My First Marine Tank.....

This is a picture of my faucet running like normal. You can see the black hose to the right. That's the water intake hose for the RO unit. You can see the attachment I said you can get at Home Depot on the faucet.




Then this is the hose screwed onto the faucet, on that attachment.




This is the little piece that comes off the faucet. You replace this with the attachment I was telling you you can get from Home Depot.




Then you turn on the faucet and that's it. In this picture you can see 3 different colored hoses. The black hose is the water intake. The yellow hose is the rejected water. And the blue hose is the clean water. That hose goes directly into my sump.




Finally here is a pic of the yellow hose, the rejected water, getting dumped down the drain.

 

That looks great...Here are my questions.

1.How long does the water take to run from the faucet, through the filter, and into either the sump or the return to the faucet.

2.Do i need to have a pump on this?

3.How do i add salt to the water that pumps to the sump? It does not come salted from the faucet. In order to balance the fresh water wouldnt this need to take place?

Also as a side note to all......

Coralife - 48" Aqualight Pro 2X 250W HQI/2x96W PC/4x1W Lunar











Got it for $225.00........Was it a good buy?

 

1. A few seconds once you turn it on.

2. No. The water pressure from your sink is what powers the RO/DI filter. There is a pressure gauge on the RO unit and my water pressure only gets it up to 60psi. Yours may be more or less, it depends of course on your sink. The higher the pressure, the faster you filter the water. I know my RO unit is rated at 100GPD but that's at like 80psi. Like I said my pressure is 60psi so I don't quite get 100GPD, maybe 85GPD. And if you get a unit you'll want to make sure to read the manual because it will tell you what the max PSI you can push through it is. I open my faucet up the whole way, if yours has more pressure you may not be able to do that.

3. I only have my tube going to the sump for convenience. You can setup your "good water" tube to drain into a jug or a bucket or wherever and mix it with salt from there. When I need to make saltwater, I simply take the tube from my sump and put it in a bucket and run the RO filter for a couple hours which makes me about 5 gallons of clean water.

..........Upon second look I think you may be asking about top-off water? Top-off water needs to be freshwater, not saltwater. When your water evaporates it's just the water, the actual salt doesn't go with it. So over time as your water evaporates, your salinity will rise. Therefore when you top-off your sump or tank, that water needs to be freshwater to get you back to your original salinity.

Only water-change water is saltwater (say THAT 3 times fast!). Because with that you are actually removing saltwater and changing it out with other saltwater. Of course, you may have already known all that...

 

As for the lights, that's a really decent deal. How old is the unit? How old are the bulbs? The only thing is if the bulbs are a year old or so you may have to replace them. Otherwise I say you did pretty well on that unit.

 

units a few months old. Barely used. From what i was told. Even still, if i have to change the bulbs sooner than expected I think i got a good deal on a set up that should basically cover what ever i decide to host in my tank and a size that will accomadate a large tank if i so choose to do so in the future. At least thats the way im looking at it.

$$$$Most bang for my buck$$$$

Going back to R/O.

1.I got a kit on craigslist and their asking for $50.00.? Good buy? What do filters runs and can units go bad? What should i look for?

2.Thank you for clarifying top off water versus water change water. Made perfect sense. About how long does it take at 60psi to fill a 5 gal bucket?

 

1. I'd have to see the listing to offer an opinion. As for filters, I don't honestly know. Haven't had to change mine out yet. But you'll know if you need to. If you buy a used unit and the filters are brown, expect to change them out. If they're white or just a tint of brown then you'd be good to go for awhile. It's about once a year I think is the rule. It depends on how much use you get out of it though, too.

2. You're welcome. It takes about 2 hours for me to get 5 gallons. So actually once I do the math that's 60GPD (1 hr = 2.5 gallons, 2.5 gallons x 24hrs = 60 gallons per day). Like I said it has the potential for 100GPD but my sink just doesn't have that capability I guess. Oh well.

 

Measure twice, cut once.

So I went ahead and bought the Coralife Life I found on Craigslist. Total cost...$225. As far as light output, I'd have to say that I am "satisfied". But that wont be evident until I get the tank fully set up and running. But in any event, Im happy right now. Two questions arose after the initial fitting:

1) The fixture is wider than my tank. By about 2 in. I have a standard 55 gal, 13"wide, and the fixture is 15". The support legs do not catch the tank on the front. Any sugesstions?

The second question I was going to set up a new post, but.....

2) I need to clean the fixture. How do i get this cleaned? Simple RO water? The same question applies to the tank. It was a previous Fresh Water Tank. So i want to get all previous evidence cleaned. I will be using new filter media and want to scrub everything down. Any suggestions.

Thank you again.....

 

You really need to measure carefully in this hobby. Your going to have a problem with that light. You need to build a hanging box with an opening to cover the tank at the distance it is away from the tank or put it on craigslist and get back what you can. A 55 gal tank should realistically have a light that allows a minimum of 4-6 inches of space in front for working and feeding and general maintainence. Don't kid yourself you have to clean your glass at least every other day or so. I clean mine daily. If you have a canopy then you can do what you want with retrofit kits because there is usually a lid that opens to give you that opportunity. The other thing I've seen is an arm that you can attach to the tank and you can lift the light up with Compact Fluorescent Aquarium Lighting: Coralife Aqualight Accessories
but with a 15" light your going to be lighting up the whole room unless you take out the front 2 bulbs which is feasable. These lights are super powerful in lumens. You can get 2 2x54W T5 fixtures that will be about 8" wide and suffice your needs. If you have a canopy you can put 2 x 250 MH in the middle later. Think it over because you may want to seriously consider a canopy.