# My First Saltwater tank.



## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

So about a month and a half ago now I finally began setting up a Saltwater tank after thinking about is and looking into it for years. So I purchased a 46 Gallon Acrylic bowfront and went from there...

Here is a picture of the first part of the setup;










Basically in the photo I was doing location stuff more than anything to sort out the plumbing later... which is here;










And after having my leak testing and allowing water some time to age I added 51 LBS of live rock and 40 lbs of live sand;










Right now as the tank sits it has cycled and the cleanup crew has been added including;
-35 blue legged hermits
-10 Scarlet Hermits
-15 Astral Snails
-15 Cerith Snails
-Banded Shrimp
-Sand Shifting Goby

Gonna let them help out my brown algae problem a bit before i add any other fish or start any reefs!


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

That's a big cleanup crew for that size tank. One thing to be aware of is that hermit crabs will often kill & eat snails to use their shells as new homes.

Tank looks good btw.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Yah i heard that was approximately what i was sappose to have just a little bit more than was recommended by J&L. But to hopefully help with it I put about 15 empty and larger shells into it on the sandbed. It doesnt look overly pretty but im hoping it keeps my snails alive and not attacked.

By biggest problem now is trying to decide what corals to add and in what order and the same with fish. Corals are pretty expensive so I dont want to add them to early and risk loosing them so i was thinking about leaving my tank as is for 2 weeks with just the cleanup crew. But again not sure if that is the best route to take or not. Seems like the more reading I do the more people i read the exact opposite of what the last book said lol


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## MEDHBSI (Sep 4, 2011)

get yourself some coral frags from the saltwater keepers on the site and test your waters to see if they grow  you should be able to find some small frags for 5 dollars


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## spit.fire (Jan 3, 2011)

IMO jl is way out of wack on their cleanup crew suggestions but hey, never hurts to over clean right? 

I personally dislike hermits in my tanks as they tend to be good at knocking over frags


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Yah I will have to start searching the forums for people selling frags then and give that a test first


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

Hey congrats on your new salty! I started sw last year with the exact same tank n bought another 120gal a month later! Lol 
Your setup looks great! However from my short xp of sw, i agree that your cleanup crew is a way overkill. I have about 50% of what u have in my 120. Most of the snails have disappeared for some reason... 

Let me know if you ever come to Poco, i have some cheap frags for u to test out your water. We can even do a frag-hermit trade if u want. Have fun!


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Here is the 1 year update on the tank. I havn't had much extra cash to add Corals to the tank and along the way had various issues that I had to work out with the tank. Everything appears to be finally running in order and all the fish and corals in the tank have been doing extremely well for the last few months.

List of problems I had along the way was pretty big... they included;
-http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/marine-chat-10/having-problems-fish-dieing-32730/ - Thank god this was fixed and all is now well...
- A massive vermitid snails outbreak which was so bad I actually took all the live rocks out to tweezer them away (they have now been under control for a few months although a few are now coming back)
- upgraded the circulation pumps from 2 Hydor 550's to 2 Hydor 1050's which seems to have helped a huge amount
- The only problem that remains now is a recent outbreak of Spionidae Worm's though and they seem to be just taking over my take... apparently they are a healthy thing to have but man there are just a ton of them and im not sure what to do about it.

Sorry for the photo quality my camera is actually pretty decent but my knowledge on how to take proper photos with the camera is clearly not.


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

I like how white your sand is with the amount of sand you got. Nicely done. Any plans to rearrange the rocks ?

@


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

I have re arranged the rocks a few times now. The fish seem to like caves so the last time I re arranged them I used acrylic rods and drilled them into the rocks to make a lot of caves for the little guys. That being said the entire left side of the tank is basically 1 massive rock (probably should not have purchased this rock at all as its likely to big for the tank) 

What are your suggestions for moving the rocks. Im always up for help with how to layout the tank/ suggestions for improvements.


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## dino (Aug 29, 2011)

wow can you say coraline algae good job


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Also forgot to show my biggest upgrade since... The Reefkeeper lite (RKL)


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

I was thinking that since your tank is a bowfront. The center will probably be blown up, the piece of rock you have in the middle kind of throws the depth you have in your tank a little bit off. Maybe move it to the a side a bit so it seems more like a cave? 

Itll seem like youre entering a lagoon. 

I cant even tell that your left side is one big rock haha. It seems ok though.i like the cave on the right side.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

did you mean like this ?


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

And now the LED upgrade which I got from Frank. Frank is an awesome guy to deal with. Great customer service!

Might end up lowering the lights a few more inches but gonna see how this works out as lower doesn't quite cover the entire tank.


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

Amazing. Yes like that. Are those the zetlight pros?

Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk 2


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

They are actually the aQ.PRO 24" fixture that Frank just put on sale yesterday.

More info on them right here; http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/aq-led-90/3-day-special-aq-pro-24-260-each-controller-39802/


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

And this is at full power; (Terrible camera image as I am just terrible at taking photos apparently)


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## dino (Aug 29, 2011)

told ya he would hook ya up looking good


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## AdobeOtoCat (Dec 10, 2011)

Sick lights. Photos aint doing your tank justice. I bet its a sweet set up in person. Keep the updates coming!


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## neoh (Apr 22, 2010)

Looking good.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

AdobeOtoCat said:


> Sick lights. Photos aint doing your tank justice. I bet its a sweet set up in person. Keep the updates coming!


Yah I am terrible at taking photos..... My brother is coming over next weekend I will see if I can get him to take some better ones lol


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

Looks nice man! Now put more corals in there!


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Yah im just about to start stocking with new corals again. Still working on building confidence back from the fish problems I had last year. Wanted to see a long time with healthy no problem tank. Hopeing to find some nicely colored zoa's to add to the tank. Im not at all decided on what other corals I want to add to the tank after I get a nice zoa garden going.

Anyone got suggestions?


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Aquasteve said:


> Anyone got suggestions?


any one of these
https://www.google.ca/search?q=aqua...KKsTEigLD2oGYCA&ved=0CEYQsAQ&biw=1525&bih=712


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

tank looks good man, i have the same aq.pro on my tank and I love it


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Looking good!


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

And of course... Tank was doing incredible and then I change the angle of the powerheads which kicked up a bunch of sand and now bam instant nitrates to 40 ppm from 0... hope it doesn't go higher as I do 20% changes a day til this resolves itself...


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

found a dead large astral snail doing a 20% water change... took it out and did test now results are 80 ppm... how much % can you change at a time safely ? Might have to up this if it keeps rising like this... nerve wrecking...


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Did you drop your power head? thought I suggested pointing up towards surface. =/
Sorry to hear about the nitrate went up. 
50% WC daily in the next 2 to 3 days would work. You will have to let the bacteria colonies rebuild during this time, it is most likely your power head bring up the waste that trap under the rocks and also broke the existing bacteria colonies
You can also try this with your WC, I heard it add beneficial bacteria with your WC.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Yah powerheads were deflecting off the rocks and caused the sand in the center area to blow up. I think now that I found the dead astral snail that that was my biggest cause for nitrate spike though... did a big water change today. will do another tomorrow morning, and then another tomorrow night. hopefully hit 60% in a 36 hour period. 

I think taking the snail out will now lower faster. (I hope)


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Have you tried that seachem stability ? Has it worked well ?


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

I got it when I had that crash that I told you about, I really not sure if it actually works, but I kind of tried everything when my nitrate went thru the roof cuz the fuge sand issue. Ever since then I just add some during my water change, I guess it is just a better conditioner overall. I did do some research however, some people said it working really nice.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Ok I might give that a try. hopeing to see the nitrate tests start to get lower but it seems almost like the more water I change the higher it goes... And the water going in is zero nitrate so im not sure why this is happening.


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

Your high nitrate could be caused by some dead snails or hermits since you have such a big cleanup crew. These guys are only good when they are alive. Most of the snails in my reef has disappeared after several months...


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Agree, your initiatial spike might cause some death of snails and that could be the reason it keep climbing


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

In a new tank, there isn't much for the hermit/snail to "clean" or eat. They could starve to death n the stroner n bigger ones would kill off the others in order to survive. I never go by the 1 snail & 1 hermit per gal rule.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Yah when I did my first water change yesterday I found a dead astral snail in the tank. The tank is a year old now so I thought any that were gonna die would have already ? But I guess some just keep dieing throughout ?


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Huge nitrate spike should mainly due to stir of substrate . How is ammonia reading?


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

I've used stability with every single tank i've ever set up. I don't think I've ever done a proper cycle in any tank. I totally swear by that stability stuff. Never used it because of a nitrate spike though, don't know if it can help with that or if it's more of a preventative measure.


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Another upgrade.... upgraded to the Vertex IN80 skimmer. just breaking it in now and hoping that it works properly in 11" constant high water in my sump. Recommends 6-8" for optimum but here is to hopeing the extra 3" wont matter


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## dino (Aug 29, 2011)

prob wont matter but it does use more power and harder on the pump


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Tanks looking good! how are you liking salt over fresh? out of curiosity do you find it much more work or expensive to maintain (chemicals/slat mix ect)


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

When water level is higher than max for the skimmer would also mean harder to control the skimate, it might a lot more watery as you could have trouble to stop water flow into the collection cuP.
One way of dealing with it is to use egg crate to creat a stand under the skimmer. Not only it move to the right height. It also make ur skImmer quieter


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

hmm I might try to go find some egg crate then see how that works.


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

first year of salt is harder then freach then it gets easyer its easyer to do a maintenance free tank witrh salt


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

scott tang said:


> first year of salt is harder then freach then it gets easyer its easyer to do a maintenance free tank witrh salt


I don't think I am the right person to compare freshwater vs saltwater as most people know I have worst luck with freshwater.
but I think for salt water, if you can keep a rather large main tank with a well established sump with fuge. Then you really don't need to worry about anything else as it pretty much self sustained.
I had a 75g display tank with DSB and lots LR. my fuge was 50g with full of macro algae and 3 mangrove pods. I was only running with 2 HOB red sea skimmer (yes I know. I think I had those more for show that actual use)
I didn't do any wc in 8 months, all I did was replace the water that was gone due to heat from MH. until my tank crash due to that exact same reason. Salt water can be easy, but in order to make it "easy" you will need to start with a lot of money even if you can buy them used. 
Unlike freshwater, keeping a nano tank or pico tank could just mean less live stock. For salt water, the smaller your tank is, the harder you can keep it stable.


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

in another year ima do a shroom 1 gal cube lol just to test my self


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

shift said:


> Tanks looking good! how are you liking salt over fresh? out of curiosity do you find it much more work or expensive to maintain (chemicals/slat mix ect)


Its definitely a completely different thing. Saltwater for me has been a ton more work but to be fair I havn't tried any of the insane plant setups like the Osaka forest. General maintenance isn't so bad once you get used to it but it seems like a whole lot more things can go wrong with saltwater. Again though to be fair I have a sump and never had a sump with a freshwater. So I think mostly I not only switched to saltwater at the same time I switched to a much more complicated setup in general.

Overall I liked my freshwater tank a lot but I seem to have invested way, way more money into the saltwater. One thing I definitely learned is certain things are terrible to cheap out on and try to save cash. The biggest being the protein skimmer. And if I were to do it all again I would have got a drilled tank instead of an overflow...

Edit *** Forgot to add the response to the chemicals.

The saltwater changes are pretty straightforward the salt mix if you do enough water changes generally is enough to keep everything up, and there is a water test to determine if low on anything so I have mostly just done that. If test shows low calcium I supplement calcium etc. More time consuming that the freshwater I had, but again I didn't ever try one of those planted freshwaters either.


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Thanks for the explanation. If I ever plunge into salt ill defiantly try to automate it and go big! Ill be keeping an eye on your log! Thanks and keep up the good work


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Doesn't need to be fully automated, but for sure go big


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Automating the waterchange via a drip system would be my main goal. If I do it I want to do a larger tank in wall. (One day). My only real question on that is how would one deal with dechlorinated the water. I would assume a RO unit would do the trick.


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## dino (Aug 29, 2011)

drip system is great for f.w. but automating the salty isnt needed im my opinion. I think it would be hard to keep salinity levels and water changes are easy and less frequent in salt. I think an automated waterchange would be better than drip


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Agree , no automated system can replace water change. Auto top off can replace the water but I had yet to hear there is auto salt mixing device. As it is just way too complicated, even if there is one, the amount of money needed to set that up could really cost y'all ur money


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

If you were up fill a 55g drum it would require a specific amount of salt to reach a certain salinity. If the mix is consisting why coil y you automate it using storage tank


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

Aquasteve said:


> Another upgrade.... upgraded to the Vertex IN80 skimmer. just breaking it in now and hoping that it works properly in 11" constant high water in my sump. Recommends 6-8" for optimum but here is to hopeing the extra 3" wont matter


Boy is this Vertex every working awesome... wish I went directly to the Vertex and skipped the piece of .... coralife 65 skimmer


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Main reason is cause , brand of salt mix, temperature of the water it mixing in, the water flow that helps the mixing can all directly impacting the salinity of the salt water. Which means ur auto mixing system will need some kind of electronic device to measure the salinity of the pre-mix water, and smart enough to add more salt or water to make it reach the correct level. I just can't see the amount of money needed to set up this device can justify the actual usage in home aquarium. I can see it works for place like the Vancouver aquarium where huge water volume would make water change impossible. But for home aquarium even up to 300gallon, water change won't be that bad


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

shift said:


> If you were up fill a 55g drum it would require a specific amount of salt to reach a certain salinity. If the mix is consisting why coil y you automate it using storage tank


This very much depends on your setup. The problem with saltwater tanks until you perfect them (Which I still havnt) small bubble his the air at various parts of your tank and end up causing a layer of saltwater spray on your aquarium supplies which lowers the salt level in your tank. Conversely only the freshwater evaporates causing the salt level in the tank to raise over time. I have found that sometimes I alter the amount of salt that goes into the mix pending my current salt reading in the water.


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Aquasteve said:


> Boy is this Vertex every working awesome... wish I went directly to the Vertex and skipped the piece of .... coralife 65 skimmer


Lol coralife does make a lot of over priced pos. I still remember the PC light they sold for reef keeping. That can barely keep soft corals. How much u paid for the in80 and is it quiet?


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

And on a side note, taking out the say 20% in the water change and replacing it with the fresh mixed water stops up your nutrient levels like I use Instant Ocean (probably the most popular salt mix) and every time I do a water change I replenish all my major, minor, and trace elements just by mixing and adding new water which is a ton cheaper than not doing new salt mix just in the cost of tank supplements alone


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

aQ.LED said:


> Lol coralife does make a lot of over priced pos. I still remember the PC light they sold for reef keeping. That can barely keep soft corals. How much u paid for the in80 and is it quiet?


it is a lot quieter than the Coralife but it hasn't completely broken in yet. I made a acrylic bracket to raise it the 3" I needed to and now it is quieter than it was. But I will wait another 24 hours for it to be fully broken in before I judge it. Unfortunately I had a T pipe at the end of my overflow which made my overflow quieter into the tank. In order to fix this new skimmer in I had to cut that T off.... So now my overflow is louder as well. Trying to determine a solution for that now...


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

Aquasteve said:


> And on a side note, taking out the say 20% in the water change and replacing it with the fresh mixed water stops up your nutrient levels like I use Instant Ocean (probably the most popular salt mix) and every time I do a water change I replenish all my major, minor, and trace elements just by mixing and adding new water which is a ton cheaper than not doing new salt mix just in the cost of tank supplements alone


I use to use miracle mud in my sump. That is the main reason I didn't need to change water for 8 month as it does add trace element back to the tank except calcium where I had ca reactor


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

fairy wrasse jumped outta my tank last night  guess I might have to put something to cover the top two holes...


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

After a Nitrate spike that I commented about earlier the nitrate spiked at 180 ppm.... (probably higher actually but that was the maximum my test kits go to) After many many water changes, upgrading the protein skimmer, lighting, sump cleaning, full equipment cleaning etc. The test kit came back today at 10 ppm Nitrate. 

Very happy that I avoided a tank crash. All I ended up loosing through this process was a torch coral and my Fairy Wrasse jumped outta the tank (may or may not have been related to the high nitrate but very unlikely it was)

Tank is now almost perfect conditions (be nice to get the nitrate from 10 ppm to zero but I suspect that will take a while) very happy to have came through this without a crash.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

10 ppm Nitrates is very acceptable unless you're doing a full-blown SPS ultra low nutrient system. I doubt any of my tanks are ever below 10 ppm except when I first set them up.:bigsmile:

180+ ppm, now that's another story. Glad you got that under control. I just did a 50g water change on my main tank (165g with 90g wide sump) and a 25g wc on my 60g cube & a 25g wc on my RSM 34g puffer tank.

Anthony


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## Aquasteve (Jun 17, 2012)

I cant wait till I work up the nerve / cashflow to upgrade tanks... Next is a big goal but the one we want is an 8 foot long 240 gallon. It wont happen for a long time because I learned via this tank that saving a few dollars on the front end with cheaper equipment does not pay off and costs more in the long run...


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Rule of thumb is that for certain things like lights & skimmers, buy the best you can afford and that will be appropriate for what you plan to keep. Inadequate lights will mean the corals suffer from lack of light or overheating or you pay more for frequent bulb changes. Cheap skimmer means poorer water quality. An 8' tank will be very expensive cause lots of 6' tanks & used systems are available at huge discounts, but very rarely are any 8' tanks or systems.


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