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Hi Guys, I've been researching and have finally taken the plunge and purchased a Fluval EVO Marine 60L tank, it was set up 2 days ago and is currently completing its first cycle. Its set up with 1 Ecoreef rock, standard reef sand and pre-mixed salt water from my LFS and I have been adding bacteria daily. I just wanted to get some confidence on what I have researched and see if I'm on the right track: Run first cycle until no Ammonia-Nitrate-Nitrite is present Introduce CUC to feed on first cycle mess and prepare for fish 1x Emerald Crab 1x Electric Blue Hermit 2x Nerite Snail Introduce corals any suggestions would be appreciated, probably looking at 4-5. Introduce Fish 2x Clown Fish (not sure what breed yet) 1x Royal Gramma Daily top ups of RO water Weekly water changes of 10-20%? - This will ensure that water levels of Calcium, Magnesium etc stay where they should to help the corals grow? Maintain water parameters at: Specific Gravity = 1.023-1.025 Temp = 24C pH = 8.1-8.4 Alkalinity = 8-12 dKH Ammonia = 0 Nitrite = 0 Nitrate = <1.0ppm Phosphate = <0.2ppm Calcium = 350-450ppm Magnesium = 1250-1350ppm Iodine = 0.06-0.10ppm Strontium = 8-14ppm I understand that having all those numbers there would be perfection but that's the dream right. Feed the fish bi-daily Supplement extra for CUC and Corals if needed. Now am I on the right track or is there something I'm missing?

OK, so a pretty dull and ugly stage to look at right now to be honest, but if I get my thoughts down, hopefully can prevent the later issue of not remembering how things started out. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are a twin tank system, the by-product of a bad urge to tinker, combined with a environmental scientist turned systems analyst reacting to discovering some rampant confirmation bias running through hobbiest level info for reef keeping. They are a sealed pico design, and a big part of what attracts me to that is the attitude of the reefers and pioneers in this field. So many rules have been broken already that the resistance to change and innovation is much lower. My kinda people 🙂 Dr Jekyll is a good an upstanding tank who will follow accepted best practice where possible. He is my control Mr Hyde will not be following best practice. I will throw whichever half baked ideas I see fit at it to see what happens. He is "Experimental". I use quotations there because I want to say at the outset, scientific method will not be followed, rigorously or at all. I'm doing this for my own entertainment, and with so many potential variables and very long duration required before a system can be declared stable I would need hundreds of almost identical tanks running simultaneously to satisfy scientific method for all the things as I would like to examine. Mr Jekyll will have things thrown at him, I will eyeball their impacts against the control and make judgement calls. Possibly I will run a third tank (if I can get away with it) which would be a Frankenstein's monster. Taking the best bits of Mr Hyde and stitching them together to see what happens. I'm pushing my luck with two of these atm and I have no successful results to implement now anyways, so this will be a possibility for later on. I am also an Australian, sourcing items locally and internationally. I will try and keep a record of what I source from where, but at this stage of course I cant back up any recommendations up with results or experience, please just treat it as a list of "look what i found" suggestions. Experimental suggestions are welcome. I have a few in mind already, and can only test so many at a time, but if someone has a belter of an idea I will be very happy to hear about it. test

Hi, I know there are tons of experienced people on this website and im a beginner to the saltwater reef hobby i have a lifegard nano 7gallon aquarium and i wanted to start a nano reef but got overwhelmed with all the different things that come with the saltwater hobby pumps,skimmers,dosing,wavemakers,reactors etc etc i want to start a nano reef and given my small tank i know there is very little room for error when it comes to what kind of corals etc i want to put into my tank, im a pretty experienced person when it comes to freshwater but i really want to move on to bigger things and need help setting up my nano reef any help is sppreciated thanks! my tank

Not sure how this whole journal thing works but thought I would keep this journal for me (and others to keep up with) I am on day 32 of my tank build. my equipment -Kessil A80 Tuna Blue -stock return pump (soon replacing with sicce 0.5) -heater (Petco brand not sure exact one) Not sure if I should get a nano protein skimmer?? My LFS said it’s probably not necessary but I’m gonna do more research my live stock has built up quite a bit and here’s what it’s loaded with -2 occe clowns -2 hermits -1 conch -2 snails -1 pink torch coral branching 3 heads -candy cane colony (15 heads) - green hammer coral branching 1 head -2 orange/gray acan -3 ricordea -1 gsp -1 two head red mushroom - 1 cabbage coral -1 zoa 6 heads ( eagle eye) -1 Kenya tree Plan on getting some frogspawn, more zoas and torches. Also want one more small fish but not sure if I will have enough room Since I’m already a month late on posting this I’m going to post from the day water was put in my tank to my pics I took tonight Note I have been very indecisive and have changed my aquascape, arrangement of corals, and my actual live rocks a lot in just this month 😂 hope you guys will enjoy following along!! Many input is appreciated greatly! Day one Day 3 added my live rock Week 2 cycle complete time for fishies and some corals week 3 more corals! Week 3 1/2 did not like the top arm so removed it and made more flat simplistic look Week 4 got two new ricordia sand 2 acan!!! Week 4!!! just got a new candy cane colony, torch, and center price covered in coraline! Can’t wait to see how this turns out in a year from now!!!