rictheredneck
Fish Crazy
Hi all, just thought id update you all on my tanks progress.
I’ll start out with the specs .
48x18x24 (l x w x h) all glass with a volume of 340 litres - 75 uk gallons - 90 us gallons
Single 400w light with a ugly blue 20,000 k lamp which I believe to be a coralvue.
TMC v2 600 skimmer which hangs on back
Eheim 2227 wet dry canister filter
Hydor koralia 4 power head
Interpet delta therm 300w heater
Interpet phd1 power head
27 kilos of live rock origin unknown
25 kilos of tufa rock
Unknown amount of aragonite sand roughly 1 to 1 ½ inches of covering
Aqua medic refractometer
75 gpd ro man ro/di unit
A brief history.
I’m still very new to the hobby, I got interested when my girlfriend got a Rio 240 marine set up for her 21st birthday (last September) which is being kept at her mum and dads house. Her dad has been keeping marines and tropicals for 15+ years but has been out of the hobby for a while since the catastrophic failure of his glass and subsequent electrocution on his 6ft fish only setup. After catching the bug I decided to set up my own mini reef. I bought a 36 x 18 x 24 with 27 kilos of live rock and an arcadia 4 tube t5 luminaire. Its was setup for a couple of weeks and then a crack appeared unseen on the bottom of the tank under the sand which obviously made a right mess of my living room. So I went out and bought the current tank.
Current live stock
1 x powder brown, a gorgeous fish still only a youngster about 3 inches long, stripped my tank of nuisance algae in a couple of days, he/she is my favourite fish.
1 x blue velvet damsel, weirdly this is a very well behaved fish for a damsel I was think about this one for a long time with the reputation of damsels but I succumbed to its looks thinking my tank isn’t really established so if its showing signs of aggressiveness its not going to be much of a problem to net. But im lucky and so far he has been well behaved. That isn’t saying anything about the future though.
1 x green chromis, not a lot to say about this fish, its nice.
2 x common clowns TMC reared, these are still tiny and have ratty ragged fins which hopefully be better in time.
1 x fairy wrasse, I bough yesterday its roughly 2 inches long. I need to sort out some egg crate or something for my tank before its starts to go carpet surfing. Also I’d like some help to id it. Not had much time to go through pics to help me.
1 x green mandarin, this is my girlfriends fish im just looking after whilst her pods regenerate since I have a huge pod collection I thought why not. This fish eats frozen mysis but they have to sit still in front of it.
I bought my first coral about 3 weeks ago some pulsing xenia which is growing really fast, its quadrupled in size in that time. I have fragged it 4 times.
Here is a list of some problems and upgrades that I want you guys to help me with.
1. The biggie. Nitrate, im having a little trouble keeping the nitrate down. Its up and down between 10 and 20 ppm during my weekly and sometimes bi-weekly 10% to 25% water changes, I’d rather it be between 0 and 10 with regular 10% water changes. there are a few things that could explain them and I want your input on them.
-Macro algae - being in a rush like a giddy little kipper and it being my first tank I decided to opt out of a sump/fuge so I thought right I’d get some macro algae in the display tank, some people don’t like the look of it but I do. But then idiot here decided to get a tang and calurpa was it was gone in a day or so. So I bought some cactus halimeda it being calcareous I thought my tang wont eat it and it doesn’t it just bites it and spits it out, needless to say it isn’t growing. So im after a macro algae that tangs don’t like.
-the tank has been setup for 2 ½ months still very immature and the tufa rock and sand not having bacteria on them yet and also a filter which is only a month old.
-feeding I feed the tang ocean nutrition seaweed select green marine algae, 1 ½ x 1 ½ strip daily and the rest of the fish ½ a cube of frozen mysis in the morning and ½ in the evening I place the frozen on that cage surrounding my koralia as it defrosts it gets blown around the aquarium and sometimes I feed nutrafin marine flake. I don’t think im over feeding but I don’t know if these are known to be high in nitrates etc.
-cuc I have no clean up crew, I don’t suffer from diatoms cyno or hair algae all these symptoms receded a while ago.
2. Flow rate, im intending on getting another koralia 4, I currently have 16 times an hour getting this would up it to just over 30 times an hour
3. Lighting, I currently have a single 400w I think I will end up with dual 250’s but this upgrade is a while off yet.
4. Im considering making a hob type fuge something simple, a pump sending water to it and then it overflowing into my main tank, this is something im going to have to think about. Boy I wish I wasn’t in such a hurry and setup a sump in the first place…
5. Im not too keen on the look of the tufa rock so I might end up getting rid and getting another type of base rock.
well thats it all imput is greatly appreciated!
I’ll start out with the specs .
48x18x24 (l x w x h) all glass with a volume of 340 litres - 75 uk gallons - 90 us gallons
Single 400w light with a ugly blue 20,000 k lamp which I believe to be a coralvue.
TMC v2 600 skimmer which hangs on back
Eheim 2227 wet dry canister filter
Hydor koralia 4 power head
Interpet delta therm 300w heater
Interpet phd1 power head
27 kilos of live rock origin unknown
25 kilos of tufa rock
Unknown amount of aragonite sand roughly 1 to 1 ½ inches of covering
Aqua medic refractometer
75 gpd ro man ro/di unit
A brief history.
I’m still very new to the hobby, I got interested when my girlfriend got a Rio 240 marine set up for her 21st birthday (last September) which is being kept at her mum and dads house. Her dad has been keeping marines and tropicals for 15+ years but has been out of the hobby for a while since the catastrophic failure of his glass and subsequent electrocution on his 6ft fish only setup. After catching the bug I decided to set up my own mini reef. I bought a 36 x 18 x 24 with 27 kilos of live rock and an arcadia 4 tube t5 luminaire. Its was setup for a couple of weeks and then a crack appeared unseen on the bottom of the tank under the sand which obviously made a right mess of my living room. So I went out and bought the current tank.
Current live stock
1 x powder brown, a gorgeous fish still only a youngster about 3 inches long, stripped my tank of nuisance algae in a couple of days, he/she is my favourite fish.
1 x blue velvet damsel, weirdly this is a very well behaved fish for a damsel I was think about this one for a long time with the reputation of damsels but I succumbed to its looks thinking my tank isn’t really established so if its showing signs of aggressiveness its not going to be much of a problem to net. But im lucky and so far he has been well behaved. That isn’t saying anything about the future though.
1 x green chromis, not a lot to say about this fish, its nice.
2 x common clowns TMC reared, these are still tiny and have ratty ragged fins which hopefully be better in time.
1 x fairy wrasse, I bough yesterday its roughly 2 inches long. I need to sort out some egg crate or something for my tank before its starts to go carpet surfing. Also I’d like some help to id it. Not had much time to go through pics to help me.
1 x green mandarin, this is my girlfriends fish im just looking after whilst her pods regenerate since I have a huge pod collection I thought why not. This fish eats frozen mysis but they have to sit still in front of it.
I bought my first coral about 3 weeks ago some pulsing xenia which is growing really fast, its quadrupled in size in that time. I have fragged it 4 times.
Here is a list of some problems and upgrades that I want you guys to help me with.
1. The biggie. Nitrate, im having a little trouble keeping the nitrate down. Its up and down between 10 and 20 ppm during my weekly and sometimes bi-weekly 10% to 25% water changes, I’d rather it be between 0 and 10 with regular 10% water changes. there are a few things that could explain them and I want your input on them.
-Macro algae - being in a rush like a giddy little kipper and it being my first tank I decided to opt out of a sump/fuge so I thought right I’d get some macro algae in the display tank, some people don’t like the look of it but I do. But then idiot here decided to get a tang and calurpa was it was gone in a day or so. So I bought some cactus halimeda it being calcareous I thought my tang wont eat it and it doesn’t it just bites it and spits it out, needless to say it isn’t growing. So im after a macro algae that tangs don’t like.
-the tank has been setup for 2 ½ months still very immature and the tufa rock and sand not having bacteria on them yet and also a filter which is only a month old.
-feeding I feed the tang ocean nutrition seaweed select green marine algae, 1 ½ x 1 ½ strip daily and the rest of the fish ½ a cube of frozen mysis in the morning and ½ in the evening I place the frozen on that cage surrounding my koralia as it defrosts it gets blown around the aquarium and sometimes I feed nutrafin marine flake. I don’t think im over feeding but I don’t know if these are known to be high in nitrates etc.
-cuc I have no clean up crew, I don’t suffer from diatoms cyno or hair algae all these symptoms receded a while ago.
2. Flow rate, im intending on getting another koralia 4, I currently have 16 times an hour getting this would up it to just over 30 times an hour
3. Lighting, I currently have a single 400w I think I will end up with dual 250’s but this upgrade is a while off yet.
4. Im considering making a hob type fuge something simple, a pump sending water to it and then it overflowing into my main tank, this is something im going to have to think about. Boy I wish I wasn’t in such a hurry and setup a sump in the first place…
5. Im not too keen on the look of the tufa rock so I might end up getting rid and getting another type of base rock.
well thats it all imput is greatly appreciated!
and some nice pics there 
. Tangs pretty much eat ALL macro algaes. Red, green, purple, kelps, you name it they eat it. You're way better off pursuing the refugium concept 
fellow manc aswell...
