oh dear what have i done????

the original plan was instead of having two small tanks id have one large one and then some time in the future id try a few corals.

over the last couple of days a lot of live rock has been removed from the other tanks not really set as I want but its now in the new tank

whist pulling out the socks last night I had a accident and a little flood and a black out afterwards so really have to rethink my plumbing and the lights ill be bringing back to seahorse,the ghl's are a really impressive light but not the easiest to programme so I'll be getting a few lessons on Tuesday.

I know the stuff i put in the tank said it cycled the tank instantly but this cant be right

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate between 0-5
Kdh 8.4
salinity 1.027 little high

whist pulling out the socks last night I had a accident and a little flood and a black out afterwards so really have to rethink my plumbing

Jasus man that sounds nasty your having some start

If i understand what ive been told properly, then yes that could be right!!!!

Why not put a few tougher corals into the new tank?

My fault really really with the flood from now on i will be turning off the pumps before i messing around..i will also replacing some of the flexable tubing with rigid pvc but thats another days work

also have to make a cover for the tank.loads of evaporation maybe loosing a litre or two a day making it very hard to keep the skimmer tuned and keeping the salinity where i want it.

Will be puttting sone corals in there but going to wait a bit till all the others have tramsfered out of the other tanks first.

lost an anemone last night no reason.came home and yesterday morning he was on the top rock looking happy and last night it had died and was being pushed around the tank like a peice of jelly....it was in the old tank by the way not the new one.

really need to resherse alot more..a fish you can spot when there not happy.corals not so much.so alot more learning to do.

ok I originally had some water accelerators as my returns these have been removed and shortening the return hose and now using a standard jbl return nossel ,return now has the flow it should .

the lights are now working but probly have to reprogrammed for corals but that's for another day

and have started replacing some of the flexable hose for rigid pipe in the hope i'll never have another flood again but it will also just tidy thing up bit.

so far cromis,pyjamma cardinals and damsels are all loving it but still got the other tank to break down and got to reposistion the rock and get nemo,marlin and dory transferred

going to be a busy sunday

Didnt get a chance to do anything today but the lights are making some difference to the look of the tank

New return

Ok pics arnt uploading

So far everyone settling in apart from one cromis which has decided to most of his time hiding....well hes not really hiding as in i can see him clearly but hes in the one spot all the time and not swiming around with everyone else...

still want to move the round abit but still got a few more bits and 2 shrimp and a few hermitsto pull out of the other tank first

Ok story so far..


transfered today the last of live rock into the tank today..i'll probly start moving it around and getting some sort order latter on the week.
the last of the hermits and snails and the sand sifter star went in too

the only problem is whist trying to catch the boxer shrimp.the female has lost her clawrs.they didnt get caught in anything they just dropped off with all her moving around...(any one know if she'll now die,or if they'll regrow)...her and her mate seem happy and hanging out under a rock but by the look of it no fish have realised their there yet..

Looking good. the shrimps claws will grow back happened my cleaner shrimp before

I was a bit worried but you've set my mind at rest now ..i remember my porclin crab growing his clawr back so i hope she'll be ok.

I only just remembered about the porclin crab.hes not in the old tank .the only thing left in that is some live sand which is covered in fan worms..try an transfer them in a day or two...

im assuming hes hiding out in a peice of live rock but untill i see him.im going to fear the fear the worst.

Still no sign of the porclin crab and i fear i blue star may of got him.

after a night of glueing im not very happy with the rigid pipe and will probly just just stick using the flexable stuff

on a good note though brought all my containers back to seahorse and got a free reactor.so im going to try using pellets instead of no pox..

and photos still wont upload

DAMN PHONES

The other day i moved a lot of rock around and was going for 3 little walls with instead of one big lump..with a few flat plates that i could evently place some corals on

well i stired up so much stuff i couldnt even see in to the tank and ended up basicly just just getting the rock back in and thinking id try another day.

i didnt really like what id done but its g



rowing on me and whilst i may still move some of the rock around i think im on the right track

Howye Chris haven't been on for awhile how the tank coming along did you change the rock again haha were never happy personally I'm not sure about it as it's not really ideal for corals

it really needs to be moved around again,,,but after i moved the rock last time i seem to of disturbed something,i cant seem to even go a day or two at the Mo without that brown algae growing on the glass...so im constantly cleaning ..

all my tests are good.even nitrates are really low but need to get a new phosphate test...how ever that didn't stop me the other night setting up the reactor,was going to try pellets but using rowaphos for now,

there was a lot of little fan worms in the sand of the old tank and they don't seem to of transferred well,so ive probably huge amounts of die off in my sand, what evers going on though its not upsetting the parameters in the tank anyway.

only been doing a 5% water change every week up till now so might try 10% this week and still need to beef up my clean up crew.according to seahorses reef cleaner package for a tank my size i should have 25 hermits in there but i cant count the ones i do have.little feckers wont keep still

and one of the first fish to be transferred was the green cromis,whilst everyone has settled in perfect two of these really haven't,there not feeding,whatever they are eating isn't enough cause there not even the same colour as the others but i keep hoping that one day they'll adapt,

live rock seems to amaze me a the mo ,ive had coralline algae turn from purple to white to red to green and then back to purple and at the mo i seem to a red little branching algae starting although it is very small

it still seems ive a few things to do but i will put coral in this tank some day

Cromis hiding out behind a power head and the boxer shrimp has regrown her claws..

Hi. I'm really looking forward to seeing your new setup. While I have never kept marine and now very little about it but a fela I know locally has a home made tank which measures 2 foot tall 6 foot long and 4 foot wide. So if you want any advice I can pick his brain for you. I have not spoke to him for a while so he may be all ready on the forum but if I can be of any help give me a shout.

thanks i keep trying to upload pics but but for some reason its not working......think some people use photo bucket but have to learn how to use that


everyone just had a little midnight feast a bit of marine cuisine and mysis while the bigger fish picked up all the mysis the two cromis managed to get some of the smaller bits in the marine cuisine...at least i know now they are eating even if i cant always see them

Photobucket is quiet staight forward and as for loading photos to site I was informed that if you make sure your pics are less than 1mb in size they will load no problem. Now with my camera I have to convert the files using software if you google resizing photos you will find something that suits you.

Lets see if this works ..

Resizing the pic does work thanks

cleaned up the tank today,was never a big fan of those pads on a stick,ive already put a scratch in the front glass so went and bought myself some d&d magnets and they worked really well a lot easier than me having my whole arm in the tank with a small pad

also got a new phosphate kit
phosphate is reading 1.0
nitrate is reading some where between 3-6.so I'll say 5

so as for the brown spots on my sand i can only put it down it to lack of flow,for which there's no point propositioning power heads until i reposition the rock and my lack of clean up crew,now i will hopefully get some more snails this weekend but maybe a nice little sand sifting goby may do a better job

managed to get the shy cromis out of there hiding place today and they ate well.with a load of marine cuisine and brine shrimp.maybe they'll come round.

going to do a 10% water change now and maybe ill try reposition the rock tomorrow

carlowchris wrote:

cleaned up the tank today,was never a big fan of those pads on a stick,ive already put a scratch in the front glass so went and bought myself some d&d magnets and they worked really well a lot easier than me having my whole arm in the tank with a small pad

also got a new phosphate kit
phosphate is reading 1.0
nitrate is reading some where between 3-6.so I'll say 5

so as for the brown spots on my sand i can only put it down it to lack of flow,for which there's no point propositioning power heads until i reposition the rock and my lack of clean up crew,now i will hopefully get some more snails this weekend but maybe a nice little sand sifting goby may do a better job

managed to get the shy cromis out of there hiding place today and they ate well.with a load of marine cuisine and brine shrimp.maybe they'll come round.

going to do a 10% water change now and maybe ill try reposition the rock tomorrow

How's Chris that rock work is deffo growing on me I'm having the visions ha, phosphates are crap to be honest and that might not be helping the browning of the sand but thus us also related to the tank maturing,
Are you adding alot of frozen food it's riddled with phosphates and if you are not preparing it correctly as in the water that's in the cube is going into ur tank that's raising them and then ur feeding algae so that's also a pain,
Nitrates are bang corals will love that level but they will hate the phosphates as do the fish so you need to source where it's coming from

Hey Chris

I totally agree with Jeff. Your nitrates are fine but it is your phosphates that should be of concern to you. You are way over the "ideal" levels. Phosphates need to be as close as possible to 0, anything below 0.08 is fine.

Phosphates that high could very likely be the reason why you have diatoms in your tank. At least they are def feeding from it.

A good power head will or might help getting rid of some of it but the best solution will be to lower those phosphates.

As you have a sump I think you have two options

First, and this should be a long term solution use some sort of macro algae so it will feed on the nuisance algae
In the meanwhile and to lower the levels quickly use carbon or some sort of phosphate removal, I use carbon and a P04 removal similar to GFO but 4 times more powerful.

At the moment I dont have a sump but if I had one I would be using a fluidased reactor instead of putting into a filter bag, using fluidasers with the right media can help you keep your phosphates levels in check very easily.

I recently set up a new temporary tank (I will be creating a new thread soon as I will be looking for advice). I want my new tank pests free (for as long as I can) and critters free so I am being very meticulous and I watch everything I put in the tank and monitor the tank levels. Phosphates were one of my main concerns, my old "nano" had phosphates levels over 2 ppm I had serious hair algae issues and because the tank was very had to access I could hand clean it properly.

So I took my battle against phosphates very seriously. IMO one of the main causes of high phosphates is the rock itself and all the stuff we put in the tank that we just throw in without even considering its side effects (for example bags of crushed corals or like Jeff says frozen food).

I wont explain what I have been doing with my new tank in this thread but I will tell you what I am using to combat phosphates, I use Rowa phos, a phosphate removal media called PO4x4 (similar to GFO but more powerful) and Red Sea's NOPO (this stuff works really well).

My phosphates are now around 0.04 which is perfect for me (considering I only have cured dead rock in the tank).

If you are going to try to lower your phosphates do it slowly, again, in your case I would start adding a fluidised reactor with some phosphate removal media (such as PO4X4) add some macro algae (more for long term control) and that should do.

NOPO works well as well (specially agains hair algae) but it requires daily dosing which can be annoying (I mostly used it to control my nitrates).

Anything below 0.08 is fine

IMO it should be below 0.03

lol

Trust me, if all aquarist were as strict as you with theirs water parameters most of them will give up within months

We should start using this scale when measuring water parameters

Unacceptable - bad - ok - good - excellent - optimal and at Jeff's level!

Of course, you being such a meticulous and demanding person explains why your aquarium looks so amazing and mine looks like a dumpster! lol