Aqua Oak 100 cm systemised
- Thread starter Fremlins
- Start date
Sure. I was about to post an update anyway.
I would recommend the cheapest palythoa or mushroom coral you can find, just to see. Paly's are super hardy, so that's my #1 suggestion.
May we please see a full list of your water paramters? How is the wrasse doing?
So, quick update. The tank as it is now. You can see the clowns, 6 line wrasse and the hawkfish in the background and a couple of snails (I've just added 6 turbo snails as my first clean up crew and they've mopped up most of the diatoms already - though I'm going to have to clean them off the inside of the weir myself by the look of it. Those powerheads could use a scrub too)
Fairly pleased with the way it's gone to date. The fish seem to be thriving and nobody's quarrelling with anybody else (or tryng to eat them!) so far.
Water parameters are fine except my phosphate levels seem to be stuck at about 0.1 and I'd like to get that down before I start adding corals (the fish don't seem to care). I have created a refugium in the sump and have got some chaeto and spare bits of live rock in there and I've got a bag of mixed GFO and carbon elsewhere in the sump so hopefully that will help. Also I tinkered with my skimmer and it seems to be getting on with the job at last.
Not sure about the red stuff in the middle of the main rock pile. I think it's cyanobacteria although it seems to be growing quite slowly - any suggestions on what if anything I need to do about this would be welcome!
Fairly pleased with the way it's gone to date. The fish seem to be thriving and nobody's quarrelling with anybody else (or tryng to eat them!) so far.
Water parameters are fine except my phosphate levels seem to be stuck at about 0.1 and I'd like to get that down before I start adding corals (the fish don't seem to care). I have created a refugium in the sump and have got some chaeto and spare bits of live rock in there and I've got a bag of mixed GFO and carbon elsewhere in the sump so hopefully that will help. Also I tinkered with my skimmer and it seems to be getting on with the job at last.
Not sure about the red stuff in the middle of the main rock pile. I think it's cyanobacteria although it seems to be growing quite slowly - any suggestions on what if anything I need to do about this would be welcome!
You will still want to have some phosphates, or you will have an algae explosion. It's a common misconception that high phosphates cause algae outbreaks, but low phosphates also cause algae blooms. You just have to find the middle point and try to keep it there.
You are correct, that's Cyano. Do you use RO water? Usually Cyano is caused by excess minerals in the water, or low water movement in that area. How is the water flow in the center of the tank?
As of yesterday:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
pH somewhere between 8.0 and 8.2
(all these have been consistent for weeks now)
Phosphate 0.1 - fine for the fish as far as I know but maybe too high for corals?
The wrasse is doing fine. Eating well and not bothering anybody (he did hang around the hawkfish for a day or two but neither of them seemed to bother the other and they keep themselves to themselves now).
Thanks
I do use RO (I make my own using a 4 stage RODI system). You could have a point about the flow as that spot is a bit sheltered by the rocks either side of it, but I can reposition the powerheads to fix that.
0.1ppm is fine for coral and fish.
Awesome. What are you currently feeding the fish?
Sounds good. Adding a bit more flow there might help with that. I would manually remove as much as you can now, before it spreads.
Mixture of flake ("Pro-F Aquatic Life with Garlic") and frozen artemia. A very little twice a day at the moment. I haven't tried live food yet.
Interesting about the phosphate. I'd thought I'd need to bring it down to about 0.5 or thereabouts but if I can get away with 0.1 for soft corals at least then I'll probably see if I can pick up a couple of frags this week.
I personally think live food is a waste of time. Having a good variation on dry and frozen food will provide plenty of nutrients. Have you considered getting mysis?
I'm sorry, I was reading that as 0.01ppm for some reason.
Yes, 0.10ppm is too high for most coral. I would try to get it down to 0.5ppm before getting your first frag.
Note: The current presence of the algae in your tank might mess with the test kit, so don't take the results as literal.
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