40 breeder set up!

[Zestay]

well! finally put water in my tank. been 6 months but finally got salt some sand and a damsel

heres my current set up 40 breeder
20 pounds live sand.
0 rock ( that stuffs expensive ill get it soon enough )
42 watt t5 set up ( 2x21 watt , 1 10,000k , 1 acetic blue )
surge 3500 pump ( 660 gph at 0 foot head) mines about a 4 foot head so prolly alot less
no power heads ( yet )
some needle wheel skimmer ( euro reef? mock off ) rated for 125 gallons
drilled and plumbed with out fear of a syphon breaking due to proper vent holes etc etc
i have approxamitly a 30 gallon sump half full of water ( tupperware special ) which houses my pump skimmer and heater


no pix yet.

only thing ive tested so far is my salinity and its about 1.022- 1.023
i used oceanic salt ( best bang for the buck at the LFS ) but will switch salts once my tank has stabilized some

the damesl i have seems to be cowaring in the corner.. weird. he was swimming around but hes


aside from a real light and live rock. what should my next purchaces / plans be

i do plan on heading to the beach and picking up about 5 gallon of " live sand " to make my sand bed a little deeper


also! what kind of clean up crew is reccomended? i have no idea on this one.

[creep]

I would definately stay away from the beach sand. Who knows what other stuff is going to be in there. You may be asking for a world of trouble with that. My next purchase would be about 50-60lbs of LR. That will really help your filtration needs.

[pooh1989]

First how long has this tank been up and running?

From the sounds of it you just added salt and a damesl????
You need to let the tank TOTALLY cycle BEFORE you add anything.

What are your other test kits saying?

~~Ange

[Zestay]

hrmm .. yeah up and running? 3 hours? so the LFS guy killed another fish. well maybe. its still alive maybe hell make it

[creep]

same thing happened to me when i started. Damsels are resilliant little fish. I would try taking him back, but if you can't he just might make it. He will be stressed, but he should make it. Just don't put any more fish in there till all of your water parameters are stabalized

[pooh1989]

No fish or clean up crew for probably a good 2 to 3 weeks. Wait until everything reads zero on your test kits.

~~Ange

[Zestay]

should i even bother testing day one? or is that just a waste of a test kit? ( not to rich and those refills are expensive ) dont mind testing but no point to test it every 4 hours or what not.

[creep]

I would wait till tomorrow. You might even want to do some small waterchanges since you have a fish in there. It will prolonge the cycle, but will be better for the fish. when your ammonia gets high do a small water change to lower it a bit. IMHO

[Zestay]

would one fish put the ammonia that high over night in 50ish gallons?

[creep]

it shouldn't but you never know. I would test it once a day starting tomorrow just to be sure though. Also i like having something to do while the tank is cycling so I tend to test a lot :)

[Zestay]

good call on that one. now heres the oh so common question
live rock at my LFS is.. 5.99 / 7.99 a pound
dead rock is 1.99 / 3.99 a pound

how much live rock do i need to seed the rest of some dead rock personally i have no problems waiting on the dead rock to turn live.
and just how long are we talking?

[creep]

honestly, I have 2 peices of LR and the rest of mine is dead rock. I just had to start over so I'm waiting for it to seed the rest. I'm like you I would rather save money and wait for the rock to seed.

[Zestay]

i made some home made " dead rock" using rock salt and cement. but the water i tested it was in was like a PH bomb 8.8+ and im afraid to put it in my tank. its been sitting / being cycled in fresh water for months but the PH wont go down ( no its not the base line ph either )

[Zestay]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9185465#post9185465 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by creep
I would wait till tomorrow. You might even want to do some small waterchanges since you have a fish in there. It will prolonge the cycle, but will be better for the fish. when your ammonia gets high do a small water change to lower it a bit. IMHO

so.. whats high for ammonia to where i need to do a water change?

[james deluca]

you doing water changes on the "dead rock" every outher day?? if not start

[james deluca]

dont do water changes till after the cycel is compleat or it will take longer but when it is done do 25% change / ammonia in a cyceled tank should be 0 but you will more than likely have high levels / to help speed up prosses id get maybe 2-4 lbs of LR and put that in / good luck

[creep]

the reason we are suggesting for him to do water changes is so the fish in there doesn't die.

[james deluca]

yes i know but if you do it will have a harder time staying alive becase of the lnger cycel ad is also part of the reason i would recomend th LR that is how i set up my 55 but i put 5 damesels in along with 5 lb LR

[Zestay]

ok i added about 3 pounds of live rock and 2 pounds of dead rock. decent looking pieces. all from the LFS ( not my attempt at making a rock ) i had the scrub the crap outta one of the tonga branchs man those are a pain in the butt to get all the nooks and crannies outta em.
is my LFS the only one that sells live rock thats semi covered in blackness?

[james deluca]

well if you whant it in small amounts or go to the buy/sell forums and maybe you can get lucky and some one in your area will be selling some of there LR or be taking down their tank and selling some rock cheep but outherwise it your LFS or e-net stores