Vitaminz

IMO I would mix it, I would also pre-rinse your base sand to minimize the clouding period. If the tank doesn't have water in it already, add all the sand in and mix, then put a bowl in the middle and pour the water into the bowl slowly to make sure the sand isn't being mixed into the water and you have to wait for it to settle. For next time, you could have just bought all base sand, and taken a cup of live sand from an established tank, and it would have seeded your base into live. I have heard of a few people that exchange a cup from established tanks all the time, to get a mixture of the different bacteria's, because each tank is so unique in the biological process. Jeff

piano wire or guitar string works very well to break the seals. Jeff

See here is where I find that spending the money upfront for quality salt, then the less you have to dose the tank. I find with the high end salt, the less I have to add additives to the tank, where as the cheaper the salt, the more I have to add it to supplement. I have since switch to Salinity by AquaVitro, and by far it is my favourite salt, haven't had to add any additives at all, it is all in the mixture, or so they say. But have noticed a big difference in my SPS, even brought one colony back from melting. Jeff

Just as I was starting to turn the tides against my war on the hair algae, this Sunday I will be shutting down this tank......I will be transferring everything over to my new custom 90g tank that has finally finished it's cycle.... So this thread is now going to be closed....sad really, but you get to a point where you can't fit anything else in the tank, then what do you do, upgrade...lol It amazes me after 2 years on the salt side of things, I am still learning new things. Jeff

For sump designs, I would first draw it out, you can you google sketch for this (http://sketchup.google.com/ ). The simple reason for this, is you may miss something in the planning phase and it is a pain to fix a sump once it has water, plumbing and equipment all in it. Are you going to be running a refugium? My suggestion for baffles is to use glass, acrylic might be cheaper, but it also flexes under the water pressure. Every time I have set up a tank, I always used cheap salt and tap water for the start up cycle, then thru the weekly water changes, add in the good salt and RO water. Just my 2 cents worth. Jeff

How do corals complicate things? Sounds like there is a story behind the first time, do you mind me asking what happened?

Hummm... Maybe it is my eyes deceiving me, but I don't see any corals...... For somebody with a heavily planted tank, one would assume you got into salt for the corals, no? Also what lights do you have over that tank?

Speaking about your tank, I haven't seen any new pics of your salt setup....*Taps foot*

Very nice pics, except most of those fish need to be in a species specific tank.. aka predator tank...

Pictures Part II-Fish

Tank Update 7/8/2001 So after being busy with work stuff and a bad break out of hair algae finally able to have time to post some new pics. So what new, got rid of my T5 setup finally, traded for this one....Yes I know it is overkill, but I miss my MH so much, I couldn't say no. Plus this tank is getting replaced with a 90g soon, so this light will work out perfectly for this. Yes this 50g is soon to be history, and moving on up to a 90g....so excited... So without further a due, here are the pics:

You can run your 2 fx5, with just live rubble or live rock in it. Just remove the media baskets. You can keep the filter floss or sponge if you want, but you will have to rinse them out weekly. You can also keep the carbon too. Other than that you will have to drill, or use an overflow. I would recommend going with the overflow into a sump for the simple reason of you can put some of your hardware down there, like skimmer and heaters to free up some real estate. As for the light, unless you are going to be stocking SPS, then the MH lights might be over kill, might be cheaper to go T5's. Plus T5's won't kill your power bill. You also have to consider the flow of your tank as well for the power heads, how much turn over do you need for the corals you want..... Just my 2 cents worth. Jeff

I have moved fish several times with rubber maid totes from Walmart. They also come in handy if you have a sump that blows a seal...lol Jeff

Welcome to the site buddy! Check out Canreef for more indepth conversations about the salt side! Jeff

If it makes you feel better, I have my tank in my office....Came in one morning and my tank was half empty and the floor was soaked and leaked into the bottom office. Apparently the skimmer went nuts and the collection cup over flowed all night. Lucky only had to replace the ceiling tiles, as they soaked up most of the water... Jeff

Wow, that is a whole lot of awesomness!!!!!!! :drool:

That is awesome!!! good find....so jealous! Jeff

Very nice, do you mind if I ask you who made it and how much you paid? Jeff

I love my little guy, never stops eating. I will come in after the weekend and there will be pucker marks all over the front of the glass. lol Jeff

Tank Turn over should be based on what you are going to stock the tank with. SPS like higher flow rate than Softies. Also would depend on your bio load for fish. Right now in my 50G tank, my turn over is 40X with the power heads. I used 3/4" pipe in mine. I have my build thread on here. There is alot of information over at Canreef. And welcome to the SALT side! lol Jeff

That is some wicked aqua scapping! An amazing job!

Thanks! It has been a long project, but so worth it! Just can't seem to keep people out of my office, especially when it comes to feeding time for the eel...lol

Tank Update 1/21/2011 So it has been a while.... Change out my light to a TEK T5HO light, thanks to saltynutz, Thanks buddy! Also ordered a Dual BRS GFO and Carbon Reactor from Bulk Reef Supplies, so excited for that to come in. And got the biggest score thanks for my good Friend Denny, got lots of frags from him and 2 new fish. One is a Snowflake Eel and a File fish. So was doing maintance on my tank tonight, so had to shut down the sump pump, no problem right??? I turn back on the whole system, and my 90 degree elbow on my emergency overflow cracked....So caught it in time before to much water spilled out. So replaced the fitting and we are off to the races again.... So now on with the pictures:

It is almost as painful as watching a tank go thru a new cycle....lol

Tank Update 1/11/2010 Ok, got really busy with the holidays and work, first time I had a chance to update. Picked up about 35lb of live rock, and a bucket of live sand from a 2 year old tank. I thought, what a great way to seed a new tank eh??? Yeah think again, either the live sand or the live rock was infested with bristle worm....I mean infested...I probably took out atleast 1000 of those little buggers... And I wondered why I got an amonia spike.... So waited about a week, to make sure I siffted thru the sand to find a majority of them, and left a few so the arrow crab could have a snack. So now back on track after that little delay, I ended up redoing my sump, took out all the live sand and one of the chambers and put in live rubble in the one chamber with some chato on top. So then waited a week more, and threw in a couple of damsels along with some green star polyps and they survived the weekend. Waited about 2 more weeks, just to make sure, then started transfering all my other rock, corals and livestock from my other 25g. Here are a few pics from last night: