What And When

[HappyGeorge]

I have my 20G set up substrate in, temp stable, pumps and powerheads running, salinity sorted. All seems to be fine took water sample to LFS for testing and told all ok and picked up 5kg of Live Rock. Of the rock I bought 4kg of Fiji came out of the beautiful reef display tank in the shop which is currently being broken to make way for a cichlid tank it is very very porous amazingly lightweight.
So of the total rock in my tank approx 30-40% of the total surface area is covered with pink and purple coralline, it seems to be covered in feather dusters and other bits and pieces. The rest of the rock is 4 pieces of clean ocean rock and a small rock which came from the LFS cured live rock tank. This has now been running for a week am I likely to get any change in parameters given that the vast majority of my live rock has come from a clean, mature tank?

Question is at what point should I look at adding the next thing and what? I am keen to find a CUC of snails, shrimp and an emerald crab (I know about crabs killing snails) and possibly a hermit or 2 but finding Kent a bit of a desert for them all. I also would like to add fish at some point looking at Emperor Cardinal, Chromis, Pseudochromis and a pair of clowns (not all at once obviously).
Should I look at a fish or maybe the pair of clowns as the next step, I am in no hurry but if it's safe I would rather have a tank with a pair of clowns in the corner of the living room for the Christmas period. Although just letting people stare at it for hours while I lie to them about all the wonderful things they might see if they keep looking is very tempting.

 

[seffieuk]

Hi George

You havent got enough rock in at the moment, you need approx 5 more kilos and then when your nitRAtes are below <10, you can add your cuc. In answer to your other question, it really depends how long the rock was out of water, re: cycle.

I have found Kent to be a wonderful place for lfs - where abouts are you? Dont forget you can always order the things you require from your lfs

Seffie x

 

[HappyGeorge]

Thanks Seffie, could you pm me any suggested places please, I am on the Isle of Sheppey (no jokes please I wasn't born here so only have the standard number of toes/fingers/heads) but I don't really mind what the mileage is to pick stuff up at the moment I travel to Gravesend. I have mentioned places here before but don't want to endorse them based on my experience or to turn the thread into a Fish shop debate. I have been into some horrible ones. When I started my foray into fish keeping with my Malawi tank last year I spent months going round to LFS's multiple times to see the conditions of their livestock and testing owners/staff with questions I had researched and knew the answers to, it was amazing how many told me ridiculous things and repeatedly had dead, deformed, damaged and over priced stuff in their tanks.

I don't have room for 5kg more, this stuff is amazingly light, I'm assuming that there is some way of working out how much rock is required other than its weight as I would assume that a rocks filtering capability is linked to its porosity so a piece of rock 6 inches square weighing 2kg would offer much better filtration than a 6 inch square piece weighing 4kg and the weight of live rock varies hugely? I will post a pick tomorrow and see how far off you think the total coverage is.

The rock was never out of water the display tank was stripped one day and I picked up the rock from the shop the next during which time it was put in their cured Live Rock for sale tank.

I did say to the guy in the LFS that I was aiming for 8-10kg and he did say to me that the rock they have is very light and I wouldn't need that amount. I was assuming he was close to right as I'm sure he would been just as happy to sell me another £60 worth.

 

[HappyGeorge]

Photos, what do you think?
Rock work 1
Rock work 2

 

[simonas]

not a bad scape looks similar to mine
You'll get more with corals as you add them. I;d have said you need more as I know I have about 10kg in a similar size tank
The light rock doesn;t look like live rock to me but I;ll wait for a more experienced reefer to comment with any authority on that

Simon

This stage is great what are your plans for stocking coral wise?

 

[seffieuk]

The light rock doesn;t look like live rock to me but I;ll wait for a more experienced reefer to comment with any authority on that

As Simon said, you will get more live rock when you start to buy corals, however, I would still buy a bit more

Re your thoughts Simon on the white live rock, I suspect the white rock is live, but has been out of the light, so either in an unlighted sump or under other live rock and not getting light to it.

I like the scape

I couldn't agree with you more about the conditions some lfs keep their livestock and their knowledge base is a times astonishingly lacking I actually dont know which part of Kent the Isle of Sheppey is in But I am in Essex and have on a couple of occassions braved the bridge and tunnel to visit shops in Kent.

Seffie x

Seffie x

 

[HappyGeorge]

Thanks all just to clarify, you are right simonas the rock at the bottom at the back and on the right is not live it is clean, scrubbed, sterile ocean rock that I used to put down as a base I wanted to slick them to the bottom with aquarium sealant as a ultra stable base.
The Top 3 pieces are rock from the display tank they that my LFS dismantled hence the good colouration.The piece bottom left is live but as Seffie correctly identified it has been out of the light, it has a little colour on the back but the side I have showing was much more attractive, their are lots and lots of featherworms on this piece so I am assuming it is well matured.
One of the reasons I was leaving it was to allow for rock coming with corals, but if the general consesus is that I need to add more at this stage then I shall bow to opinion. I don't have grand schemes for corals think at this stage I would like Finger Leather (Cladiella), Button Polyp (Protopalythoa) and also quite like the star and daisy polyps, not sure about cucumbers but I am open to suggestions. I want stuff that is easy to care for as I would like this tank to be as succesful as my Malawi tank i.e I don't want to kill anything.

 

[HappyGeorge]

Tested my water today and it is under 5 ppm appears to be no die off from the rocks at all in fact the correline seems to be spreading even more. Have a number of hitchikers in the tank, there are between 6 and 12 what I think are Collinista, there are also at least 3 Amphipholis squamata.

 

[seffieuk]

So, what is the plan?

Seffie x

 

[simonas]

pity your not closer I;m selling my finger coral its quite big aswell

 

[HappyGeorge]

Well I bought another 2 kilos of rock and got a nice crop of freebie button polyps on some of it. One of the pieces also has a little green and blue mushroom on it. The tank now has the following that have appeared from the live rock - Asterina starfish, brittle stars, feather dusters (most tiny but one about an inch across), and a load of Collinista snails, a clam,a couple of shrimps appeared (either dead or playing ride the powerhead) and some weird translucent white tenticle things poking out from a hole. Not bad for a tank with a few bits of rock in it, I just can't stop watching the stuff its addictive.

Tested water yesterday and then got my LFS to do them for me as well and everything is fine, the nitates are under 5, the only issue is the phosphates which are 0.25.

I am looking at going to get a pair of clowns tomorrow.

It has been suggested I use Rowaphos to reduce the phosphates, does anyone use it and does it work or just another fish keeping gimmick?

 

[seffieuk]

Pet rock watching is fasinating

I would go so far as to say that most people on here use a phoshate remover like rowa or phosban

Seffie x

 

[HappyGeorge]

Ok so the Hitchiker list is now through the roof,tiny white speedy worms, those weird snails that look like giant slug/woodlice with the long feelers, so many black and white striped worms/legs sticking out of rocks and still an as yet unidentified circle of 5 or 6 crooked translucent off white tentacles that have just tonight grabbed a lump of food as it passed and look much more sinister than they did before.

I added the clowns as planned and they seem perfectly happy and now exploring the whole tank and feeding well. I also added 4 tiny blue legged hermits, and some spare shells, they are wonderful creatures and move about at an incredible rate.

Today I have acquired 2 small turbos and one of the main things I wanted, an emerald crab.

Here's a photo of tank so far, this is seriously addictive I can sit and watch for hours.

My freeby crop of Polyps

My second freeby, more polyps and mushroom, any ideas what it is? Top left of rock.

 

[seffieuk]

If you change the url code to an img code, the photos should in-bed in the post

Looking very nice though

Seffie x

 

[HappyGeorge]

How weird thought I had done what I normally did, and either photobucket or TFF had changed something but evidently I have lost my mind will correct them.

How weird thought I had done what I normally did, and either photobucket or TFF had changed something but evidently I have lost my mind will correct them.