Marine In A Rekord 96

[forest172]

The wife bought me a rekord 96 for my birthday and i`ve always wanted to do marine, used to do tropical as boy at my parents

Been to my local Fish shop and had a lad from there come to my house with water ready made and 12 kilo of live rock along with coral sand, and set it all up. They seemed very up to scrath on their marine setups. My plan is to have a pair of clowns, an angel and probably another small fish with a couple shrimps.

They said I wont need a protein skimmer with the live rock in there and if i change the water every 2/3 weeks everything should be ok. But after reading the net I think a protein skimmer is a must, but it appears that the conopy of the rekord 96 will need modifying to accomodate any sort of protein skimmer.

What you guys and girls think???

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Hey forest172

I've worked your tank out to be just over 30 gallons (30.5US )

I think you should add a couple more KG's of LR to bring the quantity up to the reccomended rate.
Just wondering if your using a hydrometer or refractometer?

Fishwise, a pair of clowns should do fine in that tank. I don't know if you meant Dwarf angel? but other angels would grow way to big for a nano There are some really nice Dwarf angels like the flame angel or coral beauty that will do fine in a 30G but beware they may nip at your corals.

I think 2 clowns, a dwarf angel and small goby would be just about right in a 30 and you wouldn't really need a skimmer as long as you have enough LR and flow. How much flow do you have now?

You could always setup a sump for your equipment to help make your tank look neater, i wish i had added one when i started

Goodluck

 

[bunjiweb]

take a hack-saw to it and cut out just enough of a gap to fit a hang on Aqua-Medic or Redsea Prizm skimmer on the back, take out all the sponge media except the carbon sponge and replace with biological ceramic or other porous media.

What kind of sand bed are you aiming for? I would go for a deep one at about 2-2.5" to encourage anerobic denitrifying bacteria and homes for starfish, worms etc. 12KG of LR sounds about right, what does it look like? lots of colourful algae and life noticable?

As for flow you could attach a spray bar to a powerhead that is directed behind the LR to avoid dead spots. You will need probably 2 other powerheads other than the internal filter to provide enough flow whilst remaining even and reducing dead spots.

Replace the light with something like an Interpet Tri-plus or Arcadia Original Tropical Lamp for the best full spectrum and I would add one of the juwel reflectors to increase light reflection into the tank. You could even with this basic light still have mushrooms or polyps in the tank quite easily.

Ben

 

[forest172]

Thanks for that info folks.

Anyway they set it up with their water from a tank of theirs and we now have 12kg of cured LR in.

I have put in 2 x Cleaner Shrimps, 2x Clowns, 1 Blue legged hermit, 1 x Red legged hermit 2 x turbo snails and 1 x Emeral Crab.

The LFS told me that if I do a 20% water change every 2 weeks with their water everything should be fine. And don`t need a protein skimmer, they gave me a bag of Purein or something which aids filtration. (something you rinse with bleach after it`s exhusted.)

I plan to get another filter to increase the flow and they have ordered me a new light for the hood.

Should this setup be ok??? Any advice???

 

[@ombomb]

much MUCH too soon to be adding anything to the tank.

My advice would be to take all the cleaners and the clowns, take them back to the fish shop and ask them to look after them until the tank is cycled or give you a refund. There have been few people who have done the same thing recently and I'm amazed that your fish shop didn't warn you when you bought them.

The key to a tank of this size is to take things slowly and minimise the impact of any changes you make to the tank and it's stock, dumping them all in from day one is the ultimate recipe for disaster.

Personally I'd aim to change the water once a week, around 10-15% percent, particularly if you don't skim. I do run a skimmer in mine and the amount of gunk that it removes is impressive, even in a lightly stocked tank, so personally I wouldn't want to be without it.

If you want to keep corals in there then the more lighting the better, ideally Power Compact t5's, a mix of daylight and actinic tubes.

 

[forest172]

I thought it was too soon, but my fish shop told me it was ok to add stuff because all the water was out of one of their massive tanks which the live rock which I had was already in.

 

[Chac]

Have you tested your water

 

[@ombomb]

Even if the rock was fully cured when they took it out of their curing tank, it would have had some die off in the time taken to get into yours which at best will have caused a mini cycle. Test for ammonia . nitrite / nitrate asap.

 

[forest172]

Have you tested your water

yep tested and

PH 8.2
AMMONIA 0
NITRITE 0
NITRATE 60 and I know this is high so I`m doing a 10 litre water change tommorrow.

 

[steelhealr]

Don't add anything to your tank until your nitrates are below 10 ppm. I don't recommend a deep sand bed or one over 1.5-2 inches. It's been shown that a DSB in a nano tank does not have the area/footprint to function as a denitrification bed and only causes headaches.

I prefer to do 10% weekly water changes to replenish exhausted elements. a 20% biweekly would probably work..but...you should base that on how your water tests out. If your nitrates are 10ppm at the end of a one week change, fine. If they are 30ppm before a 2 week change, I would opt for the former method. SH

 

[SkiFletch]

60 yikes thats up there. Have you tested the water coming from your LFS before you put it in your tank? Could be that its their water which is the problem. I agree, put a hold on adding things to the tank for a while and concentrate on water husbandry. Feed minimally and hope things dont get too out of hand chemistry wise. You won't need a skimmer on a 30g.

 

[forest172]

right 10% water change done how long before I test for nitrate again??? If it`s still high what shall I do?? I`ve added a maxijet 600 along with the standard 400 lph pump/filter setup. Giving me 1000lph flow 10x flow is good ain`t it??

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

If they are still above 10 i would do 10% water change daily until you can get it back down near 0 to make your livestock happy.

 

[forest172]

10% water change done again, still no joy 60. Well it could be anything from 60-120 i suppose according to the colour chart.

Shall i continue to do them until drop in numbers??

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

I think it would be a good bet