Thrassian Atoll Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 1 hour ago, Elizabeth94 said: Yeah I am in the process of sucking it out. Right now my nitrate is too low for my api kit. Hanna phosphate test is reading .03 which I think it pretty good. I want to be able to feed this tank like crazy and have a good export method with less maintenance. Sand is a pain in the butt to keep clean imo. But I might add it back I like the look of it. Once I raised my nitrates with neonitro to 5-10 ppm my nitrates have been really stable with just feeding. For the life of me I couldn’t feed enough to get it to rise above zero. That’s been my issue, keeping my sand white. I keep getting cyano in the back corners but I can’t turn my MP40s up higher or sand will blow all over the place. 2 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 1 minute ago, Thrassian Atoll said: Once I raised my nitrates with neonitro to 5-10 ppm my nitrates have been really stable with just feeding. For the life of me I couldn’t feed enough to get it to rise above zero. That’s been my issue, keeping my sand white. I keep getting cyano in the back corners but I can’t turn my MP40s up higher or sand will blow all over the place. I really like how fine your sand is. It looks really nice. But how do you keep it clean? I usually stir sand and id be hesitant with such fine flakes. Good tip on the neonitro. I might have to use a nitrate additive. I have started dosing small amounts of Acropower, and feeding Reef Snow and Goniopower. Think the issue was feeding just frozen foods. Everything is on hold. I found a small bubble between my silicone near the top left corner. It has me worried! 1 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 3, 2020 Author Share Posted February 3, 2020 I said everything was on hold due to the bubble. But I can’t stop buying stuff for the tank lmao. I got a Coris wrasse today and a small frag of rasta zoas, which are one of my favorites. I was going to keep this tank bare bottom, but I think that will make it hard to place certain corals, as well as a clam which I know I want in the future. So I decided to try new sand. The finest sand I have ever had, CaribSea Bahamas Oolite. Rinsed the sand like crazy and gosh it looks fantastic! And it is not moving from my powerheads. So now I just need to keep up with the maintenance. Love the fine sand look! Wrasse ate as soon as he was added to the tank. Now he is buried in the sand for the night. I was quarantining fish, but my new lfs treats them all with copper. Im taking a chance skipping quarantine. So I hope my luck with my past three tanks follows me this time around. 4 Quote Link to comment
Thrassian Atoll Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 The sand looks great. When your rocks darken up and you get that nice contrast it will really look good. If I ever go bare bottom it will be way down the road and I would fill the bottom with encrusting corals. 1 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 4, 2020 Author Share Posted February 4, 2020 My dream fish is a mandarin, always has been since I started the hobby. My lfs has a couple that eat frozen but I know better. So I decided the next step for my system is to add biodiversity. I plan or order 10lbs of live rock from KP Aquatics and get that cycled in a separate tank. After that I plan to seed the tank with pods and figure out how I want to make a fuge. It has to be the same chamber as my skimmer so thats a challenge. Or maybe I will go skimmerless and just run macro? This tank has been running too low in nutrients anyways. Thoughts? Anyways, I plan to get several Pod Hotels so I can grow the pods in there and keep reseeding the display by shaking them out during feeding time. 1 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 I suspect you'll want the live rock to go straight into the display for maximum benefit in the display. But what's the whole plan for the separate tank? If it's just as a "pod hotel" then consider just using 10% live rock in the pod tank, and take dead rock from your display for the 90%. But you might find that you do better in the pod tank with just growing macroalgae...might not even need to use live rock in that tank at all that way and you can then put 100% of yours into the display. Something fast growing like chaeto ought to be good. You'll need nutrients for it, of course. You can just swish out your chaeto ball in your display tank once a month (whatever) for "re-seeding" your display. That keeps the macro algae out of your display too. You don't need the extra complication from growing it there....grow it in a separate tank. If your display tank is persistently low in nutrients, that simply means you have some more room to increase feedings to your fish. Make sure you're feeding the best food you can, as much as possible. (You might even find that you don't need the whole external pod setup once you get nutrient levels up.....just be patient before adding the fish to see how things turn out.) 2 1 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 19 minutes ago, Elizabeth94 said: My dream fish is a mandarin, always has been since I started the hobby. My lfs has a couple that eat frozen but I know better. So I decided the next step for my system is to add biodiversity. I plan or order 10lbs of live rock from KP Aquatics and get that cycled in a separate tank. After that I plan to seed the tank with pods and figure out how I want to make a fuge. It has to be the same chamber as my skimmer so thats a challenge. Or maybe I will go skimmerless and just run macro? This tank has been running too low in nutrients anyways. Thoughts? Anyways, I plan to get several Pod Hotels so I can grow the pods in there and keep reseeding the display by shaking them out during feeding time. By cycling in a separate tank, you meant just let the rocks get rid of it’s own shipping die-off’s? after that, you should add the rocks in your fuge, and let everything kinda live happily ever after down there. don’t worry about nutrient, tweaking it now will only be more trouble than it’s worth, imo. Tank still needs more lives added to it, and with livestock comes more feeding, and more pooping. You can back off on the skimmer a bit if you’d like. pod hotels look funny to me. Isn’t that what the new rocks are supposed to be for? 1 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 5, 2020 Author Share Posted February 5, 2020 6 minutes ago, mitten_reef said: By cycling in a separate tank, you meant just let the rocks get rid of it’s own shipping die-off’s? after that, you should add the rocks in your fuge, and let everything kinda live happily ever after down there. don’t worry about nutrient, tweaking it now will only be more trouble than it’s worth, imo. Tank still needs more lives added to it, and with livestock comes more feeding, and more pooping. You can back off on the skimmer a bit if you’d like. pod hotels look funny to me. Isn’t that what the new rocks are supposed to be for? Yes I figured by quarantining the new rock I would also be able to cycle it. I expect a lot of die off due to shipping. Im also thinking that I will have better luck catching any unwanted critters and/or algae. Im just wondering how many pods actually make it up into the display from the sump. Im thinking that if the pods hide in the hotels then I can grab them and shake them in the display to reseed the rock. Not sure if that would be needed, but I hear these fish eat constantly. My worst fear would be to starve an animal under my care. 1 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 37 minutes ago, Elizabeth94 said: Im just wondering how many pods actually make it up into the display from the sump. Im thinking that if the pods hide in the hotels then I can grab them and shake them in the display to reseed the rock. Not sure if that would be needed, but I hear these fish eat constantly. My worst fear would be to starve an animal under my care. I don’t know 🤷🏻♂️. I’ve never owned a sump system, never tried mandarin either. But I had the toughest time getting two leopard and one yellow coris wrasses to eat, so I hear ya on trying not to lose fish. 2 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 8, 2020 Author Share Posted February 8, 2020 Just ordered this guy from divers den. First time ordering a fish online. Im getting my quarantine back up and running. I really hope this goes well. He is so beautiful. 3 1 Quote Link to comment
Thrassian Atoll Posted February 8, 2020 Share Posted February 8, 2020 Looks great! I think fish from Divers Den are suppose to be healthier than regular live aquaria. They say on their site that they quarantine them for a few weeks. They also ship them at 1.025 salinity compared to the 1.018 from live aquaria. I have had way better luck with divers den fish out of Wisconsin. 1 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 11, 2020 Author Share Posted February 11, 2020 Wrasse came in this morning and he looks really good. A bit pale at the temp was only 70. But he acclimated without issues and is gaining some color back. Ill try to snap a picture. I just ordered 10lbs of live rock from KP Aquatics. I heard really nice things about them and I look forward to it! Normal people don’t understand how exciting it can be to get rock delivered. And hubby will not be happy once he sees the new fish and then hears that I bought more rock. Oh well! 3 1 Quote Link to comment
Thrassian Atoll Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 14 hours ago, Elizabeth94 said: Wrasse came in this morning and he looks really good. A bit pale at the temp was only 70. But he acclimated without issues and is gaining some color back. Ill try to snap a picture. I just ordered 10lbs of live rock from KP Aquatics. I heard really nice things about them and I look forward to it! Normal people don’t understand how exciting it can be to get rock delivered. And hubby will not be happy once he sees the new fish and then hears that I bought more rock. Oh well! That’s good about the fish! Glad it’s doing well. Never heard of KP aquatics. I am guessing there out of Florida? I really wish we could still get the awesome rock from Fiji and Tonga and places. Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 12, 2020 Author Share Posted February 12, 2020 2 hours ago, Thrassian Atoll said: That’s good about the fish! Glad it’s doing well. Never heard of KP aquatics. I am guessing there out of Florida? I really wish we could still get the awesome rock from Fiji and Tonga and places. It is aquacultured live rock off the florida keys. It looks good, at least from the reviews I read. (their photo) My coris Wrasse is bad at hiding. Silly thing. Hammer sweepers 3 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 12, 2020 Author Share Posted February 12, 2020 No sand in the quarantine so he took to the fake plant to hide. Peekaboo 4 Quote Link to comment
TatorTaco Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 @Elizabeth94 would you mind posting pictures when your rock comes in? I've been thinking about placing an order for their liverock in hopes of scoring some sweet pests. I've ordered corals and shrimp from them before, but never rock. Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 12, 2020 Author Share Posted February 12, 2020 @TatorTaco Yeah absolutely. I imagine ill get a variety of crabs and such. Im going to do a high salinity dip as suggested on their site and see what jumps out. Ill take pics of them too. I have stayed away from crabs in my tanks, so this will be a learning experience for me in terms of identification. 2 Quote Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Glad to hear the new fish arrived ok, fairy wrasse are so remarkable! On 2/4/2020 at 4:21 PM, Elizabeth94 said: My dream fish is a mandarin, always has been since I started the hobby. My lfs has a couple that eat frozen but I know better. So I decided the next step for my system is to add biodiversity. I plan or order 10lbs of live rock from KP Aquatics and get that cycled in a separate tank. After that I plan to seed the tank with pods and figure out how I want to make a fuge. It has to be the same chamber as my skimmer so thats a challenge. Or maybe I will go skimmerless and just run macro? This tank has been running too low in nutrients anyways. Thoughts? Anyways, I plan to get several Pod Hotels so I can grow the pods in there and keep reseeding the display by shaking them out during feeding time. Have you seen Biota's captive bred mandarin dragonets? They are expensive, but captive bred and raised on prepared foods: https://aquariumcarecenter.com/product/captive-bred-psychedelic-mandarin/ Banasophia has a beautiful one she's been keeping for two years, she posted about it earlier today: 1 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 12, 2020 Author Share Posted February 12, 2020 @Christopher Marks Thanks for that info Ill have to save the link. Well worth the price if they are already feeding on prepared foods. Im hoping within the next 6mths I will be able to get one. Hubby wants a pair of clowns too. I have a love hate with clowns. I had a large female that drew blood countless times in my very first tank. So who knows lol 1 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 14, 2020 Author Share Posted February 14, 2020 So I made a DIY lid from a window frame and netting. Came out awesome imo, and I am relieved that I finally have something to protect my fish. In other news my hob filter for my quarantine tank stopped working today. I cleaned it and everything looked fine. I have no clue what happened. Ill be replacing it with a simple sponge filter. Such is life lol. I also got a refugium light in the mail today. I wasn’t paying attention to the size apparently because this thing is like 7” in diameter. Its a big light. So I need to figure out how to hang it in my sump. Im thinking some kind of light track so I can push it out of the way if needed. 2 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 KPaquatics live rock just came in! It is beautiful. I did a high salinity dip to try and push crabs out but nothing came out. I bet they are all deep in the rock. I did get a pencil urchin that is alive! Place him in immediately because he was just in damp towel for the trip. Should have taken a picture of him in my hands because he is strong and won’t let go of the rock now lol! It is early so my tank has a bit of UV lighting so the rock looks more orange but it is a really nice pink coral color. After everything settles I will have to rescape the tank. Wish I did the whole tank with this rock. I might order another box in a few months and phase out the dry rock. 3 3 1 Quote Link to comment
TatorTaco Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Yay! I've been waiting for this post! Rock looks great. I'm glad to see you'd order more too. I've done the whole "start from dry rock" but even after a year+ in my tank, it looks nothing like rock from the ocean. 2 Quote Link to comment
Elizabeth94 Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 When I opened the box it didn’t have that low tide “death” smell. I was a bit worried because it wasn’t shipped submerged in water. Ill be keeping an eye on ammonia from the die off but I have a big block of marine pure in the sump, I don’t think I will have an issue. I have snails and chaeto coming tomorrow from reefcleaners. Kind of bummed that Algae barn has been out of stock. 1 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 43 minutes ago, Elizabeth94 said: KPaquatics live rock just came in! It is beautiful. I did a high salinity dip to try and push crabs out but nothing came out. I bet they are all deep in the rock. I did get a pencil urchin that is alive! Place him in immediately because he was just in damp towel for the trip. Should have taken a picture of him in my hands because he is strong and won’t let go of the rock now lol! It is early so my tank has a bit of UV lighting so the rock looks more orange but it is a really nice pink coral color. After everything settles I will have to rescape the tank. Wish I did the whole tank with this rock. I might order another box in a few months and phase out the dry rock. Liz, those are beautiful!! 3 Quote Link to comment
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