Dustin

Sounds good, Thanks!

There are two guys living in the apartment while I'm away and theres an old windows 95 laptop across from it with a webcam so in case of emergency, the roommates can message me. They've also been taught the basics for how to shut the system down if theres a problem. Now I just need to set up some kind of monitoring system for the 29 gallon because that one is a little more out of sight and out of mind. And I'm thinking a 50% water change for the 75 when I come back and then measuring to see where it's at. Too much? too little? And Sorry, its not Dustin from Fort Hood. : / I could be a replacement though! lol

Thanks for the fast reply. What should I expect to see as far as levels when I come back?

Hey Guys! First post in a while! I've missed you though. lol I just found out last weekend that I'm going to have to go China for about 2.5 months and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my 75Gal tank (and its fish). I have a cycling 29gal tall at my parents place thats with LR right now, so I'll have a safe place to move the fish to in about a month when its done cycling. ( I can see it now, Cop :"Son, do you know why I pulled you over?" Dustin: "Yeah, live fish in back, must move now, no time." VRRRoom) All silliness aside, I have a dilemma. When I get back, I want to go back to using my 75 Gallon. But I know that the people onsite will not be able to care for the tank as throughly as I would like while I'm gone. Plus most of the equipment will be moved to the 29 gal. Should I drain the tank of water before I go, and then have to spend 2 months recycling it when I come back home, or should I leave the water in, keep it circulating. There will not be fish in the tank, though I could leave a few cleaners to keep the algae down (snails and crabs). Circulation Equipment that will remain once this tank is broken down. 1 Magnum 350 canister 1 Powerhead (600gph) Also, RO/DI water from a home water filtration system (5 stage) should do the same thing as the aquarium specific RO/DI systems right? Dustin

Thanks!!! And with the K4s, the only thing that I'm worried about is that its going to be too much power and it will damage the live stock. right now I have it set up so it blows across the dead spot in the front of my tank. But where should I set it up, and how can I tell if it is damaging/stressing out the fish?

Also, I'm adding a Hydor Korella 4 1200 GPH Powerhead tomorrow and maybe a HK3 later this week

Just to start this off, Zarathustra, Your response a few days ago about the mantis shrimp and your pathological aversion; It made my morning commute. I laughed out loud on the train, and the lady next to me gave me a really dirty look, so I tried to explain the situation. But it was definitely a waste of breath. Down to Business The substrate already is Calcium based. Its Carib Sea Seaflor special grade reef sand (araganite) The only lava rock that is present is a small structure (in the picture on the right hand side next to the Tiger paw.) less than 2 lbs in weight. I did 3 water tests, 2 in home, and one at the lfs, all of which came back negative for heavy metals. But if you say it is a problem, I will pull it out today. The main reason I keep it is for some reason, whenever any of the fish are acclimating, or scared, they go there first and stay there for the first day or so and then spread out into the tank; so I figured it was the structure itself. (and the cave structure in it) I pulled out most of the damsels and replaced them (1 for 1) with B/G Chromis and then added 3 lbs of live rock and 2 Juvenile Banggai Cardnalfish (Im pretty sure we grabbed a mate pair, we scoped out a pair at the store and they have been inseparable since they went into the tank 24hrs+ ago.) They're on a diet of mysis shrimp and flakes, and seem to be adapting well. We have one damsel in qt, he was nipping a bit. We changed the environment and we figured we'd wait about 2 days to allow the fish to establish themselves, to see if they will get along, and if not, they'll be going somewhere else. There's another damsel in there. Shes a little territorial of her rock, but she doesn't nip and everybody leaves everybody alone. Water levels seem positive so far. I'm going to try to test the levels every other day to watch progress. I'm going to try and add another 5lbs of live rock when the tank stabilizes. (Tank Currently)

Not having the calcium benefit is a bummer, but I have 80lbs of Aragonite substrate, so i think that should cover the difference lol. I'm guessing that you had a bad experience with Mantis shrimp Zarathustra? If its cured for a month, should I still be scanning and probing deeper holes in the LR for Mantis Shrimp, or will they most likely be present already?

The lava rock has been present in this tank for about 2 months now. (And in freshwater for the 5 years, as previously mentioned) I'm going to perform a water test and see what comes up as far as heavy metals and copper, though I haven't seen any contamination so far. If I don't see anything, is it safe to leave it in? cause the fish seem to love it, its one of their favorite pieces and where they congregate for a good portion of the day. Also, assuming the water tests come back clear for Ammonia/nitrates/nitrites I'm making the next step this weekend. Because the tank is already cycled and fish all ready added, I'm not going to dump a whole lot of live rock at once. I'm looking at the addition of between 5-10 lbs of cycled Bali, a hand full of cleaner shrimp.

Its already been used for 5 years in a freshwater tank, then sterilized before its addition to the tank. That should have been enough time for the contamenents to leach out right? And I'm not going to use the limestone, I went ahead and purchases pukani ecorox instead.

Thanks! I'm going to talk to a buddy and see if I can track down a 20gal, that way it will fit in my current enclosure.

The tank is already almost finished with its cycle. I have damsels in there who have been in there for about 5 weeks now & I used a bio additive called bacter vital. I'm going to do a water sample Tuesday before I add the last dose of bacter vital and see where the tank is at. And as far as adding the live rock before the fish, I'm only going to be adding 5lb at a time. I'm trying to seed the rest of the dry rock and I don't want to send the system into shock and kill off the live rock. As far as bulding the sump goes, understand that sumps can be expensive. I have a 10gal and a 29gal glass tank at my parents house. Could I use that instead of purchasing a new sump? and why do the octopus skimmers have to be sump mounted? Whats the appeal to the sump over the HOT models. (As I said earlier, I have a HOT Pryzm delux rated to 90gal, but I understand thats not going to be enough for a 75 gal tank) And I can still run hoses over the back instead of drilling holes in the glass right?

Thanks guys! I'm glad that you like the rock wall! I'm using .5 per gallon for right now beacause the pukani is very porous. It will be a little more once the live rock is in. I'm going to seed it with Bali rock from my LFS. I haven't gone with any more yet because I want have a larger protein skimmer. I'm going to get a larger one closer to Christmas, especially if I get the saddle puffer. Any advice on the rock wall? good powerful Protien skimmer?

Hey Everybody! Just finally got all of the dry rock in and the tank is finally clearing! dustinmusial.info/fishvid.html to see the before and after. BRS was great, ordered the pukani, which was so pretty and remarkably porus. On top of it, I got the cheapest shipping available and the order was on my porch is less than two days! Thanks for the suggestions everybody. Leave feed back and tell me what you think!

Nevermind shopping around. Read some reviews about the Pukani from BRS, + the price. I know what I'm getting haha. Any body have experience with Pukani?

I've since navigated away from the Limestone idea. And thanks for the feed back on BRS I just checked the website and it looks pretty cool! I'm going to check out one store that's about 20 miles from me. And if that doesn't work out, I'm going to check BRS during my trip. I'll post pictures when I have the tank all finished! Thank You again everybody!

Thanks Muddybluewaters I actually might head up their way to visit a friend in a few days. Maybe I could stop by and get out of paying shipping haha! That's part of it. Traditionally I find that there's a lot less wasted time with people who think they know what they're talking about and obnoxious levels of posts. Plus with a smaller forum, you can meet more people and establish a lasting contact past just one odd post from time to time; people you can trust. I dunno. Its a combination of more personal and more accurate. Plus this forum came highly recommended from some guys I know farther up north.

I'd love to Zarathustra2, but unfortunitly I'm in Chicago, so its not as quick of a trip haha. I'm using this forum because I hear that its very good from a few guys up here and there isnt anything else available. : ( Either way all of this Leeching stuff has me a little spooked so I'm going to pick up some dead rock from Old Town Aquarium; Its a place up here near my house. Very pricey, but very high quality and very knowledgeable. When choosing live rock, is it important to match the live rock with the fish ie Volitan Lionfish with fiji(pacific) live rock. As for the canister filters, It came with the magnum and a fluval 404 but I haven't been able to repair the fluval. I'm only running carbon in the canisters though (except during tank cleaning, when I run the microbe) what would be a better option for filtration? I was planning on adding fish in about two weeks. If I start augmenting the tank with live rock, could I add small amounts of live rock little by little in correspondence with the fish? So for example 10-15 lb of dead rock and 2-5lb of live rock?

BTW, This is the tank as it is set up right now. Though it is going to undergo some drastic aquascaping changes in the next week.

I'm just not sure that I have the money or time to commit to maintaining a live rock system. I'm new to saltwater fish keeping so please correct me if I'm wrong. But I think I have just enough filtration to maintain it. I have 2 Magnum 350 canister filters (Rated to 100gal) , one with the Pro series 60 dual Bio-wheels. And I have a prizm delux protien skimmer (Rated up to 90 gal). So I think the filtration should be able to handle it. But I'm not sure what more it takes to maintain the live rock tank. In addition, I was looking at a juvinile lionfish, and maybe tangs + triggers and from what I understand triggers will pick at liverock and coral right?

Hey everybody! I'm new to Marine tanks, so I have a silly question pertaining to aquascaping and what rocks can and cannot be used. I live next to a large quarry, so my selection of different natural rocks of all shapes, sizes, thicknesses ect is endless. I'm not planning on going with LR or Coral initially, though I may build up a reef with my next tank. The question I have is whether a thorough soaking (48hrs) scrubbing, bleaching, and de-chorination treatment (let sit for 24hrs) is enough to prepare the rock for the tank? Or does the rock need to be cured? Dustin