New to saltwater

Hi,

I'm completely green to salt and am looking for some advice/opinions on what I can do better or what I may have forgot or overlooked before I begin to add any critters to my setup.

Tank - Fluval Profile 1000 (72g)
Lights - T5 29w x 4 2white/2blue
Sump - Aqueon Proflex 3
Return pump - Eheim 3000
Skimmer - Vertex in100
Powerheads - 4x koralia evo 750 , maxi jet 400 for a reactor and a 1200 for mixing water and water changes
Heaters - 2x eheim 150w submersibles
Reactors - phosban 150
ATO - aquamedic (seems to be for more of a dosing pump than ato)
Controller - Neptune Apex - temp/ph/orp

The tank doesn't have a weir, so i macguyver'd up an adjustable intake/return line if i have to change the vertical level.

I also plan to add a refugium if I can find a spot. Things are tight under the stand. I'm looking to drill a hole through the wall into the storage room for the sump and fuge but permission for that will take many weeks of dinners/movies....

I've just recently added some sand and liverock to begin the cycle. approx 40lbs of sand so far and 100lbs of rock. I'm planning on adding another 20+lbs of sand to cover my crate that the rock sits on. My ph seems to be ok at the moment, kinda floats a little during the day 7.9 - 8.1. I keep the temp fairly close to 79 +/- .3. I use a refractometer for salinity and just about have it bang on at 35ppt. I am beginning to see some nitrite, so I'm guessing the cycle has started to progress.

I guess what I'm after is a few suggestions/opinions on what I can add/change to make this a enjoyable experience. I'm hemorrhaging money right now so I might as well finish off the bleed to have a proper set up before i add anything I'd like to keep. With that in mind I guess I should add my goal is to have reef tank with mainly corals; starting soft and later down the road some lps and few fish.

I should also add I am planning to replace the current lighting with leds. Looking at the vertex illumina, gotta pass that by the finance department to go along with the hole in the wall.

A few pics, glass is dirty from the sand and my sloppy liverock drips...also threw in a pic of a stowaway from the rock. Seems to be at least 3 of these guys plus some hairy/spiky meaner looking crabs. Currently trying to trap them all and banish to the sump.

Tanks for having a look !

 

Welcome to 3reef!!!Yeah that looks like a gorilla crab to me. You def. want to get them out of there.Your setup looks pretty good to me. You might want to take two of the powerheads out though. I have two in my 90 and it is plenty of flow especially with the return pump you have. Not sure what you are using to cycle the tank but if you haven't added any fish you will want to add a piece of shrimp or even some fish food to the tank to get your cycle moving along. We don't really encourage using fish to cycle the tank because it can cause stress or death to the fish.If you are going to add more sand I would do it sooner rather then later.From looking at your pics you apparently used some fittings to raise the rocks up.You will have to add more sand and it looks to me if you do that you will have what we consider a deep sand bed.Heres a link describing the pluses and minuses of that type of setup.
http://www.3reef.com/forums/sand/deep-sand-bed-vs-shallow-sand-bed-89305.html


Good luck!!

 

First off welcome to 3Reef!

Second, it looks like you've done your homework and have a great start on things.

Third, my only input to what you've done so far is about your aquascape. Refer to the pic below:



- Is rock #1 part of the piece to the lower left or is it separate?

- Is rock #2 one piece or two?

- How long is rock #4?

- Is rock #5 one piece or two?

I'll assume some answers to the above questions in my response then we can change if my assumptions are wrong.

My main comment about the current scape is that it seems to lack a little depth. Consider doing the following:

- Move rock #2 so it rests on rock #1 and creates a high area above rock #1.

- Move rock #3 up and to the right.

This will create a low area in the middle flanked by two higher areas on each side with your cool existing cave underneath. It will give you an interesing spot where something large can grow out and gives some good dimension.

- Can rock #5 lay down to create a lower shelf?

- Can you take rock #4 and create a spire? It's hard to see from this angle, but it looks long and relatively skinny and that could potentially be jammed in the rockscape somewhere to create a cool pole shape jutting out from the rock. Those make excellent spots to grow things like Green Star Polyps.

Now on to your fuge idea in a separate room. Go for it! My recommendation would be to put it at a height above the tank and drill two holes in the wall. The first would be a feed from the sump and the second would be an overflow return to the display tank. This way you get critters just dropping right into the main tank out of the fuge. Good stuff!

A couple other things:

- You may want to introduce some flow behind the rock scape. Is there room for another pump back there?

- You might want to consider getting a little more flow down low in the tank. Either get another pump or move one of the existing pumps a little lower to make sure the corals lower in the tank have enough flow.

 

Hi

I have the same tank as you and I am completely new to marine fish keeping. I haven't set the tank up as yet but was wondering how you put the sump into the tank and how you what inlets you are using to get the water to the sump?

Cheers

Adrian