Today, we're taking a short break from fresh water and quickly setting up a saltwater aquarium those that are familiar with my situation
Out here in the aquarium gallery and my saltwater tank, let me bring you guys up to speed
First as some of you remember several months ago. I set up a drop-off aquarium, and we turned it into a
Saltwater tank however the drop off tank does not spit out in the aquarium gallery
And I don't plan to have that set up out here anyway to see a couple of these 10
120 Gallon Aquarium are going to be saltwater tank
Just not right away you see while I need to get tanks out of the house
I also need to buy myself some time which brings the cube into play
now the queue if you guys will remember I built the
Aquarium I built the stand and we turned it into a planted aquarium a while back eventually
Shutting it down, and then Frank the flowerhorn took over for a short while in fact here
He comes now
Now this tank fits perfectly, right?
Here right beside my office area and I can still get by and this is going to serve as a temporary system until I have
one of the
120s ready to set up as saltwater in fact we have to do a minimum of two because I'm connecting them to the same stuff
So what I've done so far with this tank is simple
I bust out all of the scratches that were on it making it pretty much brand new once again. I also
Painted the back and bottom black and then of course painted the same stand that I already had black as well
So it kind of fits in with the rest of the stuff out here again. The only temporary before a temporary system
I think is going to be pretty nice
however this tank wasn't plumbed so I had to drill a couple of holes in the back and
Install a couple of bulkheads for the return as well as drain the next thing
I did was install a sump now to make something extremely clear here a sump is not a filter at least not yet
a stop by definition is just a
An Empty tank something to hold water you then take that stuff and turn it into a filter and when it comes to saltwater
Aquariums believe it or not they are
Ridiculously simple a lot of the times they have a pre-filter a heater a pump
Possibly some live rock or some macro algae and of course a protein skimmer so all I've done so far to keep this very simple
I took a filter stock and
Clamped it to the back of the clamp if it overflows it will overflow into the tank here
And this is just the drain from the main aquarium
I also installed a pump which is returning the water to the main tank as well as a heater and
That's pretty much it. I'm also going to add in some of the biological media from the drop off aquarium and Potentially a skimmer
But again, this is how simple it can be you don't have to complicate it so today. I spent my time
Creating the saltwater and bringing it up to temperature. It's actually getting quite late and everybody's in bed
Right now so we're going to have to sneak in there and get all the rock all the fish
As well as all of the coral out of that tank and then transfer it in here
I'm not sure how I'm going to scape the rock in this tank because we're going from a drop-off tank to a cube tank
But I'm pretty excited to see what we can come up with
Okay, so here's the game plan I've got three buckets
I'm going to add a little bit of water to each bucket
from the tank
One Bucket will hold fish one bucket will hold the coral and one bucket will hold the rock
This should buy me some time to be able to bring everybody outside
Scape the tank add in the Coral and add the fish back in
So just like I said all of the coral in there. They're all kind of sucked in right now
Hopefully they're going to be okay some were cemented to the rock
Others were just in place. I've got some more coral glue, so I
Figured taking them off and starting from scratch with the rock which is in this bucket was my best bet
So I'm not committed to any pieces in any sort of way just rip them off and start over
the wildlife for fish and you know crabs and snails are in here a
Couple things to note
Clouds are getting bigger. Why aren't they handsome?
But I had three Banggai
Cardinals and
now I only have two and
This is news to me. I don't know where the third one went I do know that
They were not all getting along
so I wonder if it was killed and eaten or
Did it get into the filter or did it jump out of a tank?
I don't know. I'll have to figure that out, but we don't have time to tonight
Perhaps when I rip this tank down completely help heal the figurative also forgot to mention
I had about a gallon of Marine pure biological media in the tank, and then a little pouch of activated carbon
This media used to be white now. It's a nice you know gold and brown indicating
It's you know coated and being inhabited by beneficial Bacteria. I'll just toss this loosely in the sump and
That will do for now
Okay, so I couldn't find that extra
Bang guy anywhere. I looked everywhere. It really bothered me clearly. I need to know where my fish are
Nothing in the tank nothing around the tank nothing outside of the tank
Maybe it jumped in my dog ate it or maybe it got killed in the tank and the cleanup crew
disposed of it ultimately
I will admit that tanks kind of been neglected in terms of maintenance, and you know clearly keeping a close
Eye on it simply because I'm out here in the gallery so much was
Another reason for bringing all of my tanks here and be out here so much
So I'm not going to have a lot of time to devote to the tanks inside, so we're going to start off with this tank
adding in the rock
I hope to create and you know I was just thinking something I could do off the top
My head is maybe create like a u-shape in the back or maybe a big rock rubble just piled up
We'll see what happens though, but we need to get started
I'm not entirely sure I like it. I think I'm going to change it this time
Let's shoot for bringing it to the center a little bit more and potentially
More of a rock pile
All right, so the water still needs to clear a little bit
But you can get a really good idea of what I've come up with I went with a couple of islands, you know
Every time I escaped I've got a plan
I think I know what I want to do till I start putting the materials in there
And I come up with a little something different. I'm really happy with this one though
leaves plenty of room plenty of swing fate of space for the Fish plus
It's going to give me the ability to kind of create two different Pedestals of Coral
Maybe have some contrast I'm not sure where I'm going to put my coral yet, but to give you the thought process here
I thought that just created a little bit more depth the camera's not really picking it up from what I see in person though
but I
Don't know. I really like it. I like it a lot
Let me know what you guys think but I got to move on to coral now
I might have to glue a few of these in place and to do so I'm using the ecotech Coral glue
I got free samples at their booth when I was at
reefa Palooza, I'm not one to get free samples a lot of the times but
This stuff certainly is going to come in handy
Quarrels in I suspect it's going to take a few days to these guys to bounce back, but again
We're going to check back in the morning here after we get the fish in and cross our fingers and hope everybody's okay
So now we can get a better look and a you know a better idea of the rock layout
Let's take a look at that first
I have to adjust the plumbing to get the water level a little higher there, but you know ultimately my goal
here is just to get everything up and running you know and
focus on the smaller stuff later on
However. I really like how the rockwork turned out mind you this is this this rock structure here is three rocks?
There's a tiny little one out front
More of a boulder right here, and then another one standing up, and that might look like it's going to fall over
But it's seated in there quite well and same with the back that's only two rocks. There's a big rock on the bottom
Smaller one kind of piled up now
I was worried that they wouldn't look all that natural but to me they kind of look like they are one piece
another small rock out front here and again
That's not part of the main structure
But it kind of gives the illusion that it is makes it look like it's a much larger piece of rock than it is
And then one in the back
I've added that simply because it looked kind of bare back there and
you know I just like the dynamic here of
you know the depth created with these two pieces but
You know a little bit of your eyes are drawn to the back to kind of look there
and the fish enjoy it as well clown fish out and
About as normal these guys are always happy
Funny thing about them though
They're one of the meanest fish I've ever kept believe it or not who would have thought nemo was so mean I
Put my hands in there, and they will bite me
It doesn't hurt, but I mean, it's surprising to have the tiny little fish attacking you like a you a couple of guard dogs
The female is right here up top and the male below female will always be bigger
And then of course the bang guys in the back, there's one there
these guys are not as
you know
Out like these guys are just yet, but they will be just give them some time
As for the coral what do we have here the pulsing Zinnia is already you know kind of opened up a bit
Which is really great now some of you like this is going to take over the whole tank
So what I decided to do was place it on its own rock
that way I can move it out of the way or you know separate it from everything else if I needed to
We've got a little Duncan right here. These guys are really cool now
I'm not sure if the camera will pick this up, but it's like a almost like a neon green
Arms to it
another Duncan over
Right there if you can see it
Reflection oh yeah, right? There's another Duncan as we get a
Closer look at it
But yeah, everything's opened up everything is doing fine. The only thing that hasn't is the rasta in the back there
You can see it, but that usually takes the longest to open after it's been moved I found even though
It's like one of the easiest coral to keep in here however all of the coral in here are
from what I've told and told them from what my experience is oh, and there's another Duncan on that coral back there, but
At least I think that's what all these things are called
I don't spend enough time researching and looking up names and whatnot you know I just look at them and think oh, that's pretty
Oh that one moves things like that
I mean, I'm such a noob when it comes to saltwater
But clearly I can keep them alive and I know enough to you know get me by and over time
Clearly just like anybody else. I'll learn and I'll get better
But I think it looks pretty good. I think it turned out really well clearly
Again this would look much better with more coral
Maybe more rock or something like that, but time will tell what happens with this tank. There's a couple of things
I really need to point out here this system is an extremely simple aquarium. We have a few rocks a bear tank
I mean
I know a lot of people that are scared to get into the saltwater Hobby are worried about two things one
difficulty - the price all the coral in here
Was anywhere from 9 to like 15 or 20 bucks which is?
Pretty cheap considering what I was expecting
sometimes in the planted aquarium
Hobby for example you can buy a little cup of tissue culture plant you might pay 10 to 12 dollars
So that's what very comparable and luckily for me for once. I'm
attracted to the cheaper corals
I'm really excited about that because I typically you know
I'm cursed with you know liking something and then I hear the price on it
And I'm always attracted to some of the more higher-end and more expensive stuff
But I maybe this is what most people get into with these types of coral is a lot of these cheaper stuff
with that said I
mean if we kind of
Really break down what we have here? We have a random aquarium. That was a freshwater tank
we drilled the back toss the bulkheads on it and that leads down to
You know a very basic some pew guys seen this this could have been a real rubbermaid container for all we care
It's in the sump. I just needed or it's in the stand. I just needed to hold water
I don't need it to look pretty I
Just needed to hold water and do what I need it to do
Overall though I set this entire tank up within a few hours
It wasn't complicated process mix the salt brought it up to temperature hooked up the sump got the pump running
You know and you know kind of went from there now clearly?
To move them from one tank to the other one of the things I didn't include in the video just for time wise is
Acclimating them to the tag. I did do a drip
So ultimately you know perhaps this might get a few you guys that have fresh water tanks interested in salt
I'm not trying to push you towards that you guys know I'm heavily involved in Fresh
but I kind of just want to point out that how simple things can be and
How easy it can be?
moving forward my maintenance on this tank is feeding the tank feeding the fish which is a lot of fun and
Doing some water changes once a week. I'll mix up you know
five gallons of water
Drain five gallons of water into one bucket and dump the the new bucket in and you know it's as simple as that
Other than that though I mean we've got it out here. It's one more tank. Set up even though
This is just temporary, but you know it's one step closer to getting the gallery completed with this one done
You know I really need to focus on that 375 gallon tank however
We also have to juggle the racking system and start setting that up because fish are coming
I got a lot coming so we got to we got to make sure we stay on top of things
See the bang guys already out here. I mean it means if this tank is recovering rapidly
We're only six or eight hours into it you know being
Stocked here, and everything's responding nicely
Which is good?
anyways, I hope that you guys enjoyed the today's video and
If you're not subscribed to this channel yet, and what I do is something. You're interested in
I highly suggest you do I've got some really cool videos coming out
I do my best to make sure every single video is my best video yet
So if you don't want to miss any of this make sure that you subscribe