Jamie's Marine Tank - 94L Interpet River Reef

[Jamie]

So, I have done it, I have taken the plunge, for anyone that isn't up to speed I have just bought this established 94l Marine tank from RainbowDee's daughter, this is now my 3rd tank from Dee's house Hahaa, she can't keep me away.

The tank is mature and established, has been a little while since it was maintained fully but there is only a lone Hermit Crab in it presently (think its a Hermit). Plenty of live rock and sand in it too.

I picked the tank up today with the help from my dad and sister, literally we have just slung it back together quickly at my house to keep everything wet and running, I'm only just out of surgery this week so have been unable to do anything remotely physical so bending over into the tank wouldn't be the best for me right now.

I am in no rush with this tank what so ever, I can carry on researching over the next few weeks while I am off work, in that time I can test tank stats and make sure everything is ok and running right.

The plan is in a months time I should hopefully be in a knowledgable and comfortable position to introduce the first tank mates which I plan to be a pair of the iconic Clownfish, stunning fish. Then just take it as it comes, possibly add some Corals and a few more fish once I have decided on a suitable stock

Big thanks to Dee and her family for helping me out with collecting this today, always a pleasure to see Dee and family and pop over

Stay tuned for updates, if anyone has seen my 240l log you know I will update this as much as practicably possible,  I will still be running the 240l tropical so that isn't going anywhere don't worry

[TropicalFishForums]

[lurch1000]

Looking forward to this Jamie! I know Clowns were popularised by Nemo, but they are the most amazing fish.

[Jamie]

Honestly, I didn't watch Finding Nemo with my 30 year old sister and being 25 myself like a couple of 6 years olds this evening haha ok, we did

They are brilliant characters Clownfish, hope I can get some good results and share all my knowledge with everyone as I progress

[lurch1000]

My favourite bit of the film is where Marlon chases the boat and dives underwater to get a gasp of breath

I'd love to have a tank like that with two clowns. Apparently you only need to change a tiny amount of water per week?

[Jamie]

I know, that bit made me chuckle to, goes against all our human senses doesn't it!

I'm told 10% weekly or 20% 2 weekly, so not a great deal.

I will start to put a proposed stock list together soon, but will not be rushing anything.

[treeboa]

depending on if or not the pumps are are standard you may find you need to up rate them, lilyanns got one of these tanks and even though an experienced marine keeper found it very hard to keep on top of and converted it to tropical, main issue being a lack of flow on the left hand side of the tank

your water levels far too low as it should be pulling over that top wier as well, my main advice would be to open up that liverock a lot more so you can get adequate flow around it, best way to do that is to get some acrylic rod, drill the liverock and use the rods to hold the pieces in place,  they do better if theres no media in the back section but liverock rubble or they become nitrate factories which especially if your considering soft corals you dont want

dont know where your getting your water from for topping up and or changing the water  but pre using it going in test for phosphates, ive found a few lfs sell the stuff not only is the salinity incorrect for use but more than once was laden with phosphates and nitrates, dont use tapwater to make your water changes up or you will no ifs or buts be plagued with cyno and other algeas

stock list  -- 2 clowns will be it for quite some time and not far off the actual limits fish wise though you can add snails and shrimps, allthough the quoted tank is 94lr tha actual is a lot less with that liverock in it
corals- the standard lights are adequate for some of the soft corals and thats about all, even then they generally need to be higher up on the liverock unless you ditch the hood and add a small halide over the top or a serious high output led unit

ideal water turnover needs to be 8-10 times the total capacity per hour, watch the hermit crab as not all are reef safe and will quite happily decimate any corals or sponges it finds, i used to use a couple med sized hermits to clean of liverock which they did with enthusiasm

if that sand beds at least an inch deep then i would before fish be adding a couple or three sand sifting snails, also worth adding three or four turbo snails

acclimation of inverts on a marine tank is a lot more complex than freshwater ones , you need to know not only the salinity of the water they came from but also the temp, ideally or you have every chance of them dying,  you need to drip aclimatise them, to do this you need a container outside of the tank, then using a piece of airline with a valve in it you literally have your tanks water slowly dripping into the container containing the water the inverts came in, absolute min is approx the same amount of water from your tank as in the container in an hour, ideally more time, even that will only change the salinity to match yours by 50%, absolutely do not use any water that the inverts came with in your tank

corals are best treated to a freshwater dip just pre putting in your tank , to do this you have remineralised r.o water at the same temp, same hardness etc as your main tank just minus any salt, coral in and quick swill before putting in your tank as this will near instantly erradicate any wee parasites like flatworms pre going in your tank, if you dont and they have them they can reach plague proportions rapidly and are very hard to deal with once in the main tank

your primary needs are a marine test kit including phosphate and a refractometer, dont rely on the very inaccurate swing needle crap that some lfs sell, i have in many many years never found one thats anything better than a guestimate

keep your hands out of the tank and remember than nowt happens in a marine tank fast other than a disaster

[Jamie]

Just had a quick look in compartment 1 & 2

Compartment 1 =    1x Arcadia Classic 50W Heater – think this is possibly underrated?
Compartment 4 =    1x Arcadia Classic 380L/H pump = WORKING
                 1x Interpet 550L/H Pump = BROKEN beyond repair

Possibly may have to up-rate the heater, not sure though? Will need to buy 1 or 2 new pumps to get up to the optimal 10x turnover an hour in the tank.

Will be uprating the flow by having two 1600L/H Hydor Koralia’s on a wave controller in here.

Water level is what it was when collected, managed to bring all water with me, this is just a result of what has evaporated since its last top up I would imagine.

Thanks for the advice with the acrylic rod and live rock, I would like to create an arch construction out of the live rock, so will have to shift some of this out  understand what you mean with the circulation also, just going to be a HUGE dead spot in the middle of all the rock, but had to sling it in there quick as I am not completely mobile at the moment due to my surgery last week.

I will be getting my water from my local Maidenhead Aquatics, will test prior to top up, thanks for advice.

Stock wise, I understand this is a tiny tank for marine, to be honest I would be quite happy with a couple of clowns and a yellow watchman goby and a cleaner shrimp, I have read that the goby’s and shrimp often team up, but I have all the time to take this slow and get it right, so won’t be rushing anything.

Will looking into upgrading the lighting further down the line.

Will be upgrading/adding another pump to get the tank circulation up, not sure what the hermit crab is, will attach a picture below, any ideas?

The sand is about an inch at the back and 1-2cm at the front, I am tempted to remove all sand and rock but keep wet, place some marine safe sheets at the bottom to protect glass and then up the sand volume to about an inch all over, will look into the Clean up Crew for the tank once I am happy with the water condition.

Thanks for taking the time to share all your knowledge with me treeboa, really appreciate it.

Updated list of things

-Buy Refractometer, handheld look through ones, about £30?
-Test tank parameters
-Buy filter cotton = DONE
-Buy 2 new pumps to bring circulation up to 10x tank volume
-Source a weir gate = Justinn is helping me with this
-Buy suitable protein skimmer
-Top up water from LFS
-Lighting mod to add two plugs for day & night
-Fix top left vent, two pieces missing
-Add more sand
-Reduce quantity of live rock a little bit
-Decide on filtering method, current setup is sponges and media
-Add a second Hydor Koralia 1600 with wave controller

Picture of broken vent, don’t want to loose any fish down here so open to ideas of covering it up?

[Jamie]

As I had a spare bit of time, plenty of that over the next few weeks off work I thought I would test the parameters that I could;

Test results 09.04.13 @ 1520

SG    Need to buy Refractometer
NH3    Need saltwater version of test
pH    7.5-8
N02   0
N03   20-30
P04   0.25
KH   Need saltwater test (result from fresh water test 143.2 (8 drops))
Ca   Need to buy Calcium test
Alk   Need to buy Alkalinity test

Obviously the NH3 Ammonia test I need to buy pronto to test this, however are the Calcium and Alkalinity vitally important to test at present? Looks like a few of my stats are a bit higher than we had hoped but this was to be expected and I can only put this down to the tank not having the maintenance kept up and most likely the filters are dirty.

All your comments and advice will be gratefully received, as the salty side of testing is all new to me.

Also, can anyone recommend any other tests I should invest in now that I am on the Marine side?

Many thanks,
Jamie 

[treeboa]

i have a spare d@d refrac here you can have for 15 quid plus postage

dont use any filter media other than bits of live rock, the berlin method only needs liverock and anything else like sponges, bioballs etc etc basically become a nitrate factory

no real need for a skimmer on a nano, water changes will sort it

depending on the room 50 watts will be ok, personally i prefer to over gun and would go 100 watts

pump wise i would use the likes of the jewel powerheads ( 600`s ) and use filter tube to bulk out to fit the outlets in the back, if your not using the back as intended  fl;ow wise you may find it gets anaerobic in there, i saw one were the lower outlet was modded to carry a 1000lph powerhead and a spraybar behind the live rock

[Jamie]

i have a spare d@d refrac here you can have for 15 quid plus postage

dont use any filter media other than bits of live rock, the berlin method only needs liverock and anything else like sponges, bioballs etc etc basically become a nitrate factory

no real need for a skimmer on a nano, water changes will sort it

depending on the room 50 watts will be ok, personally i prefer to over gun and would go 100 watts

pump wise i would use the likes of the jewel powerheads ( 600`s ) and use filter tube to bulk out to fit the outlets in the back, if your not using the back as intended  fl;ow wise you may find it gets anaerobic in there, i saw one were the lower outlet was modded to carry a 1000lph powerhead and a spraybar behind the live rock

Oh cool, I would certainly be interested in the refractometer for £15, does it have any calibration fluid with it?

I am hearing mixed views on filtering the tank, still undecided, have you used the Berlin method with just live rock when you had your RR94 running? Would love to see any pics from when you had it set up. The live rock filtering method does appeal to me mind you, have plenty of it to spare.

Looking to really upgrade the pumps, thinking of going more towards the 2000L/H turnover mark, which would be more than double what is guideline on this, not sure if it may be too much though?

Spray bar behind the live rock is a good idea, I like that

[Jamie]

With the water change I am tempted to take the tank down to about the 50% full mark, then top up from there with RO water from LFS, as this water in the tank would have literally been in there months, what do you think?

Just bought these 10x10cm sheets of this aquarium mesh, the hole widths are 5mm so should be spot on to cable tie to and resolve filter gaps; http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Semi-Rigid...item76c4e77131


New pump choices, I would need two really to achieve the 10 times plus water turnover per hour on the 94litre, tempted to aim for the 1500-2000l/H plus mark.

Super fish Aqua Power 650L/H £13.99
http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/supe...mp-p-3886.html

Hydor Universal Pump 700L/H £31.99
http://www.swelluk.com/aquarium/pump...al-246027.html

Eheim compact 600L/H £20.49
http://www.swelluk.com/aquarium/pump...pumps-290.html

Submersible Water pump 800L/H £11.99
http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aq...rium-pump.html

Submersible Water pump 1000L/H £12.99
http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aq...rium-pump.html

Submersible Water pump 1400L/H 14 £14.99 (may just be to big for compartment 4)
http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aq...rium-pump.html


If I went for 2000+L/H turnover just on the pumps, so the two pumps in compartment 4 coming out of the 2 outlets would this be too much?

I would then have the 2x additional 1600L/H powerheads alternating for extra circulation on wave controller, would all this be too much or ok?

I wouldn't mind replacing the plastic outlets pipes on compartment 4 for the pumps, they seem a bit battered and crimped and are full or coralline so the water flow isn't great.

Open to all your ideas and comments :D

[treeboa]

ah now no mater what you been told refracs you calibrate with r,o water     drop on the plate, hold to light and if not on zero you adjust via a screw on the body

[Jamie]

ah now no mater what you been told refracs you calibrate with r,o water     drop on the plate, hold to light and if not on zero you adjust via a screw on the body

Hahaa, ok

Chuck me a PM and let me know how you want me to send payment for refrac.

Tah

[treeboa]

that hermit, some say reefsafe, some say not, i personally had no issues with 30 of those bubmling around my tank and i had a couple of big ones in 2 inch dia shells, halloweens are ones to watch as i have experienced those feasting on zoa`s till they got heaved in the sump

[Jamie]

Will see how this little guy goes, I have noticed quite a few very tiny snails in there, hoping they aren't pests.....