65 Gal. reef build

Day 1

Just picked up my never used 65 gal. tank with a brand new stand for 50 bucks! about to start up the tank. but i need a lot of Live rock.... here's hoping to an awesome reef build in the near future!

Congrats!!..Please post up some pics as you build your tank..we love to watch a great tank in progress...
Welcome to the site!

Congrats on getting your 65g!!! looking forward to seeing some pics too.

Thats quite the sand storm you've got going on there. Is it starting to settle out now? Nice pics. thanks for sharing.

Sand is beginning to settle! and now i have added live rock (80 pounds) and i have my power heads turned on seems to be a little murky, but i cleaned out my canister filter and it has already improved in the last few hours i'll upload pics in about 1 or two more days

well all my levels are good in my tank so i went and got some crabs! and 2 snails!

i got 2 emerald crabs, a horshoe crab, 2 pom pom's and a arrow crab i'll get some pics up ASAP!

LiveRock wrote:well all my levels are good in my tank so i went and got some crabs! and 2 snails!

i got 2 emerald crabs, a horshoe crab, 2 pom pom's and a arrow crab i'll get some pics up ASAP!

I hate to put a damper on your enthusiasm but I'm not sure yor cycle is totally completed at this point (< 1 week). At this point you may still be very early into the die off or nitrite stage. Keep a very close eye on ammonia and nitrates for the next 2 - 3 weeks. I strongly urge you to hold back on further additions at this time. Not trying to preach, only attempting to help you avoid potential disappointment and $ loss.

Matt

this tank was up running for 2 weeks btw ive just been slow when doing the first posts about it my ammonia and nitrates and nitrites are at zero. and all the crabs seem to be doing great!

Good to hear! Just thought I should offer the caution based on your post dates.

so far so good what will you use for coraline growth?

I personaly find a kalk drip to be very useful for controling hair algae imo and getting coraline to grow unless you plan on a kalk/ca reactor

well my coraline algae is growing alot on its own in my tank actually


oh and i added my crabs like i wanted to. and they are doing great, there really active all my levels are at 0 (ammonia nitrate nitrate) and PH is 8.3 and salinity at 1.0245. im not sure which one of thoes makes you think the tank is not done its cycle but everything is doing awesome

That's all I use to use was regular water changes for coraline worked fine it's all you need unless you want a bit more but not necessary can be a eye sore any way's lol

Glad to hear that all is going well. I assume that the DT is nice and clear now and all the sand has settled.
I've never added anything for coraline growth in my system either. I get tons of coraline growing all by itself. like you say Phytolife, Looks great on the rocks but I could do without it on my acrylic overflow. the glass is easy to clean but the acrylic is a PITA. After a year I gave up trying to get it off the overflow and only deal with the glass.

as long as you don't plan a large lps/sps population you should get by without it

Wow its looking very nice..
You sure got some luck in that tank.. From start of my cycle to end was about 6 weeks...and many others on this forum had cycle period of 4-5 weeks..Did you a deli shrimp or anything to you tank to get your cycle going?
I am very interested in this...Sorry for all the questions *giggles*
What was your highest amonia reading during cycle time?

my highest ammonia reading was about 1.5 i think the biggest reason for my success was simply using very very very good liverock. the place i bought it from kept it in very low light at 76 F, tonnes of water movement and a constant protein skimmer on it for 1 month b4 even selling it to me. that plus the H2Ocean seemed to be very good in not adding anything bad to the tank at least. also i ran this tank with 2500GPH of water movement plus a canister filter and a protein skimmer that is sized for 125 gallon tank or tank plus sump =ing 125 gallons. ive now since added some more crabs (hermits) an urchin and im going to be putting in some cheaper fish (not expensive ones just because i dont wanna have a 100$ fish die on me for any reason) in it on saturday


P.S. I bought some Darwin Clowns! just a pair of them, there sitting at the shop for 4 weeks until im sure they will survive in my tank and not die off in the store. plus it gives me some time to have a good idea of what all i can add to my tank. these guys are 2" long too. sorry i havnt added any picks my camera was borrowed and not yet returned

Shannon *Admin* wrote:Wow its looking very nice..
You sure got some luck in that tank.. From start of my cycle to end was about 6 weeks...and many others on this forum had cycle period of 4-5 weeks..Did you a deli shrimp or anything to you tank to get your cycle going?
I am very interested in this...Sorry for all the questions *giggles*
What was your highest amonia reading during cycle time?

I can understand what Liverock is saying about his cycle. When I got into this hobby I experienced a similar scenario when I set up my 120g reef. I had done all the research I could for months and had an experienced reefer for guidance along with an arm full of test kits. Being a newbie I tested the water everyday single day looking for anything weird and as well as the ammonia spike from die-off. It never happened, the readings then are the same as they have been for 2.5 years. My ammonia readings were undetectable for the whole 5 weeks I waited.
I never really could figure out when the cycle started or finished so I waited 5 weeks before adding any livestock to try and be safe.

LiveRock wrote:
P.S. I bought some Darwin Clowns! just a pair of them, there sitting at the shop for 4 weeks until im sure they will survive in my tank and not die off in the store. plus it gives me some time to have a good idea of what all i can add to my tank. these guys are 2" long too. sorry i havn't added any picks my camera was borrowed and not yet returned

Looking forward to seeing a pic of your Darwins swimming around in your DT once you get them and you get you're camera back.

so i was glad to add also a small hammer coral and a very large tongue coral today they were quite cheap for me so lets wait and see how well they do. as im told the tongue is unkillable lol seems to like all areas of flow and light its got alot of both so we should be ok. still my camera is MIA, picks up on monday or tuesday of all the fish /crabs/corals

now i always test my water to ensure proper levels. but before i added ANY corals i went to a water testing place. they have told me my water is at 1.026 not 1.024 D: just swapped out some water and is doing better. other than that all levels are very good

Why did you go to a water testing place? Didn't you trust your test kits or refractometer?

temp,salinity,nitrate,phosphate IMO are the best to test when first starting never tested for anything else even when testing for phosphate and nitrate at first it didn't help much for me I still lost a lot of thing's

IMO calcium hydroxide ( kalkwasser) seems to of helped me keep my phosphate in check along with a 8.3 to 8.4 pH it seems IMO that calcium hydroxide has helped precipitate phosphate

nice selection of rock's