River To Reef

[KeyboardWarrior]

A PAR38 is cheaper I think than a new TMC tile and has better par readings and colour IMO also fire fish are notorious jumpers so be carefull as there is a big gap at the back of the tank

 

[372xp]

par 38 led is new to me, I can get the tmc tile and bracket for £89 just up the road. I will see if they have par38 bulbs, no idea how yo would mount them. I think one cleaner shrimp is enough, and the next thing going in will be coral, probably cataphylia. And that will be after I have better lighting. Pistol shrimp on order.
One question about cleaner shrimps, mine seems quite happy to clean my hands during water changes ( he is particularly keen on any cuts I have gained after a days timber felling) , however neither the fire fish or wmg seem at all interested when he signals to them. Is this because they are captive bred and have never encountered a cleaner shrimp, or they just dont need cleaning. So he has to make do with cleaning the hermit crabs and turbo snails who cant get away quick enough.
Here is tank and inhabitants as of today.

Oh yeah the gap at the back of the tank is no more, covered by glass now.

 

[techen]

Slow down on the stocking, Don't get a pistol shrimp till at least 2 weeks after those. You're going to hit a brick wall very quickly.
 
Cleaner shrimps are not shy but firefish and gobys are very very shy, They'll run off when they see you. That's pretty much the way it goes

 

[372xp]

Pistol shrimp isnt available for 2 weeks.
Nothing else is going in this tank till then.
When it comes to cycling fw tanks I know what I am doing as for sw I am just going on the water stats.
I am here to learn, on the fw side of things I dish out advice too.
So please keep informing me, this is why I started this thread.

 

[MBOU]

Just wanted to comment on an earlier point when Techen said that cleaner shrimp weren't part of the clean up crew. It's because people assume they clean the tank and hence the name which is untrue, they are named as such because they clean the fish.
 
Not all fish are so happy to welcome the advances of the cleaner shrimp, I'm certainly not surprised by wither of those species Gobies keep themselves to themselves and firefish seem fairly resilient to external parasites, it's mainly angels, tangs and anthias that get the good cleaning. I have a big Bicolour angel at work that loves the cleaner shrimp so much I had to add a few more as the angel wont leave it alone and wants constant attention (got paranoid and FW dipped the fish for parasites and no obvious ones came off, I think it mainly just likes the attention!).
 
Also with the corals, I am not entirely sure I would recommend a Cataphyllia as they get huge and pretty quickly, found them to be quite aggressive as corals go as well. I would personally start with a few much easier to cope with corals like the softies (mushrooms, riccordea, zoas, xenia, green star polyps or toadstool corals) <-- last three are in Techens tank and then move onto hard corals which are much more demanding and temperamental. Duncans Coral is pretty easy to keep and looks lovely (for a hard coral that is).
 
Also, I have found for the goby/pistol pair, it really helped to have a little offcut of pipe (at the shop I cut 3" of 32mm black ribbed pond hose) and I half buried in into the sand and piled more sand over it and a few little rocks over it too. The goby and pistol went straight in there! Means I can decide where they live rather than them finding some little hole out of sight at the back of the tank.
 
Another this, if you have a choice of Pistol Shrimp, get the Randalls or Tiger Pistol Shrimp, they are stunning!!

 

[KeyboardWarrior]

Like the others have said you need to sloooooow right down I'd personally wait 4 weeks until I added any more critters stability is key and it takes time to achieve a mature reef. As for the PAR38 look at marine reef LED there website is great and the light is a lot better than a TMC tile plus they sell mounting brackets for them. Also as above maybe start with a few softies before moving onto the LPS

 

[372xp]

Slow and steady wins the race. Thats fine by me, its the wife. This is her tank, I just deal with the technical side of life (which I'm told includes water changes! This is how I spend my sunday evenings 2 tanks done so far.)
I know nothing about corals(whats LPS) my wife does the research and decides what she wants. So any advice on this will be of great help. We want something long and wavy, looking a bit like an anenome, and nice bright colours.
I will seriously look into the PAR38, the TMC was a bit of a style thing, looks good on the tank.
MBOU I am liking the sound of the pipe tunnel, the YWMG has his/her tunnel at the front of the tank right now, but I am guessing the shrimp will choose the spot.
I have been told that it is a good idea to change the flossy stuff every 2 weeks, I dont know what salties call it but I would say filter media, mine still looks quite clean. That and it seems to be inhabited by little shrimpy creatures. What should I do?

 

[372xp]

Keyboard Warrior can you show me a picture of the PAR38 with the mount, I cant seem to find one.