begginer & planning to get my own live rock and sand

[jupiter jones]

I am about to set up a salt water tank. My aquarium
is 48 X 19 X 22 inches (about 86 gallons more or less).
I have a 3 in 1 submersible filter (label says power centrifugal pump) which you hang overhead the aquarium with two pumps to be submerged.
The dealer gave me cotton like fibers and some rocks which she said I would put in the overhead part. (i can only afford this type of filter, Is this a power filter?). I also have a turbo protein skimmer with powerhead. 1 blue and 1 daylight flourescent tubes. My plan is to get my own live sand and rock (I plan to get them from waist deep water) from a beach (not poluted, in the Philippines) not too far away from our place and set up a deep sand bed (4 or 5 inches). The sand looks like a powdered dead coral(white, not too fine, not too big, hope its aragonite)I plan a fishless cycle and if things turn out right, put a few fish at a time and ultimately live corals.
Will my plan work?
What are your suggestions?
Is my equipment ok for corals?
Help!

 

[wayne]

That looks pretty reasonable, though you don't have enough light for most corals - any chancce of using natural light? I would address this to the people at www.wetwebmedia.com. I would also assume you might be throwing out the filtermedia as well and just using it for waer flow.
Sounds a great plan though!

 

[colesea]

If you're doing a local water tank, why bother with powerheads and fancy stuff, just get yourself a UGF, use a gravel substrate with minimal sand overlay, some airpumps, and you'll be all set. I used to do the same thing when I lived in the Florida Keys. The tank was in the sun porch, so it got plenty of strong, natrual light as well, but I didn't collect corals, just Calurpa sp. of algae.

The advantage of local water tanks is that the more you use from the environment, the less you need to cycle a tank. All your beneficial organism are already in the sand and rocks you collect, so a cycle is really unnecessary. Also, the fish you collect are already adapted to those water conditions, so you just plop them right in. When you get bored of the current fish, or if it looks like some of the live rock has been grazed, you return them back to the wild and collect others. Water changes are really easy as well when you can go to the backyard, scoop out a five gallon bucket of already prepared water, and plop it into the tank.

I miss that tank *sniffle*.

Good luck.

~~Colesea

 

[jupiter jones]

To Wayne:
The tank will be placed in the porch. At some parts of the day, the tank will be exposed to sunlight but only from one side.
The guy from the petshop said i need a chiller for the corals
to survive. Is it really necessary?

To Colesea:
I already bought the filter and protein skimmer so I will be
using them but I guess I will be using it as water flow only as
suggested by wayne. Do you mean I can get water, fish, live sand
and rock from the beach and just put them in the tank and not cycle anymore? Is it okay to use water from the beach? I was
thinking of using RO water and salt mix but if using water from the
beach would work then everthing would be easier.

 

[colesea]

Water from the beach should be fine =provided= you are using fish from the same location. If you are in the Philippines, you want to use Pacific fish from around your area. Fish imported from the Carribean or Indian Oceans will not do well in your local conditions. Local water also carries local parasites and disease, which local fish will have a natural immunity to. If you plan on using imported exotic fish in your tank, then I may stick with RO/salt mix and gradually acclimate them to local water by very slowly adding natural water to the tank during water changes.

Fish can adapt. The local aquarium guys here found lionfish in our bay area, and I'm on the NE coast of the US in the Atlantic Ocean! We don't know if these lionfish will survive the winter, or where they've come from, but it is suspected they were released pets. There have also been reports that lionfish are becomming established in the Carribean seas, also a result of released pets or poaching, and that these lionfish are finding their way up the East Coast via the Gulf Stream, which brings many tropical species to northern waters each season. Lionfish are a Pacific species non-native to the Atlantic, so whether or not they will become a reef nussence to the indiginous fish remains to be seen.

I never "cycled" in a traditional fashion when I had my local water tank. Everything was basically transplanted as is from reef to tank. No middle man, no overseas transport, no quarintine, just from net to bucket to tank. Water changes were done once a week, about 10-20% depending upon how stocked the tank was. We had UGF on the tanks.

Be aware of what your collecting laws might be, and what sort of permits might be necessary. In the US we were required to have a federal government permit stating we were allowed to collect "undersized" fish for the purpose of education provided we released the animals after a holding period of seven days. If we were caught without this permit, we could have been fined.

~~Colesea

 

[jupiter jones]

Ok. I will try your suggestion.
There are no restrictions in collecting fish and
sand from this beach at the moment.
Thanks a lot!