New To Saltwater

[Yuma]

Ok. I need some help.

Can anyone offer recommendations/help with placement of these powerheads.

What am I looking for? What am I trying to accomplish?

Currently I have one on the left hand side, near the back, about half way up pointing towards the top middle of the tank.

The one on the right side of the tank is about half way back, pointing at the front bottom of the tank.

My thinking was that I wanted flow throughout the tank without necessarily pummeling anything in particular.

Just looking for some input/suggestions on placement of these things.

Thanks,
Yuma

 

[Yuma]

Ordered my 2 gold banded maroon clowns today. Be here next week. Yay!!

 

[Yuma]

Tank a little cloudy tonight, but looks like I'm kicking up a little sand with my powerheads, so I've adjusted and see if it clears up.

Stats:
Ph 8.1
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20<40
Temp 80.0
Sg 1.025

Took out the mechanical filter tonight and added a dark blue background. Looks really nice. So dark it's just above black.

Also had a funny thing happen today. One of our cerith snails got stuck with the tip of his shell in a hole sticking straight up. Don't think there's anyway he could get out. Thankfully my wife noticed and rescued the poor guy. But not before a picture:



Here is a full tank shot, without the wet/dry, with the new powerheads and background



Yuma

 

[didz04]

Haha how did that happen someone must have been bored and I think you know who..

The rocks looking more alive but to the looks of it have you built up the LR on top of the sand, can cause problems if you're thinking of getting a goby. They will dig under tight spots trying to make as many secure places for when they need to hide out.

 

[seffieuk]

It is looking nice and would echo Didz - did you build on the sand?

Also, you need to have a fair bit of surface aggitation, so may need to move a powerhead. I would move the one pointing up, a bit further down and more facing up and the other one move it down facing forwards

Seffie x

 

[Yuma]

Thanks for the info. I did put the sand in first and built the live rock on top of it once I had purchased it all. I twisted and turned the bottom pieces until I felt like it was scratching glass underneath.

The only exception is the "white piece" on the bottom, just left of center.....I can tell from the sand that's been pushed out from under it from the powerhead that I didn't quite get it all the way down to glass. The other exception is the piece all the way on the right in the front. It has a neat little corallimorph right at the sand line so I didn't bury it as much as I would have liked because I didn't want to cover it up.

On the powerheads. The one on the left is agitating the surface. It hits about the center of the left light, near the back of the tank. I can't move it any further down because of the live rock. I tried the one on the right a little further down and forward and pointed a little further down, and that's how I was getting the cloudy water from all of the sand it was kicking up (around the white rock earlier mentioned) and it was buffeting my mushrooms on top of that rock on the right pretty hard, so I tinkered with it last night and moved it up a bit and pointed it more towards the rock structure in the front left of the tank.

I think I've gotten pretty good flow throughout, but as you say, I may not have enough surface agitation for the gas exchange. I'm certainly not getting any surface agitation on the right side of the tank and can see some "scum" sort of building on the surface on that side. You can actually kind of see it in the picture as well.

Any additional input is CERTAINLY welcome. I'm definitely still learning and struggling with the powerhead placement.

I'm beginning to think that I may need an additional powerhead.

Yuma

 

[seffieuk]

I have never been able to get my powerhead placement correct, i'm always moving two of them around

Seffie x

 

[didz04]

I have mine 3/4 of the way up the tank facing up so there is enough movement on the surface. Its a powerful power head for my tank but most of the fast current gets lost when its facing up and once it hits the skimmer and glass at the other end. So by time it comes around to the front its fine for the fish and I can see its fine for my pulsing xenia, doesn't get pushed around. Mine works well just with one power head.

It just takes time to position the power head perfectly for your rock, fish and corals. Every tank is different so only you can figure out whats best.

 

[seffieuk]

In reply to your PM:

I like the way your rock is looking, in particular the right bommie I might be tempted to try and move the left Bommie slightly sideways if it is so close to the glass that you cant get an algae magnet down the side and maybe add the rock which is by itself to the top.

But too be honest, I like it just the way it is, has lots of spaces for corals in the future

Seffie x

 

[Yuma]

Well, we have our first fatality. Lost one of our big turbo snails, sometime over the last day or two.

Immediately did water test:

Temp 78.1
Ph 8.1
Ammonia 0<.25 (hard to say, there may be a smidge of ammonia here)
No2 0
No3 0
SG 1.024

I'll test again first thing in the morning and see where we are, if the ammonia doesn't come down in next 24 hours I'll do a water change.

On a good note, I finally found the mushy that had fallen behind the rocks and got him back on top.

Yuma

 

[Yuma]

New turbo and a couple peppermint shrimp tonight.

Water stats stable.

Here's one of the peppermint's



Also have 4 or 5 big patches of snail eggs. Here's a pic of the one on the front glass.



Yuma

 

[seffieuk]

Nice fish food and pretty

Seffie x

 

[Yuma]

Nitrates had edged a little higher, and I had some water that I needed to get used so I did a 25% water change tonight.

I bought a 33 gallon trash can and a used pump off of a local reef guy that had some stuff leftover from tearing his tank down...made the whole thing MUCH easier. AND, the saltwater I bot from lfs wasn't has high salinity as last time, so I had to buy salt and mix some in.

Good learning experience. Feel good about making my own saltwater now. No more buying saltwater. Next step......RO/DI. Maybe for Christmas. lol

Water stats after the change:

Temp 78.7
PH 8.1
Ammonia 0
NO2 0
NO3 20
Sg 1.024

Fish this week. Yay!!

Yuma

 

[Yuma]

Been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd share a few pics. Lost another turbo snail.

Anyway, here's my star polyps that have started coming out:



And here is a pic of my biggest mushroom...very happy:


And...a picture of all of the smaller mushrooms on the other rock: (notice the small white ones in bottom left corner)




So other than losing a couple snails, everything else seems to be pretty happy.

Yuma

 

[Yuma]

Alrighty folks, I need some help.

Nitrates running at 40 ppm. So, before I put fish in I feel like I need to get the nitrates down a little.

Ammonia, 0, Nitrites 0, PH 8.1, temp 78.2, sg running between 1.024 and 1.025.

Did a 25% water change on Sunday night....no change to nitrates.

Did ANOTHER 25% water change tonight....no change to nitrates.


EDIT: (I did have it tested at lfs after Sunday night change to confirm)

I have in the tank:

10 cerith snails
10 nassarius
1 turbo
1, maybe 2 emerald crabs
2 peppermint shrimp
8 or 9 mushrooms and a fair patch of star polyps

I fed zooplankton to my mushies, 3/4 tsp once a week, two times, but haven't done that in 9 days.

One crab molted today. The other crab either molted or got eaten today...I'm not sure which. Mushy's happy, star polyps finally coming out.

So, any thoughts/suggestions on this nitrates problem?

Thanks for your help,

Yuma