Setting Up My Tank

[pnoy702]

Hey people. Just a quick question. Ok, here's a little background. I finally got my 30 gallon tank up and running last night with very little flooding of my room - was nervous as heck! Live Aragonite sand from CaribSea is what I used for the initial substrate - 20 pounds of it. Just waiting for my pink puka shells from caribsea to arrive at the store before I take it home. Today after work, I picked up close to 7 pounds of live rock. Now here's my questions.

a) Do I need to have my light on in there now or wait until I get all my rock in before I get my light in? I decided against the 1 bulb 96" Coralife Aqualight and am getting instead the 2 - 36" 192 watt Coralife Aqualight with stock lighting.

b) I haven't made the necessary adjustments yet to make my AC 500 into a fuge. Do I wait for the tank to cycle before I put the fuge in? Or can I do it and let them cycle out at the same time?

c) The LR I got today from an Aqua Marines shipment we got in today at my store did not smell like rotten eggs at all! I am surprised. I do expect die off in there, so I am going to be a doing a WC in a day or two after I test my water out tomorrow for ammonia. At the moment I have a Rio 800 (which I am mainly using to mix salt together for my WC and top offs) for water movement in there. Does the LR and LS need that water movement in there?

d) I am thinking about using Marineland's Marine Bio-Spira. Has anyone in this board ever used it? Were you satisfied with the results?

Well, that's it for now until I can think up of a couple questions that I was not able to talk with with my friend/co-worker at work. Thank you guys once again!

Troi

 

[Anonymous]

I would go ahead and set it all up

Live rock should be cured in a trash can or such with a powerhead. This reduces the impact to your tank, but since its already in there I say go ahead and get ready for some wc. My Live rock I got online did not smell bad either, but it took 2 weeks of water changes in a trashcan to get rid of all the ammonia

Good luck and keep us posted

 

[pnoy702]

My Live rock I got online did not smell bad either, but it took 2 weeks of water changes in a trashcan to get rid of all the ammonia

Good luck and keep us posted

Yup. Expected to do that much wc Going to go and test my water to see where the ammonia is at right now, even though my tank has only been running for 2 days after I set it up, and the LR has only been in there for 1 day.

 

[elpescado]

You will need more than a Rio 800 for circulation in the tank. I would recomend Maxijets (a couple of maxijet 900's) in addition to your main filtration drive pump. Don't use the air intake hoses, just plug the holes (bubbles are messy). The more dissolved oxygen you can get into the water and to all parts of the live rock the faster the nirifying bacteria will grow, and the faster the rock will cure (that and you retain more of the life on the liverock that way).
What I use as a starting point for my water current is 15X the aquarium's capacity in gallons = the total combined flow rate in gph. You may or maynot have to add more current once you start adding corals (all depends on the species of coral).
You don't need to have the light on until Live rock is introduced. I would not leave it on for the full 14 hours however, maybe only 6 or so hours until water tests show no ammonia or nitrites (do first water test no sooner than a week after liverock goes in).
I have never used Bio-spira.
Go ahead and get the whole works going now.
PC lighting isn't a bad choice, and the new Coral Life fixtures are pretty good. The version with the MH HQI tubes will be out soon as well, but you would most likely have to install a chiller if you go MH.