New Member, new to SW!

Alright so Ill make this short and sweet. I come from a reptile background mainly in terms of pets but have always been interested in the aquatic world. I started a fresh water tank about six months ago which is thriving incredibly well. Since then I have been doing nothing but research about starting on a salt water en devour and figured never hurts to have more opinions and information available when committing this much money into a hobby.

Here are a few photos of my fresh water tank as she sits now:

Inventory
2 Angel Fish
3 Ghost Fish
1 Sailfin Pleko
6 Plattys
and 3 Random silver fish that I can't remembe the name of.
Some live plant as well as some fake.
Marineland LED light system, and a 60 gallon filter from Tetra which I believe is the whisper system
COnditioned tap water, bacteria supplement,etc etc.






Alright enough of the boring stuff (Sorry FW guys, I'm bored of it personally)

So I found an awesome deal on a guy who was going to start a 55 gallon salt water tank but failed to collect all the necessary parts before his budget ran out which always blows my mind when people tell me that. I realize not everyone has the money for it, but when dreams go further than wallet it baffles me.

Anyways here is a photo of the tank. Now I have not purchased the tank yet but I love the bow front design and I think for my first tank a modest 55 gallon would be good. I realize a lot of people say go as big as possible at first but I think this with the space I have to use after my reptiles seems to be perfect for this tank.

Now I was thinking of setting up a sump system under the tank but I have read that tempered glass can not be drilled, is that true? I need to be able run the bulk heads to plumb everything up and this would be a huge downfall.

I don't mind starting off my tank with overhanging skimmers, reactors, filters, heaters, etc but I would like to skip that all togehter if possible. Now only the bottom pain of glass says tempered glass, could it be that only the bottom of the tank is tempered and the rest is not? Any info on this would be great.

I have tons of other questions but all in due time, I want to grab the tank and substrate filters etc and get set up for a cycle with come live rock in there before anything and slowly add livestock. Eventually I would like to do some coral in there but most likely not until well into the new year.

Here is a photo of the tank and stand, as well as the included ballast.





Getting this beauty for $150 with the stand, ballast, and t6 bulb (which i realize is useless). This tank retails for $500 with the stand plus tax and shipping so I figure it's a steal. Super clean, no scratches or residue AT ALL.

I will be upgrading the lighting first, any suggestions? How many bulbs should I have, what kind, what power, etc. I realize once I go to corals I need significantly more power.

As for filtration I want my live rock to take care of the biological waste for the most part and I have been told 1-2 pounds per gallon of water. Does this sound correct? I want to avoid the suggestion of using a ton of dead rock and placing live on top unless that is what you guys suggest here. I'm not looking to pinch pennies but splurging for no reason seems to be a waste.

As for a sump would a 20 gallon wide be good to section off with partitions for this size of tank?


Anyways, long winded intro I know but I figured I would fill you guys in.
Sorry for the crappy cell phone photos. Funny thing is I am a professional designer/photographer (mainly automotive photography hence the name). You will see tons of high quality photos of everything soon enough!


Check out some of my work at TWOLITREmedia or on my flickr feed at Flickr: Emilio Ciccarelli | www.TWOLITREmedia.com's Photostream

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

lol hello and welcome ;D not a bad start all in all just do a ton of reading

 

Welcome to 3reef.

 

welcome to the obsession, IMO, make sure you see the tank wet before you buy, ave him fill it.

then google how to test for tempered glass,

then buy this and know that you'll need 1 more if ya get into highlight corals, but that will be 6-12 months down the road
reefbreeders

 

Welcome to 3reef!

 

Welcome to 3reef. Nice angelfish. I had a few breeders a while ago. I miss them some days.

 

Welcome to 3 reef

 

Thanks for the warm welcome guys!

Any non-LED solution suggestions for lighting for my setup?

 

aight aso for lights if you dont want leds then 4 t5 bulb fixture would do great for this set up. 54 watt bulbs BTW. you could so two and overpower them and get really good results just would cost a bit more.

as far as a sump you can do a HOB overflow and put a 20 gallon tank with a return pump and you dont have to worry about drilling lol

substrate argonite sand its cheep and works

the dry rock is all you need to get it started say 50-60 lbs of it and then do 10 lbs. of live rock and that will be all you need. the dry rock turns live after the cycle and as the tank matures.

for the sump I will refer you to this post:http://www.3reef.com/forums/reef-aquarium-articles-how-tos/all-about-sumps-filters-fuges-79852.html

HTH

 

Alright! So a ton has changed in my situation in the last two days, but I would say for the better

I purchased that 46 gallow bowfront only to find a ten times better deal on a 72 gallon bowfront operation tank the next day.

Here is what is coming with the set up.....here's the kicker, everything for $700 dollars! The light alone is almost 4 or 5 after tax, skimmer is a good 200+, ehiem heater, etc etc. Here is a list of what I am getting with it tomorrow, and a video of the tank.

Reason he is selling is get this....he flooded his basement with the RO unit that he is INCLUDING in this deal because he forgot to turn it off one day and his wife got PISSED and said sell the tank. He promised it would never happen again, and what do you know....he flooded it two weeks ago so now hes in a frantic panic to get rid of it before she kills him.



Here's the package:

72G BowFront with stand

Vertex Illumilux 48" LED

Vertex Refractometer

Vertex Puratek 100 GPD RO SYSTEM

Reef Octopus BH-2000

2 x Hydor Koralia Evolution Powerhead (750 GPH)

Jager 300 Watt Aquarium Heater (Eheim)


Live stock:

~100lb premium fiji rock + 40lb SeaFloor Reef Sand

1 x Blue Tuxedo Urchin

1 x pisttol shrimp

1 x percula clown

1 x six line wrasse

1 x Flame Angelfish

1 x Yellowtail Dascyllus

2 x cleaner shrimps

1 x Feather Duster

1 x Dwarf Colored Feather Duster

1 x peppermint shrimp

1 x sand dollar

2 x Pom Pom Crab

~3 x Nassarius Snail

1 x Sand Sifting Sea Star

lots of assorted snails and crabs

few purple mushrooms
1 x Green Polyp Leather
1 x button polyps
1 x frog spawn.
1 x Green Polyp Leather


food, every needed test kits, 10g tank, 3g water pale, 2 x hydrometers, magnet cleaner, 2 x powerheads and everything else he has kicking around.





So with that being said I have a couple of questions. I took a trip to my local salt water specialists and started asking about how to transport this tank from his house to my house with minimum loss of live stock. In all honesty if I lose some things it's not the end of the world considering the price of this package essentially half of it is free and to be honest I'm not a huge fan of his live stock....

So here is the plan I have devised for tomorrow. Now keep in mind the guys house is only about 7 minutes drive away from my house, so the process of transportation will not take long at all. This is the step by step of how I want to go about doing it.....

1. Grab lots of double think heavy duty gigantic freezer bags for all livestock to be packaged up. Theres not a ton of it so it shouldn't be too hard.

2. Salvage as much of the current tank water as physically possible into two seperate brand new garbage pales. Bring the water to my house first along with the 100lbs of rock which I will be purchasing two brand new rubbermaid bins to transport. I have been told to place damp paper towel in the box just to keep moisture up, what do you guys think about this?

3. Once the rock is pulled out of the tank load up all of the vehicles I have coming to help with the en devour (2 small pickups and a van) and head to my house which is 7 minutes away as mentioned. Now the basement this tank is going to be residing in stays at a constant 21 celcius even in the winter so heating is not going to be an issue and the ambient temperature is not far from the tank water itself.

Question: While I place the tank in the room and begin to re-scape the tank, is there something that I should be doing with the livestock? I was told to put everything into styrofoam coolers to preserve as much heat as possible. Should I keep them under lights?

4. Ok now that the tank has been re aquascaped I will begin to siphon in the water previously pulled from the tank onto a plate at the bottom of the tank sitting on the substrate. As soon as the water level is high enough, maybe even as it's being filled I will lay the heater down and begin the process of getting the temperature back up.

5. Once the tank is full I will run the protien skimmer immediately and beging the power heads as soon as the level is high enough for those as well. Does this all sound kosher thus far?


Question: Now I have a concern about mixing the salinity of the tank with the old water vs. some of the replacement water I will be putting in. Should I take a reading with the refractometer once the water is back in, and premix the remaining volume with an adjusted mixture to be able to stabilize the levels before throwing the live stock back in?

Another Question: I have been told livestock get's shipped around the world and can go without food or light for over 24 hours some times with no issue (Assuming temperatures dont fluctuate in any extreme way. Is this process going to be a problem for any of the livestock listed?
Is there something I can do to improve the chances of my livestock surviving before attempting to acclimate them and put them in? Coral and fish included.

Should I take a full set of readings before throwing the live stock in? ( I would assume this is a straight forward yes)

Should I wait till the last possible minute to put them back in to allow the tank to re stabilize as much as possible?

Is there all that much re stabilization to be done in this situation or because I will be keeping at least 75% of the water in the functioning tank will I be ok?



Honestly ANY advice that you guys have on this situation before tomorrow would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Here is a video of the tank in action So much rock.....

My 72G Bowfront reef tank - YouTube