Leaped B4 i looked

veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Hi all,
New here and i sure do wish i found this MB B4 i got started.Any how,here is my situation. I am as new as you can get to this hobby and have in a few short days ,overloaded my brain with info .LOL now i am confused and need i say broke .
So here is where all you good people come in . Im looking for advice and direction.I would like to have a reef tank right off the bat but... from what ive read so far tells me that (Good things happen slow and Bad things happen fast.) so maybe FOWLR tank would be a good start.
Here is what i have so far.
75 gal.tank
CC base of about 3"
Marineland Magnum 350 canister
4- Penguin 550 powerheads w/UGF
Coralife Super Skimmer Neele Wheel 125
Coralife PC Aqualight Retrofit
2-65w True Actinic 03 Blue
2-65w 10,000k Dayligh
In my tank i have aprox.40-50#LR and 5 damsels .i also had some hitchhikers...starfish and crab. BTW LR was already cured. Yesterday i checked Ammonia 0 mg/l and Nitrite <0.3mg/l .
Today i have nice patches of brown stuff growing on LR,CC and glass.diatom blooms??Due to tap water?Something i read here after the fact
.
Anywho,i intend to add more LR to get around 1.5# per gal,purchase RO unit and hold off on putting anything other that fish in tank until tank has finished cycle and money tree blooms again
.
So in short (Help!) i need direction in ....water maintanance,equipment i may need............. any advice or help would be greatly acepted and appreciated.
Thanx.
 
allterr

allterr

Member
1st of all, I would ditch the UGF. And yes, the brown stuff is more than likely diatoms.....they will go away on thier own...
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Originally Posted by Allterr
1st of all, I would ditch the UGF. And yes, the brown stuff is more than likely diatoms.....they will go away on thier own...
why?
 
allterr

allterr

Member
the ugf will be useless due to beneicial bacteria, and etc... will just get clogged. Not supposed to disturb sand bed, and the live sand or CC, LR, will eventually become a way better biofilter anyways..
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Originally Posted by Allterr
the ugf will be useless due to beneicial bacteria, and etc... will just get clogged. Not supposed to disturb sand bed, and the live sand or CC, LR, will eventually become a way better biofilter anyways..
Hmmmm,so if i where to remove UGF what does this do to cycle? and how do i utilize power heads for flow in tank?
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Originally Posted by ReefForBrains
It might be a pain in the tail, but yank it completly if your not using it.
i was afraid someone was going to say that....well it shouldnt be to bad its 2 piece so that will help. BTW thanx for the help so far
 
seasalt101

seasalt101

Active Member
since nyour pulling the ugf anyway might be a good time to pull all the cc out too and replace with ls i know it will cost but not much and well worth it...tobin
 
andy51632

andy51632

Member
Yea, pull that CC crap before it has the chance to build up any debris. I would run the tank bare bottom until you can get enough money to buy new dead sand and some new live sand to seed it. Pull the UGF but keep your power heads around they will be used eventually.
Your nitrites should be at 0 before you put any fish in your tank. Don't purchase anymore fish and if you get lr make sure you put it in a tub of salt water w/ a power head for a week or so to make sure it does not start another cycle.
When you do water changes maybe buy RO water from a store until you can get your RO system.
IMO go with FOWLR and hardy inverts like snails and crabs to clean your tank.
Your actually not that bad off. Just slow down on the fish, add more lr, get yourself a live sand bed instead of a CC substrate. The only thing that I would do immediately is remove the UGF and CC substrate and switch over to RO water. Those Damsels will cause alot of troubles down the road also.
Good Luck.
 
seasalt101

seasalt101

Active Member
if you go to the lr/ls bar on the left there is a calculater there just put in your specs and it will tell you now it does not all have to be ls you can use play sand and just one bag of ls so it won't cost very much...tobin
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Originally Posted by seasalt101
if you go to the lr/ls bar on the left there is a calculater there just put in your specs and it will tell you now it does not all have to be ls you can use play sand and just one bag of ls so it won't cost very much...tobin
Ty for the info ...i can see the learning curve is gonna be fun and hopefully not to expensive.Would you think 20#s of ls with dead sand will do?
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Originally Posted by seasalt101
if you go to the lr/ls bar on the left there is a calculater there just put in your specs and it will tell you now it does not all have to be ls you can use play sand and just one bag of ls so it won't cost very much...tobin
Ty for the info ...i can see the learning curve is gonna be fun and hopefully not to expensive.Would you think 20#s of ls with dead sand will do? calculator says i need 105#s
 
seasalt101

seasalt101

Active Member
yeah the ls will seed the play sand and the lr will too, anything else? by the way i also have a 150 so i can get you some rough figures...tobin
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
Originally Posted by seasalt101
yeah the ls will seed the play sand and the lr will too, anything else? by the way i also have a 150 so i can get you some rough figures...tobin
nope ...thanx again .just found some 50#bags of Quickcrete playsand for $4 at lowes and 20# of Ocean DirectTM Caribbean Live Sand from lfs on sale for $30
 
seasalt101

seasalt101

Active Member
you might want to pass on the quickcrete playsand it's brown there are other playsands out there that are not brown it's a visual thing, i would post a thread on what type playsand is the most desired i cannot answer that question for you or i would, i won't try to ever give advice on something i have no expeirience with as i put all ls in my system good luck...tobin
 
veni vidi vici

veni vidi vici

Active Member
OMG!!! the more post i read the more confused i get...just was reading on play sand vs all ls
i think ill just remove UGF and stay with cc for now.untill i can make a educated GUESS for myself.LOL all the different opinions.
 
seasalt101

seasalt101

Active Member
what i would do then is pull the cc out and just go bare bottom with the eggcrate the cc traps nitrates...tobin
 
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