Terry
Member
HI all. I haven't been around in a few weeks, as I've been heavily into learning a lot about saltwater & reef tanks on the web and in a Reef Central forum that I joined. I've had my tank set up for a few weeks now, and have been spending way too much money on it and the assorted equipment, etc. etc. Sometimes I think I should have my head examined for getting into saltwater, but it's been fun as well as challenging. Hopefully the expenditures will start to decrease now. Freshwater is so much easier to deal with than saltwater (as well as so much cheaper LOL). I used to think a water change was a pain with my freshwater tanks - now it takes me an afternoon just to prepare 5 gallons of water and get the salinity adjusted, do the siphoning and cleanup afterwards. But it's worth it to see the things that grow on the live rock and the little critters that crawl out of it.
I purchased a 34 gallon Red Sea Max reef tank, a nano tank with all of the equipment in a back compartment that's pretty much hidden by a dark glass background on the tank itself. The skimmer, heater, powerhead pumps, and filtration system are in that back compartment, and all of the powercords go into a powerstrip that folds up into a dry section of that back compartment, with switches for everything in a little hidden compartment on the side. It fit my needs for the one space I had left to put a tank, and having only one external powercord for the whole unit is a plus. My wife even likes it, which sure helps. But, it's a good thing that she doesn't really know how much money I've sunk into it so far! It's also got a built in 24 hours timer in the fan cooled hood - for the lights and the moonlights that come on at night.
Anyway, here are a few pics:
Here's the tank at the beginning - still a bit cloudy from adding the aragonite sand substrate:
After it cleared up a day later:
First batch of fully cured live rock (geesh this stuff is expensive!):
First fish (my little Nemos of course!):
Also got 2 of these Spotted (Pajama) Cardinals:
One of my Peppermint Shrimp (they now come out as soon as I put food in the tank, and they scour the live rock at night).
My latest addition - diadema pseudochromis (diamema dottyback)
I also have (and need more) snails - Turbo & Nassarius.
This was after my second addition of cured live rock - brings me up to 50 lbs. and that's where I'm stopping!
This life was on my first live rock and was opened up within 3 hours after putting the live rock in. Red mushroom coral lower left (these have all multiplied in number & size greatly since then), Brown button polyps going up the middle and a group of Green Star Polyps (GSP) on the right.
These are showing up on the second batch of live rock. Red Organ Pipe Coral & polyps on the upper left, a little colony of some green center buttons on the top - left of middle, with a small group of buttons with a small orange center lower left, and what I think are green & brown majano anemones - hard to see & circled. The majanos are usually killed my most people as they're usually considered pests. I haven't dealt with mine yet - just keeping an eye on them for now & checking to see if they move or start multiplying.
One of several types of sponges growing on the rock.
I also picked up a couple hermit crab "hitchikers" that came on the last live rock - one is a fairly rare Electric Blue hermit crab with bright blue stripes on black legs. I left both in the tank for now, but disposed of some little 1" black crabs that have been the bottom of the cooler that the live rock is shipped in. Same with any bristleworms that were in the bottom (but I'm sure more are in the rock, although I haven't spotted any yet). Crabs are often a problem, especially if they turn predatory on your other livestock.
I never saw a cycle on the tank. With fully cured live rock this is typical - the cycle can be so small & quick that you miss it. I did put a dose of Red Sea Nitrobac (bacteria) in the tank with the first live rock, and also a dose of saltwater Bio-Spira at the same time that the first 4 fish were added. I've yet to see any ammonia or nitrite, but do typically get a 5-10pmm nitrate reading indicating that the bacteria are in place in sufficient quantity. I've just hung a bag of live rock rubble in the filter compartment to be sure it gets innoculated, and after a week or so I'll remove the bio-media that came with the tank. If things perform the way they should the live rock, water changes & macroalgae should control the nitrates and hopefully get those down to zero as well. I have no sump or refugium (and no room for one) so I may get some chaeto algae for the main tank, to control the nitrates, & just keep it under control.
I'm just now finishing the first expected algae outbreak - brown diatom algae, but it didn't get as bad as expected. Getting a little bit of green hairy algae now, and if that gets excessive I'll get a lawnmower blenny or some type of other cleanup critter(s) to deal with it. My turbo snails do a pretty good job on the green algae too.
Anyway, that's where I've been and where I'm at right now.
Time to get back to work now!
Terry
I purchased a 34 gallon Red Sea Max reef tank, a nano tank with all of the equipment in a back compartment that's pretty much hidden by a dark glass background on the tank itself. The skimmer, heater, powerhead pumps, and filtration system are in that back compartment, and all of the powercords go into a powerstrip that folds up into a dry section of that back compartment, with switches for everything in a little hidden compartment on the side. It fit my needs for the one space I had left to put a tank, and having only one external powercord for the whole unit is a plus. My wife even likes it, which sure helps. But, it's a good thing that she doesn't really know how much money I've sunk into it so far! It's also got a built in 24 hours timer in the fan cooled hood - for the lights and the moonlights that come on at night.
Anyway, here are a few pics:
Here's the tank at the beginning - still a bit cloudy from adding the aragonite sand substrate:
After it cleared up a day later:
First batch of fully cured live rock (geesh this stuff is expensive!):
First fish (my little Nemos of course!):
Also got 2 of these Spotted (Pajama) Cardinals:
One of my Peppermint Shrimp (they now come out as soon as I put food in the tank, and they scour the live rock at night).
My latest addition - diadema pseudochromis (diamema dottyback)
I also have (and need more) snails - Turbo & Nassarius.
This was after my second addition of cured live rock - brings me up to 50 lbs. and that's where I'm stopping!
This life was on my first live rock and was opened up within 3 hours after putting the live rock in. Red mushroom coral lower left (these have all multiplied in number & size greatly since then), Brown button polyps going up the middle and a group of Green Star Polyps (GSP) on the right.
These are showing up on the second batch of live rock. Red Organ Pipe Coral & polyps on the upper left, a little colony of some green center buttons on the top - left of middle, with a small group of buttons with a small orange center lower left, and what I think are green & brown majano anemones - hard to see & circled. The majanos are usually killed my most people as they're usually considered pests. I haven't dealt with mine yet - just keeping an eye on them for now & checking to see if they move or start multiplying.
One of several types of sponges growing on the rock.
I also picked up a couple hermit crab "hitchikers" that came on the last live rock - one is a fairly rare Electric Blue hermit crab with bright blue stripes on black legs. I left both in the tank for now, but disposed of some little 1" black crabs that have been the bottom of the cooler that the live rock is shipped in. Same with any bristleworms that were in the bottom (but I'm sure more are in the rock, although I haven't spotted any yet). Crabs are often a problem, especially if they turn predatory on your other livestock.
I never saw a cycle on the tank. With fully cured live rock this is typical - the cycle can be so small & quick that you miss it. I did put a dose of Red Sea Nitrobac (bacteria) in the tank with the first live rock, and also a dose of saltwater Bio-Spira at the same time that the first 4 fish were added. I've yet to see any ammonia or nitrite, but do typically get a 5-10pmm nitrate reading indicating that the bacteria are in place in sufficient quantity. I've just hung a bag of live rock rubble in the filter compartment to be sure it gets innoculated, and after a week or so I'll remove the bio-media that came with the tank. If things perform the way they should the live rock, water changes & macroalgae should control the nitrates and hopefully get those down to zero as well. I have no sump or refugium (and no room for one) so I may get some chaeto algae for the main tank, to control the nitrates, & just keep it under control.
I'm just now finishing the first expected algae outbreak - brown diatom algae, but it didn't get as bad as expected. Getting a little bit of green hairy algae now, and if that gets excessive I'll get a lawnmower blenny or some type of other cleanup critter(s) to deal with it. My turbo snails do a pretty good job on the green algae too.
Anyway, that's where I've been and where I'm at right now.
Time to get back to work now!
Terry