28 gallon Bowfront

[Michael Roth]

the calcium reading is accurate. the calcium levels will drop as the crushed coral in the ac 300 gets coated with algae. From this, you see that it is not the only flow. I am also using the ac300 and the remora protien skimmer which is rated at 200gph. making roughly 750 gph in a 28 gallon tank. There are no dead spots, and the concern actually is too much flow for the hammer coral. I would NOT have bought a mandarin without having a large concentration of 'pods scurrying about, but yes the mandarin is eating both flake and frozen hikari rotifers. It is fat and happy. My ammonia is less than .25ppm, and nitrates/ nitrites are nil. Don't worry about sounding cheeky, the reason I made this thread is to show the learning process, any and all imput is welcomed.

 

[Navarre]

Hi Micheal, Im so glad tohear that you returned the fish, a very wise move in the long term has been made

as for the calcium, I am very confused at the level you reading. I dont know the actual figure (but i will find out today and post it) but once calcium reaches saturation point in water it changes completely and falls out of hte water colum and forms a white powder in the tank. Im not entirely sure if this causes any danger in iteself other than massive PH swings but i will do some research and give you my findings.

Flow... Im a little more conservative onthe flow than Chac, I would recomend the minimum of 10x volume and definately aim for 20x in a reef tank. I have ran a 10x volume before and i can honestly say that this really is scraping ht barrel a far as minimum is concerned. It looks to me like you are well over the minimum specs i would recomend but its always a good idea to experiment with flows and currents in the tank and thus create areas of different strength currents

 

[Chac]

Hi Michael

I must admit I do go for a higher flow system, my tank runs at almost 40x total volume without not include the External so it is a high flow system (which doesnt seem to bother either my fish, Inverts or corals)

I would still advice that you slow down on the purchases for 2 reasons

1- it is still a youngh system, give it time to mature
2 - you will run out of room quite quickly and be unable to add anything new to the system

Del

 

[Michael Roth]

Just bought a house. My purchases have to be slow now

 

[Michael Roth]

**double post. Nothing to see here**

 

[George Farmer]

My ammonia is less than .25ppm

Shouldn't it be zero before adding any livestock (excluding live rock obviously)?

Sorry if I'm wrong - I'm no marine expert.

 

[Michael Roth]

whenever you add livestock, your levels wil briefly fluctuate. as of today all levels are zero, and calcium is still 1000 ppm.

 

[Jessica13]

I've just had a quick look through this thread, and the tanks looking good!

I am confused though, was this tank started from scratch? Becuase im just setting up a little nano-reef tank and i've had it running for about a month now and have just got the live rock in it at the moment until it has cycled properly. I plan to add some more live rock next week then some hermit crabs and shrimps after about 3-4 weeks if everything goes well. If the shrimps and crabs do ok a couple of common clowns will be added about a month later

I've been advised not to add any coral to my tank until everything else has settled in, so probably not for another 2-3 months!

Im sure you know what you're doing, but i thought you had to take even longer to stock a SW tank than a FW and you do seem to be filling it quickly!

 

[Ed4567]

I was going to write a long post on calcium and alkalinity but I began boring myself.

Firstly I don't expect much if any of the crushed coral to dissolve and so probably won't be altering your calcium level much.

Secondly you can find the solubility product of calcium carbonate by multiplying the concentration of dissolved calcium ions by the concentration of dissolved carbonate ions (as measured with an alkalinity test kit). If this is above a certain level precipitation will occur.

In short your calcium level either means your alkalinity is very low or the test kit is wrong or something very strange is going on.

This is a simplified account!

ps. nice tank btw