My 1st salt tank

[Pike]

Hello everyone, I am new here.
I have a 60 gal tank with 120+ lbs of live sand 20+ lbs of live rock.
4 different clowns 4 different damsils, 1 yellow angel, 1 mandirean dragonet, and one copperband Butterfly.
I have 1, 20,000k and 1, 5500k flurecent. A skilter 400, a bio wheel 330 and a large powerhead with filter.
I have a master test kit and all checks out good.

Is the skilter 400 a good choice? and are the lights enuff?

any help you can give....... thanks

 

[fish_keeper2]

sorry i cant help you.....im just starting out myself........umm based on what others have told me i think you have a bit too much sand and hardly enough live rock. i belive its 1-1.5 lbs per gallon for live rock and sand. also do you have a cleaning crew...from what ive herd its a good idea to have one. how do you keep the nitrates down. ive been told that filters can be nitrate traps unless you rinse out the media every few days


sorry if i seem a bit pushy or whatever....im just stating what others have told me and what i have read on the net

 

[billa_bong]

here are some thing i can see wrong with your set up (whether it be ill advised help from a fish store or whatever):

1. over stocked your tank
2. not enough live rock to support a mandarin, need at least 50lbs of liverock.
3. umm, i would expect those 4 diff types of clowns to widdle itself down to 1 soon...
4. filtraiton is so-so, i would invest into a HOB(hang on back) ecosytem 40. it would be perfect for a 55g tank and is about 350 dollars.

it would be good filtration, it even has a protein skimmer built in.

your lighting it good enuf to support most corals, although good luck having them witha copperband, look at your copperbands mouth? see how its pointed out, not good to mix it with corals...

right now, if i were you, i would loose the biowheel and get at least 30 lbs more liverock, that would give you a. enuf liverock to support a mandarin b. a natural (and good looking) way of breaking down biological filtration, plus it gives you a lot more places for your corals...

and lastly, i would DEF find which clown you like and stick to it, they dont like to be mixed...

hope that helps

 

[Great Lakes]

The number of fish and the diversity of them will soon cause you trouble.

Tuned properly, the Skilter 400 is an OK piece of equipment, but will be marginal for your size tank.

The first things I would recommend would be upping your live rock volume, and reducing your bio load.

I would start by losing the Damsels. The Copperband and Mandarin are specialised feeders and won't be supported by an immature tank, so they should go also.

GL

 

[Pike]

The clowns seem to get along fine. The copperband didn't last long
Yes I'm going to start getting more rock. no more fish untill I get all my live rock.
My LFS guy wants to sell sell sell, and really dosn't have good advice.
such as the Mandirean, and copperband. (OOH they'll do fine, Your ready for fish of that level / care.) I really didn't know much about the Dragonet. My own fault, I guess I do have the www.
Thanks everyone!

 

[steelhealr]

Agree with the above. Skilters, in general, get bad reviews for skimmers. Look into AquaC and CPR BakPak's if you are looking for HOB's. SH