My First Attempt 33g

Reef_surfer · #1 10-25-2009, 01:34 AM

Hi Everyone bare with me i have about 2-3 weeks worth of writing...(hope it doesnt get boring)

so i decided i wanted to start a SW tank and thought i should research it after much days of endless reading i thought i should seek some advice.

i went out on the city to all the pet stores in my city in an attempt to find out what i can, when i ran into an old friend who was buying some feeder fish and we got talking about SW setups and found out he recently converted his SW back to freshwater and had some live rock kicking around he said i could have all of it.

so off i went to his house later that day and low and behold he had an est. 50lbs of mixed rock (thought it was a pretty sweet deal) and the same night i found an ad for a 33g fish tank for 20$ so there was my initial set up

the next day i went to Bayside corals and purchased all the essentials for cycling a tank. salt, Sieo 1500 Pump, and all the test kits i could possible get my hands on

Reef_surfer · #2 10-25-2009, 01:39 AM

when i got home i found myself scaping my tank for about 3 hours!! (who knew it could be so much fun) then my first mistake... putting the sand right out of the bag without giving it a proper rinse.

put the tank in the proper place and starting filling with water, after realizing what i did had to empty the whole tank... being new at this i didnt think about the rinsing untill half full. finally had the tank set up after the proper rinse. started the filter system my brother gave me.

four days after the cycling started i began looking for a protien skimmer.. agian found a deal i couldnt possibly give up. A guy was taking down his salt water tank the next week so i gave him a call and for 140$ i got a Coralife Super Skimmer, 20lbs of live rock, and about 15lbs of live sand plus a tomato clown yellow tail demsal and a false percula... i didnt know if only having my tank cycled for two weeks was enough but i thought they were hardy.

did regular testing and everything is looking great. ammonia levels .1 nitrate was 20 ppm and ph is about 7.9-8.2

Reef_surfer · #3 10-25-2009, 01:52 AM

so yesterday i did some regular testing agian and figured i could start the cleanup process (a lil early).Im sitting around the 3 week mark so i went to the LSF and bought a couple hermit crabs and a black tall sea urchin.

when i got home i acclimated them for little over an hour in a bowl with a heater and drip system ( bought it at wal-mart for 4$, an airline and two way valve). Becuase im a little anal about not harming the lil critters i did one more water test to make sure it was still ok. I emptied the bowl of the water and let the crabs go to work on the algea

when i acclimated the fish i did the same drip system for about 4 hours. didnt quite know if there was a maxium amount of time that there had to be but i had a heater in the bucket to get the right temp as the tank. i let the water double in size and emptied half and let it double agian. (reason why it took so long)

ever since just been doing top ups with tap water and PRIME water conditioner. not sure if i want to run an RO/DI system with such a small tank

BlueAbyss · #4 10-25-2009, 02:54 AM

You could go to Superstore or something and get RO from there, though it would be pertinent to test that water before using (just in case)... Saskatoon's water isn't all that great and you may see some chemistry issues down the road. The chemical makeup of river water changes greatly during the year (heavy load of organics in spring and such) and that translates to changing chemistry for your tank through the year also, if you're using tap water.

Of course, if you're going for a FOWLR, this shouldn't be much of an issue (though the organics could still turn into algae). EDIT: Just read in your other thread that you are planning on a reef... I'm sure there are a number of people out there using tap water in their reefs, but I personally wouldn't chance it... corals are too expensive :haha:

Reef_surfer · #5 10-25-2009, 08:32 AM

[quote=BlueAbyss;457772]Saskatoon's water isn't all that great and you may see some chemistry issues down the road. The chemical makeup of river water changes greatly during the year (heavy load of organics in spring and such) and that translates to changing chemistry for your tank through the year also, if you're using tap water.QUOTE]

yeah i heard that from a couple different people. they said to just keep testing and use prime. i am eventually going to change to RO water as i heard the LFS sells if cheap

ElGuappo · #6 10-25-2009, 10:36 AM

i used tap water on my 34 g reef and all was fine for a while but after a while i developed serious cyno issue. (red film algae) couldnt get rid of it til i started using ro

Reef_surfer · #7 10-25-2009, 11:11 PM

i had just went to Superstore today and found the water i was looking for, now i guess ill start useing RO/DI Water hopefully going to costco to look for a setup

Reef_surfer · #8 10-26-2009, 12:19 AM

hey guys i finally tooks pics today...

weird shelf that the tank just fits on

my coralife super skimmer 65 protein skimmer got a super good deal

my sieo 650 pump and final setup little algea problem trying to fix

no_bs · #9 10-26-2009, 01:42 AM

Looking good. Are the fish in there?

Reef_surfer · #10 10-26-2009, 01:57 AM

yeah they hide in the back you can see the yellow tail damsel simming about