides running make my electrical bill go through the roof?
3. Would I be better just to get a 4 bulb t5 setup going if my main intention is to just do live rock and soft corals?
Just to clarify I am running a 24 inch deep 90 gallon tank. Thanks again for your help!
Hi welcome! I don't have a ton of experience with halides. I did have one in a closet a while back, if you know what I mean.lol and it was not overly hot, the temp was always around 88* in a closed area.
They will barely boost up your power bill. The most it will go up is 15-20bucks per light/mo depending on your power company. Mine only went up $10/mo
I would say T5 will be perfect for LR and soft corals. I have a T5 running my whole set up and it has been awesome. I upgraded from a crappy 2 bulb to 4 bulb and my coral growth really took off. The one thing I like about MH's that T5's won't give is the shimmer effect inside the tank.
 
E

eric b 125

Guest
depending on the fixture, T5HO lighting can make any coral happy. i've seen great results with nova extreme pro fixtures. as with any light the reflector makes the difference. the great thing about T5 lights is that you can run different spectrum bulbs at one time. i have a 3 X 250 watt MH fixture over my 125 and i'm very happy with the results. heat is an issue in the summer, but nothing that a few fans doesnt take care of. my electric bill didnt go up much when i started using MH. i run my light 4 X 54 watt T5's, 3 X 250 watt MH for 14 hrs a day (only 8 for the MH) and my bill for the entire house is roughly $140/ month. the thing about halides is that they are so inefficient. that glimmer that people love is only photons being reflected from the water and energy (for which we pay to light our tanks) gets reflected into the room. also, the heat that they create (with only two it may not be a big deal) it adds to other energy bills throughout the year like A/C. if i had the $ right now to buy a brand new fixture i would probably do a nova extreme pro. i'm not sold yet on LED's, and T5HO don't waste as much energy as MH. nonetheless, MH is still king IMO.
 
willie

willie

Member
Thanks for the suggestions and feedback on the lights. I decided to go with t5s I did my retrofit last night and put 4 48' t5 in my canopy, I went with 2 ati blue + a fiji purple and an auquablue special. I used to glo ballasts along with some of the german made reflectors and i am very happy with the end result. My tank jumped to life and I no longer have to search the rocks for cool stuff with a flashlight! within 10 minutes of the lights coming on I already saw a bunch of polyps and mushrooms. Happy day! Heres some pics of what cooking at my house
 
willie

willie

Member
So the lights have been on for only a couple of days (not continously!) and I have stuff popping out everywhere. I took a picture of these dudes, I think they are zoa but im not sure what kind. Yesterday morning I had 2 and today I have 4.

im running 1 hydor korilla 2 right now and I am thinking about picking up a 4 this week to increase the flow. should I point it right at the rocks or is there another way to aim it that will increase effectiveness. Does anyone have any good suggestions to remove sand from glass without scratching it. I used a turkey baster and it helped a liittle. I have this reachyscrubber thing but im pretty sure that it will rub the sand and leave scratches. I am also thinking about filling my overflow with bioballs. Is anyone else doing this? if so what did you do to keep the balls from getting sucked down your down tube? Im thinking about using a piece of egg crate or something but suggestions are much appreciated
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
bioballs clog up with waste/detritus/organics over time and contribute to water quality problems more then they do filtration. They are good, don't get me wrong, ... but only if they are maintained. Old saltwater will save you money by washing them in your old water when you do a water change. Washing them in saltwater also helps to preserve some bacteria that was living on the bioballs.
 
willie

willie

Member
I picked up about 60 lbs of live rock today and took the opportunity to re-scape the tank. It looks like all my critters made it through the restructuring and I even found a few new starfish after the sand settled!

Mmyuki, I see that you are from Lakewood, I used to live in Akron but spent a lot of weekends in Lakewood, I love that city, great old houses and a bar on almost every corner!
Seth, in your opinion are bioballs a good idea? I used them several years ago in my sump as a prefilter. That was a long time ago and my equipment is better now. In my current 90 gal system I am already running water through a reef oct 150, then to a chamber filled with live rock and sand and on top of all that I have about 115 lbs of live rock in the display. Would the bioballs serve me well in this situation or just be overkill that needs addtional attention every 90 days?
Also I took a better pic of whatever this is. If anyone can id it for me that would be super cool.

my camera isnt grabbing the color very well but it is bright green in the middle with a brownish outter ring.
 
mmyuki

mmyuki

Member
Yeah willie I love Lakewood, I actually work at one of the bars on detroit, There has to be at least 200 bars in this small 2 square mile town but thats ok we just like to drink ha.
I would probably run bio balls in the sump maybe not so much in the overflow box itself. Maybe just throw some in the drain side of your sump.
 
willie

willie

Member
LET ME START BY SAYING I FREAKING HATE DAMSELS!!!!!
When I bought my first batch of live rock the dude that sold it to me included his entire cuc and gave be a black and white damsel stating that it had always been docile and a model citizen in his tank. "I would have givin it to the guy that bought all my fish but I couldnt catch the litle guy" type of scenario. I toss this dude in cause the guy was tearing down the tank and i didnt want him to get an early ride to fishie heaven. He was ok and never picked on any of the cuc or shrimps so i figured that this was going to be a rare cool damsel NO SUCH LUCK.
So today I get my water tested and my cycle is complete, so I buy a couple of fish to start up my happy underwater adventure. I picked up a small school of green chromis (3) and a lawnmower blenny, along with a few more snails and 2 peppermint shrimp (got some aptasia...). and a pretty sweet gsp frag. I do all my floating acclimating and I put the new guys in their home. All is well for about 10 minutes.
Thats when striped damsel decides to beat that snot out of the new chromis and just wont quit then starts in on the blenny. I couldnt believe it, he was just merciless. I figured that if he was beating on these guys he will be like that with anything I put in and all I want is a tranquil little tank where everyone gets along. I decided to bite the bullet and get him out now before I get anything else. Anyone that has a damsel and a bunch of live rock knows how awful this was. I had to remove all the rock as there is no other way to catch a damsel. But I am glad he is gone. I almost ate him! I didnt though, i just isolated him in my sump until I can take him to my lfs tomorrow.
THE GOOD: This gave me the opportunity to do rockscape 2.1. and it actually looks pretty awesome and at the same time it is very functional. Cool caves and my mag float doesnt hit any of the rock anymore.
THE BAD: My chromis are not very happy, super stressed and just hanging out in the corner swimming up and down kind of just looking up. I dont know what to do for them.
Thats all for now.
 
geoj

geoj

Active Member

I picked up about 60 lbs of live rock today and took the opportunity to re-scape the tank. It looks like all my critters made it through the restructuring and I even found a few new starfish after the sand settled!


Mmyuki, I see that you are from Lakewood, I used to live in Akron but spent a lot of weekends in Lakewood, I love that city, great old houses and a bar on almost every corner!

Seth, in your opinion are bioballs a good idea? I used them several years ago in my sump as a prefilter. That was a long time ago and my equipment is better now. In my current 90 gal system I am already running water through a reef oct 150, then to a chamber filled with live rock and sand and on top of all that I have about 115 lbs of live rock in the display. Would the bioballs serve me well in this situation or just be overkill that needs addtional attention every 90 days?

Also I took a better pic of whatever this is. If anyone can id it for me that would be super cool.

my camera isnt grabbing the color very well but it is bright green in the middle with a brownish outter ring.

Looks like Green Button Polyps (Protopalythoa sp.)
The Protopalythoa sp. are recommended as a beginner's coral, but with some caution. Protopalythoa produce palytoxin, one of the most potent poisons known to science. For this reason one should take care when handling them. Don't handle them if you have cuts or open wounds and make sure to clean your hands after handling.
 
2tangcrazy

2tangcrazy

Member
Nice tank! I am in the process of cycling myself. We are in total agreement on the damsels. I have had them in the past and after using them to cycle i felt guilty about taking them back to the lfs so they terrorized my tank till they died. Most lived for years.:(
So after alot of reading I decided that Green Chromis would be good since they are a schooling fish. So I have 10 in my 180g and a lawnmower blenny. I am wondering if the Chromis are picking on my Blenny. He is awfully skittish.Have you seen yours messing with your Blenny? I used to use a reefkeeper with bio balls,that was 9 years ago. From everything I have been reading on different forums it isn't neccesary to use them and they may actually damage your water quality. Have you considered a refugium? What fish are you planning on? Good luck! I will be following your thread.
 
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