My First Saltwater Tank! 46gal Bow Front

Woot woot!! I've some time yet, but congratulations!!

What happened to the pictures, I was hoping to see how cloudy and what to expect when adding my sand and rock.. ;)

Ok here is a picture. It was an exciting but stressful day. I had a bit of a rocky start. Put the water in, sand and live rock. Turned the pump and promptly overflowed! Haha. Oh well I guess I got that out of the way. We built a big arch with the live rock. Pretty happy with it for now. But it may change.

I have the mag drive 9.5 running on full. I also have a vortech MP10w ES running full force constant. Is that too much? Is there a better setting for the vortech? I appreciate everyone's help as I start out.

That is awesome!! Don't mind me as I wipe up the drool..
I can't wait, its like a Christmas that keeps getting pushed back..

Tifoez said:

That is awesome!! Don't mind me as I wipe up the drool..
I can't wait, its like a Christmas that keeps getting pushed back..

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Haha thanks!

How exciting!

Looks good

That is a pretty strong pump for a 46 gallon tank lol. What size are the return lines? 3/4"? 1"? Only one return line? Two? I have a 9.5 running in my 60g cube and had to replace the single nozzle with a T and two 45s. Otherwise it was like a power washer blasting back into the tank lol. And try the reef crest mode for the mp10. It's randomized flow that is supposed to simulate a natural reef. And you've officially christened your tank now. It's not a real tank until you either have a leak, or overflow. :p

AnthonyTheNewbie said:

That is a pretty strong pump for a 46 gallon tank lol. What size are the return lines? 3/4"? 1"? Only one return line? Two? I have a 9.5 running in my 60g cube and had to replace the single nozzle with a T and two 45s. Otherwise it was like a power washer blasting back into the tank lol. And try the reef crest mode for the mp10. It's randomized flow that is supposed to simulate a natural reef. And you've officially christened your tank now. It's not a real tank until you either have a leak, or overflow. :p

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I have a single 3/4in. return into the tank. The return had a ball valve on it which I closed to about half which cut the down flow. So that worked.

Where do I go from here?

Live rock... Check
Live sand... Check
Water... Check
Red Sea Coral Pro Salt... Check
T-5 lights... Check
20gal. Sump... Check
Refugium light... Check
Chaeto... Check
Mag-drive 9.5 return pump... Check
Vortech MP10w ES... Check
Hydor Theo Heater 150watt (sump)... Check
Eheim Jäger Heater 300watt (main)... Check
Red Sea marine Care Test kit... Check
Red Sea Reef Mature Pro kit... Check

Reef octopus skimmer (anyone have one for sale?)... Within next 2 weeks
Hydrometer... next day or so
Temp probe (any suggestions)... Next day or so



So what am I missing? Has my cycle technically started?
When do I add pods? After cycle?
When do I add clean up crew? After cycle? After fish?

Also fish question: I'm know I'm supposed to introduce fish least to most aggressive. Here is what we want to have in our tank, what order do you suggest we add them?

Black/white Occelaris
Nemo Occelaris (pair with b/w occy)
Coral Beauty
Mandarin Dragonet

Also I know tank is not big enough to keep an adult emperor angel but my wife wants to get a juvenile one and keep it till he's outgrown the tank and either sell or trade at our LFS. Can we have that fish like that? Thoughts?

Sorry if I'm asking to many questions. Just excitement I guess. Thanks

Okay. So depending on how much die-off on your live rock you had during transport, you may or may not have started your cycle. Typical suggestion is tossing in a raw (unseasoned) shrimp (like from the grocery store) and you let it rot.

I wouldn't add any pods until after the cycle is complete. Give them a place to hide in the tank and they'll keep their number up on their own.

Clean up crew goes in after the cycle (I always add cuc the same time I add my first fish0.

As for the fish...
Clown pair should be first (also added together). They're hardy little stinkers, so they're a good first bet.
Are you getting a mandarin that eats frozen already? Or are you going to be reliant on pods for feeding? If the latter is the case I wouldn't add the mandarin until waaaaaay down the road. Like nine months or so.

I wouldn't even keep a juvenile angel in a tank that size. They need toooooons of room to swim and (unfortunately) your tank just won't provide that for him.

ErinCahir said:

Okay. So depending on how much die-off on your live rock you had during transport, you may or may not have started your cycle. Typical suggestion is tossing in a raw (unseasoned) shrimp (like from the grocery store) and you let it rot.

I wouldn't add any pods until after the cycle is complete. Give them a place to hide in the tank and they'll keep their number up on their own.

Clean up crew goes in after the cycle (I always add cuc the same time I add my first fish0.

As for the fish...
Clown pair should be first (also added together). They're hardy little stinkers, so they're a good first bet.
Are you getting a mandarin that eats frozen already? Or are you going to be reliant on pods for feeding? If the latter is the case I wouldn't add the mandarin until waaaaaay down the road. Like nine months or so.

I wouldn't even keep a juvenile angel in a tank that size. They need toooooons of room to swim and (unfortunately) your tank just won't provide that for him.

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Thanks for the response Erin I really appreciate it! As far as the mandarin. I guess I didn't think about the difference. Do I have to pick one or the other or can they be fed both? As for the angel I guess I'll skip the idea. Thanks again.

Mandarins have to be "trained" to eat frozen food. They're super slow eaters.Typical LFS won't have the trained... It can be done but it takes a lot of time and patience.

I think a 300 watt heater is a little much. I run a 150w and a 200w and my temps are fine with over 2 X's the volume. You may over shoot the temp you are trying to control.

I'm doing the same as Mario in my 75. A 150 and 200 running it just fine.

Also, Angels tend to nip at certain corals. I wouldn't add a Angel to a reef tank (Unless I was willing to deal with some casualties)

Hello all,
I wanted to give an update on the tank. It's doing very well. I've been following the Red Sea Reef Mature kit program. I've been following the instructions to the letter. I've been doing my water changes, checking water parameters and adding the bio chemicals as directed. According to the schedule I added my clean up crew. We chose bumblebee, nerite, Cerith and margarita snails. We also added an emerald crab, fighting conch and fire red shrimp! We were pretty excited and had plenty for them to eat. The day after we got the shrimp it molted and my wife freaked out thinking he multiplied already so that was pretty funny. Also as suggested we introduced our orange occy and b/w occy. The b/w is called "007" and the Orange "moneypenny", named by my wife. We are pretty happy. Both are eating well and seem to be adjusting just fine. I was nervous to out them in the tank thinking my water parameters weren't correct but before I got them we took a water sample to our LFS and had them test it. Thankfully they got the same results I did. 0 ammonia, 0 Nitrites, 5 Nitrates. They agreed it was safe for the fish to go in.

I will finish up the reef mature program and it will probably be another month or so before I add anything else. Just to be safe. My wife had a question about powerhead flow. We have a vortech mp10w es, is there a setting you suggest would be good for them that's not overpowering and also good for future coral like frogspawn, zoas, mushrooms etc? Thanks for the help!!

Oh! Also the water was a little cloudy so I added chemi-pure blue to the sump and also a sock filter. It's already cleared up some within 24hours I'm hoping even more so as we go forward. We want a crystal clear tank like we see so many others have.

Also my heaters were both old and donated which were awesome but I was a little skeptical about so I replaced both with marineland 150watt in the fuge/sump and a 200watt in the display. On the outside of the tank I have one of the little temperature strips is there a better more accurate temp probe anyone suggests? Thanks

You can buy the coralife digital therm (It's usually like 10$). Also, get rid of the heater in your DT. You don't need one in there as long as you have one in the sump, and water continues to circulate. Put both in the sump (Redundancy is a good thing!). Like I said in a earlier post, use reef crest mode on your mp10. For cloudy water, run Carbon for a few days. And get use to a little algae, all new tanks go through it in the beginning lol. As your biological system matures and good calcium based algaes build (Coraline for example) they will compete with other nuisance algae.

If there is anything I missed, let me know!

Cloudy water could also be because of the fine sand you have in the tank. In time, as the bacteria builds up in the sand, it'll help hold it together and keep it weighted down (unless you purposely blast it with a powerhead lol)

Recent photos not the best quality, sorry...