75 gl Fwlr/Reef setup

[Disc61]

Hi all, those that Know me, know I am a dedicated Discus keeper. with 20 in house at the moment I do not see that ending anytime in the near future (god willing).
I recently setup a 75 gl for my wife that houses 7 Angels and a school of orange flame tetras. out of those 7 angels I have 3 different pairs ( 2 of those pairs are sitting on eggs as I write this)
so actually just the tetras are in the 75 gl. although we just got her Blood red parrots (wow are they ever red) in Qt and will be taking over the 75 gl as I have decided to work with these 3 pairs
while I wait for the Discus to mature then start working with them.

So as if I didn't have enough going on I just went and picked up a used 75 gl. the Wife is hooked already and decided this should be our first Salt water tank ( I love how she said "First")
I have been researching on and off for over a year and thought, yeah its as good a time as any.

this is the 9th tank in the basement, its starting to look like a fish store,
I will start off with just Fwlr but will expand into full reef eventually. plan on taking this one slow, probably be adding the Live sand and rock in a couple weeks.

feel free to give any suggestions to the new kid on the block.

I read over everything, thanks, MORE TO COME

Tom

[catsma_97504]

Definitely a close call! Hopefully once the tank is cured and the fish returned everything will settle down and no losses.

[pirahnah3]

You do it for the relaxing part of the hobby when you can just sit back and enjoy the tank.

Unfortunately that is not this moment, glad you were there to catch it before it became a huge problem.

[Disc61]

Oh will you believe it.... you have to laugh to keep from crying. I am doing a water change several days ago on the Discus setup when I step on a wet spot right beside this reef tank ( that I am just getting back into the growing stage.)
well, I just mixed the sand up in it, so maybe I made a mess I didn't realize. OK, not so much, seems the wet spot is getting bigger. after further investigation I find the inside of the stand of the reef tank completely wet. and now I notice a drip ( or was it a stream, I don't know). are you kidding?? yes, it seems the tank broke a seal. Wow, call it lucky as I am pretty sure it broke as I was doing that water change or would have never noticed it til the next day when the tank was empty and fish dead. quickly moved the fish to safety ( hopefully but not finished yet) and drained the system.
have resealed the tank and putting it back together now. hopefully have the fish back in there in a couple more days, so far all are still alive.
tell me again why I do this??

[pirahnah3]

that is a great looking tank! cant wait to see it look like that or better again.

[Disc61]

yeah, here is a few pics of the old

[pirahnah3]

Welcome back stranger!

Wouldl ove to see some pics from before in its glory and the new stuff that you have going on.

[AlyeskaGirl]

Hey Tom, nice to see you. Thanks for the update. glad to hear things are doing better with the salty experience. Live and learn. Any pictures to share?

[Aft3rGl0w]

Whoooo! Another saltwater person I'm in the process of trying to bring back a Ritteri anemone from shipping sickness at the moment. I'm glad I'm not the only one with salt on here lol

[Disc61]

Wow, this is an old thread. and yeah, thousands is more like it.
I have since went to a 125gl with a 55gl sump. haha, thousands later of course. and that was a while ago.
long, long story but that tank crashed with the loss of many, many fish and corals.
back up and running now with 3 fish in it and a couple corals. And I just put 6 fish into QT before they join the other 3 and another coral. have learned a lot and ready to attack this
full force.
I picked up a Magnificent Foxface, that is truly magnicent.

[featherblue]

I meant thousands....a retail 72g bowfront with sump, return pump, compact florescent light is silly retail ($1800-$5000 easy depending on a huge list of feature) used I got one for $600.
Rodi is worth it...control of water quality makes a huge benifit

[pirahnah3]

you can easily do the same thing that anyone does for a tank, make a u tube style over flow system. you can check out tons of DIY options on it, there are other hang on methods for overflow but they all also use u tubes to create a suction lift via a siphon.

As for the waste, if you garden you could do a bucket thing, but yeah no waste down there can be an issue, that said RO units do not take up alot of space, you could put one almost anywhere and then run a line of tubing to a barrel near the tank for storage.

[Disc61]

I wouldn't mind the RO/Di units if it wasn't for my situation at the house. beyond the waste of 4 gls for every 1 gl of Ro water. I need a place for that waste to go, I don't have a drain in the basement where all my tanks are. (wish I did, and no real easy fix) I could easily hook one up down there but then would have to have the waste fed into a barrel for removal. might be a thought down the road I guess.
the Reactor I am speaking of would be calcium and phosphate, or do I misunderstand something here. and/or does the Protein skimmer take care of this issue.

can I do a wet/dry or sump without drilling the tank, and if so cansomeone maybe provide a link of a particular unit that would make sense. I don't want to say money is not an issue but rather I don't mind paying to do this right the first time around instead of overpaying to fix later.

thanks for the info everyone, keep it coming.

[pirahnah3]

Sumps are an entity all their own, I would be happy to help with piping mechanics and flow rates and all that but as far as what setup of one to use that isnt my forte at least for SW. I can do the nitrogen cycle in fresh water in my sleep lol. With a sump there are easy ways to prevent overflows and the easiest is to just oversize the height of the tank a bit or at least the return chamber. BAsically you need to figure the area from the lowest flow point from your tank (IE the level at which water would begin to flow into your sump, assuming its gravity fed) and the nominal running level in the tank with all equipment running. This difference would be the excess volume you need to have in the sump to allow the tank to drain back into it,

As for water, it really depends on what the water type is in those units, with some its simply tap water rebraned, with others it is merely run thru a simple spun filter and possibly carbon, and with others they do run it thru RO systems. You would need to do some reserch and find out what it is. RO is the best to use as you would then add what minerals and content you want and be able to control it better, Yes people do use tap water for SW tanks but I dont personally know of anyone doing that for reefs constantly. I did know of one of the guys at the LFS that would occasionally use it for his reef but not normally.

Thousands less, Yup she is right, building it yourself and actually doing some work and research can save you a TON.

What type of reactor are you talking about? There are several types never mind styles of each type.

[RogueAgent94]

Yay! Another salty convert lol.

Definitely go for at least RO water. I started out using the RO water from the glacier machines at Publix which should be the same as the ones in Walmart. However I ended up converting to a cheap RODI which I purchased off ebay. It hardly cost me anything and meant that I always had water on hand if something happened. The only con of using RO water from walmart is that the TDS could be pretty high depending on when they serviced the machine. I have only ever heard of bad things when it comes to using tap water unless you have amazing tap water. I have a well and I still won't use it.

I agree with Featherblue in that you should have a sump. I never had the issue of overflow and my floor getting wet honestly. As long as you set it up the first time you'll be fine. You don't absolutely need a sump exactly. Just something to be a gravity pull. A simple wet dry filter would do the same thing.

What kind of Reactor do you mean?