New to Reef Aquariums Could use a rundown

[missys60reef]

Hi all. I'm new to salt water in general, but am extremely new to reef tanks. So far I have a 60 gallon uni aquarium with a regina protein skimmer that came with the tank. I also have an extra dual powerhead inside the tank for a little added circulation. Is there other stuff I should have working on the tank. I hear a lot about kalkwassar's and stuff like that I honestly don't even know what they are. Can anyone fill me in?

I have no idea what I should be doing as for maintenance and what not. Here's what I'm doing now:

5 gallon water change every 4 weeks
Replace carbon and phos zorb every 4 weeks
Clean top of skimmer every 4 weeks (should I remove the entire tube and clean that ever?)
Then I clean the white cotton type filter piece that sits on top of the tray.

I've had very little help. As I'm finding out, the help I've gotten is actually geared more towards better sales for the fish store and my tank crashing on a weekly basis..... Resulting in $100's of dollars spent a month on chemicals to "reverse" the problem and then new livestock etc.... I'm really starting to dislike the fish store!

[smidoid]

Hello Missy. I was new to reefing not that long back - and pretty green - then I discovered Reefland!

You have pretty much everything you need here (at the site that is) to find out what you need.

Here's what I've learned (in no order):

1. Find a better fish store (usually referred to as an LFS)! Really, if they are trying to sell you something you don't need then you should question everything they tell you!

2. 5 gallons every 4 weeks is nothing like enough (although some people get away without doing any water changes). More successful reefers seem to be doing 20% changes every week or two. That would amount to 10-12 gallons bi-weekly.

3. What are you replacing the water with? You'll need to use RO/DI [Reverse Osmosis OR De Ionised] water (that's plain old water without the chemical mix that the water company put in our drinking water). The salt mix is important too - a good one is not cheap!

4. Don't EVER use chemicals unless you have to; and them, keep medication regimes to the quarantine tank. (Search for that on the site under that or QT). Steven Pro has some good articles on quarantine. Chemicals that claim to be reef safe most likely ARE NOT! They want to sell you something - so they're going to say almost anything. If it ain't in natural seawater then it shouldn't be in your tank either!

5. If you really must use chemicals (I don't) do not, under any circumstances, use something that's meant for freshwater! If it doesn't say marine on the tin, don't trust it. Invert life in particular is highly sensitive to some medications - copper at a conc. of 1 part per BILLION will kill many inverts - and that means goodbye to your corals, shrimps, etc.

6. Have you used Live Rock (LR) or a DSB (Deep Sand Bed)? LR is pretty much a given if you're starting a reef although there is also the FOWLR (Fish Only With LR) method. You need about 1 to 1.5Lbs of LR per gallon - so your tank needs 60lbs minimum. It's pricey, but you really can't do without it IMHO. You can get it cured or uncured; cured is better for newbies and it costs more.

7. Your tank HAS to cycle. That means the water has to mature so the necessary bacteria take up residence and start to consume the wastes in the water. This is a BIG area - you'll need to search the site for loads of reference to this - the Nitrogen cycle or just the cycle. Cycling can take weeks or MONTHS! You can get some preparations which speed things up, but few people I know use them.

8. Add livestock SLOWLY. Sure, the LFS will want to sell you LOADS of fish. In truth, adding more than 1 fish every 2-3 weeks will most likely crash the tank. Every new fish/LR/Coral - everything really, should be quarantined until you know it's safe.

9. Kalkwasser is a German term alluding to calcium in the water - it's generated in a calc-reactor by adding a small acidic gas (CO2) to Aragonite sand. The carbonic acid erodes calcium from the aragonite and disolves into the water. You only need one of these if you (a) have a LOT of VERY good coral and (b) don't use decent substrate and salt mix.

10. Learn how to operate your skimmer! I doubt what you've got is much cop, others will know better. But skimmers are another story...

11. Rowaphos is the best thing you can get that I know of for removing phosphates in tapwater.

12. Get used to testing your water WEEKLY at least. You need to check AT LEAST: Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite. Temp and SG you should do daily.

Phew... typed too much now. I'll leave others to pick the bones of my suggestions!

DON'T GIVE UP!

[ANGRY JOHN]

clean your skimmer cup at least every other day and the entire skimmer body every other month. you dont need to nessirily tear it all down but wiping it down in side and out to knock off the big stuff is a good idea.

[missys60reef]

Thanks for your helpful tips All of the advice before this I've ever received has been from numerous LFS's which have seemed to give me some very wrong information. So hopefully I'm on the right track now! I'll let you know how things progress.

I've had my tank for approx 3 1/2 yrs, I just switched to reef recently though... Currently I have a bit of a hair algae problem that I am attacking every other day or so.... But slowly but surely it's lightening up. I have all sorts of coral in there, I'm thankful the hair algae hasn't attached itself to them. The only piece of coral that's suffering from the hair algae is the brain coral and the xenia which is kind of driving me crazy. lol Oh well, hopefully it will get better ;;

Thanks again guys if you have anymore tips I'd love to hear them

Edited to say: I bumped my water changes to one 10 gallon water change every two weeks. I hope that helps with everything. So technically, having bumped the water changes up, I shouldn't have to add any chemicals at all unless I check the calcium levels and it is low? Is that right?

[SKRIZ]

this may sound dumb, but buy some books. That was the best move that I ever made. I wish I would have done so sooner.

Oh yeah, and ask tons of questions here. everybody is really cool and will help you out bigtime!

welcome to the fam!

[smidoid]

Oh yeah, and ask tons of questions here. everybody is really cool and will help you out bigtime!

welcome to the fam!

Hear, hear. Welcome.

You really have to take anything you hear in an LFS with a pinch of sodium chloride. They exist to make a buck - keeping you happy helps them, but keeping you coming back is better. Bad advice delivered well FAR more dangerous than good advice delivered badly!

The problem with LFS drones is that they learn from other drones and whatever the boss tells them. That means, if it means selling some magic juice or other, they will. Just smile and pretend you know what you're talking about.

Ask a lot of questions that YOU know the answer to and never, ever let on you caught them out. I also find it helps to play a bit dumb...

For instance:

"Is that [Fu Manchu Lionfish] - just pointing - safe in my reef? I have a couple of kids that would just love it!" - ALL lionfish are highly dangerous!

-or-

"I've got a lot of algae on the rocks and glass - do you think hermit crabs would help?" - Note that crabs can't clean glass and most are not entirely reef safe!

I'm sure you can figure out your own! This way you can find the genuine experts from the drones.

In science when we publish an article in a proper journal: Nature, The Lancet, etc. it is submitted for peer review. That means that several of your equals get to sniff around and see if you've done your research correctly, crossed the Ts and dotted the Is. This tends to keep bad research from ever appearing in print (some does, of course, the MMR scandal in the UK and Europe is an example).

On a board like this, many people offer opinions but few, if any, have any profit to make. If I make a goof (and give bad advice) you can be pretty sure that another expert will jump on it and correct me. It's a bit like peer reviewing - only you get to see the whole process. Because of this, discussion threads need to be read in their entirety.

OK, now in the LFS there are no such checks unless an expert happens to be hovering, hears the salesperson give you bad advice and decides the interject. It's hit and miss; more miss than hit.

I went to two LFSs before starting my reef. One told me the system I had was too small and while I appreciated the advice, his math was off. My problem is more one of space than absolute budget.

The next place was more encouraging. The tank was big enough (yippe) and I needed £80 of LR and a small skimmer (later on). The guy has his own tank and seemed to know his stuff. (He certainly knows more that one of his workmates who doesn't know at Turbo snail from a Hermit!)

OK - this is where things started to go wrong. £80 of LR - NA. More like £160 at the price in his shop. £80 would have only given me 50% of the minimum recommended amount (1lb per US gallon).

It gets worse. The skimmer he suggested was, well, cheap and ran on airstones. Airstones! I ask you! Even a good limewood stone will only last a few weeks and such a cheap skimmer would be a joke even in my 50gallon reef.

Worse still (I went to check this one). They have several signs warning about copper in the fish water (phew). They are pretty small and I have not heard a soul mention it while selling fish. The sign mentions 5ppm CuSO4 - not the 0.4 to 0.5 that it should be. OK, it's a typo - but it should have been noticed. Copper in that conc. will kill inverts stone dead, BTW.

Solution (to that one): Use a quarantine tank!

Good luck with the algae: keep reading and asking lots of questions, look for names including (but not limited to) Ninong, Steven Pro, Scott Z and Zhenya. These dudes really know their stuff.

Oh yeah, and see if you can spare them $10... Even I managed to do that and it all helps keep this superb resource free!

[c04r4l0v3r]

hi if your new to reef keeping or looking for some homework heres a
good web site www.wetwebmedia.com they have everything you need
on this websit..
Happy reef keeping
Brian

[smidoid]

hi if your new to reef keeping or looking for some homework heres a
good web site www.wetwebmedia.com they have everything you need
on this websit..
Happy reef keeping
Brian

Unfortunately it also looks like a bunch of 5-year olds designed it.

[captain Jim]

Thats alot of great info! my congrats to you all!
If I may suggest also one other site that I used way back when I first started that was easy to read... www.marinedepotlive.com and goto learning center. And I also agree wetweb is a great site packed full of info.
And rember we have all been there and are here to help each other and enjoy the reefkeeping love affair!