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For a long while, I had a great nano setup. It looked like this: I had to move to go to grad school, though, and the move cost me one of the clowns in the photo and all of my zoos. Later, I had to leave town for four months for some research, and I left the tank in the care of a fellow grad student. I came back to a heinous hair algae infestation and no clownfish at all. I'm slowly putting it back together here, now that I'm in town to stay for much longer. The large green rhodactis mushroom you see in the photo has split in three, and now they're taking up most of the tank. I've still got some of the xenia, and I've got four red-legged hermits. Also, the actinodiscus mushrooms are everywhere - those little bastards grow like crazy. I just ordered a 150 watt metal halide plus PC actinic fixture, and I'm planning on adding a nano-sized skimmer and a couple of pieces of SPS once everything is stable again.
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Sep 21, 2009 01:42
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What is that on the back of the glass in the top center?
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Sep 21, 2009 05:46
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It's a chiton. They're pretty cool creatures, cruising over rock and glass and munching on algae.
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Sep 21, 2009 15:41
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I bought a used 150 halide fixture, and hung it over the tank today. The 36 watt PC actinics really bring out the color in my rhodactis mushrooms, and the 10k halide bulb provides a nice shimmer on the sandbed. I also figured out a probably culprit in the death of my clownfish. My heater was leaking current into the tank - I thought for a while that my fingers stung when I put them in the tank because I'd cut my nails too short, but this afternoon, I got a strong shock when I reached in to move something. I removed the heater, and there was no more trouble with shocks. I'm really sad to have lost my clown to something as dumb as that. RIP, Mango. I miss your territorial nips while I clean the glass. Anyone have good recommendations for saltwater tank heaters?
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Sep 23, 2009 03:19
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a foolish pianist posted:I bought a used 150 halide fixture, and hung it over the tank today. The 36 watt PC actinics really bring out the color in my rhodactis mushrooms, and the 10k halide bulb provides a nice shimmer on the sandbed. Get a GFCI on your poo poo, stat! I don't have any heaters in my 90 yet, but I had a visi-therm stealth thing on my 24, worked well. Solid black plastic housing, should be difficult to break.
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Sep 23, 2009 03:28
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a foolish pianist posted:Anyone have good recommendations for saltwater tank heaters? Titanium ones! Especially the ones that are grounded so they can be a VERY fast trip for your breaker/GFCI!
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Sep 23, 2009 03:39
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optikalus posted:Get a GFCI on your poo poo, stat! You'll want to replace the visitherms once a year. The ideal method would be to get a ronco temperature controller and titanium heater so you don't have to worry about it leaking voltage or getting stuck on.
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Sep 23, 2009 20:29
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Mine was a stealth. I'm going to have to deal with an ~4 degree temperature swing between lights on and off until the new heater gets here. The mushrooms and xenia should be fine, though, and there are no fish to suffer.
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Sep 24, 2009 00:23
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Even SPS corals could handle a 4 degree swing over a period of 24 hours.
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Sep 24, 2009 01:04
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ludnix posted:Even SPS corals could handle a 4 degree swing over a period of 24 hours. Mine have endured larger swings than that for a while, though my tank doesn't usually dip below 80 -- only once when I accidentally left the fan on the sump overnight, then it dropped to 76. I usually see the tank at ~84, but today reached 96 at home and the AC isn't on so we'll see when I get home.
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Sep 24, 2009 01:12
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We did it. My husband and I went to take a look at the tank we found on Craigslist and my husband decided to go for it. It’s a 180 gallon tank. It was stocked and running, we got the whole complete setup. The owner helped take it down, move it to our house, and showed/helped us set it back up. Its been up and running at our house since labor day, as you can see we're going through the brown algae stage. The lighting is by Coralife, it has the blue and white lights as well as lunar glow. The lights have fans on the top and the hood of the tank has vent fans to remove the heat. It also has a UV Sterilizer that is a Vecton UV25. I don’t know what kind of pump it has, I’ll try and get a picture of it. There are no heaters, so far the temp has remained between 74-76 degrees (we live in central Texas, and keep our house between 75-79 degrees). I’ve attached pictures of the sump and the protein skimmer (not sure what brand).   Here’s the list of what its stocked with: 1 Sailfin Tang 1 Yellow sailfin Tang 1 Regal Tang 2 Maroon clownfish (mated pair) with host anemone 2 Six line wrasse 2 Yellow tail damsels 2 Blue damsels 1 Green Chromis 1 Coral Beauty dwarf Angel 1 Fire dwarf Angel 1 Sunk cleaner shrimp 1 Fire cleaner shrimp 1 Coral banded shrimp Assorted hermits/dwarf hermits Assorted snails Several Emerald crabs A lobster of some sort (purple and red) Various coral So now the questions. Will the tank be ok without heaters (for now anyway)? The weather is very mild here and we always keep the house around 76 degrees. Will the lighting need to be upgraded? I don’t know anything about Coralife lights.
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Sep 24, 2009 03:05
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VyperRDH posted:So now the questions. Will the tank be ok without heaters (for now anyway)? The weather is very mild here and we always keep the house around 76 degrees. Will the lighting need to be upgraded? I don’t know anything about Coralife lights. You'll probably want to check the temperature at night when the tank's lights are off, and your house is at its coolest, but if that temp isn't out of range, it should be fine. What type of coralife lighting is it? Powercompact or T5, or T5HO (I'm assuming its florescent). It all depends on what type of coral you want to keep.. pretty much anything will grow under T5HO, but you probably won't be able to keep SPS, clams, or most anemones under PC. Given that you already have an anenome, its probably T5+. If you don't know how old the bulbs are, its probably best to replace them. I'd recommend replacing one bulb every other week (keeps the corals from being shocked by the sudden increase of light PAR).
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Sep 24, 2009 03:32
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It looks like your skimmer is pulling mostly water. You should try to get a thick sludge (rather than the tea-colored water you've got now) to build up in the skimmer's collection cup.
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Sep 24, 2009 03:56
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Also - I would probably get rid of the bioballs and the whole wet/dry filtration. They tend to be big nitrate factories IME.
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Sep 24, 2009 08:28
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Do you have an RO/DI unit? You'll want to make sure you use RO/DI or distilled water for topping off the tank and making saltwater for water changes or you'll be adding a lot of unwanted nutrients to the tank. You only need to upgrade the lights if there are some specific corals you want to keep. You can use power compacts to grow a wide variety of soft corals, if you have an interest in clams, SPS or some LPS you probably need to look into T5 with individual reflectors or metal halides.
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Sep 24, 2009 11:29
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Our light appears to be this one : http://www.marineandreef.com/Lunar_Aqualight_72_inch_Coralife_p/res53409.htm So it looks like we will probably have to upgrade. Suggestions welcome! We do have a RO unit with a reservoir tank. We’ve been using that water for water changes and for topping off the tank. I will work on the protein skimmer to try and have less water enter it. When I took that picture I had topped off the tank and was messing with the settings on the skimmer. I do have a question about the UV Sterilizer. How often should that be on? Right now it is set up to be on all the time.
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Sep 25, 2009 02:09
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RO isn't RO/DI. DI means deionization and is a finishing polish to your water before it goes into your tank. You can get a whole lot of phosphates that make it through an RO system that can and will cause massive algae growth. Your system is probably capable of handling an add-on DI stage. Consider getting one.
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Sep 25, 2009 02:42
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I would just run the UV steralizer when your having a problem like a phytoplankton bloom or something. They have a limited bulb life so it seems unnecessary to run them 24/7. I wouldn't have suggested buying one, but since you have it I would just go ahead and run it when you feel the water needs to be cleared of a bacterial or plankton bloom.
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Sep 25, 2009 03:00
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Psimitry posted:RO isn't RO/DI. DI means deionization and is a finishing polish to your water before it goes into your tank. You can get a whole lot of phosphates that make it through an RO system that can and will cause massive algae growth. DI ordered from Drs Foster and Smith, thanks! ludnix posted:I would just run the UV steralizer when your having a problem like a phytoplankton bloom or something. They have a limited bulb life so it seems unnecessary to run them 24/7. I wouldn't have suggested buying one, but since you have it I would just go ahead and run it when you feel the water needs to be cleared of a bacterial or plankton bloom. Thanks for the info. I'll be sure to turn it off. I had wondered if it was a bit of overkill to have it on all the time.
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Sep 25, 2009 03:07
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ludnix posted:I would just run the UV steralizer when your having a problem like a phytoplankton bloom or something. They have a limited bulb life so it seems unnecessary to run them 24/7. I wouldn't have suggested buying one, but since you have it I would just go ahead and run it when you feel the water needs to be cleared of a bacterial or plankton bloom. It's also worth noting that a long slow trip through a sump, a cleaner shrimp and a UV sterilizer (preferably sucking from and blowing to the tank directly) can stop an ich outbreak in its tracks.
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Sep 25, 2009 03:39
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VyperRDH posted:Our light appears to be this one : Doesn't look like such a bad light. Its still almost 400w. I have a Current Nova Extreme Pro on my 90, which seems like a good light. If you don't have heat issues, you might want to go dual or trip metal halides, but your coral needs might not need that much lighting.
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Sep 25, 2009 06:02
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Great looking tanks everyone! I'm already fantasizing about future tanks... I am a month into my first saltwater tank (first tank ever, actually) in a 20 high that was given to me by a coworker - including filter, powerhead, heater, rock and sand! boo-yeah. In any case, I am currently fishless and am having trouble deciding what I would like to add first. Green Chromis were recommended but i'm not sure i'm totally in love with the species. I know i'm a little limited given the size of my tank, but I am looking for something with some color and a bit of a personality that could co-exist with a few other species. Favorites of mine at the moment are Blennies, Gobies, Hawkfish, Chromis, Wrasse, and I would love a Mandarin. I don't mind giving something some extra TLC when it comes to feeding, but don't want to loose any fish to each-other. At the moment, I have 4 pounds of live rock mingling with quite a bit of rock that came with the tank, a halloween hermit (which I've been told to ditch if I ever want corals) a red tip hermit and a turbo snail as well as a few mushroom anenomes. The live rock is decent and has at least 2 brittle stars, several sponges, and plenty of coraline algae. I would like it to colonize my bare rock, is there anything I should do to speed the process? Phytoplankton? Also, my hermits are making GBS threads like crazy and it's accumulating in the spaces I cant reach with the gravel vac, any tips on what to get to help clean this gunk? My parameters are staying pretty good with weekly 20% water changes, but it looks nasty.  Finally, my first mini emergency! One of my lovely roommates unplugged my life support system sometime in the last 36 hours. My ammonia was still 0, nitrate was a little high but I was due for a water change. I got everything running again and all my stuff is still alive (for the moment) so I did a water change and am hoping for the best. Should I be concerned about die-off from stress? Anything I can do to prevent that? Thanks for all your help! Hopefully i'll have some decent pics to post soon.
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Sep 26, 2009 05:59
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Can you post a picture? I'm having a hard time visualizing your live rock questions. Coralline will spread over everything given a little light, the right parameters (Ca, Mg, Alk) and time. For fish, you'll definitely be limited on options with that size tank. I would recommend maybe a flame hawkfish and a goby. Because you're limited on quantity I would really think about what fish you want as there are some really amazing looking gobies but you can't have more than one or two with that size tank. Flamehawks can eat shrimp when they get bigger but they are pretty fun to watch and have bright color that really livens up a tank. As for the settling detritus, usually the hermits are the ones who are supposed to be picking it up cleaning it up. You could try to increase flow in the tank to keep it from settling. I don't think there is anything you need to worry about with the tank since it doesn't have any fish or corals in it. Any die off that occurred will even out pretty quickly and you don't really have anything to suffer from it.
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Sep 26, 2009 06:11
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I got this crazy Tridacna derasa clam a few weeks ago. This photo is when I first got it so it's even more open now that it's really settled in. It's gonna get big, but I'm not sure how fast it will grow. Either way I'm excited to have it in my tank.
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Sep 26, 2009 06:15
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perhapsimabandit posted:I would love a Mandarin. Every new reefer goes through this. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Now I want you to repeat something for me: I will not own a mandarin until I have at least a 75 gallon tank with a deep sand bed. Yes, there are people that keep them successfully in smaller tanks, but they're usually experienced hobbyists that know how to stimulate and cultivate their native food. And even then, they won't survive in a sub-40 gallon tank. Of course, there ARE fish out there that will eat prepared foods, but it's best to assume that they won't. Don't try to rationalize it, don't think to yourself that "maybe, just maybe you'll be able to get one that eats," just don't. You'll just be consigning a fish to death that cannot (as far as I know) be bred in captivity.
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Sep 26, 2009 08:35
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Some of the corals we like/are looking at recommend a T5 or higher. So I'm thinking we should upgrade to a T5HO. I know its important to have individual reflectors, anything else? We're going to talk with the guys at our LFS, but I am worried they may steer us wrong. EDIT: And when I check another website it says that the coals will do fine under compact lighting as long as they are placed near the top. Seems to depend on who you ask. VyperRDH fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Sep 26, 2009 |
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Sep 26, 2009 15:03
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VyperRDH posted:Some of the corals we like/are looking at recommend a T5 or higher. So I'm thinking we should upgrade to a T5HO. I know its important to have individual reflectors, anything else? We're going to talk with the guys at our LFS, but I am worried they may steer us wrong. From what I can tell, it varies not just from species to species, but from individual coral to coral. I have an encrusting montipora that I placed 2" from the top of my 24 lit with PC, then moved about half-way down the tank when I got MH. It seemed to have better color and polyp extension under MH, but didn't seem to grow any. When I set up my 90 with my T5HO, I placed it about 8" under the top and it has grown about 1/2" in a month. It is literally oozing new growth over the sides. My birdsnest frag is growing in a similar fashion, even though its color just looks weird under T5. I can't see *any* growth on my other SPS frags though (weird brown/blue acropora and light-green with a single blue tip acro).
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Sep 26, 2009 18:26
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We upgraded the lights. We now have the Nova Extreme 4x39 (two of the 36")T5HO. Everything is going great. The protein skimmer is running fine now after some adjusting. Our water levels are right where they should be. We just have one problem...the lobster. At least I think its him. My fire cleaner shrimp disappeared a couple days ago and today we discovered the skunk cleaner shrimp chopped in half, and the blue starfish that I bought this weekend has a leg missing and seems to be torn up in general. I’ve already ordered one of the pest traps to try and catch him. I can’t see one of the emerald crabs doing that kind of damage, none of them are large enough, so I’m assuming it’s the lobster. He appears to be a Debelius’ Reef Lobster.
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Sep 27, 2009 15:50
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Well there are no reef safe lobsters so it doesn't come as a surprise.
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Sep 27, 2009 21:24
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Tank update! Yeah, the Mandarin is a pipe dream at this point... i'll enjoy the one at the store for now. In any case, I have recently acquired a Pygmy Hawkfish who seems to be settling in well, although he has not eaten yet (got him yesterday). Onto the pictures!  My setup. The rock in the lower left hand corner is live, as are a bunch of chunks scattered throughout the tank, but most of what you see is bare rock.  Some mushroom anemones I got as hitchhikers/freebies  Pygmy Hawk! Being rather shy in his new home. Everything seems to be going well so far... in a few weeks i am going to add another fish - possibly a fairy wrasse unless someone has further suggestions. This seems like something I should know, but when/how often should I change the filter cartridge in my power filter... I know my tank itself should be doing most of the filtering, but my nitrates have been higher than usual despite water changes in the last day or so. Not too bad, but I don't want it to get out of hand... Thanks for looking!
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Sep 29, 2009 06:54
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You should probably just get rid of it. They usually trap all the detritus and raise the nitrate level as water is continually forced to pass through it. You might look into a hang on back skimmer, you'll want to do a lot of research in it though, most HOB skimmers are junk, but there are a few out there that will do a decent job. I would also look into increasing the flow in the tank by adding a koralia 2 or 3. If you point it at the surface to get a good ripple you'll help increase oxygenation of the water and prevent that surface skum from forming. I don't mean having water blow out of the tank or anything, but get a nice ripple in the water surface.
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Sep 29, 2009 17:10
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A Koralia 3 in my 24 was /way/ too much flow; I'd recommend a pair of 1s instead.
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Sep 29, 2009 19:24
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Too much flow for what? I keep a K4 in my 10g frag tank.
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Sep 30, 2009 01:23
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ludnix posted:Too much flow for what? I keep a K4 in my 10g frag tank. For the substrate?  After the initial detritus storm settled / got skimmed out, the substrate started having a mind of its own and roaming around the tank. Buried a bunch of my lower corals on a regular basis. It severely pissed off my coco-worm (dropped its crown a few times, then never regrew it when I moved it to my 90, died), pissed off my GSP but who cares, and my clowns weren't a fan as they're surface sleepers. The SPS seemed to love it, though. Wouldn't a K4 be half the width of your 10?
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Sep 30, 2009 01:49
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No, it's barely any bigger than a K2 or K3. I have a K1 in my 120 and I can barely feel it when I put my hand directly in front of it. I think a K2 or 3 would be fine as long he keeps it up near the surface, then it can provide his surface agitation and enough random flow to satisfy his tank.
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Sep 30, 2009 02:37
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Her tank  and thanks for the suggestions! I've been thinking another powerhead would be a good idea, and I like the looks of those Korelias.In other news, does anyone have experience with pygmy hawks? Mine has been getting bolder and bolder and is eating his brine shrimp, but he does not seem to be a very active hunter - is there concern for being out competed when I add another fish later on? I'm waiting on that until this one is completely settled in and the tank has time to adjust, but want to make a wise choice in terms of future tank mates. As I mentioned, I'm thinking fairy wrasse, but ludnix also suggested a goby and i'm liking that idea as well. Would all three be too much for my tank if I go for smaller species?
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Sep 30, 2009 18:22
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You can probably do those, you'll just have to see how it goes and monitor the levels after the next addition. The pygmy hawk should be fine once he starts eating normally. Any of the other fish you plan on adding won't be voracious enough of an eater for him to not get his share.
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Sep 30, 2009 19:13
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ludnix posted:You should probably just get rid of it. They usually trap all the detritus and raise the nitrate level as water is continually forced to pass through it. You might look into a hang on back skimmer, you'll want to do a lot of research in it though, most HOB skimmers are junk, but there are a few out there that will do a decent job. The AquaC Remora HOB skimmers are the best on the market as I understand it and you pay for it. I went with the slightly more price friendly CPR HOB. I added live rock to my tank about a week ago and it's been cycling for a month now. Do I need to keep the lights on much or at all right now?
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Oct 3, 2009 18:34
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Actually, as far as I'm aware, the Deltec HOB skimmers are by far the best performing and most expensive. The problem with the AquaC skimmer is that while it performs decently, it's a rather old design. I actually prefer the Coralife Superskimmers, but their internal equipment is a little huge for my taste.
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Oct 3, 2009 20:03
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Psimitry posted:Actually, as far as I'm aware, the Deltec HOB skimmers are by far the best performing and most expensive. I think there are even a few other budget skimmers that can out perform a remora, I would definitely shop around though. Avoid Seaclones and Prizms.
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Oct 4, 2009 05:23
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