My tank is almost 'done'

[rDr4g0n]

UPDATE March 15th, 2007


UPDATE March 14th, 2007
Was outta town for a while. When i got back there were 2 small problems. first, my lion has developed an infection on a cut in his caudal fin. i plan to treat with garlic and see if that is adequate. second, is a cyano outbreak. but 3 different colors of cyano. i plan to siphon most of it out today and reposition the powerhead to move more water across the bottom of the tank.

heres the fuge as it is now. i got the tall green macro straight outta the ocean as well as a few snails and some tiny mullet fry to feed my lion.


speaking of feeding my lion, check out this vid


UPDATE March 8th, 2007
My lion ate frozen food! woot! thats a good sign.

UPDATE March 6th, 2007
The abused clown has died. ptthhhhhh too much death.

UPDATE March 5th, 2007
One lionfish died. there is no indication as to why. the other appears perfectly healthy and has eaten 2 goldfish. i dont plan to feed him goldfish all teh time, im just using it to get him eating frozen foods. Also, i suspect my clowns are fighting because one has some major fin damage. I have separated him from the other fish.

UPDATE March 4th, 2007
Added another tank to the system.


Modified my 2 20 watt strip lights into one fixture to save space.


UPDATE March 3rd, 2007
Added 2 antennata lions!


UPDATE March 1st, 2007
Added 2 false perculas. young and tank bred, so i dont forsee any problems.

UPDATE Fed 24th, 2007
Rearranged the LR... still not happy with it lol

UPDATE Fed 20th, 2007
The carbon did the trick. i dunno what started the bacterial bloom, but the water is nice and clear now. My airpump arrived yesterday so i started up my skimmer. I woke this morning to find foam already rising into the collection cup and a few drops of skimmate forming in the collection cup. WOOT!


UPDATE Fed 20th, 2007
The water has become increasingly cloudy. Its like smokey cloudy. Ive put my HOB filter into my sump with some filter carbon in hopes that this will clear it up. Im guessing its some sort of bacterial bloom. The only other thing that i have done that may have caused it is that i recently removed a lot of caulerpa from teh main tank and put it in the sump.

UPDATE Fed 16th, 2007
The nassarius snails have almost completly controlled the little bit of cyano that was appearing. The water quality has balanced and is perfect! I had a copepod explosion overnight!

UPDATE Fed 11th, 2007
both new pajamas died. the other 3 fish are just fine, water levels are perfect. the new ones were acclimated for 1 hour and everything was done correctly. my LFS offers no warranties, so i just flushed $20....

UPDATE Fed 8th, 2007
Added 2 more cardinals. this puts me at 3 Pajama Cardinals and 2 Bang Gai Cardinals.

UPDATE Fed 8th, 2007
added 25 nassarius vibex

UPDATE Fed 6th, 2007
Re-plumbed sump. hopefully this takes care of my trouble with the balancing act. i also dremeled teeth into the overflow skimmer box. believe it or not, they look professional too!





ill be adding a powerhead to get some water flowing into the refugium soon.


the filter sock has an actual sock on it




UPDATE Fed 4th, 2007
added 2 ban gai cardinals.


UPDATE Fed 4th, 2007
got the sump going. heres a cheesy little vid of it in action YouTube - frankensump


UPDATE Jan 25th, 2007


nice sand bed and a pajama cardinal

Original Post




once my system cures, ill add some sugar fine white sand. I intend to have it about 1inch in the front, and about 3 in the back. the slant will give it more depth, and hopefully and detritus will roll to the front for easy removal. once the sump is ready, ill move the heater and the (not pictured) protein skimmer over to there. i also intend to remove the HOB filter as well. Ill also put on a blue background to hide the (soon to be built) overflow box, and to give an additional sense of depth. oh and a crew of snails, and a scarlet hermit crab to clean up stuff.

i dont necessarily want it to be a reef tank, but the coral, sponges and tunicates that are in there i hope will live. so anyways, any recommendations for fish? also, what steps can i take to help keep my inverts alive? since it is a new tank, im sure its even harder than it would be in an established system. any recommended treatments or additives?

Previously

[Dentoid]

Looks great! If I may suggest, IMO, a black background gives alot of depth and sets off the colors on the tank much better.

[rDr4g0n]

the background is two sided, one side is black, so i'll give the black side a try.

[Dentoid]

Let me know what you think.

[rDr4g0n]

i have another question!!!

im planning to order a crew of snails and a scarlet hermit to clean up the rock. the plants, and pretty much everything else has little pieces of icky brown stuff on it. i imagine its some kind of algae. i want to know what will take care of that without harming the plants, and inverts. also, when i put the white sand bed in, im gonna want to keep it as white as possible. what should i get to keep the sand nice, and how many?

[ninjataco777]

thats what i did

[Cougra]

The tank looks good so far, however I would suggest that you add the white sand now rather then waiting. The sand will give the bateria more surface area to colonize and will mature at the same time as the rock. It'll be more beneficial in the long run. I definately recommend adding the sand around the rock pile so that if you get a fish that likes to dig in the future you wont have to worry about rock slides.

To keep the sand nice and clean, I recommend that you get some nassarius snails as they bury themselves in the sand and keep it turned over fairly well.

[burning2nd]

agreed with corgra, i would add it now,


if you do it later you could add stress 2 your system, prolonging the maxium protental of your system.

i like your tank what size is that?

i used a gray backround, (stuff on rc airplane wings that shrinks under heat)

[rDr4g0n]

@burning 2nd: the tank is 30 gallons (or 29... but who cares )

added sand, an emerald crab, and 3 mexican turbos. i wanted to get waaayyy more snails, especially nassarius snails, but my budget is running low, and LFS didnt have any nessarius

the tank looks AMAZING! all i have left to do now is: get rid of the gorilla crab, build the overflow and sump, and get it plumbed. the finishing touch will be the colored background. i bought one from the pet store that is blue on one side and black on the other, so i gotta choose which i prefer.

but then i gotta setup kalkvasser, auto topoff, calcium reactor, DIY protein skimmer, moonlights.. well.. i can dream.

also, im seeing more and more cup coral that are alive. i bought some micro-vert to feed my inverts, and to hopefully keep the corals alive. im still curious if the anemone i have in there is a good one or a bad one. also, the source of the clicking i cant identify yet... pistol shrimp, or mantis shrimp.

ill have pics soon!

[Dentoid]

Gorilla crabs are easy to stab with a chop stick or wooden shish kabob skewer. Go very slowly with the skewer when when you see them. They tend to be curious with the skewer tip. When you get within range, let 'em have it. Then put it between two pieces of graham cracker with melted marshmello and a chocolate square. A gorilla smore!

Pistol shrimps usually make one "crack", it's very loud. Mantis shrimps generally make more than one "click" in succession. I'm still looking for one or two that came in my live rock. I removed two already by ID'ing their hidey hole. I removed the rock, positioned it over a bucket, and poured seltzer water over the rock. They fell out into the bucket. I took them to the lfs where Danny, an employee at the lfs, took them home and is now keeping them in a 12 gallon nano, by themselves. I did capture one very large gorilla crab in a trap. I took it to the lfs and Danny accepted the crab and fed it to the mantis! Oh, the life of captive crabs. They are evil, but mantis shrimps are demonic! Happy reefing!

[Dentoid]

BTW, Satan also invented the mantis shrimp!

[lcstorc]

Everything is looking great. Looks like you are well on your way. If you are not planning a reef you probably will not need to drip kalc but the protein skimmer is extremely useful in any saltwater tank. The stuff it pulls out is way gross.
As for the sand I have become a huge lover of fighting conchs. I used to have problems keeping my sand clean despite siphoning it during water changes, lots of nassarius, etc. As soon as I added the fighting conchs (3 to my 125 and 1 to my 24) my sand has stayed in beautiful shape.
Stay away from sand sifting stars. I have one but learned later that unlesss it is a large system they usually eat all the good stuff in your sand bed and then starve. Mine really doesn't move that much anyway. The conchs and snails do a far better job.

[rDr4g0n]

i had read a few times that conchs were the way to go to move sand. i will definatly add that to my list. i want to get about 10 nassarius, and 1 conch then to get my cleanup crew complete.

after that the first fish i will add is gonna be a mandarin goby. they look cool and are relatively harmless.

i still hear the click. its not successive, maybe once every 20 or 30 seconds. i hear 2 or so at a time, then theres a 3 or 4 minute pause, and maybe 1 more click. im gonna try to build a little trap out of a mason jar by poking a small hole in the lid and having the pieces of metal point inwards. this way it can get it, but has a hard time getting out. im gonna use a piece of shrimp as bait. will having the jar with a metal lid in teh tank overnight be bad for teh chemistry somehow?

oh, and LOL dentoid

[Cougra]

A Mandarin Goby will not survive in your tank. These are not actual goby's but from a group of fish refered to as Dragonets. All Dragonets are very difficult to keep and require a large mature tank (at least a year old) with around 100 lb's of live rock and a refugiumto keep the copepod populations going in a tank, without any other fish that depends on 'pods for a major food source. They are mostly copepod eaters and rarely take to eating enough prepared foods to make that a viable option for people with small tanks to keep.

I strongly recommend that you find a different first fish!

[Dentoid]

Mantis shrimps are touted as the smartest Arthropods on this planet. Yes, Siree! They don't take too well to traps, as I have found. It's best to locate the hole they are going in and out of and place the trap at the entrance. You might get it, if you have a mentally challenged mantis. You may have to leave the trap in position for a few days so that it becomes accustom to the traps presence. The metal may not be good for the water chemistry. I have read that a trap can be made from a plastic cigar tube. Make cut marks on the top of the screw-on lid in a radiating fashion (like cutting a pie). Then bend the triangular pieces inward (similar to what you want to do with with the jar). The tube is opaque and the shrimp feels more secure going in to get the bait. I have not done this though. The old seltzer water works great! BTW, it's best to do this now than to discover later it has snatched your favorite fish, or has eaten all your snails.

I agree with Cougra on the Mandarin. I believe, just about everybody in the hobby has at one time or another wanted a mandarin. Don't do it dude! Your infant system can not support the feeding needs of this fish. Give your system time to mature, and give yourself time to research the uniqueness of this beautiful fish. Happy reefing!