Josh's 40g breeder

jkef2010

Member
This the a picture of my new tank. Day#2 of having water in it. I'm new to the whole reef tank. In the bottom left is a blue leg hermit crab that came in on my liverock.

 

goma

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
Nice start! Lots of great people on here, so feel free to ask questions!!

WELCOME!!
 

jkef2010

Member
Hi guys,
This is the third day of the tank being set up with the live rock and sand etc. I have nothing else other then the stowaway blue leg hermit crab. I did a water test today and I can't seem to get my high range ph up to 8.2 like recommended. The current readings are as follow.

High Range PH- 8.0
Ammonia- 0.15
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate-0

The one that i'm most concerned about is the ammonia level. I don't know if i'm just stressing to soon about it considering my bio filter has not had a chance to establish yet. My LFS said the levels may shoot up then rapidly drop as the bio filter becomes established. Just wanted to get some more advanced opinion's.
Thanks all.
 

jkef2010

Member
One other thing I can't seem to get the temp of the water to go down right now it's at 82 i'm not 100% on that tho because I'm using just a basic stink on thermometer until my digital probe one arrives in the mail so should I disregard it until I get a more accurate reading or start looking in to a chiller. Though I think a chiller for a 29 gal biocube would kinda be over kill but I don't know anything haha so any advice would be most appreciated. Thanks.
 

jkef2010

Member
Hello everyone,

I wanted to know if to many bristleworms can be problematic. I started out with one. I went and took a look at my tank tonight and counted eleven of them. No idea how they tripled in count so fast or I just didn't see them. Should I remove them? Anything help im freaking out over them :bugout:



Also I will be posting some more pictures of the tank in a few days. I think I've finally got the LR to my liking ( even though i'm adding more). Since then I've added a little snail and a damsel ( im removing the fish). The snail is only to help with a little bit of brown Algae growth. I will be getting a bigger cuc next week.

How do you all feel about emerald crabs or a decorator crab?
 

nivek

Well-Known Member
PREMIUM
RS Ambassador
Give it time. Your bio filter will start to establish themselves these couple of weeks.
 

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
bristleworms in the ocean are the earthworm in your soil - good members of the cuc, that can get back in the rockwork & eat debris where snails and other members of the cuc can't reach. Their numbers will self regulate, if you end up seeing too many, you can bet you are overfeeding.

Nothing to worry about...
 

theplantman

Active Member
The tank cycle will take a few weeks, so as said above, be patient. Your ammonia levels ideally should hit .4 before starting to climb down to zero. Then test nitrites and watch them fall. When ammonia and nitrites are at zero. Do a 50% water change over two days to bring down nitrates and your cycle is complete and ready for the CUC to go in. As far as temp goes, what kind of lighting are you running and for how long? If you cannot get it to drop, check your heater, it may need calibration. You can also add a small fan that blows across the water surface and this should cool the tank 3-5 degrees. (depending on the room temp) This is evaporative cooling so you will go through more top off water, just keep an eye on it.

Good luck and do not panic when the algae starts showing up very soon. It will most likely be a brown coating. These are diatoms and will go away as the tank stabilizes. You could also experience hair algae and cyano, so be careful about running your lights too long at this stage. Once the CUC (snails and crabs) go in, then you can work towards a full light cycle.
 

jkef2010

Member
Thank you all for the wonderful advice, This site is like my 911 for my tank and fish. I been skimming trough some sites online and im going to start a to get list including all the corals inverts cuc fish. I will post pictures as along with the amount I would like to get.
 

jkef2010

Member
Okay,

To get list.

Cuc-

Electric blue hermit crab x1 ( already have one)
Halloween Hermit crab x2
Cleaner shrimp x2
varies snail. Turbo (1) Margarita (1) nassarius (1) bumble bee (2)
Emerald Crab or Decorator crab

Any more that would be good I did not mention please let me know.

Corals -
Long polyp leather.
green/orange Zoanthid
Lavender musroom
I don't know to much about coral to get a lot any suggestions for a beginner on corals would be amazing.

Fish-

Neon blue goby ( 1 Pair)
yellow stripe clingfish x2
high fin banded goby
Clown aka Nemo ( according to my 2 year old)
Firefish Helfrichi
firefish purple
jawfish yellow head

This is just a list of the fish I want. If my LFS don't have them I won't ship them.

please advice if you see any conflicts in this plan.
 

theplantman

Active Member
How big is your tank? What are you running for filtration and what is your lighting? How many pounds of live rock do you have? How deep is your sand bed?
 

jkef2010

Member
I have 29g biocube (stock lighting and filtration) I have 40lbs of live sand about 2 maybe 2.5 inches deep. if not deeper.
 

theplantman

Active Member
I believe your stocking list for fish is a little heavy for that tank. Here is what I would recommend based on that list:

either Neon blue goby ( 1 Pair) or high fin banded goby

Clown aka Nemo ( according to my 2 year old) ok

either Firefish Helfrichi or firefish purple (not both)

jawfish yellow head - ok as long as you have at least a 3" sand bed with some rubble for it to build with

yellow stripe clingfish x2 - I would avoid this fish for now as it is difficult to keep.

4 or 5 fish tops if they are very small. The stock lighting should be ok for leather corals, mushrooms and deep water zoas. If that tank does not have a skimmer you may want to add one or an algae scrubber. Weekly water changes of 3-5 gallons will be needed especially if you feed heavy or end up stocking heavy. Also I would stay away from the decorator crab, they get large and can be aggressive, emerald crabs can be as well although some have good luck with them. I would add a lot more snails to your final list say one per gallon or two of water as a finished quantity unless you are doing the big turbos, then do 1 per 10 gallons.

This is just from my experience keeping a little 34gal tank. Others may have differing opinions, but without any supplemental filtration, I would not push the limit on that cube. Hope this is helpful.
 

jkef2010

Member
That is extremely helpful, I have a skimmer supposed to be delivered next week. As of right now I have brown algae all over my rocks so i'm going to try to pick up a few snails today or tomorrow I hope they really help because this looks like crap its on my sand and was on the glass till I got a magnet.
 

theplantman

Active Member
make sure your ammonia level is at zero before you add snails, they are very sensitive to ammonia, it is extremely toxic at .2 and above.
 

jkef2010

Member
The water I have in the tank is the pre mixed LFS RodI water. I've done checks on the parameters everyday since I've added the water to the tank I have not had a surge in nothing or a decrease in high range PH. I've had a blue leg hermit in there since I've installed the live rock that hitched a ride on the live rock. He has done tremendous as well as grown in size.
 
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