[Brett A Ross]

Well all set-up and running fresh water. Now looking for advise about the next step.

1 can I use the water that I have in the tank and sump now and add salt and let run a couple of days

2 what water prams should I be looking at before I add the live rock about 80 lbs to start. from lfs $6 a lbs.

3 what ever else you can think of to head of disaster

Set-up is 75gal with 55gal sump, turbo floater 1000, mag7 return pump, 2 power heads , 4'' sand bed in tank and 5" sand bed in refugium in sump approx 12" by 18". Set-up went well no runs no drips no errors. Tank still cloudy i have no ro system and it will have to wait. tank has run now for 24 hrs with this water.

[Reefland]

I have to be honest here, I would wait to set it up until I could do it with RO water, even if it meant purchasing all distelled from a local grocer. The peace of mind knowing you have done everything possible to keep nutrients, phosphates, etc. to a minimum is well worth it.

[Poseidon]

Yup I agree with Scott. RO water makes a huge difference in Algae blooms. If you used well water WATCH OUT, it will be very bad. If you used city tap then it would be a little better, but still has many things that were added to PREVENT life from taking hold. An RO/DI takes those things OUT!!

[salttanker]

Try to take it slow Brett. You will find more success in this hobby by being patient. Here are some things to consider during the initial setup:

Since you already have the water in the tank, you will need to mix it from there. Usually, it is 1/2 cup salt to every gallon of water. You will want this level to be anywhere from 1.021 - 1.023, depending on if it is a FO or Reef.
You will need a heater if you don't already have one. I keep mine year round set at 78 degrees. Some go as high as 82.
Since this is a new tank, you can put the LR in now to help the cycle. Online, you can do better than 6$ a pound though. liverocks.com has some awesome rock. check their site out. You can also throw in a couple of raw shrimp to help build your bacterial colonies during the cycle. DOn't use fish, as this is cruel and unnecessary punishment. After that, it will be a waiting game for around 6 weeks. Leave all pumps, powerheads, etc. running during this time. Don't add any fish until after you check your water parameters - get a master test kit that includes pH, Nitrate, Nitrite, and ammonia. This will help you determine where your tank is after 6 weeks.
I do caution you though..during this time, you will have some algae blooms, which is normal. However, since you are not using RO water, these blooms will be pretty ugly. If you can, get an RO unit for water top-offs and changes for the future. This will help you tremendously down the road.
Also, don't run your skimmer during the cycle process. This will remove needed organisms during this time.
The cloudiness will go away within a few days. HTH and good luck.

Mike

[Ninong]

Did you use freshwater straight from the tap? If so, did you treat it with any dechlorination drops?

Chlorine in water will dissipate within 24 hours if the water is aerated, so even if you did not use dechlorination drops you are probably OK at this point. That's assuming that your water came from the Des Moines Water Works and assuming that their website is correct in stating that they use chlorine and not chloramine: http://www.dmww.com/empact_treatment_process.asp

Chloramine would take two to three weeks to dissipate, so you would want to treat the water with dechlorination/dechloramination drops. Obviously it would have been better if you had started with R.O./D.I. water or even distilled water from the supermarket, but at this point I'm not sure I would worry about that too much. One thing you could do would be to hang a filter with carbon on the tank and let the freshwater run through that for several hours before you start to add in the salt mix. That would help. Hopefully there wasn't any copper in your tapwater but, if there was, the carbon will absorb it except for whatever amount had already been adsorbed to the tank walls and substrate. Chances are that you didn't have enough copper to worry about based on this report: http://www.dmww.com/empact_ccr.asp

You may as well start adding the salt mix to your tankwater at this point. You could add it slowly to the first intake chamber in your sump where it will be mixed with the water draining from the tank. No need to rush. Just add 1/2 cup at a time and then wait a few minutes before adding more. Stir the chamber with a large plastic or wooden spoon from the kitchen if necessary.

The only water parameters you need to be concerned about before adding the live rock would be pH, temperature and salinity. Later on, after the live rock is in the tank, you can start testing for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates plus calcium and alkalinity.

Good luck,

[Brett A Ross]

Thanks for the replies. I went ahead my be sorry later. On reading Bob Ferner's book the CMA he seamed to think tap water was ok. All of my LFS told me they only use ro water in there reef tanks. I will most likely go that direction in the future but not for a couple years. The live rock was bought to try to build a little goodwill with the better of the two lfs in my area( I have bought very little from them ) and when you look at freight it was not much different. I will pick up the rock Saturday so the water will be running in the tank for almost one week. Now if I can just figure out how to break it to my wife that I just spent $500 on a bunch of wet rocks I will have it made. My budget for this project was around $1500 well that's all shot to s o we can't use those words here. Well if I can figure out how to post pic's I will. By the way thanks to ninong for the research that was above and beyond. I do have a pair of 250w heaters in the sump. I bought a digital thermometer from mariene depot that does not work I guess I will find out how there support is. It has a remote display pretty cool if it would work.