My Adventure Into SaltWater With a 20 Gallon

[cheseboy]

Today I had a high temertture so I stayed home from school. While I was staying home I worked on my aquarium all day. I got all the tap water out of my tanks and disasembled all the plumbing. Then I moved the stand and tank to a more permanent location and reattached the plumbing and got everything resituated. Now I will need to see If I have an adapter that will go from garden hose to dionizing filter and fill it up. May have time tonight, may have time tommorow. Don't know.

[cheseboy]

Got it filled and salty. I am trying to heat the water though my heater is not strong enugph because is it too cold down there! . Time to get a 200W heater!

[cheseboy]

Got a 300W heater. Nicen' toasty! Also put in my bio-spira. Now it's time to get a fish. I specifically like ckarkii clowns. So I will get one of thoes tonight. Or I could wait and get my sand then a fish but of corse I will get the fish first. There may just be a bit of a storm when I put the sand in. I was also having some probalems with water level. When I got how my pump was pumping air. Alot of water either evaportaed or got out via airstone bubbles. I will beable to get my airstone out soon because I will be able to turn on my protien skimmer 48 hours after I put in bio-spira. Witch means then I will have air.

[cheseboy]

I'm also having a probalem with my protien skimmer. The skimmer puts out micro bubbles. So I emailed an aqua C guy and he's gonna send me a special sponge to put in the output. Other than that I'm fine.

[cheseboy]

Got a sebre clown in my tank. He's cool though he's kinda shy since my tank is bare. The rock will come in later. I tested my ammonia it is .25. Will need to do a water change or somthing to take care of that.

[Osiris]

Originally Posted by cheseboy

Today I had a high temertture so I stayed home from school. While I was staying home I worked on my aquarium all day.

uh huh, It's coming along good i give it a thumbs up!

[cheseboy]

, Thanks. I am doing 5 gallon water changes as that is the maximum I can do because I only have a 5 gallon bucket and it is really annoying and hard work. Takes about 2 hours to make the water heat it, salt it and siphon out water in my tank etc.. One of the first things I want to get when I get paid is to buy a water sensor so I won't overflow my bucket again and again! I also want to DIY a top off system since water evaporates pretty easily when it is like 40 degrees outside of the tank and it messes up my overflow\return system. Other than that I would also like my reef lighting! (65x2 PC with moon light)

[cheseboy]

Well here's something interesting. I tested the ammonia of my replacement water and my tank water. The color was exactly the same. whatever the color matches up to the card. My tank ammonia must be 0 then since My bucket was just deionized water salted. Plus my clarkii clown is showing no stress. He is just swimming around happily but I did test the nitrate of my tank and it was 0. So I am guessing all the frequent water changes was removing nitrate as it was produced. Only one way to find out though. I need to wait. I also went to get DSB sand and they said they don't sell it anymore. They also say they get alot of aquarium people looking for the sand there since he asked if I needed it for an aquarium.

[cheseboy]

My clown fish seams to be doing fine, the only problem is at night he seams like he is almost dead. He just sits in a corner and does nothing. When the lights are on he's as happy and as frisky as anything I've ever seen.

Here's some nice pics!:


Tank's a bit dirty from all the waterchanges!

[cheseboy]

Ick attack! my clown fish is now covered in ick. I don't understand. I gave him a FW dip before placing in the main tank. So I'm gonna need to figure out something. Kinda funny. When I first set up a FW tank everything in it died because of ick. Let's hope the same fate is not for my clown!

[cheseboy]

You'd never guess what happened. I came back the next day after I saw the ick and it was gone. Not a speck on the fish. My guess is that he healed himself just as he would in nature. Since I don't believe that all the parasites would burst out of the fish at the same time but obviously I can not be sure that the ick is totally gone. If my fish doesnt have white spots in the next 2 weeks or so I'm going to assume that my fish is fine..


I still have micro bubbles in the tank even though I put the sponge in. Not as much as before but still. I think when I get the money I'll want to buy a new protein skimmer.

I talked to someone at a pet store and they were saying if I have bio spira with a completely bare tank. The bacteria will die off little by little. So I have made getting either a DSB or live rock a priority.

[cheseboy]

I was doing my weekly test and I noticed I have ammonia it looks like a different color since last time I checked. So I guess I will just keep on doing water changes and possibly put in some bio-spira if it is ok.

On the good side I have got a lead on some aragonite sand. I called and they should of received their first shipment of aragonite sand on April first. So they said call back in a few days.

Also, I am just itching to get some live sand and macro algae in my tank. I would like a get a large amount of sand from my uncle who has a 200G established reef. That should help me get some beneficial bacteria in my tank. Macro algae will help get some harmful things out of my tank such as ammonia.

[cheseboy]

Well... my fish died. My guess it was a 5* temperature drop combined with ammonia that killed it. My heater got screwed it was set at 77 and the temp was 81 so I lowed it to 77 then I moved it too much and it went down to about 72 or 73. The night before he was kind of letting his dorsal fin touch the surface and swimming around very high. Plus I just wasted 20$ witch really saddens me. . I definitely do want to get on of those ammo alert things though and this time I will buy the cheapest SW fish I can find in the store so I can use it to cycle. Probably a damsel but I will need to get rid of it some how afterword.

[cheseboy]

I will just use flake food as a source of ammonia instead of making an damsel suffer. So I will let the tank go through it's mini cycle and I still need to get some sand though I probably shouldn't put any live sand in the tank to seed my sand because the creatures in the live sand might very well die. If I don't find any sand I will eventually run out of patience and buy reef sand from the pet store. Only 40$ for my DSB sand.

[leveldrummer]

are you gonna have live rock? if so, buy regular sand, and live rock, and let the rock cycle your tank. thats what i did, too little over a week.

[cheseboy]

That sounds good the only thing is I was gonna use live rock to seed base rock. So I don't know If my live rock would contain enough bacteria. Do you mean cured on uncured. Uncured would surly ruin my tank. I can see very high ammonia spikes. Anyway I have a nice sign of life diatoms. Brown algae is covering my glass and equipment pretty quickly.

[cheseboy]

Quick update! I tested my ammonia and nitrite my ammonia is 0 and my nitrite is about 0.15. I am going to turn off my protien skimmer and add some food as an ammonia source so my bacteria won't be as weak as when I add one fish it will cycle again!

[cheseboy]

I have finally decided a good path to take that will cost me nothing. I threw a piece of shrimp into my tank. Now I just wait. Then I will get the lighting and sand and then I will buy uncured rock and basically let it cycle in my tank. After that then comes the fish, live sand, macro algae and other things like that.

[cheseboy]

I'm going to buy the dual satellite 2x65 PC fixture w/moonlight once I get my payment within two weeks. Since I found a good cheap site I am going to buy whatever I can ahead of time to save on shipping, such as a calcium test kit, calcium additives and a nice timer for my light. I did some research and I will need to buy a clear glass hood at a LFS for my fixture to go on. If I find it dosen't work I will make my own out of acrylic.

[PerculaClown]

yeah the clownfish was a waste. you bought it too early. i know you are eager to by stuff right away but you have to take it slowly and step by step so you dont make any mistakes. If i were you i would by the sand and rock first then start buying the crittters.