Eeeee! New Tank

[MBOU]

I'm so excited!! I'm at work and they have FINALLY agreed to let me set up the Kent Marine Bio Reef tank, identical to the riverreef 94 but black back, higher spec lighting, skimmer and powerhead.

And best thing about it!?..... Muwaha it's not my money! I can't go mad but.... Wooooooo!!! Not had my own tank in nearly a year!!

I know I'm going to have a pair of common clowns because its a shop display... I cant not have them...

But I have so much choice!! I know I want a species of trimma goby or two and either a smiths blenny or rainford goby or maybe a gramma or maybe a nice bangaii or.. Or.. Or....

There is so much choice!!

Today it's water from the system, sand and I'm going to take a hammer to one of our last HUGE bits of liverock that will never sell... That and I suspect there is a mantis in there! And my secret ingredient for cycling a marine tank, though lucky for me, mature water and filter media... This shouldn't be too painful!!

Woohhoooo

*skips away in the happiest mood ever*

 

[lljdma06]

Look forward to the build. Just be careful and only take on what you know as a hobbiest you can handle. Sometimes when presented with choices one can go nuts. LOLOL Have an idea of what you want to do from the beginning and read, read, read!

What are you thinking about for corals?

What's the lighting?

L

 

[ALW]

Agree with llj, I wouldnt add too many fish to the tank. After all it is only a 20g tank. Really you are looking at a pair of Clownfish, a Gramma, a Cardinalfish ane either a small Goby or Blenny.

 

[MBOU]

Sure, i dont intend to add more than 5-6 fish depending on species, trimma gobies and rainfords etc are really tiny and dont take up much space at all, besides, i love the inverts as much as anything!

The lighting consists of two compact T5s, (1 x Daylight White + 1 x Daylight/Blue) plus a strip of 6 White LEDs and 4 blue LEDs. The compacts, the white leds and the blue leds are all on seperate switches too.

As for corals, Im not entirely sure yet! Im not going to do anything too fancy as we dont sell many corals and certainly no hard corals...

TBH i LOVE zoas... i dont know why, they are so simple and easy to keep and yet come in loads of different colours! A few mushies and/or riccordea, depends when i actually ID what it is we actually have

I'd love a sun coral to play with and I will make an overhand ready... but that is so far down the line im not going to worry about it.

Im not making any definate choices on fish or corals as it will depend on what i fall in love with at TMC... they have gorgeous polyps there that i dont know what they are but flouresce the most amazing green (loads of different types) and seeing as there is blue leds and im happy with low light stuff... i can have fun...

Dont want any hard corals or anything too aggressive as I want the tank to grow to look really full without murdering each other. Not sure about leathers, not even baby ones as they can grow so big and so fast and the idea of fregging thm makes me feel sick zoas are easy, i can superglue them onto a bit of LR rubble or just temporarily put a small rock there and take it out again with zoas on LOL. My kind of corals! I really want more pink zoas, i had some in my Edge but not seen them around in ages...

I HATE this skimmer.... its taken me hours to sort out and its proped up on the bio media... going to have to call people tomorrow to find out what on earth im doing wrong.

Mostly its because its new and its just chucking water through it and partly because its so smally and fiddley and i have really clumsy hands lol.

But its means to sit in the chamber at the back... sit being the operative word... it has suckers... that just dont stick to anything and as the cup gets full, it weighs down the skimmer which sinks it which floods it... bah... lots my temper and just left it in the end

Also discovered i only had 3 huge bits of liverock to put in it so looks naff for now *sigh*...

Now I just have to wait...

*sighs mournfully*

 

[lljdma06]

Don't get a sun coral. It takes a lot of work. And unless it's been trained to open while lights are on, it makes no sense to get one.

Now zoas are pretty sweet.

Take pictures MBOU and I'll id at least to the genus so you can get basic care requirments.

 

[MBOU]

Sun Corals aren't too bad so long as you are around a lot to feed it when it wants to be fed, i've kept both the yellow ones and the black ones before with no probs. The suns from TMC are all used to having lights on already and i would hardly choose a closed up one that wasnt feeding...

Im totally rubbish with scientific names, its taken me 4 years to get a rought grip on the trops that i see very day... marines.... well... im starting to remember some... corals are well beyond me!! I know the ones i have kept by sight and common name atm and will stick to those...

Any suggestions for any centerpiece corals that arent zoas or mushies would be welcomed

 

[MBOU]

Yay... getting there!

After all my other tanks, never messing with rock without using eggcrate again LOL, had a rock take a chunk out the base of another tank.

1.

2.

3.

4. (filling up tank from coral vat behind it! muwhah)

5. Only had 3 huge bits of liverock to go in, was really annoyed!

6. Twenty Four hours later and the water is clear and i found someone on another forum with some dried out liverock for me.

I tested the water an hour after all the rock went in and ammonia spiked, within two hours ammonia was zero and nitrite was high, by the end of the day, nitrite was .25 and nitrate was about 20... had a customer in really late so one last test and Nitrite was 0 and nitrate were 20-30 odd..

I know its not fully cycled or stable but nice to see its going to move pretty quickly!!

A few creepy crawleys ended up in the tank via liverock which was on the system, there is about 2 red leg hermits in there, a really odd looking purple Mithrax Crab. I wondered what was eating the coraline algae in ne of the tanks with no fish, didnt know he was in there.

There is also a really weird big snail, a sifter of somekind with a zebra stripey snout, was inside a bit of liverock, stuck i think and i knocked it out and it buried into the sand and dissapeared.

Hmm... what else.... oh yeah there is some orange sand polyps on two of the older bits of liverock too! All open and looking happy. Have photos of them somewhere too...

 

[MBOU]

Random burying snail...

Red Leg Hermit

Sand Polyps (anda turbo snail i didnt notice was in there until just now!)

Is that another snail on there!??

 

[lljdma06]

Well, that's coming along. Some neat little hitch hikers. Can you get a picture of the purple crab?

I'm finding my Tubasterea micrantha (black sun) to be very easy to keep. My T. faulkneri is more finicky, but still opening. Time will tell. According to Borneman, as long as they have food & high flow, they're not demanding. Keeping them only in the dark is a total myth. While they're found under overhangs & stuff in the wild, they're also found under full sunlight. If you're willing to keep them fed, keep them under high flow, & keep the water clean, they are great to keep. As for a centerpiece coral, I dunno, what do you like? & I guess your lighting determines what You can keep?

 

[MBOU]

Hah photo of the crab? You have to be kidding!!

He was green when he came in with the others but he grew so fast and took a liking to ripping the claws off his minions so I moved him and he stripped all the coraline off the rock, I forgot he was in there!! So he moved in with the liverock.

If I see him, I'll get a shot!

As for corals, I have a complete knowledge fail! Are plating corals of any kind easy to keep?

I love anything that glows nicely under actinic but isn't too temperamental! I can feed and waterchange easily as there is someone here every day all day. I just don't know all the species...

 

[MBOU]

Told you he wasnt photogenic!! LOL this was about the 8th time of playing hide and seek, camera has a tiny red light that blinks before it takes the photos and it gives him a heads up to dissapear lol.

He is cute actually and has the perfect home behind the rock. Plenty of space, i'll not put any extra crabs of any kind in there though! Dont think he will tolerate them. The two hermits are ok but he makes them stay out the front of the tank!

 

[demasonisrule]

Is that another snail on there!??

That looks like a sundial snail. They can eat zoanthids, if you see it again, I would remove it.

 

[MBOU]

Well... the sundial snail thing was just a shell but thats gone, turns out my other snail is a psycho mass murdering little *bleep*.

Saw him trundling about and in my head i noticed he was following my Turbo but didnt think anything of it, i looked again in 10 minutes and he was trundling off again trailing snail guts and had killed my turbo!!

I cant find him now, but i swear the second i catch him... we'll soon see who's more scarey lol. Dont like murderous little snails!

Have done a small water change today and and now everything is testing at 0 I like that... its impossible to get 0 nitrate in tapwater trops around here so its beautiful to see such low readings LOL

Added another two little corals, will post for exact ID later, one is a Riccordea of some kind and the other im not sure... still a mushroom 'type' thing...

They are huge when they open up! flat surface with loads of clusters of pimples all over them that makes them look fluffy... Orange and sit just nicely in the tank

 

[lljdma06]

Post peechurs. You're using tapwater?

 

[MBOU]

Noooooo not tapwater in this tank that would be daft I did use tap water when i had a fish only tank once as i couldnt be dealing with that much salted RO and where i lived the water tested really good. Wasnt a problem for the few years but tbh even liverock wouldnt survive in that tank, was just for my volitans.

Tapwater as in... for the trops,it comes out the tap some days at 50ppm... we can get that down but testing water you rarely see it below 20-50ppm around here...

So testing the marine tank is nice to get 00000000000 lol, though might need to keep an eye on the pH, though got 2 different readings on two different tests and i think its about 8 (as oposed to the slight heart attack when it tested at 6.8-7)

Cant post photos, am at work will get my butt kicked... already taken way too long on my lunch break

Will be back on around.... 7pm with more photos