My 17g Reef

[Avalon_Princess]

Okay well my large reef tank just went off to its new home and I have $250 which will be going mainly towards this tank.

 

I also added a few snails from the big tank, two zebra tops and a turbo, I'll get some more zebra tops at some point since Hamlet is no longer in there.

 

There's also a little crab in the tank, he's got an inch wide carapace black and white striped legs and the rest of him is mottled browny/black and white. he's been in the same little hollow ever since I spotted him a few weeks ago, maybe he'll come out now Hamlets gone so I can proper ID on him.

[MushyCat]

Sorry to hear that you had to sell you large tank! Hamlet is so cool. Hopefully he will behave from now on but at least he can't hurt anything in his new home.

[Avalon_Princess]

Just spent close to 2 hours watching pods swim around the rocks, do I need a live or what LOL. The pods are fascinating though i seem to have had a population boom I've never seen so many, their taking the tank over LOL. I guess the extra food combined with extra water changes because of extra food helped. Theres also a tonne of bristleworms. The crab still hasn't done much, hasn't even left his hollow so I'm inclined to leave him, still can't get pics of him but here's a description. He has a blocky body almost hexagonal shaped and is entirely symmetrical if you drew a line from his head to his butt, with a black background and a kind of white diagonal zig zag pattern on either shoulder then a random diamond shape in the centre of his back with more mottle white lines. His claws are fairly narrow and graduate from black to brown to white at the tips, their fairly fine and definitely not designed for fish catching. he has stocky legs covered in very short fine hairs and the legs are mottled with white, the legs give him the traditional oval crab shape. Any ideas? I'll keep trying to get pics I'm inclined to leave him for now as he hasn't touched the corals and considering his cave is directly next to the sun coral you;d think he'd try for its food but he seems content just plucking microscopic pieces of something off his roc and eating them.

 

Still feeding the sun corals, the black coral seems to be doing well, its no longer going completely hollow within a couple of hours of feedings, the orange sun has also begun extending so I should be able to start leaving these guys in the tank soon.

[Avalon_Princess]

Hmm as fascinating as copepods i don't think I like them LOL. they are absolutely coating the front glass, it looks like all those bubbles you get in a new tank, and of course I keep forgetting their copepods and trying to wipe them off, but their back within ten seconds, totally ruins how pretty the tank is LOL. I can't work out why there are so many all of a sudden, I've never had copepods before but now their taking over the tank. It's a pity six lined wrasse prefer a bigger tank because I want the copepods gone now LOL.

[Avalon_Princess]

Well I'm bored LOL, so I just went through and did a full range of tests on the tank.

 

S.g. - 1.026

Temp- 27 degrees Celsius

pH- 8.2

Ammonia- 0ppm

Nitrite- 0ppm

Nitrate- 0-5ppm

Alkalinity- 100ppm

Calcium- 400ppm

 

I just can't seem to get the alk up, I've already put one and a half teaspoons of bicarb in and moved the alk by like 20ppm, even though from what I've read it should move it up closer to 60ppm. Something's eating calcium as well, or the bicarb has caused it to precipitate. I do have a few ill corals in the tank at the mo which are working on rebuilding themselves and becoming healthy, perhaps their draining the alk/calcium? though it looks like their just rebuilding flesh at the moment, not growing skeletons. Though teh Torch coral is splitting again so it could be that.

 

I'll be going to an LFS tomorrow so will pick up some new additives and a magnesium kit, though from what I've read low alk and generally high calcium isn't caused by low magnesium.

 

have also been having fun daydreaming about what I want in the tank. I'm kinda sorta thinking of getting a clam once the tanks matured, I've always liked them.

[Avalon_Princess]

Went shopping for reef related things today. Picked up a few things

A suction cup soap dish to hold the two sun corals to make feeding easier

Two silicon basting brushes so I can get rid of all those annoying bubbles LOL

Baking Soda and Epsom salts for magnesium and alk

A Seachem Alkalinity Buffer and a Seachem Calcium additive so I can keep on top of that.

 

No Mg kit though, think I'll have to wait a couple of months for that as I'm not allowed to order online at the mo, and the only place the Mg test kits seem to be available is online...

 

Emma

[Avalon_Princess]

Well still trying to keep calcium and alk balanced. The alk is now staying fairly steadily at 140ppm, but the calciums dropped to 360 ppm, so am adding some more calcium, and will add another large dose tomorrow, then see if thats fixed things or not.

[Avalon_Princess]

Alk is still at 140 ppm, but the calciums risen up to 370 ppm from additives. The additive I'm using is Seachem Reef Calcium, on the back it says no more then three capfuls a day so I'm sticking to that, three capfuls raises the ppm by ten, so if I keep adding that amount for a few days I should be able to get it back up to where it needs to be.

 

The Goniopora seems to be doing really well, I've seen it feeding quite a few times, it particularly likes the juice from the spirulina and brineshrimp frozen food, though it seems to enjoy crushed mysis shrimp as well. The Polyps are darkening up as well, so maybe if I'm lucky it'll survive and stop receding.

[Avalon_Princess]

Okay well I've hit a few problems. This morning when I checked the tank two things were instantly obvious, the first being three small shrimp/pod type things dead on the sand, and the second being dinoflagellates had begun appearing. At the moment only a small amount, but it was the kick in the backside I needed to get rid of the rest of the algae. So I've ordered a Mg test kit so I can elevate the Mg levels to help remove the dino, and also ordered a better phosphate absorber made by fluval. Also blacked out the tank for a day and ahve reset the timers so there will only be a 4 hour photoperiod for a few days, and replaced the 10K bulb with a 14K. Also added a large bag of carbon in and removed the three still healing sun corals to another tank and I'm going to stop feeding the entire tank for a few days, maybe a week.

 

I'm hoping that all this will remove all the algae in the tank and leave it looking better.

[Avalon_Princess]

I'm also still deciding on stock so if anyone has any opinions that'd be great right now all I can think of for fish is some sort of clown goby, any other opinions would be great!

 

For corals on my list of must haves are

Mushrooms

Ricordea

Zoanthids

Blastomussa Wellsi

Open brain/Trachyphyllia

 

My Dad is also going to hopefully build a stand for me which will be better then the piece of crud the tank is on at the moment

[Avalon_Princess]

Dino is getting worse, its extremely irritating, I'm going to leave it for a few days and hopefully once the new phosphate remover and Mg test kit arrives I can fix some things. If not my back up plan is to remove corals and light to a tub and black the tank out for a month, should hopefully decimate the dino.

[Avalon_Princess]

Theres still dino everywhere but some new stuff came today which should help. I've checked Mg levels there at 1350 so I'm slowly dripping in a mixture of Epsom salts to bring it up to 1500, I've added in a fluval brand phosphate remover looks like little grains of rust, its meant to work quite well. The lighting is running for about 5 hours a day as opposed to the usual 12 hour light cycle as well. I've also added a huge bag of carbon to absorb any toxins.

 

As of yet apart from the initial amphipod population crash everything is doing fine and the corals don't appear affected. The dino isn't too bad just a few strands on the corals which I remove and a few strands elsewhere in the tank.

 

I've also stopped feeding entirely, I may pull the remaining sun coral as well to make sure it gets the food it needs, the other corals should be able to survive for a week without feeding,

[Avalon_Princess]

So I've been dripping epsom slats diluted in water for the past 48 hours and the dino doesn't seem to like it, virtually all of its disappeared apart from a couple of patches, and its been replaced by cyano, something I can deal with.

[JourneyReef]

Hi, Just read through your thread...enjoying following along. Hope you keep posting and hope your parents learn how great reefing is and how it builds character and teaches responsibility. So there, parents.

[Avalon_Princess]

LOL I think my parents just find it strange, my older brothers whos since moved out went to the movies, went partying etc and then they ahve me who'd prefer to stay home and sit in a dark room using a touch to look at all the interesting nocturnal creatures LOL.

 

Well I just finished redoing my tanks aqua scape, all four sun corals have now moved out, they were just too hard to maintain in the tank, their now in a separate tank designed specifically for them. So I also redid the aquascape to remove their cave and also get the rocks off the walls, oh and to finally catch that little crab I've been looking at for weeks LOL.

 

So heres the new aqua scape, I'm not sure about the shadowed area, I was aiming more for all the ridges to be in light but the rocks are just the wrong shape, so we'll see. Would mushrooms and zoanthids survive in the shaded area? or is it too shaded? The pics a bit dark though its actually much lighter in that area, its just I have to have a fairly fast shutter speed or the Torch and the Duncan turn into florescent blobs

[LaceySaysMeow]

Wow, you're tank is amazing. It's a shame you got rid of your sun corals, they were gorgeous in the tank.

I understand about your parents, mine are the same way, it sucks. My mom always looks at me funny when I buy a new fish or coral, or anything and says something like "why don't you ever go to the mall and buy some clothes or something?"

[Avalon_Princess]

My Mum doesn't want me to buy clothes or makeup she just wants me to stop buying full stop, she grew up pretty poor and even now when we always have enough money she's not comfortable with spending. But the fact I use my money on something as esoteric as marine tanks is even stranger to her LOL.

 

Well I finally got my butt in gear and picked up a clean up crew for the tank. Since Hamlet was in it I've never had one but now he's moved out I got some. 26 snails in all, 10 zebra tops, 8 striped conniwinks and 8 blue australwinks for all those going huh? there types of native aussie snails, the zebra tops obviously are striped like zebras, grow to max an inch and are the best detrivores they'll eat anything inclucing cyano. Conniwinks have stripes and eat algae and detritus and are shaped like astrea snails but are waay smaller they max out at about half an inch. I've never had blue Australwinks before but they sure are pretty, their a bland cream on top with a turban shaped shell and a bright blue door, they eat bryopsis and some other irritating forms of algae that are in my tank.

 

I also added two seastars, Common Eight Armed seastars as their known here or sometimes as the Austrial Cushion Star, either way they eat detritus, and some algae, grow to a max of 6 cm and are very pretty coloured. Their a range of colours but the ones we got one is mottled symmetrically in shades of brown, blue, orange and purple and a small pale turquoise one, once again fairly easy to feed and they should keep my tank much nicer right now their feasting on the algae on the sides of the tank.

 

So I'm hoping these should clear up the algae i no time and once they do a seastar and some of the snails will move to other tanks.

[Avalon_Princess]

Help me Stock my Tank!

Okay so it'll be a few weeks till I get more stock but I'd like YOUR opinions on what I should add.

 

Fish

What Fish do you think would look good in this tank? keeping in mind its open top?

 

Corals

What corals should I add? where? any specific colours?

 

Inverts

Any other inverts I should add?

 

Currently in the tank is

13 Zebra Top Snails

8 Blue Australwink snails

8 Striped Conniwink snails

1 Turbo snail

2 Eight Armed Star Fish

1 Large Torch coral

1 Small Frogspawn coral

1 Goniopora lobata

4 Blastomussa Frags

1 Large Duncan Coral

 

So what else should I add?

[Avalon_Princess]

Some pics

 

FTS

 

The lil Blue starfish, the larger multicoloured one is hiding behind the filter, so no chance of a pic

 

Duncan

 

Goniopora

 

Torch

 

Blastomussa

[lakshwadeep]

I always like shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pairs. I have a Randall's goby and tiger pistol shrimp in my 20gal. Avoid the tiger pistol (Alpheus bellulus) since it can get large and attack other inverts and small fish. Randall's pistol shrimp (Alpheus randalli) aka candy stripe pistol is a better choice because of its size and pairing with many gobies.

 

You could get a small group of masked gobies since they school and only reach 1.5"

 

Others:

firefish

clown gobies

neon gobies

bangaii cardinal

[Avalon_Princess]

I don't think most of those you listed are available in Australia...

 

I am thinking of clown gobies though, but will they live together? like say a yellow clown goby, a green clown goby and a citron clown goby?

[lakshwadeep]

I'd say to start out with one or a pair from the same species. The article listed below has some good info, and it seems that they are "bi-directional protogynous hermaphrodites" so any two gobies will form a male-female pair.

 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-10/hcs3/index.php

[Avalon_Princess]

Thanks for that link, didn't say how different species interact though, but the compatibility table was interesting. All three gobies (yellow, green and citron) are fairly readily available here, so might try for a pair of green gobies, should be a nice challenge as stores only ever stock one LOL. I think I'll cross citron gobies off though the link said they'd grow to 6 cm, which is a bit big. Hmmm so maybe a pair of gobies and a blenny or something? I'd like to have three fish, though if thats too ambitious tell me LOL, the third fish doesn't have to be a goby but something small, less then two inches preferably.

[lakshwadeep]

3 is perfect for your tank since the gobies are so small. Since the clown gobies naturally perch, you could have some bottom dwelling fish like a shrimp/watchman goby (especially paired with a pistol shrimp).

 

info:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/shrimpgobies.htm

[Avalon_Princess]

Hmm well we have at least one of those shrimp gobies here, couldn't say species, just that it had darkish brown stripes and was labelled a shrimp goby LOL. Some of them get rather large though, hmph I think it would be either the Diagonal shrimp goby or the Steinitz shrimp goby, going entirely on memory though.

 

On a slightly different track, how hard is it to care for the two spot goby? some sites say their fine, while others put them on par with the mandarin goby?

 

Oh please excuse any spelling mistakes, my 'tiel is on my shoulder and he slashes me if I don't give him constant headrubs, spoilt brat.

 

The algae is receding from the tank now, the snails are enjoying dinner LOL. The big starfish is still hiding but we've worked out why now, its pregnant, this particular species gives birth to live young, so this should be rather interesting.

 

Oh my Mum also bought me a present to, which I can't wait to arrive. Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman, the book costs nearly $100 here for some strange reason but it should be good.