Lots of questions from a new guy!

[SixlineRyan]

Hey everyone, instead of creating multiple threads for the different topics I figured I'd post one thread with a handful of random questions I'm having some trouble finding an answer for.

I'll be setting up a 40G AIO tank. This will be my first reef tank and my 2nd saltwater, but I haven't kept a tank for a little over a decade. With that being said, here goes...

1.) The primary question I have is in regards to information on the "sump" / rear chamber of the tank. My understanding is that the water will flow into the back of the tank and will pass through whatever filter media has been set up. Then it would pass through the 2nd chamber that could be a protein skimmer or a media reactor then into the 3rd chamber with the pump and back into the tank. Is the choice of filter media up to the reefer? It looks like there should be some sort of sponge, then carbon, then bio balls or such. Is that correct? Is there an optimal setup?

2.) What should I add first a protein skimmer or a media reactor? Or would it be okay to just drop a few bio bricks in those chambers?

3.) It seems a lot of people choose to upgrade their pumps. What is the actual benefit of turning over the water more often? Just passing through the media?

4.) Is it possible to add too much rock? I've got about 40lbs right now from an old tank (and currently being bleached), but when it set it up on a cardboard template I found I could add about 50% or more rock before I think it would look "too full". Would it be okay to add another 20 or more lbs?

5.) I had a water softener installed in my home and a RO filter under the sink was included. It does not however have the deionizer. I'd be topping off and mixing with only RO water. Would this be a major issue? Is the DI just a nice to have?

6.) How long can mixed salt water be stored in a barrel?

7.) Is there a major difference between a 5 gallon change once a week vs 10 gallons every two weeks vs 20 gallons a month. Any particular amount of water and time frame I should shoot for?

8.) Once the tank is cycled is there a preferred order to adding fish, inverts, and coral? I was hoping to add my fish and inverts then start adding coral over time, but wanted to make sure this is okay. I've got two potential stock lists below.:

List A
1 White banded or yellow banded possum wrasse
1 Starry blenny
1 Naked ocellaris clown
1 Blood red fire shrimp

List B
1 Sixline or silver belly wrasse
1 Midas blenny
1 Naked ocellaris clown
1 Debelius reef lobster

How do these lists look? Could I add any other fish or inverts in a 40 gallon?

And if you've made it this far thanks so much for any advice or feedback you may provide!

 

[Big G]

1. The first chamber usually has "filter socks" to catch debris from the DT.
2. I don't skim. I use cheato and sea lettuce
3. Depends on the fish and or coral load in your tank. More fish need more turn over. Some corals need lots, lots of flow.
4. One pound per gallon +/- has been a number many start from.
5. RODI helps prevent a whole bunch of water quality issues that can cause you endless headaches. THIS IS IMPORTANT (sorry about the caps) but the first thing we do in this hobby is manage "water quality" everything else comes second: fish, corals, inverts, etc. RODI gives you a great start. Highly recommend a good unit. You will be using it a lot for water changes, etc. Make it's location easy to get to and use.
6. Kinda depends on the salt mix you are using. Some precipitate more than others.
7. Once a week keeps your water fresh and the chemical levels more consistent. Later, once the tank matures 2-3 years or so, you can play around with going longer between changes.
8. Inverts come last. They need a build up of materials to feed upon. Huge mistake to put them into a new tank, they mostly starve. Corals or fish is up to you. I've done both.
Both lists look like fun. My Starry Blenny is a hoot. He watches me all the time as I walk by the tank. But he darn near killed my Pink Spot Goby in QT. Had to separate them with eggcrate. Now in the big tank they are fine and get along well.

Best advice: Enjoy each step of your build! And re-read #5 above Best of luck.

 

[Marco S]

Ditto what @Big G said!

I will add that BRS did a couple investigations on how saltwater does in storage for different periods of time testing some popular salt brands and here is a link to the videos.

Saltwater storage without heat and continued circulation: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...re-saltwater-after-mixing-brstv-investigates/

Saltwater storage with heat and circulation: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...age-how-long-will-it-last-brstv-investigates/

Also, as long as you have around 1 lb of rock per gallon you are good. Adding more rock is not necessary, but will not hurt anything and is completely up to you. If you think it looks good then add as much as you want. Just make sure to leave enough room for your fish to swim and for you to clean the glass and vacuum your sand bed, (if you choose to have one).

Good luck and welcome to R2R!!!

 

[SixlineRyan]

Thank you both for the info, I greatly appreciate it!

If the filter socks are included in the first chamber should I skip the media basket or would that just move over to the next chamber?

 

[Jon Fishman]

I would start with weekly water changes, but adjust as you go. I find all sorts of “reasons” to do a water change, so I don’t schedule them exactly. I also do about 15-20% at a time minimum and 50% on a “big” change. I will move around rocks and do a big cleaning, then 50%. Otherwise I do my normal 20% or so, and it is usually every 3 weeks. Something starts looking off and depending on what it is, that may be a 10-15% water change just to tidy things up.

So yeah..... but in the beginning you may want to do your water changes when cleaning during the ugly phase, although maybe not cleaning at all during that phase is what many recommend.

For water, I would get a $10 tester from Amazon and if your water coming out is 0 TDS I would just roll with it, otherwise you will want to invest in a dedicated RODI


Welcome back!

 

[SixlineRyan]

Thanks for the tip. I'm still working out the logistics of my stand / performing water changes, and anticipating the frequency definitely helps. I didn't know a TDS meter was a thing. I'll definitely grab one and see where I'm at.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Yeah. I have a cheap RODI and have done quite a lot of water changes since getting it, so I check sometimes.... “control” test with my tap to show 140 TDS or so, then the water I make..... still comes out zero...... 1 or 2 sometimes and I dump the glass and retry and get zero..... maybe it’s my inefficient dish-washer that needs changed next!

 

[Big G]

Thank you both for the info, I greatly appreciate it!

If the filter socks are included in the first chamber should I skip the media basket or would that just move over to the next chamber?

If you have the room in the next chamber, that's where I keep my cheato + sea lettuce, and a mesh bag with ceramic media (BioMax), foam filter pad for HOB, foam filter pad for bubble filter for use in a QT at a moments notice for sick or new fish.

 

[SixlineRyan]

Here is an image of the rear chamber / sump. The tank comes with socks, but I was advised by my LFS to switch those out to media baskets. Then through research I've stumbled across the rest of the options. I don't mind changing things over time, but I would like to start with a solid foundation.

As it stands today I was going to run chambers 2 and 4 empty or dropping in bio bricks, and 1 and 5 would be media baskets.

Chamber 1 - Sock or Media Basket
Chamber 2 - Empty / Skimmer / Media Reactor / Bio Brick / Refugium
Chamber 3 - Pump and Heater
Chamber 4 - Empty / Skimmer / Media Reactor / Bio Brick / Refugium
Chamber 5 - Sock or Media Basket

 

[Marco S]

Here is an image of the rear chamber / sump. The tank comes with socks, but I was advised by my LFS to switch those out to media baskets. Then through research I've stumbled across the rest of the options. I don't mind changing things over time, but I would like to start with a solid foundation.

As it stands today I was going to run chambers 2 and 4 empty or dropping in bio bricks, and 1 and 5 would be media baskets.

Chamber 1 - Sock or Media Basket
Chamber 2 - Empty / Skimmer / Media Reactor / Bio Brick / Refugium
Chamber 3 - Pump and Heater
Chamber 4 - Empty / Skimmer / Media Reactor / Bio Brick / Refugium
Chamber 5 - Sock or Media Basket

I have the same setup with my coral QT. It's an Innovative Marine AIO and I use filter backets with sponge and floss in 1 & 5, Marine Pure Balls in 4 and Carbon in 2, (not all the time though) and my pump and heater in 3. I do not have a fuge or skimmer since it's just coral with no fish and my bio load is pretty low, but eventually I may get a skimmer when I am done with QT.

Edit: I will add that the socks get the water crystal clear, so don't throw them out. Use them when you have guests that you want to impress and then switch them back to the media baskets after they leave.

 

[SixlineRyan]

Interesting, thanks for the tips! Any reason in particular you don't run the carbon all of the time?

 

[Marco S]

Interesting, thanks for the tips! Any reason in particular you don't run the carbon all of the time?

I used to use carbon all the time in my freshwater tanks changing it out every couple months, but I have since learned that carbon really only lasts a week or two and letting it sit for a month or two is not doing anything. At that rate though, it would be pretty expensive to change my carbon on all my tanks every two weeks, (I have five tanks) so I just use it when I need to clear up the water or after any medication. I have not noticed any real difference in not running it all the time so I am sticking with that.

 

[SixlineRyan]

Okay, that's good to know. Carbon seemed like one of the ubiquitous things to run in the back. I'll experiment with it in and out of the tank as I get it up and running.

 

[LuizW13]

Here is an image of the rear chamber / sump. The tank comes with socks, but I was advised by my LFS to switch those out to media baskets. Then through research I've stumbled across the rest of the options. I don't mind changing things over time, but I would like to start with a solid foundation.

As it stands today I was going to run chambers 2 and 4 empty or dropping in bio bricks, and 1 and 5 would be media baskets.

Chamber 1 - Sock or Media Basket
Chamber 2 - Empty / Skimmer / Media Reactor / Bio Brick / Refugium
Chamber 3 - Pump and Heater
Chamber 4 - Empty / Skimmer / Media Reactor / Bio Brick / Refugium
Chamber 5 - Sock or Media Basket

I have an AIO, but the 25g. Because I didn't want too many rocks in the display, i took a few small pieces of rock and glued them together to make two rock towers. I placed them both on the outer sections and they go up maybe a little bit more than half way. On top of the rock tower are filter pads that i buy in bulk on amazon and cut to fit in the outer sections; i replace them weekly. There's no clogging, and if you want to clean the sump area, just pull the rock tower out and put it back in later. This has been working great for me for over a year, and I have been able to keep a decent population of pods.

Recently, I came up with a genius idea ;Playful, in the past i would put a little carbon in a mesh bag and call it a day. But apparently it doesn't seem to work that well because of restricted water flow, so, i'm told. I literally made a carbon sandwich with filter pads- Filterpad+ sprinkle of carbon + filterpad (on both outer sections) secured via a couple of rubberbands and that is my first line of defense for filtration.

I have upgraded the factory pump with a SICCE 1.0 (i think) pump about a year after setting up the tank. After it was running for that long, it started to get noisy. The SICCE pump really is silent, pretty incredible actually.

On section 4, I have a Cobalt Neotherm heater.

On section 2, I recently added the IceCap K1 Nano Protein Skimmer

 

[SixlineRyan]

Thanks for the feedback. Really helps me get a plan together. Extra rock is a novel idea, and makes perfect sense.

 

[Marco S]

The Marine Pure bricks and balls have more surface area for bacteria than any rock out there and especially the fake rock. I can't seem to find the video, but BRS did a video on the actual surface area and the Marine Pure material had the most, (by far). I am just bringing this up because it would be much easier to just throw some Marine Pure Balls in 1 of your available sections than try and do anything fancy with regular rock.

 

[ReeferReefer]

I much prefer media baskets to filter socks. Just put some filter floss on top, carbon below and then pick gfo/purigen, Seachem Matrix.

I change my filter floss twice a week.

 

[SixlineRyan]

Is the filter floss essentially performing the same function as the sock at that point then? Just a less permanent version?

Also, I stumbled across your build thread yesterday, and you've got lots of good info there. I'll be following along!

 

[LuizW13]

The Marine Pure bricks and balls have more surface area for bacteria than any rock out there and especially the fake rock. I can't seem to find the video, but BRS did a video on the actual surface area and the Marine Pure material had the most, (by far). I am just bringing this up because it would be much easier to just throw some Marine Pure Balls in 1 of your available sections than try and do anything fancy with regular rock.

Yup, that's true.

The reason I used rock is because I bought more than I needed, so, I figured i'd use the leftover pukani instead of buying more things.

I'd say, if you're going with the minimal rock look, buy less than what you need, and if you need more to complete the look you're going for, buy live rock from the LFS.

 

[LuizW13]

Is the filter floss essentially performing the same function as the sock at that point then? Just a less permanent version?

Also, I stumbled across your build thread yesterday, and you've got lots of good info there. I'll be following along!

I tried filter socks and did not like them.

Filter pads in my opinion are way better. They're cheap enough that I just toss them after they're done. I don't have to go through the hassle of washing them and having my skimmer go crazy (i hear that can happen).