Wade Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 My questions have to do with what are apparently some basic things I should have known, but unfortunately my LFS does a very poor job of educating the folks they sell stuff to. First, I'd always thought that once I had an RODI unit that I would not have to worry about phosphates. However, I've seen that many use GFO and that it should be replaced every month. How do you introduce the GFO to your tank? I'm guessing I can buy what I need from BRS. I've also read that I should replace the carbon every two weeks. What carbon? The only carbon I can think of is the carbon filter in my RODI unit. Is there an additional carbon filter that I should be using? The rufugium has two skinny foam filters between the sections and a filter sock where I have the skimmer. My tank has been a source of irritation for months, but I've finally taken the time to get it back on track and have automated just about everything I could (bought an Apex Lite a couple of months ago). I've only had rock and fish up to this point, but I'd like to add some soft corals. That will be as far as I go for the next year or so to see how well I do. With the addition of soft corals I see I'll need to start dosing alkalinity. I've read that I can hand dose it or use a dosing pump. Which is more effective? I would guess that using a dosing pump would be more in line with my goal of automating the most I can to maintain a more constant system. I also read that I should dip corals before adding them to the tank. Do I need to dip soft corals as well? What's the best stuff to buy and how do I do it? At this point your saying. "For the love of god! Please stop with the questions!" Just one more question and I'll leave you alone, for today. Feeding my fish: I'm buying my food at my local LFS and it's basically frozen cubes like Marine Cuisine by San Francisco Bay and Formula One by Ocean Nutrition. Now I'm guessing I'm not feeding my fish all that they need. Are these sufficient? I currently have just one clown, one angel, and one blue chromis. Ok, I lied. One more thing I just thought of. Last one I promise. ATO. I'm really nervous about using one. My tank is the centerpiece of my living room Which is all hardwood floors. A water overflow would be catastrophic in so many ways it makes my head hurt to even think of it. My tank is a 72g bow front with an ~ 15 gal refugium. I've marked a line on the front of it about 3 inches above the return pump. When the water gets about an inch above the pump it starts to suck in air and makes a loud irritating noise which is my instant reminder to add water (approximately 1/2 gallon). This is how I've been doing it and I'm ok with it. Never a chance of an overflow. When I go away on vacation I usually add a gallon or so extra so my tank sitter does not have to. My question is this: is letting the overall volume of the tank + refugium fluctuate by .5 - 1.0 gallon going to cause the tank parameters to fluctuate enough to cause problems once I get soft corals? Well that's it! No need for a Sunday paper when your got this tome in front of you! Sorry for all the questions. I'm really trying to get on the right track. Thank you for taking to time to address my questions. -Wade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckyuv Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 your refugium should help with water quality, turn the lights on the refugium so the lighting period is opposite of the display tank and throw a ball of cheato in there. do you have a protein skimmer? many swear by it, i just keep it for security. never tried gfo so i know nothing about it but i do fine without it so i dont see what the big deal is. If you have live rock in your tank, you dont need your foam filters in the sump and they will just cause problems, i would remove them if i were you. carbon can be put in a bag and set in the sump where it gets flow but its only good for about a month or so. with not many corals you shouldnt really worry about alkalinity as long as your doing your water changes. If your not doing water changes, you should, they are the best way to export nutrients and replenish natural levels. ATO is a great investment as salinity is important and it keeps it constant. Hope this helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 Ok. here goes! lol GFO is from BRS or local places have Rowaphos or similar media, there are phosphates in the food that you feed your fish and well and in some algaes, so running a phosphate remover in a reactor or filter bag will help. Carbon is the same that you buy from any pet store for aquariums including online (which you will definitely need for soft corals since they release natural toxins) and also run it in a reactor or filter bag. ALK can be done by hand or by pump. The pump can rid you of the schedule of dosing it yourself, and coupled with the apex can be automated. I use CoralRx as my coral dip, and it doesn't hurt to dip anything, it just kills anything other than the coral itself so that you don't introduce any unwanted pests to your tank. Fish vary by diet needs but as long as you're not feeding them the same thing everyday (as far as frozen) then you should be fine. Make sure to use some Nori or Spirulina Brine shrimp for any Tangs. I use New LIfe Spectrum Thera A+ pellets, which has a full variety of ingredients to suffice most fish. ATO is a neat thing to have and one less thing to have to remember to do, I would buy the Tunze Osmolater which uses a laser eye instead of a float valve/switch. My switch has gotten stuck on me before and filled the tank with RO water that I had in the reservoir. But you would be fine doing it yourself too, with Soft Corals, they won't mind the fluctuation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard L Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 My problem when I was getting started was that there was too much information out there on this hobby - a hundred different ways to do everything from lighting to dosing. Some things you read are complete B.S. while others are simply brilliant but as a novice how can you tell them apart? So my advice would be to find someone in ARC with a tank that you would be happy to have siting in your living room and strive to emulate their methods and equipment. Once you have that mastered you can start tweeking your setup and note the effects - good or bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 What richard really wants you to do is to come over and tell him how pretty his tank is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 I would strongly encourage you to get Voll III of Delbeek and Sprung "Reef Aquarium" series. If you can find the first two volumes I would get them also but the third volume covers the major filtering methodologies in an biased manner and is still available. Like Richard L pointed out every one has thier variation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 17, 2013 Author Share Posted January 17, 2013 Wow. Great replies! This is why I love ARC!! Well, I just ordered some stuff from BRS (I won my Fantasy Football League!!) so I should be on track to making things better. I ordered the 2 part dosing kit with dosing pumps which I can utilize with my Apex. I also ordered 2 single reactors for the carbon and the GFO. I've been noticing that I have to clean my front glass once a week so I better get a handle on that quickly before it gets out of control. I also ordered the 50 mL/min top off doser that I should also be able to use with the Apex. They were out of the Cobalt MJ1200 powerheads for the reactors so I'll have to get those some where else. I think that's a good start for now. I really appreciate the replies. I've never fed my fish pellets, but will definitely look into it. Variety is the key thing from what I'm hearing. Is there anything else you can think of? Oh, to answer ckyuv's question, yes I do have a skimmer. I have an SWC although I forget the size. I have a 72g bow front (there should be some pictures I posted in the reef keeping forum not too long ago) and I remember ordering the skimmer a little over-sized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 17, 2013 Author Share Posted January 17, 2013 Hey Juiceman, what size pellets do you usually get for your average sized fish (~2 inch)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 You don't have to start dosing if you are doing weekly 10% water changes. It doesn't sound like you have any corals yet to really demand the need so I wouldn't focus on this so much. It also doesn't sound like your having big problems currently with phosphate as you are only cleaning your glass once a week and not daily which is a good indication but phosphate can also be caused by fish waste so as you add more livestock it could start creeping up. Looks like you did pick up some things from BRS. There is a groupbuy section and BRS is a sponsor so we always have members looking to purchase items from there and you can get free shipping as well as lots of discounts. Something to keep in mind the next time you need to pick up items. Many of us get started in saltwater (myself included) by the sales person selling you what you need but thats where their advise stops but ARC has lots of experts. First let us know what you want to keep since your at the FOWLR stage right now and we can point you in the right direction. Fish/Coral/Anenomes? If your worried about water hitting your hardwood floors then you really need to get a leak frog or similar item. And last but not least we have a meeting coming up this saturday where you can not only check out a tank and see how it's done but chat with all of us about our trials and tribulations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 Hey Juiceman, what size pellets do you usually get for your average sized fish (~2 inch)? I use 1mm sinking pellets for my regular fish, they have larger ones for bigger fish also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 18, 2013 Author Share Posted January 18, 2013 Thanks man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Is that the only type of food you feed them Juiceman? How many pellets would you put in for three small fish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckyuv Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 i believe a good rule of thumb is to only feed them as much as they can eat in about 3 minutes. over feeding is an easy way to not only hurt water quality but hurt the fish as well.I use new life spectrum pellets and frozen food. try and mix it up and you will kinda figure out about how much they eat every time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 thanks man. I've been using primarily frozen food, but I just ordered some NL Spectrum so it looks like our feeding regimens will be about the same. I also just got an angel fish a couple of months ago. How important is it to feed angel specific food that has sponge in the mix? I suppose I can just change my frozen food to the angel food since it has about the same ingredients as the non-angel specific food with the exception of the sponge. Between that and the pellets I should be ok. Once I add some softies, will I need to feed them as well or do they get enough from the excess floating around to support them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingjames Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 most easy softys get there nutients from the water cloumn, but i tend to spot feed my lps with a turkey baster once a week and its really cool to watch, but i dont spot feed any of my soft coral, and i only feed fish a high grade pellet once a day and i try to make sure each fish gets at least two pellets, which is kinda hard sometimes, but my general rule, and frozen for my coral, The angel sould be fine as long as its eating a varied diet or high grade pellet, NL spectrum is great stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Is there a particular type of frozen you feed the coral or pretty much any of the frozen fish foods will leave enough in the water for the corals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckyuv Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 cyclopeeze is best frozen for corals imo, just depends on what you got tho i guess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 I'm installing my reactors and dosing pumps today. I've got the reactors in and working so no worries there. I've got a silly question about the dosing pumps. Each pump came with two rolls of tubing, one clear and one white. Does it matter which one you use on the inlet/outlet? They're both the same diameter so I'm guessing not. It's just curious that they're different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 Typically the milky tube is silicone and will last longer and work better on the rollers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 27, 2013 Author Share Posted January 27, 2013 I'm not sure I understand. The dosing pump (BRS 1.1ml) already has the soft tube inside. The two rolls of tubing are for running from the reservoir of solution to the pump and then from the pump to the sump or in my case the refugium. The milky tubing is a harder plastic tubing and the clear is a softer more flexible tubing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted January 27, 2013 Author Share Posted January 27, 2013 I also ordered some fuji dry live rock. If I'm adding the rock to an already established tank, do I still have to run it through a 4-week cure cycle or is it that I would especially want to run it through the 4-week cycle to make sure it doesn't disrupt the tank parameters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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