New tank set up

[deepseanige]

Hi all,

I'm a complete beginner to all things marine. I've recently wound down a cichlid tank and am thinkin' of moving to marines when I move into my new apartment. :)

Initially I'm thinkin’ of fish only and when I'm comfortable with maintaining water parameter/quality I'll move to soft/hard corals.

My current thinking on setup is as follows:

Juwel Vision 260 Litre (internal filter removed)
Eheim External Filter
HOB protein skimmer
Coral Sand
Live Rock
RO/DI unit
Some fishies (not sure which ones yet)
T5 lights / halide (depending on price)
Tunze Turbelle nanostream

And now for some questions....

When cycling the tank, can I do it with live rock, adding fish flakes to generate the required ammonia and watch until zero ammonia and nitrite?

Can I put live rock initially with a fish only tank, I've read the fish will just eat whatever is in the live rock and it'll become very expensive base rock?

Not sure exactly what type of RO unit I need, I’ve read it's best to have a deionizer as well? Is it hard to achieve the recommended 50psi in domestic water supplies?

As the tank is gonna be in a living room I'm thinking of only having the protein skimmer running for certain hours in the day i.e. 12am to 6pm. Any problems with this?

I really want to do this the right way!

Cheers

[AngeloM3]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12773082#post12773082 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by deepseanige


Juwel Vision 260 Litre (internal filter removed)
Eheim External Filter

When cycling the tank, can I do it with live rock, adding fish flakes to generate the required ammonia and watch until zero ammonia and nitrite?

Can I put live rock initially with a fish only tank, I've read the fish will just eat whatever is in the live rock and it'll become very expensive base rock?

Not sure exactly what type of RO unit I need, I’ve read it's best to have a deionizer as well? Is it hard to achieve the recommended 50psi in domestic water supplies?

As the tank is gonna be in a living room I'm thinking of only having the protein skimmer running for certain hours in the day i.e. 12am to 6pm. Any problems with this?

I really want to do this the right way!

Cheers

-filters aren't really needed. LR will act as a natural filter... the only thing those filters will do is remove large pieces of debris.

-when cycling a tank you want to add all the sand and rock that your going to want in your tank. no need to add anything to help the cycle... it will happen naturally. bit of advice is that during and after your cycle you will get a big bloom of hair algae. a good way to cut down on that is to not turn the lights on during the cycle... hair algae needs light to grow.

-SOME fish will pick stuff off the LR. you will need to feed flake, mysis, brine etc....

-having a deionizer is good to have because it will definitely get your TDS down to 0. I'm not sure about the pressure... differs city to city. they have different hook up's... you could either tap into the pipe below the sink... or they have a screw in thing that goes on your faucet.

-theres no problem running a skimmer certain periods of the day. only thing is a lot of skimmers go "crazy" when you turn them back on, they tend to overflow and need to be adjusted to stop that. your skimmer should be located in your sump or under your stand. if you worried about noise... their not loud at all.

[deepseanige]

Hi Angelo,

Thanks for the reply

Excuse the ignorance, but what is TDS? Is it some weird ozzie STD ?! ;)

I'll be using a Juwel Vision 260 and the stand is sectioned into 3 so I don't have the luxary of being able to add a sump (see pic link). I'm assuming i'll have to use a HOB style skimmer?

http://www.petcentreonline.co.uk/ecommerce/ProdImages/VISION260.jpg

Interesting comment on the skimmer turnning off and on. I definately didn't think of this. Any recommendations on very quiet ones?

nige

[Cadu]

TDS = Total Dissolved Solids