Consider the pooch screwed..

[RangerDan]

I believe I just screwed the pooch..

I ordered all my stuff in a certain order to get the things I needed when i need them then set it up, then the next item arrives.. BUT...

So.. I clense me water.. dump into tank.
order my crushed coral and sand substrate*. it arrives when it's suppose to. Start to scrub the now cloudy water.

Next my salt and protien skimmer was suppose to arrive (had to oder a new skimmer cause the wife decided to break my custom built one, lol.. right after I told her not to drop it, too.. lol)

But my salt and skimmer isn't here..

and my live rock just arrived..

can anyone tell me how long the live rock will survive in it's box before I'm forced to run 3hrs to the closest store with instant ocean?

I'm crossing my fingers the salt will arrive today with ups..

Thanks in advance..
Daniel "Risky" Fielden

[Chuck S]

I would drive to the store. The liverock will last a day or two however there will be much more dieoff to it. It is always best to get the rock into saltwater as soon as it is recieved.

You should have had your salt when you added water to the tank.

[tendar]

The longer it sits out of water the more die off your going to get.
I would get to the store adn get that salt right away.

[RangerDan]

I went and purchased the salt from the store.. Yikes.. such a long drive too.. live rock is in the tank. Water is scrubbed and crystal clear..

And my Salt and skimmer are STILL not here.. ;-}

at this point i have a couple of other questions.

1. Normally I had 2 wet/dry water pumps (650gph/ea) connected to a 1"pvc that had holes drilled, accross the length of the tank. the 2 pumps just sat in the tank at the buttom behind the rock. In the past this worked fine except for cleaning the damn sponge filters on the intake. Anyway, I built a external shelf with plumbing to draw water in then just push the water out into the tank like power heads, instead of a (sprinkler bar) drilled pvc bar.
but now I'm noticing their is ALLOT of water movement in the tank. So much in fact that one corner has cleaned out the sand all the way to the bottom of the tank.

Is there such a thing as TOO much water movement.. where do I draw the line.

with the return pump from the wet/dry i would have a total of 3 650gph pumps moving water in the tank. should I eliminate one of them?

2. because of the die off on the live rock, should I throw some calcium in the tank at this point or wait a week or 2?

thanks in advance..

Daniel Fielden

[Chuck S]

You did not meantion what size tank. I would have to say that is not too much movement. You may need to adjust the flow pattern. It sounds like the water from on of the outlets is gushing into that corner. Try adjusting the flow pattern.

I would wait to add the calcium. The die off is a result of high ammonia and nitrite and the rock also being out of water. Calcium will not do anything to prevent it and your calcium uptake will not increase until you add corals and the corraline starts to spread.

[RangerDan]

oops.. it's a 75gal... I've been moving the heads around and pointing in different directions. but my fine sand just keeps blowing away.. I even put some larger crushed coral as a base just to see if that will help give the sand a footing. I tried pointing the two heads in a direction that causes the water current to intersect into each other, but that just created some crazy turbulence. ;-o but either way it's just keeps creating a 4" sand dune at the front of the tank..

Thanks to all for your suggestions ahead of time.
Daniel Fielden

[Chuck S]

Try to have them pointing across the water column instead of say like 30-40 degree angle.

That should not be too much water flow. Also once the sand gets a bacteria coating it should not blow as much.

[RangerDan]

Omegatron..

Offtopic question..

I see you took your panel generator offline..
I run a ubbthreads board also (not reef)..
Was just wondering if you had it running on this board properly.. I'm having problems with mine..

Daniel Fielden

[Chuck S]

http://www.reeftalk.com/ubbthreads/pano/upload/2-6435.png

[mhossom]

Dan,

I had the same problem with my 75 when i first set it up. the sand all wanted to end up in one corner. it has bee running for about 2 months now and things are starting to settle down. Granted, the sand is not perfectly flat. i sorta like the way has ended up. It looks more natural.

Mike

[Katspaw]

Something else to concider is without any rock in the tank, then the sand doesn't have any thing to breakup the currents. I am sure that now that you have the rock in place the sandbed isn't moving as much, and with the bactera introduced with the rock, then it will settle down even more. I placed a sandbed in the upper part of my koi pond about three weeks ago. I am still waiting for it to settle down.

Tracey