54g reef tank

[Melina]

Originally Posted by Sushiman

Welcome aboard; you like burning up $100 bills too huh? You've come to the right hobby!

LOL yeah I guess I do!

Hey, just wondering about when it's time to fill the tank with saltwater. Can I mix the saltwater in the tank? I know you should never do this once there is livestock in the tank, but what about the first time I fill it?
I'm thinking of the buckets I will need to get. If I do a 10% water change once a week, is it 10% of my display tank's volume (6.5g), or 10% of the total volume (+sump = 9g). I am wondering how much water I will have to mix for each water change. If I find a 10g+- container, when it comes time to fill the tank for the first time, do I have to pre-mix the salt in the container before adding it to the tank? I'll have to do this about 9 times if I have a 10g container (about the biggest I'm going to find, methinks). Can I just fill the tank with RO/DI water, then add my salt to the tank instead?
Then I think, I need to have it only partially filled when the live rock & sand arrives...

How am I going to do this? Here's what I'm thinking: Fill it half full, say 30g, mix in the salt... turn the powerheads on and let it aerate while I wait for the rock to get here... then fill it with the rock. Then top it off with RO/DI water and add the correct amount of salt to the tank again to reach my desired salinity?

What do you think?

[michika]

Mix your water outside of the tank, unless the tank is completely empty, no sand, no rock, nothing. If you want to add water after you add rock you should do it pre mixed. Mixing in salt and water in a tank with liverock could kill off your beneficial bacteria and any pods that may have shipped with your rock because of swings in salinity.

If you want to do 10% I would say it should be of the total volume of the system. It doesn't have to be exactly 10%, you could always just go for two 5g buckets, or if you have a separate tank set up for mixing and preparing salt water, then go that route.

[Redrover]

If you go to Google and type in setting up a reef tank
There is a number of good ways...it takes you from start to finnish
Anything you want to know in regards to reefing you will fine



RJ