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Let’s talk placement


Iannells

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Hey guys, this is my first post ever, i have been lurking for about 6 months and after much research i decided 2 months ago i would start my very own nano reef! 

 

my question is i have no idea where to place anything. By what i can see they seem to be thriving for the most part but my worry is long term and appearance 

-i want to add zoas on my rock but i dont want them to kill anything


-Duncan should i frag it and split it up or leave it and grow stuff around it it seems to be very large and tanking up a lot of room in front . 

 

- toad stool seems to be very happy i rather not touch him 


- rabit leather should i move it ? 
 

- branching hammer, will it grow and fight my toad stool ? 

 

what are your suggestions on where you would place current corals. Note the left side gets the most of the flow, i find it very difficult to determine what level of flow is where.

 

thank you so much and hope to get a good thread response ! 
 

happy reefing 

 

equipment 

- Im 10

- mighty jet return

- media basket with 2 x chemi nano, filter floss and marine pure

- 50w heater

- ato 

-kessil a80 & controller x 

 

inverts

- 2x Red legged hermits

- 1 torchus snail

- 1 black snail (LFS called it that)

 

fish 

- 1 orange clown

- 1 black clown  
 

corals (fun part)

- zoas green
- zoas purple

- beige toatstool

- duncans 

-  sun coral (added 2 days ago)

- branching hammer

- rabbit ear leather (i think LFS sold them as leather assorted)

- unkown coral at tops 2x but seem to be thriving. 
 

1st day Added november 21 

1144E010-C351-4685-820F-6E4D9F18F0D0.thumb.jpeg.618688204b32ed8d1bebcb20092accd6.jpeg

 


 

December 7th 

17739720-3152-49AB-A61E-D6741FF5602F.thumb.jpeg.d63731ad59248440a6358a4f67bab61b.jpeg

61418E67-CC49-4EAC-B009-F4F925623322.thumb.jpeg.95b6d93fa980d41bd0325464196d736d.jpeg

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Clownfish king

Well first off I hope u know how hard it is to grow sun corals second of all I love seeing young reefers like me in the hobby it shows that our hobby is not dying out I’m 12 now and some of the tanks I have seen are beautiful. the background unknown coral is a Kenya tree they grow real fast and spread fast too I would recommend giving its “baby’s” to the LFS for trade ins or store credit. I do not know about placing everything seems to be thriving though... could you send a pic of this so called Black snail maybe I and the other nano reefers could tell u it’s true name

 

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Your tank looks extremely new. How did you cycle it? I'm not seeing any algae at all. 

 

Hammer corals have sweepers, yes. They'll fight anything downstream of them if they get big. 

 

Zoanthids may try to grow over other corals, but most aren't too invasive. They don't tend to kill other corals. Really, it's the other way around. 

 

Sun corals are definitely tricky. They're non-photosynthetic, so need heavy feeding pretty much daily to avoid starving. Not a good choice in new tanks that can't handle a lot of nutrition. Be careful with that guy. 

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20 hours ago, Clownfish king said:

Well first off I hope u know how hard it is to grow sun corals second of all I love seeing young reefers like me in the hobby it shows that our hobby is not dying out I’m 12 now and some of the tanks I have seen are beautiful. the background unknown coral is a Kenya tree they grow real fast and spread fast too I would recommend giving its “baby’s” to the LFS for trade ins or store credit. I do not know about placing everything seems to be thriving though... could you send a pic of this so called Black snail maybe I and the other nano reefers could tell u it’s true name

 

Thank You ! the LFS told me it was a Sinularia, but I'm having trouble really matching it. thank you for the advice on the babies I will take that into account. I will upload the picture of the snail tonight he likes to burrow himself in the sand during the day.

 

I have wanted a salt water tank since I was 10 years old but after all the work and research I now understand why my parents were not willing to get me one. All I can say is I am 2 months deep and all I do is love it more day by day! it really opened up my appreciation for corals and the ocean in general! 

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16 hours ago, Tired said:

Your tank looks extremely new. How did you cycle it? I'm not seeing any algae at all. 

 

Hammer corals have sweepers, yes. They'll fight anything downstream of them if they get big. 

 

Zoanthids may try to grow over other corals, but most aren't too invasive. They don't tend to kill other corals. Really, it's the other way around. 

 

Sun corals are definitely tricky. They're non-photosynthetic, so need heavy feeding pretty much daily to avoid starving. Not a good choice in new tanks that can't handle a lot of nutrition. Be careful with that guy. 

My tank is 8 weeks old I cycled it with dry rock and dosing ammonia, with turbo start 900 and stability by sachem I have also passed the brown algae phase but it tends to come back every now and then, nothing like the original bloom. As of now I have some green algae growing on the rocks but nothing that is out of control.

 

I absolutely regret the sun coral and will be returning them this weekend I jump the gun on them my tank is nowhere near mature enough for that type of feeding, I shot my phos to 0.25 in 2 days thanks to that. my main reason was I wanted a coral that could grow under my rock overhang because it seems like unusable Realestate.

 

would you happen to know what type of leather I have on the right ? the one that looks like a hand in green?

 

 

thank you !

 

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Clownfish king

I just got pass the brown algae phase in my 10 gallon main tank I’m going to get my first corals for this tank some time after Christmas cause (even though I know a ton about them by being on her for a few months and research about the coral I want to get) right now I have a pair of ocellarus clowns

I cycled it for about 5 weeks before I added my mocha and yellow ocellarus into the tank

 

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Clownfish king

I had a tank leak with my og 10 gallon that was fully cycled so I had to get rid of it get a new one and recycle it. The only reason I did not have to return my clownfish is because I had a precycled 5 gallon to use as my temporary fish tank while I got a new one and cycled it

image.jpg

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For future reference, phosphate of 0.25 is completely reasonable. High phosphate won't harm your corals. Low phosphate will kill them. High phosphate may encourage pest algae to some extent, but will also help non-pest algae along, and a tank with rocks that light needs help with the algae population. 

 

You should expect green algae. You want your rocks to turn colors other than white, basically, so your biodiversity starts going up. Biodiversity is the number of different species you have in your tank, and you want to have high biodiversity that's mostly microfauna. You want lots of detritivores, lots of pods, and lots of different kinds of algae, which will help make your tank more stable and resistant to pests. If you get the chance, you should do things to increase your biodiversity, like adding species of copepods that multiply in aquariums. Shells and bits of rubble from other, healthy tanks are good to introduce different varieties of algae. 

 

White rock like you have is great space for algae to grow on. You'll most likely see a lot of fast-growing invasive algaes take that space over in the coming months. That's normal. Don't scrub your rocks, don't dose anything to kill the algae, don't let your nitrates drop below 5ppm or your phosphates below 0.05. Numbers higher than those are generally good for soft corals. Once you have a lot of algae, introduce a reasonable cleanup crew. Pull out any long tufts of hair algae or large mats of cyano by hand. If anything tries to grow directly on your corals, blow it away with a turkey baster. Keep your nutrients reasonable (but not too low), and wait. Eventually, less invasive algaes will begin to take over. They'll crowd out the pest algae for the most part. If you have half a dozen species of algae fighting each other for space, and the slower-growing non-pest algaes are more prominent, you won't have an algae problem where it runs amok. 

 

Dry rock comes with the problem of very low biodiversity to start with. It has to turn into live rock, and can take years to get to that state, if it ever does at all. If you can, I'd suggest adding some good live rock. Proper live rock, from the ocean, not "live rock" that's been sitting in a LFS tank for a month and has grown some bacteria. KP Aquatics sells small amounts of the stuff that can ship with a regular order, so if you ever order from them (and they're amazing for ricordea, you should go there if you want ricordea mushrooms), it would be good to add a pound of rock to your order. 

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