Begginers First 60 days of a new reef tank

[Andy Bliss]

So main tank is a 180ltr bow front 40” long, it has a sump i built into corner with a 40mm downpipe and 20mm return pipe, sump is a 39” plain glass tank with divisions cut and sciliconed into place, downpipe has a sock, first chamber has the heater and skimmer, Bubble Magnus curve 5, 2nd chamber is all live rock (internal foam filter in there temporary to help the debris), third chamber is a 1000ltr ph pump (to be upgraded to a low voltage variable as it is too noisy) and the last chamber is a top up resevoir with a low voltage pump wired to a float switch in the pump section.
Total capacity is 160ltrs inc sump and displacement.

Light in sump is a 6500 led and lights in tank are 2 x flouresent, one aquarium daylight and one blue tinic.
Daytime lights on from 13.00 to 23.00 and sump light on from 22.00 to 04.00.
And it looks like this:

Took my first det of tests today and the results are in !

So, ready for fish on Sat, what do you think?

 

[RJinPV]

Welcome aboard Reef 2 Reef!!

It's hard to tell from the photo but ammonia looks like it is greater than zero. If so then the tank is not cycled yet. What did you do to help get an ammonia cycle going? Did you dose with a little ammonia or add some food to decay?

 

[Mjrenz]

So main tank is a 180ltr bow front 40” long, it has a sump i built into corner with a 40mm downpipe and 20mm return pipe, sump is a 39” plain glass tank with divisions cut and sciliconed into place, downpipe has a sock, first chamber has the heater and skimmer, Bubble Magnus curve 5, 2nd chamber is all live rock (internal foam filter in there temporary to help the debris), third chamber is a 1000ltr ph pump (to be upgraded to a low voltage variable as it is too noisy) and the last chamber is a top up resevoir with a low voltage pump wired to a float switch in the pump section.
Total capacity is 160ltrs inc sump and displacement.

Light in sump is a 6500 led and lights in tank are 2 x flouresent, one aquarium daylight and one blue tinic.
Daytime lights on from 13.00 to 23.00 and sump light on from 22.00 to 04.00.
And it looks like this:

Took my first det of tests today and the results are in !

So, ready for fish on Sat, what do you think?

Welcome! Definitely not ready for fish yet, anything greater than 0 for ammonia will kill quick. You're going to need to test for salinity also and make sure that's in line before anything living goes in

 

[Andy Bliss]

Hi there,

To stabilise i added 1kg live sand (+ additive that came with), 10kg live rock and have added some fish in the sump for a gorilla crab i have living there plus a v small amount of flake 5 days ago, also dosed with

Lastly, the water RODI was supplied pre mixed by lfs but i have a refractor on the way as this was 20% of lfs price for same item.

 

[Andy Bliss]

Hi all,

Sorry for the lack of updates but I’ve been on holiday, the tank has settled and doing really good, ammonia dropped to zero about 4 weeks ago and i put in the following:

• 2 hermits crabs
• 1 peppermint shrimp
• 2 feather dusters
• 2 blue/yellow damsels
• 1 kenya tree

(Pics to follow)

I had a small rise in ammonia but that receded within a week, nitrates/nitrites stable at 0, ph keeps dropping to 7.8 so been adding stabiliser and salinity is stable at 1.025, all inhabitants ate doing well so plan to add 4 percula clowns and 2 anenome’s at the weekend, skimmer has settled down now and is really working well.

 

[Andy Bliss]

 

[Andy Bliss]