Natchaya's - 28g Reef tank

[spanko]

DAY 39

 

Parameters:

pH - 8.2

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 5 to 10

Phosphate - 0

KH - 9

Calcium - 500 (Im concerned about this.)

 

Hopefully, Ill get help on some of these questions...

 

1. 500 Calcium? I realize that is considered to high to what everyone states as the 400-450 range but is it a really bad thing? Is there a way to lower it? Ive been changing my 10% water changes weekly and using Reef Crystals.

should not be too much of a problem. I am surprised that with Reef Crystals your calcium is staying this high. Have someone else - LFS - Another Reefer - check your calcium with a different test kit.

 

2. I purchased a Firefish and its been about a week now and he is just so hella shy that I rarely see him outside of his hiding spot. Is this normal?

Probably still getting acclimated. I had a Sixline Wrasse hide for a week where I did not see him at all then he popped out one day and has been out ever since. No one is chasing your Firefish when he is out are they?

 

3. Yellow Watchman Goby... same timing as the firefish... about a week now and all he does is just chill in the sand but every once in awhile he swims around. My main concern is about his eating... Ive tried mysis shrimp and flake foods and he barely eats anything. Do they normally eat pellets or something else? I never see him go up to the surface to pick of the flakes so Im thinking should I get sinkable food?

Yes get some pellets that sink to feed him. They don't normally come to the top of the tank.

 

4. Feeding corals. I have been using the cyclopeeze stuff but is this enough? Am I supposed to leave the pumps on or put the pumps off when I feed the cyclopeeze? Or is it better to just spot feed with turkey baster thing?

Hard to say without knowing what corals you are talking about. Most coral are photosynthetic and do not need to be fed anyway. Some softies, LPS, do benefit from feeding though. Cyclopeeze is okay for these as is mysis, krill.

[colinadam]

Those Clowns are very pretty, to bad you lost one.

 

As far as your questions:

 

1) - Don't worry about it.

 

2) - Yeah, it's normal but a firefish really isn't the best tank mate with a Maroon Clown which is one of the largest and most aggressive clowns alive. My first fish was a Clarki Clown, then I got a firefish and a YWG (Notice a pattern )

Anywho the Clarki was fine with the Firefish for a couple months then all of a sudden he went Terminator on the firefish and chased him anytime he came out of his hole. The firefish ended up starving to death as nothing I could do worked. Couldn't fish him out of the tank because he was to quick and I tried to spot feed him but it didn't help. Watch out.

 

3) - My YWG wouldn't think of eating a flake food or swimming to the top for food, he want's to be served

I take a turkey baster, melt the mysis, brine, etc... in a little plastic dish with tank water and put some food in the turkey baster and gently shoot the food towards the guy. All of my fish go nuts now when the turkey baster hits the water because they know it's time to eat.

Another tip: A cube of frozen food is way to much to feed at a time. I bought one of those weekly prescription pill containers that has each day of the week on it from Walgreens and every weekend I cut up a cube of mysis into 4 pieces with a razor blade and divide the pieces over 4 days. I thought it was handy.

 

4) - I wouldn't worry about feeding your corals. Zoa's like good light (which you have) and lots of flow, nothing more.

One of the corals above looks like a Frogspawn, the other a Torch.

 

Now that they have had some time to settle do they look anything like my pictures:

 

Torch:

 

 

Frogspawn:

 

 

 

If so then the best thing for them would be a once a week feeding with a little mysis shrimp via the turkey baster method described above.

 

Everything else looks good (Except those nitrates, how are your chambers setup?). Keep an eye on the firefish though. if you can fish him out and return him it might be for the best, they are real passive fish that are easily bullied.

[gimme09]

Thank you for the affirmations.

 

Spanko...

 

"Probably still getting acclimated. I had a Sixline Wrasse hide for a week where I did not see him at all then he popped out one day and has been out ever since. No one is chasing your Firefish when he is out are they?"

 

He has never popped our from a deep hiding space so Ive never seen chasing. My wife once saw the fish outside but once he saw any movment... then he just went back into the cave.

 

"Hard to say without knowing what corals you are talking about. Most coral are photosynthetic and do not need to be fed anyway. Some softies, LPS, do benefit from feeding though. Cyclopeeze is okay for these as is mysis, krill."

 

I have Torch, Hammer, Frogspawn, candy cane, pulsing xenia, GSP, galaxy?, and assorted zoas. Will eventually id them some day.

 

Colindam...

 

My torch stays pretty small and definitely not long tentacled as yours. But i do have it closer to the light. Is there a way to get it longer tentacled? The frogspawn is pretty much the same. Very fat and it looks like its going to explode. LOL

 

Regarding the nitrates... Ive always seem to have 5-10 nitrates. Im using the API test kit and it is so difficult to determine the difference between 5 and 10. My chambers consist of:

 

Left - Left side pump and return from chiller

middle (Media Filter) - Top=poly filter, Middle=Chemi-pure Bottom=Purigen

right - Right side pump and inlet pump for chiller

 

Ive taken out all the sponges unless I should put them back in?

[colinadam]

Chambers are setup how I plan on setting mine up. Weird that you still have nitrates. Hopefully they go down as your tank matures and you keep up on water changes.

 

My torch has always been on the sandbed. How is the flow that it is in? I have found that they like their tentacles to be lightly tossed in the flow, not blasted by water and not in a no flow spot.

[gimme09]

Colindam...

Mine is kinda right under the left output. It has flow but not that much. Ive been thinking of putting the original acceleras back in for less sound decibel and just add some Koralia nanos that would definitely see some left to right flow instead of front to back.

 

 

Here is what i have in the tank at this time:

 

Frogspawn

 

Can you help me ID these two?

[Phixion]

Sorry to hear about LuLu... Deaths are never easy nor fun.

 

The Ca issue... While most consider 500 high for it, I personally don't, only because my tank seems to naturally stay between 450 and 500ppm of Ca. Once I measured it up to 620ppm WITHOUT it precipitating from the tank which seemed rather amazing in itself. Let me add that I NEVER dose any sort of suppliments other than a drop of Lugol's a week that I started last month.

 

With coral feeding, it up to you if you want to spot feed or not, but I find when I feed my tank as a while, more things seem to respond to the food that I'd have imagined and I'd probably have to end up spot feeding nearly everything anyways, besides the typical obvious things (candy canes, blastos, acans, large button polyps, etc...) When I feed my tank, I use a combination of Boyd's Vita-Chem, Liquid Life's Bio and Marine Plankton, a half teaspoon or so of Reef-Roids (which the corals ALL love) and sometimes a squirt of Zoo-Plex. All of that together maybe once every couple of weeks. I have a special mix recipe I'll mix up once in a while for spot feeding purposes.

[gimme09]

Pulsing Xenia

 

Unsure if this is a Torch or not.

 

Torch?

 

Yellow Zoa (they say it grows like a weed) and GSP (behind the snail)

 

Yellow Watchman Goby

 

Need help to ID this Zoa

 

Need help to ID this Zoa

 

Same as above

[gimme09]

Sorry to hear about LuLu... Deaths are never easy nor fun.

 

The Ca issue... While most consider 500 high for it, I personally don't, only because my tank seems to naturally stay between 450 and 500ppm of Ca. Once I measured it up to 620ppm WITHOUT it precipitating from the tank which seemed rather amazing in itself. Let me add that I NEVER dose any sort of suppliments other than a drop of Lugol's a week that I started last month.

 

With coral feeding, it up to you if you want to spot feed or not, but I find when I feed my tank as a while, more things seem to respond to the food that I'd have imagined and I'd probably have to end up spot feeding nearly everything anyways, besides the typical obvious things (candy canes, blastos, acans, large button polyps, etc...) When I feed my tank, I use a combination of Boyd's Vita-Chem, Liquid Life's Bio and Marine Plankton, a half teaspoon or so of Reef-Roids (which the corals ALL love) and sometimes a squirt of Zoo-Plex. All of that together maybe once every couple of weeks. I have a special mix recipe I'll mix up once in a while for spot feeding purposes.

 

Thank you for your words. Regarding your coral feeding... do you have a thread somewhere that kinda displays what you mix up or a little bit more detailed info?

[Phixion]

The 2nd "torch" pic looks like a forgspawn to me, but I'd need to see it further extended to tell for sure.

 

My food mix basically consists of:

 

Boyd's Vita-Chem

Kent Marine's Zoo-Plex

Reef Roids

Freeze dried Cyclo-peeze (the powdered variety)

and crushed Formula 2 flakes

 

Mix it all together real well, and serve using a pipette or turkey baster. I call it a super food of sorts for corals.

[gimme09]

Last night at approximately 230 am (Im glad my wife was awake) Ive learned a valuable lesson of putting a "drip loop" on my surge protector.

 

Since I first changed the stock JBJ pumps with Rio HF6s... I decided to change it back due to the Acceleras being so very quiet. Unfortunately, I didnt put a tie wrap around the elbow this time and one of the tubing came loose and splashed water onto the cord.... well, 8 hours later my surge protector blows up with one of the pumps.

 

Lesson learned!!!! Drip loop everything and I am trying to remember what the thing is that people say to get that plugs into the wall outlet. GFI ground unit???

 

Im also thinking about putting my 1/20 chiller and the 2 Rio 6hf for sale... I think I would prefer a bigger chiller and the mistake of buying the smaller one is causing me stress regarding the temps.... LOL