advice on buying 2nd hand small marine tank -and live rock

[Midnight Tboy]

heya,

I figured this area is probably the best place to slap this question for yous as I've still got a very long learning curve to go

Right.....I was initially planning to get myself a Perc120, or custom made 110gallon tank....my first marine tank...however I've found that I'll be moving house in about a year so I need to a) keep costs down to help me save for the mortgage, and b)I don't fancy the idea of a logistical nightmare in moving 110g and corals, live rock, fish, etc etc....so I decided to put that on hold until just after I get the house (having to put up with girlfriends coldwater fish at moment )

now back to reality,

a fish tank has come up for sale that I'm going to see tomorrow that seems like a bit of a bargain.

Now its a Juwel tank, I know they aren't ideal for reef setups realistically, but its a full marine setup for sale.

The tank is either the Juwel Rekord 120 (120litres 101 x 46 x 31 cm) or the Juwel Rio 125 (125litres 81 x 50 x 36 cm). so basically a 3ft tank

It comes with obviously the juwels built in features/lights etc, however I know it has also an external filter (canister fluval model type I believe), and he said on the phone about 75lbs of Live Rock (which going by general prices I'd say sounds like about 300quids worth).

also in there, are cleaner shrimps, turbo snails, a variety of fish including 2 clown fish(his girlfriends tank so he didn't know what the other fish were - but said bout 6-8more), and lastly theres a big tub of salt mix and some test kits etc.

The price they're after ....170quid!

to me that seems really good. and when I upgrade I can just sell the tank on

Thinking in the sense, that yeah I obviously can't really grow any corals etc on there ,and it would basically a fish only with live rock system...but at least I can get some practice in with looking after the system, until I get my super tank next year....and then I'll have a load of live rock and fish I can add in straight away to the new tank instead of having to start the cycle.

also, thinking of the live rock, it seems to be a bargain, saving me money instead of buying it fresh when I buy the new tank in the future, only to add to it.

however, I've never seen hands on, any different types of live rock.......I know fiji rock generally seems to be the ideal type to look for. If he says its 75lbs approx of live rock in there, is there any easy way to tell if its Fiji rock (in case they don't know) - and any types I should avoid? also if its been badly neglected...how do I know the difference between live rock that still has some life, and dead rock, that will never be recoverable? or would it always be recoverable?

also - do you think its a good deal for me to get some practice in - or should I jump in head first when I spend the £2000 on a lovely system in a years time


thanks for your patience

Tuck

[inwall75]

If you can keep a smaller tank going well for a year, you are going to be thrilled with how much easier a larger tank is to handle.

Sounds like a good plan.

[Midnight Tboy]

thanks for the reply.

I also forgot to add, that on the phone I asked if it had a skimmer.

He said "ermm yes...but...." and said that when he was cleaning it out the other day, (said it was some sort of hang on skimmer), said that some wooden block broke so would need replacing?

any idea what the wooden block would be? easy fix etc?

I don't know if it'll be a good type of skimmer, or one of those dirt cheap 30quid CC skimmers yet, but either way is better than none for now.

So is it possible also for the rock to be at a point beyond curable? (well ok - short of soaking it in a vat of bleach for a month) if it turned out it had been badly maintained....or even if only a small bit of life in then it could respread throughout the entire rock in the tank again?

regards,
Tuck

[Meric]

Just a guess, but I would think the Wooden Block is a Wooden Air Stone. The Protein Skimmer is probably a standard Counter Current Skimmer.

Live rock or any rock can recover or rebuild from most situations. One of my Friends shut down her tank for 2 years, put all her rock in a box in the garage during this time. 5 months ago she started her tank back up, I gave her a few peices of my Live Rock and now her rock is statring to grow coraline, and starting to look like my rock. ALthough it will be quite a while before it is fully recovered it will recover.

[Reefland]

Hi Tuck,

It would be good practice to prepare you for a full blown reef in the future. FOWLR tanks are more tolerable on unrefined husbandry than reefs since they can accept a higher level of nitrate (the big problem with marine systems). I say go for it!

[Midnight Tboy]

heya,

thanks for all the replies.



well I took a look at it, and my girlfriend (who had her reservations at buying a marine setup before we move) fell in love with it and insisted we took it

so its been a hectic few hours but I finally managed to get the tank set up here and all fish etc inside.

as to the exact details (well - exact as far as my knowledge goes - so expect things to be called thingumybobs )

It was the Juwel 125 model in the end.

the extra filter wasn't in fact an external which is a shame - it was a basic internal filter (fluval - not sure what model yet though) - running alongside the juwels own filter (tho the juwel filter is switched off for now).

inside there was about half a dozen pieces of rock of various size and a big white-ish errr tree stump like wood (or model) that has lots of crooks and crannys that the fish like swimming through - a couple of the rocks seemed to have some nice coralline pink stuff around it....which to me looks like fiji rock. there is another 2 bigger pieces....one kinda looks white and cementy but seems to have a fair few caves in it that the fish like, and there is another single big piece of rock that is very dark, I think that particular rock may have a hair algae problem, or maybe its just a different type of rock I'll have to get some pics posted for your help

inside the tank, there are 2 clowns, and I've counted I think about 6 other fish, of which I need to find out what type they are, I believe one to be a small blue angelfish, with some yellow on its back tail...and something else that is mainly silver, but with a yellow line running across its spine (or back if you want to call it that )...again I need to dig out the books and learn the fish types etc.

theres also a couple of shrimp in there that are nice and active...(I've seen them before - quite large with partly red/white bodies, and huge feelers that wave out in front of it - it was funny as hell when I fed them some brineshrimp...watching them all jump like crazy to get it - one of the shrimp climbed to top of a rock and did a backflip somersault to grab a huge chunk of food.

There is definately 1 crab there, of the red legged type - the fella said he thinks there should be a blue legged fella in there somewhere but as of yet no sign if there is.

Theres also about 4 or 5 large sized snails (turbo snails I assume). Later on I noticed quite a lot of teeny millimetre sized snails (prob bout 12-20 that I noticed), that were on some back parts of the glass and in the coral gravel. I don't know if those would potentially be a problem or a blessing? Also I noticed in the gravel coral I saw a few small red centipede like creatures...and climbing up the log I saw what was to me like a money spider walking around. Are these good or am I doomed?

As well as the tank and contents etc, I was also given a few additional bits and bobs. ie a full water test kit pretty much unused for the ph,ammonia,nitrate and nitrates, a salinity tester (like a plastic case where you fill it with water and see how the arrow settles ideally between a range in the red on the scale. Also a nearly full very large tub of Kent Sea Salt (bout 4/5 left of that I reckon), and a half full bag of Coral Rock (about 10kg left of it approx - the rest in the tank I'm assuming), and some filters that they had left. Lastly there was a couple of care books, and a handy pocket guide of fish to take into the LFS.

I'll definately have to have a try at getting some photos taken so you can point me in the right direction of the type of things I'm looking at that I can't find in the books, or so I know for sure.

At the moment, on getting the tank back to me, the rock isn't laid out in its ideal position, though it is secure. But basically, when I first got the tank back, and put the water back in etc, the gravel got stirred and was very murky etc..so when I was getting the rock back in before putting the fish in I couldn't exactly aquascape it very well as I couldn't see in very well. So things are generally probably not a beautiful setup just yet - but I plan to let the fish rest for a day or 2 before I try to move the rocks to somewhere more decorative and helpful - theres loads of "caves" though which they're loving swimming around in.

Onto the skimmer, yes you're right it definately is a CC skimmer....now I can't decide at the moment, whether for now I should just pop to a LFS and pick up a stone to get it back up and running, or as yous say, get something like the red sea prizm skimmers, or better yet a 2nd hand Deltec MCE 600 which I have my eye on.

I know that theres meant to be no such thing as overskimming...but for a tank this size would it be too much or work wonders? Thinking that perhaps the speed it may put the water out in a smaller tank like this 125litre setup will send the fish spinning round like a tornado If yous think it would be fine though then I think I may invest in one, and I can use that when I do eventually upgrade to a 110g tank.

Lastly, the person who I got the tank from used to buy his RO water topups from a LFS near him. Said he paid about £3 per big tub of the stuff. How much of this stuff would you say I'd be using when it comes to topping it up? Do you think I should perhaps buy a cheap RO unit to just do it myself, or for the sake of a small tank like this just pop to my local LFS and do the same....until the time comes to upgrade? are they big units these devices (in the £40-50 region I was looking at - ie RO Man or something 2nd hand perhaps) so to be a bugger to store, or just tiny things?

right - its getting late now and I've got loads and loads of tidying up to do now,

in touch soon,
cheers,
Tuck

[Reefland]

Hey Tuck, sounds like your really excited and already seeing some cool things. Sounds like you've got some baby snails in there and some bristle worms, all being good things.

For the skimmer, go ahead and get the Deltec if you can. I do not beleive there is a such thing as over skimming a tank so this would be a very nice skimmer for this tank and a future one.

On the RO water, I would go ahead and get a unit myself and save the trouble of going to the store to get some water. Actually if you can sprng the cash, go ahead and get you a decent RO/DI unit, much better choice.

[Midnight Tboy]

heh yeah it is exciting, a long way to go yet, and its a relatively small tank but they're great to watch and I've only just started

I feel guilty now tho as without realising I crushed a teeny baby snail into the side with the glass cleaner

I noticed in the coral gravel that there seemed to be loads of probably empty baby shells in there...I'm guessing there was maybe many more but the crabs being having a few snacks.

I'm going to see about getting a deltec 2nd hand perhaps as I hear they tend to sell for about £100-130 over here. Would it be easy enough to install for the beginner? a simple case of plugging it in and lining it up to the water level? or would I most likely have to cut a section out of the cabinet for it to hang over? At the very least I'll end up getting a red sea but yeah I'll prob take the plunge and get a deltec.

Now to the RO unit....what is the difference between a regular RO and a RO/DI unit?

I was thinking of something about £50 like those on http://www.ro-man.com perhaps - seemingly about 35gallons per day, thinking that would be more than enough if just using it for occasional topups? How big a size would be recommended, and what is the DI in the unit you mention? I still have to take xmas into account too and try to budget for that at the moment but I should be ok to splash out a little bit more though perhaps I may have to perhaps get a skimmer first, then wait till after xmas till I get an RO.

cheers for all the help, its now 3:40am and this fish bug has been killing my sleeping pattern for the last few weeks!!!
Tuck

[Midnight Tboy]

oh yes,

and this is probably a very stupid question....but I just want to make sure I'm not being a muppet

when I feed frozen brineshrimp cubes.....I assume you do defrost it beforehand right? not just a frozen block to slowly melt away to give the bits chance to sink?

heh thanks

oh - and also - I was told by LFS where I bought the brineshrimp that they prefer to give the fish pretty much only brineshrimp and never any flake food. I would have thought that making it a bit more varied and alternating between the 2 every day would be better surely? is there any good flake food that you would recommend I order online?

[Poseidon]

LOL Brine shrimp have almost no nutritional value, so that LFS is not doing so good. I feed frozen MYSIS shrimp, and yes you do thaw it first in a seperate container, then strain the shrimp from the containor and discard the water it was thawed in. Lots of dissolved nutrients in that water, that only PROBLEM species can use, like hair algae and Aiptasia anemones.

As far as flake food, I have been using Cyclop-eeze wafer, and Spectrum pellets. Check out our sponsor pages for deals!

[Midnight Tboy]

the little sod!

the brine shrimp will have to do for now till I can get some more bits n bobs ordered.

I'm back home now and managed to get a few pics of the tank as it currently stands, I'll be uploading some of them any minute now.

I also ran my own first tests on the system - this is what I got...

ammonia : 0.50 (well the colour was between 0.25 to 0.50 , I'd say it looked like 0.4 )
nitrite : 0 yayyy
nitrate : 40 - doh (what should this be btw? - the guide just said "as low as possible"
ph : 8.0 (maybe 8.1)
salinity : 1.022

the water level definately needs a bit of topping up, from that which has been lost during transit etc, for now I will call into the LFS tomorrow and get a 25litre barrel of RO water, at least till I order and get an RO Unit myself if I do. Does the water I buy last as long as I need it to, say if I only use 1gallon of it for now, or after a few days or week or so would it just need dumping anyway?

I've also just bought off ebay the Deltec skimmer, £108.39 + £15 delivery...probably a wise investment rather than just getting a quick airstone for the other thing that was disconnected. I hope I'm up to the job of installing it

Right - time to look at getting pics up on this site....whats the best way to get them on? photobucket?


Oh and I found the blue legged crab finally - and another red legger - yay!!! isn't this exciting :P

[Reefland]

The ammonia reading is alarming, ammonia is toxic at any level above 0.00. Nitrite is good and the nitrate is ok for a FOWLR tank. The response "as low as possible" is a good one. Fish can easily with stand nitrate of 40ppm however for coral you would want it lower, like around 10ppm.

On the pictures, you can do it two ways. Upload the pictures to your gallery (http://www.reefland.com/gallery) or you can use the Post Reply image under the last post in a thread and just below where you would type your message click on the Manage Attachments button.