1 Month Old Fluval Spec

[dcamo001]

Hey guys,

 

I've been lurking here for a couple months now doing tons of research, and about a month ago I finally got my tank set up. I'm back at college now and need something that's pretty easy to maintain, besides weekly water changes. I set up my tank with crushed coral substrate that was in the already established reef tank at my LFS, and have a nice piece of live rock and used pre-mixed salt water. My params are looking good and pretty stable for such a tiny tank and I didn't have much of a cycle.

 

I got a little bit of hair algae on my live rock and diatoms a week or two ago, which my CUC feasted on and it is almost all gone now. My CUC consists of a nassarius snail that came hiding in the crushed coral, about 5 dwarf cerith snails, 2 virgin nerites, and 3 blue leg hermits. I might take some of the snails out and put them in my other tank, which is 3 gallons I believe, if I need to. My other tank will just be used as a quarantine tank if I need it.

 

My lighting is now a Boost LED par30, 2RB 1B 1 cool white and 1 neutral white, and it looks good. However, it is mounted under a shelf I just put in and is about 13 inches from the surface of the water and I was wondering if it should be higher or lower than that, because I do not have access to a PAR meter.

 

I just put in my first corals and a clam Sunday night, and they're all doing well, the polyps and the clam both opened up the same night. I've got just a frag with I think a paly and 3 zoas on it, and a TINY feather duster which I didn't notice until a day or two ago. The clam is still only about 1.5 inches long, and I know it will grow much bigger and by then I am planning on having a bigger tank. I feed the tank phyto once a day because of the clam.

 

Here's my tank and hopefully you can see how it's mounted, it looks no where near this blue in real life, more of a lavender:

 

Just wanted to know if you guys have any input or advice you'd like to give me, or what I'm doing right or wrong.

 

Thanks!

[AnthonyPf]

Looks nice. My only suggestion would be to move the light down.

My PAR38 lamp sits about 8 inches or so from the water surface. This picture you have makes the lamp look like it is really high up.

 

Especially to support the clam.

[dcamo001]

Sounds good, my light is easy to move the way I've got it set up. I had this light: here

for about a week before either the remote for dimming it started crapping out or the receiver in the bulb was bad, but the blue lights were very hard to turn on. When I turned it on they wouldn't come on until I had fidgeted with the remote A LOT, and I figured a Boost LED par30 was probably a better quality choice, so I'm going to return the other.

 

Also I've been wondering about flow, the stock pump puts out 40 gph, I was wondering if something like a mini jet 404 would be more suitable or if the one I've got now is fine?

[jnelson]

I have a Spec with softies (xenia, yellow polyps, gorgonian) and the stock pump works just fine (I do have it maxed out though).

[dcamo001]

That's good to know, I've got mine on full blast too. Also I've been following your thread a bit cause I saw you have a spec also, I think it looks much better now that you've got that par38 on it! It's been good inspiration for me haha

[dcamo001]

Just noticed these weird things on my LR. They look kind of like egg sacks covered in green algae attached to my rock. Hopefully someone can figure out what they are and what I should do about it? I hope the pictures aren't too hard to look at, the sacs should be pretty apparent though

[.Newman.]

idk what im looking at lol. but maybe it could be some type of macro like neomeris or something. the beginnings of.

[dcamo001]

Sorry the pictures aren't great, I only have my camera phone. The sacs are in the middle of both pictures. In the first one, it's two sacs right up against the glass and in the second one its just one sac kind of pointing to the left.

[dcamo001]

I'm starting to think my rock arrangement is a bit boring... any suggestions? I just have the one rock leaned up against the side of the tank right now, I can get more in a few weeks if I need to. I was thinking maybe of a few smaller pieces and stacking them some how. Also, would introducing new live rock to the tank right now upset any of the params that are mostly stable now?

[.Newman.]

o and why do you have a clam in a newly setup tank? I would be worried about it, what species is it?

[dcamo001]

It's a maxima and it's only about an inch and a half long right now. It's doing fine so far, i feed phyto every day because it's still small.

[.Newman.]

small; take good care of it, they are known to be fragile.

[dcamo001]

Do you have any tips for me? I didn't put him on my LR cause I didn't want him to attach somewhere overnight and then get fried by the light, he's just sitting on the substrate. He has moved a couple times overnight but I think has found a spot he likes now

[Bill Nye]

Do you have any tips for me? I didn't put him on my LR cause I didn't want him to attach somewhere overnight and then get fried by the light, he's just sitting on the substrate. He has moved a couple times overnight but I think has found a spot he likes now

 

 

I would be very careful feeding phyto in such a small tank that is so new. It has been shown that all but the smallest clams (think post-settlement) need phyto to survive. Honestly I think you may have bit off a little more than you can chew with the clam at this stage in the game.

[dcamo001]

I've read that many people don't think they need to be fed phyto but I'd rather make sure it doesn't starve for nutrients than just not feed it. And the reason I'm on this forum is for advice from many more knowledgeable people than me, if you have any more advice I'd like to hear it.

[WRH]

He's saying be careful because too many feedings of that phyto without enough small frequent waterchanges can do harm in a tank so small. So overfeeding it is even more deadly than underfeeding it.

[dcamo001]

Well I change about 20-30% once or twice a week, that should be enough shouldn't it?

[.Newman.]

might be enough but feed very little until your tank matures and can handle the extra waste. I feed my pico very heavily with zooplankton, cyclops, and phyto because i can see that it can handle it without issues. back when my tank was about 4-6 months old i tried feeding heavily and had to stop because of algae issues.

 

if everything goes well, the clam should grow up fast. avoid touching it at all. keep a close eye on it, etc. and i hope it does great for you! any pics of it ?

[dcamo001]

As you wish Here's the clam and the coral I've got. It's hard to tell from the picture but his mantle is pretty purple but viewed from above has electric blue lines covering it. I've got a paly with a turquoise mouth and green middle and a zoa in the same coloration and 2 other orange tipped zoas with green mouths. I'm actually thinking about moving the frag down a bit though. I also just noticed in the second pic, below the frag you can see two white dots on the LR, those are the sacs I was talking about. They're covered in a very thing layer of algae it looks like. Any ideas what they are? I also just realized why every time I change the water the crap from the filter comes out into the tank before being sucked back in. It's that dumb hole in the bottom of the back wall! It pushes water up through the filter pad and makes a snowstorm in the tank. Really have to get that covered up soon...

[dcamo001]

I want to break up the one big rock in my tank into smaller pieces I can make a better scape with. Is it ok to take it out and break it with a hammer, keeping it as much as possible in a container filled with some tank water?

[dcamo001]

Re did the aquascape and also did the filter mod to cover the bottom hole and half of the top. My super glue was a bit too super and the piece of acrylic to cover the top didn't budge a bit as soon as it touched the acrylic back wall, so it ended up a little higher than I would have liked.... oh well, at least it's working. I took a hammer and chisel to the one big piece of LR i had and broke it into three smaller pieces and set up an arch sort of thing, and had another small piece which I used for a clam mount. He kept getting knocked over at night so now he can attach himself to the rock, which is easy to move if I need to. Here are the pictures, what do you guys think??

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see how high the water is... but I can tell that I'm getting more circulation now

 

P.S. - I figured out how to use photobucket

[dcamo001]

I am need of a heater and have found two that seem to be good ones. Does anyone have any recommendations between these two?

http://www.amazon.com/HMO-50-Memorized-Con...3288&sr=8-4

 

http://www.amazon.com/Fluval-M-200-Watt-Su...3340&sr=8-2

 

Both 50 watts