Myka's Guide to Reef Keeping Basics; Getting Started

[Myka]

Editor's Note: Here I go again...this one is going to be quite the ongoing project as I add information as I see repeated newbie questions popping up. Feel free to suggest additional "chapters" or add your two cents.

So you’ve decided to take the plunge! Welcome to the addiction – err the uh hobby! I’m going to try to keep this as short and straight forward as possible so it is easy to skim, and less of a book. I will give you brand names that I prefer, so you know what to look for, and in some cases I will give you approximate prices. I am concentrating on reef tanks, so some of this won’t apply to those who don’t wish to keep corals.

So, first things first: Everything written in this text is my opinion based on 15+ years of freshwater keeping, 10+ years of saltwater and reef keeping. I have also worked 5+ years in retail aquaria sales. Having said that, I claim to be no expert, but I do have a wide knowledge, and the wish to help others. If I had someone around that knew something about fish when I first started it would have saved me a lot of money, and a lot of grief that is for sure!

This one is definitely going to be a book, so here’s a list of the “chapters” in the order they appear:

~ Your Budget
~ The Aquarium, Sump & Refugium
~ Tap Water Purification; RO and RO/DI
~ Salt
~ Live Rock
~ Sand
~ Lighting
~ Filtration
~ Powerheads
~ Cycling your Tank
~ Water Changes
~ My Favourite Suppliers



Your Budget:

Figure out how much money you want to spend on start up costs whether it is $300 or $15,000+. Prices vary greatly on what you intend to keep in your aquarium, the size of the aquarium, and how technologically advanced you want your aquarium to be. Feel free to send me a PM with your budget and what you would like to keep in your aquarium and I can give you an idea of the size of aquarium you could setup for that cost, and what type of options you would have given your budget.



The Aquarium, Sump & Refugium:

Within reason, buy the largest aquarium you can afford to setup. Changes in the water chemistry happen much faster in smaller aquariums, and that can make them difficult to keep for novice reef keepers. I would suggest a tank 40 to 90 gallons. The 40 gallon “breeder” tank is a great tank for a beginner with a lower budget as the shallower depth allows you to save money on lighting. If you plan to keep Tangs I would suggest you buy a 6 foot tank as the fish as very active swimmers. A couple of the smaller slightly less active species will do ok in a 4 foot 90+ gallon tank, but there are few exceptions.

Rectangular aquariums are easier to light than corner, hexagonal or cylinder tanks. 5 foot tanks are much more challenging as there are few lighting options.

You need to decide whether you want a sump or not. A sump increases the water volume, which is always good. The larger the water volume the more stable parameters are, and the easier it is to look after because changes happen slower. I find the biggest benefit though, is that you have the ability to hide almost all of the equipment in the sump. The heater, the skimmer, a refugium (if you like), different reactors, etc. Having a sump requires the tank to be drilled preferably or you can get a vacuum overflow, which I have found to be quite unreliable, so I don’t recommend. You can include a refugium in your sump design. This is a perfect project for the DIYer, or you can buy premade sumps which are rather costly. Do a Google search to find various sump and sump/refugium designs.

A refugium is usually a chamber of the sump where you put macro algaes like chaeto, maybe some filter feeders, and other critters. The point of the refugium is to grow the macro algae as quickly as possible. The macro algae sucks excess nutrients out of the water column thus helping to control nuisance algaes. By lighting the refugium on the opposite cycle of your aquarium you can help to decrease the pH drop a tank normally experiences at night. Incorporating a refugium into your sump design is very beneficial.

To learn more about pH refer to Myka's Guide to Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, pH, and Salinity.



Tap Water Purification; RO and RO/DI:

RO/DI stands for Reverse Osmosis / Deionization. In my opinon, it would be a very poor choice after spending all this money on your tank to skim out and not spend $200 on an RO/DI unit. An RO/DI unit will make your tap water ultra pure – 0 ppm TDS (total dissolved solids). You should use RO/DI water from day one. Some tap waters are worse than others, but in general most tap water contains a lot of icky things we don’t want in our tanks like heavy metals, chlorine, ammonia, nitrates, phosphates, etc. Using an RO/DI unit will greatly improve the water quality of your aquarium. I cannot stress enough how important I believe an RO/DI unit is to the success of your reef. Buy a handheld digital TDS meter (about $30) when you buy your RO/DI unit, and test the RO/DI water every time you use it to make sure the unit is still running at 0 ppm TDS. As soon as the unit reads 1 ppm TDS one, some, or all of your cartridges need to be replaced, but I won’t get into troubleshooting the RO/DI unit in this article.



Salt:

I use Instant Ocean salt. When mixed up to 1.026, IO usually has readings of 360-370 ppm calcium, around 11 dKH alkalinity, and around 1280 Magnesium. This means that you will need to bump up the Calcium and Magnesium to the proper levels before doing your waterchange. Even though I have tried many different brands of salt I always go back to IO because I haven't seen a difference using "better" salt, and IO costs WAAAAY less, even after supplementing.

To get the proper readings, for every 5g of water change water I make with IO salt I dose:

15mL Kent Liquid Calcium (everyone knows liquid is expensive to supplement)
1 tsp SeaChem Reef Advantage Magnesium
Alkalinity is ok

So, if my calculations are right I will go through 1 1/2 of the 16oz Liquid Calcium jugs (about $15), and about 1/2 of a 600g container of the SeaChem Magnesium (about $4) for each bucket of salt. So that's a total cost of about $19 of additives for each 160 gallon bucket of IO salt. So that makes each bucket of IO cost me about $59. Any other $59 bucket of salt you have to put additives into it too, so that makes it cost more. SO...at $59 per 200g bucket of salt with additives included, IO is the cheapest.

Be sure to test every new bag, box, or bucket of salt. Mix it up to 1.026 specific gravity and test the calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium levels. Adjust as necessary. See also the chapter in this article entitled “Water Changes”.



Live Rock:

Live rock is your reef’s main mode of filtration. It is the base of your reef. It is important to buy high quality live rock. Look for rock that is porous, and light weight for its size. It is normal for uncured rock to be smelly. Once it has been cured the smell will go away. Pick out pieces with different shapes, and try to stay away from the round rocks and rocks that look like bricks. Try to get some branchy looking pieces, and some flatter pieces. The more porous the rock is, the less weight you will need, so it will cost you less as well.

Some people pack their tanks full of live rock, and once they start putting corals in there they realise there is no room for coral growth!! In my experience, if you can find some nice really porous rock you only need about ¾ of a pound to each gallon of aquarium water, but you may need up to 2 lbs per gallon if the rock is denser, and of lower quality. Buy however much you need to look good in the tank, and don’t worry too much about how many pounds per gallon you have.

If you can afford to buy all live rock, do it. But if you need to save some money you can buy dry rock as well as live rock, and the live rock will eventually seed the dry rock, and it will become live rock. The more live rock you use in comparison to the amount of dry rock the less time it will take for it to seed, but expect it to take at least six months for the dry rock to visually blend in with the live rock, and about a year before the dry rock will reach its maximum filtering potential. In this time you may battle nitrates as the anaerobic bacteria in the live rock convert nitrates into nitrogen gas which is then released out of the aquarium. These anaerobic bacteria are the slowest to colonize dry rock. This is why it is important to get good quality dry rock. Bulk Reef Supply and Marco Rocks have very high quality dry rocks. Be sure to cure or even better “cook” the rock before you use it.

For more information on live rock refer to Myka's Guide to Tank Cycling, and Live Rock Curing & Cooking.