New salt tank, questions about filtration

[bdub]

I setup a 25 gallon eclipse saltwater tank on the first of last month. Yes, I know others are going "thats a bit small" well, its perfect sized for me, esp. because I am young, live in an apartment, and dont have room for a huge tank.

When I setup the tank, I added live sand, and added 3 pieces of live rock not only for decoration but for speeding up the filtration process.

Since it is an eclipse tank it has the charcoal filter, and the biowheel. Since it is a saltwater tank, I want to not only keep it clean but want my fish to stay healthy, so in addition to the eclipse filtration I added a canister that has a phosphate removing bag, charcoal bag, and a bio sponge in it.

Now....on to my question. On the bio wheel, and the bio sponge (dont really know what the name of the bio sponge is, I just know its padding meant for bacteria to make their home)..........should I ever replace these items??? Obviously I will be replacing the other items (carbon, phosphate, whatever else I put in the filter) but it takes time for these bacteria to get setup, so I just assume that I would leave the original wheel and this sponge alone right?

Thanks in advance.

 

[dbacksrat]

Yeah you can leave it alone. A 25 should be fine for starting up--better that than a 10. Are you going to do fish only or reef? With fish only, the biowheel will be fine, but in a reef, you will probably have a nitrate problem.

 

[bdub]

Fish only....

At the moment I have four damsels in it. Haven't added anything else yet b/c I've been fighting a brown algae problem (diatoms aren't they?) Talked to the lady who knew the most about saltwater at the pet store and she said they've been fighting the problem in their tanks and its bacteria, and handed me tablets to drop in the tank daily for a week. Fun Fun.

Nice to have a brand new tank and have to clean it because your coral, glass, ornaments, rock, and everything else is covered in brown.

However its clean right now, so life is good. Lol.

 

[wayne]

It's brown because of diatoms, which means you haven't used very clean water to start with. This stuff will disappear when it's used up all the avaialble silicates in the water (it needs silicates to construct a shell wall). Please do not confuse silicates (bad) with silica, which is what glass, and quartz sands are made from.
It's entirely up to you if you use or remove the biowheel et al. Most people don't have these things and rely on vigorous water circulation round their live rock to get the job done. However adding the cannister can certainly help