28 gallon Bowfront

and....
fish....

thank you, thank you. here is one of the new gobies posing under the actinics...

Aaaaaaw.... goby. Sorry, you just gotta love gobies!

Been a while, but I have noticed a few things as the tank is maturing... I have two brittle stars poking their arms out every once in a while... and this :

How about a new full tank shot?

I will take a full tank shot tonight at dusk. For now:


Emerald Crab

I lied. Here is a not so good pic. As you can see, it has not changed much.

caught a shot of this today, it thinks it is well hidden.

New coral. This one is easy to keep. A few flourescent lights would even be sufficient...

I saw this thread when it first started and then lost track of it. Nice to see how things are progressing. I do have some concerns however, the Tridacna Clam (i am pretty sure is a Crocus clam but it might be a maxima with poor markings). Both these clams need incredibly high powered lights. I have a Crocus clam and it sits 4inches below the water surface with a 400w 10k halide directly over it. Even this close the clam has lost a little of its coloration and returning to a brown state.

If you have the Crocus then i hope its captive bred because wild caught ones rarely live more than a few weeks due to the way they are collected (their bysus glands get damaged and the clam is doomed). If its the Maxima then this isnt such an issue however the marking of the clam for a maxima are very uniform whilst most maximas tend to be bold contrasting markings.
You would be better off with a desra clam as these live in deeper water and thus are happy with lower light levels. Last comment on the clams.. I hope you realise with the amount of hard corals you are putting in a tiny tank like this, the calciums levels will soon get depleted especially with a fast growing clam (my desra clam grew from 3 inches across to 9 inches across in 12 months)

Now onto the cleaner wrasses.. (sorry if i sound so negative)
Cleaner wrasses rarely live longer than 12 months in captivity. These fish have a highly specialised diet.. its parasites on other fish. whilst it possible to ween them onto other foods, this is not a natural food source for them and their gut can easily become infected or swollen and they die. I have looked at the photo extremely closely and i am pretty sure they are cleaners and not the dreaded false cleaner goby that actually eats fish instead of cleaning them. I will mention that i had a cleaner in my old 100 gallon system and due to its specialised feeding needs, it harrased my fish relentlessly and just one of these fish single handedly killed a 14" blue ring angel due to stress. Hopefully this wont be an issue with your fish but i am concerned how these fish will adapt to a diet that they are not designed to eat.

Lastly. The citrus goby and the Clown goby are the same species of fish (different subspecies), i can see territorial isues and fights happening here also. I really hope im proved wrong on this but gobies are extremly territorial when it comes to their own kind.

Good luck with the setup.

awesome shots of the tank, good work!

Funny you should mention it, but the cleaner wrasses and citrus gobies went back. The clam's scientific name escapes me, but it is niether the maxima nor the crocus. I'd have to check. as of yesterday calcium was 1000ppm, annnnd kalkwasser is a marvelous thing.

Hi Michael

I have just read this post completely and like Navarre (Especially the Clam) I have some concerns, some of which Navarre has addressed, but the others are

Flow Rate Is the Internal Fluval the only flow you have, as realistically this is no where near enough, for a Reef Tank IMO you should be looking to turn your total tank volume over at lease (IMO) 25x per hour, In my reef I personally go higher. I would suggest a flow of around - 2500lph (am I right in thinking this is a 28US Gallon - 105litre), if you dont add enought flow to the tank then the bacteria that colonize in your life rock will be uable to do there job.

Corals -Again I think you are stocking far to fast realistically I would only add Soft Corals after at the very least 3 months and then only 1 every 3 - 4 Weeks, and teh same goes with fish(After the initial cycle I would add a fish once a month) as in you have now more than likely reached your max stocking density.

You have also added a Mandarin Fish, does this eat flake or frozon yet as this is not a fish for a new setup really, your LFS owner should have told you this and that even a tank of around 1 year old is maybe still a bit young for this type of fish

You really need to address the equipment issues instead of buying more livestock

What are you running in the Fluval Internal
What are your Paremeters (ie Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, Phos, KH/Alk. Mag. pH, SG.)

Del

I am not being rude or cheeky, just concerned

Also your calcium level is way to high (are you sure this reading is correct)

That fish is very pretty! You tank has come along quite nicely.