Otaku's Tank - My first saltwater tank

[otaku521]

Certain snails but they will it will grow faster than they can eat it. You can literally vac it up and within hours it is all back.

 

Just noticed, you don't use RODI? It could be the water you use is high in silicates and feeding the diatoms. Otherwise, too many fish too fast... too many nutrients (high phos/nitrates and dissolved organic compounds). It won't harm corals unless it continues for a long periods. I have noticed it will start to cover zoa's, ect and they will stop opening.

 

I would definitely change the water if you are still using tap/drinking water and go from there. You can buy distilled for like .90c a gallon. Tap water is one of those things... you just don't do Can lead to lots of headaches.

 

Dear Tamberav

 

yes I don't use RODI - normally out of my drinking water filter it has TDS of less than 10 and NO3 0 - and I have been using this on my previous 24 (Now Saltwater) and current Crystal Shrimp tank without any hitch of brown algae issue unlike this... I think I will continue to try using my drinking water filter to see is it the source of Silicates and PO4 or is it the food+fish+rock+sand?

 

Unfortunately that in Hong Kong distilled water is quite expensive for fish tank application - to fill my tank of 24" (50L) it would cost me around $25 USD and RoDI unit would cost a hefty around US$300 for a simple slow flow unit - for Now I think it would be out of question at this moment.

 

Just pop back in to my friend - he give me some pellets and Rowaphos and put it in my HOB filter that I used for DIY refugium (growing sea grapes there - No Chaeto in Hong Kong)

 

Hopefully those might do something - as keep changing water every other day seems a little crazy... my wife looked at me like I am going bonkers changing water that much...

 

My goal is change water once a week not every other day for my tank to be in decent conditions...

 

any pointers?

[thesmallerthebetter]

those nudis (seahare) will die. its a guarantee. and when they do it will probably kill other things (not because their toxic, but they rot quick)

 

the Dendrophyllia (Chinese firecracker flower) will need feedings at least three times a week of meaty foods like mysis fed directly to them via syringe. one of my favorite corals and those are awsome mini colonies!

 

The gorg (sea fan) is a gonner as well. no way you can provide enough food for long enough without constant dosing. NPS gorgonians are rent-a-corals.

 

the elegance (pork meat) is badly bleached, probably not going to make it either. also requires meaty feeding like the dendrophyllia and pretty low flow in the long run.

 

the goniopora (flowerpot) is a loss as well. We dont quite know the secret sauce that they require to make it long term in captivity but my bet is "sludge" type foods basted over the colony and VERY intense lighting. they hail from waters commonly only a few feet deep!

 

The frogspawn and zoas will be good though.

 

its probably a better idea to look at things youd like to purchase, then research and see the requirements before trying them willy nilly. 17 gallons is a small space for the amount of NPS coral and corals requiring feeding you have in there. It will save you money if nothing else

[otaku521]

those nudis (seahare) will die. its a guarantee. and when they do it will probably kill other things (not because their toxic, but they rot quick)

 

the Dendrophyllia (Chinese firecracker flower) will need feedings at least three times a week of meaty foods like mysis fed directly to them via syringe. one of my favorite corals and those are awsome mini colonies!

 

The gorg (sea fan) is a gonner as well. no way you can provide enough food for long enough without constant dosing. NPS gorgonians are rent-a-corals.

 

the elegance (pork meat) is badly bleached, probably not going to make it either. also requires meaty feeding like the dendrophyllia and pretty low flow in the long run.

 

the goniopora (flowerpot) is a loss as well. We dont quite know the secret sauce that they require to make it long term in captivity but my bet is "sludge" type foods basted over the colony and VERY intense lighting. they hail from waters commonly only a few feet deep!

 

The frogspawn and zoas will be good though.

 

its probably a better idea to look at things youd like to purchase, then research and see the requirements before trying them willy nilly. 17 gallons is a small space for the amount of NPS coral and corals requiring feeding you have in there. It will save you money if nothing else

 

 

Thanks for your advice... so I need to make sure daily feeding of corals? you mentioned Mysis... you mean something like frozen (thawed) Brine Shrimp? injected into their mouth vicinity using long syringe (and of course my fishes will come in for a snack too)

 

Also mentioned about the sea hares... hrmmm time to return these to my frd this weekend when I see him

 

Thanks and your comments/advise is helpful!

[Eclipse]

You need to slow down a bit. Right now you should just not get anything else for a while, and understand that if you want to be successful on this hobby then yes, you need to have at east a decent amount of money you're willing to spend. RODI is absolutely crucial for keeping the tank stable, and not to be mean, but it seems like you jumped into the saltwater hobby thinking it would be as easy as freshwater. This hobby requires a lot more research, so PLEASE research before you buy, you don't want to end up screwing up your system. With that said, you really should invest in an RODI of you truly want to have good water quality and not be under the constant headache of having excess nutrients, phosphates, nitrates, etc.

[Tamberav]

Makes sense about the water so I would tackle the other possible issues.

 

The NPS gorg is one of the easier ones and will accept larger foods at least. It's not doomed to die if you take care of it. The bad part is you're already doing WC's every day to keep up and now have to feed more because the corals you chose require feedings. It is probably going to get tiring fast. Can you imagine doing daily WC's for months? Think how much $ that is in salt too!

 

I would return some of the fish (or trade them for coral that doesn't need to be fed) and get down to just 2 fish for now. You could even trade the gorg or sun coral if you're not partial to it and want something that won't pollute the water from feeding.

 

You want to go things slowwww in this hobby so the tank has time to stabilize between additions. The bacteria needs time to adjust to every new thing so you aren't slaving away doing WC's every day. It isn't like the fish are rare so they will still be around later so why not slow down? You added a firefish but there will still be firefish next month.

 

I would do a minimum 1 month between fish additions or even longer if needed (just to be safe) and only if the water is where you want it to be... say around 5 nitrates with only one 20% WC per week. Then you know the tank is stable and you can add another. Give the tank time to stabilize before adding more things with bioload, ect.

 

I would also only really aim for 3 fish in this size tank unless the 4th was something small like a neon goby. You can maybe do more in the future but every tank is different and you won't know if you can do more until you're at the point where the nitrates/phosphates don't creep up much between weekly water changes.

 

Of course.. if you like doing daily water changes...

 

I just added 5 fish to my cycled 10g freshwater without harm. If I added 5 fish to a 10g reef right away it would explode in my face.

[thesmallerthebetter]

Thanks for your advice... so I need to make sure daily feeding of corals? you mentioned Mysis... you mean something like frozen (thawed) Brine Shrimp? injected into their mouth vicinity using long syringe (and of course my fishes will come in for a snack too)

 

Also mentioned about the sea hares... hrmmm time to return these to my frd this weekend when I see him

 

Thanks and your comments/advise is helpful!

 

Not daily, a few times a week for the dendros and elegance is fine. mysis is a frozen shimp like brineshrimp but with more nutritional value.

 

best of luck, use this board as a reference before purchases and you should be well off.

[otaku521]

Thanks Eclipse, Tamberav, and thesmallerthebetter for your kind advise...

 

I would take a look if I can get a better pricing on the RODI water unit and look around more than just the LFS for the unit.

 

From looking of it - I will also give away the Firefish, & Yellow Tail Damsel... maybe have to part the yellow wrasse...

 

thanks!

[otaku521]

Week 9:

 

Away from biz trip last week with my wife just feeding and checking if anything died...

Finally got my RODI unit - just finished testing it out and will ask someone to help me install it on my sink (unit cost me ~$230 US)

 

Water Changed with previous Drink water filter: 50% Yesterday

Water Changed with NEW RODI water: 10% (Trial)

 

NO3: 10 ppm

 

Brown Algae Diatom seems to go away now

Give all Nudis back to my friend and the fire fish as well

but Yellow Tail Damsel - he didn't want - so keep for now and see...

 

Beginning feeding corals every other day (Tuesdays, Thursday, Saturdays) by dosing coral food in the water column (as instructed) and will keep a water change on sunday mornings.

 

I will let this run as this for a month and still doing big water changes once a week and see conditions improves more

 

 

Death Report - Cleaner Shrimp Disappeared...

[Tamberav]

Looking good, make sure to feed the sun corals something meaty like mysis every other day. Same with the elegance but only once or twice a week is needed. They can't live off small particle coral foods. The gorgs however do need the small particle foods.

 

The cleaner shrimp dying was probably a blessing. It will steal the sun corals/elegance's food when you try and feed them.

[frankdontsurf]

Looking good, make sure to feed the sun corals something meaty like mysis every other day. Same with the elegance but only once or twice a week is needed. They can't live off small particle coral foods. The gorgs however do need the small particle foods.

 

The cleaner shrimp dying was probably a blessing. It will steal the sun corals/elegance's food when you try and feed them.

 

There's a cleaner shrimp in heaven begging to differ with you.

[otaku521]

Update:

 

Finally give away the yellow tail damsel... now only fishes in there is 2 Clownfishes and 1 yellow wrasse

 

Feed the corals with frozen (thawed) brine shrimp - all my fishes came in for the snacks too!

 

Then made a 20% change in my tank with RODI water

NO3: 15ppm (Nutrafin Test Kit)

PO4: 0.03 (lowest for Salferi test kit)

 

Shifted the circulation pumps (Jebao WP10 and Fluval CP1 (wiill change to Jebao WP10 soon) to the back pointed UP towards the surface instead of blowing to the sides

 

Will change the sea grapes in my HOB fuge to chaeto (finally found someone in hong kong have chaeto!)

 

Here is some update photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[frankdontsurf]

Do you know the name of your Zoanthids?

[otaku521]

Do you know the name of your Zoanthids?

 

No... Tamberav mentioned it was "Dragon Eye"?

[otaku521]

Update:

 

Made a 20% change of water using RODI Water - due to seen death of my only snail - maybe starved to death or my hermit crab killed it...

 

everything else looked fine tho

 

Stats:

NO3: 15ppm Nutrafin Test Kit

PO4: 0.00 Salfarin Test Kit

Added/Changes:

1: Hammer Coral

 

2: Finger Coral

 

3: Leather Coral (didn't have a front photo)

 

Here is what the tank looks like now (along with my fishes)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death Report:

 

My one and only Snail

[otaku521]

Topic moved into a new thread:

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/346110-otaku-tank-2-new-tank-old-one-is-cracked/

 

Due to this tank is now replace with new one due to crack