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EquiReef
03-12-2014, 02:04 PM
Hey guys, I am new to the forum so thought I would post some info about my tank. I am also new to the saltwater world but have had freshwater planted tanks my whole life and still run a 50gal fresh in my office.

I set my tank up in December 2013 and it is safe to say the obsession just keeps growing, much to my husbands displeasure.

Equipment run down:

50gal Fluval rimless tank
2x Marineland LED reef lights(2610 lumens each)
Saline hang on skimmer
Eheim Pro 3E (350) Canister filter
3x Koralia PHs ( 1500, 3200 & 4400)
Deep sand bed (argonite)
Hydor external inline heater
Eheim surface skimmer
45lbs live rock
15lbs dry rock

Coral:

two Toadstool leathers (Purchased as one large toadstool with a small one coming off the base. After a month the small one broke off and is now independent)

one Ritteri Anemone (sold to me by the LFS as a great starter nem. Should have done my research before hand)

one red Chile sponge

two Elegance corals

one plate coral

one Gonipora

One pearl bubble coral

three zoa frags, one with a purple mushroom attached to it

Livestock:

One Mandarin Dragonette (my pride and joy)- Bought him against my better judgement but he did not look well at the lfs so I figured at least I would put the effort into feeding him, where as the lfs clearly was not. I cultured pods for him (from Canada Corals, thanks guys!) for about two months (until my mother house sat while we were away and overfed them causing the culture to die off), he has doubled in size since we bought him.

Two OC Clowns who dont leave their nem. Ever. They were exhibiting spawning behavior until the nem decided to relocate to the other side of the tank

Two Electric Flame Scallops

12(??) blue leg hermits and red leg hermits

Various snails

Two Emerald crabs

One seahare (had two, the one elegance coral kill the second one :sad: )

I want to add more fish, but have held off as I want to make sure I get a fish that will NOT eat my mandys pods. I also want something colorful and that can live with other fish without issue.

I have always wanted a reef tank but never expected to be this obsessed with it.

matti2uude
03-12-2014, 03:43 PM
Very nice tank! Where did you get the red sponge from?

EquiReef
03-12-2014, 03:50 PM
Thanks, its a work in progress. I got the sponge from the Big Als in Whitby. It has been very hard to make it happy. My urchin always knocks it off the rock work at night.

ahhui
03-12-2014, 05:17 PM
Careful with your anemone, my previous anemone "walk" into the powerhead and kill itself. Need to find a way to cover up the powerhead. Especially for a such nice, expensive anemone. ^^

EquiReef
03-12-2014, 05:25 PM
Ya I have had to move the tank around to accommodate his escapades a few times now. He put one arm into a power head one day but all was fine. I just keep a close eye on him and keep moving the powerheads around. He also sat his fat butt on top of my small toadstool while I was away and stung it quite a bit. It came back fine thankfully.

I was thinking about putting something over the powerheads but wasnt sure what to use. Any ideas? I am really hoping he splits, I bought him and he was only about 6" across, once I got him home and he was happy he expanded to about 1 foot across.

reefwars
03-12-2014, 05:31 PM
your chili coral is non photosynthetic coral and needs to be fed or it will perish , when happy should have bright white polyps and high polyp density.

these corals do not fair well with any noticable phosphate levels or film algae takes them over but if phosphate levels are low then they can handle bright light but prefer low to no light at all:)

mine prefer high flow

good luck its a advance coral for sure and not great for new tanks because of its feeding habits and low nutrient requirements:)

EquiReef
03-12-2014, 05:46 PM
Good to know. I havent been able to find much information on them and dont know anyone with experience keeping them. I did read that they prefer no light, so I put them in a cave which gets virtually no light. I still saw no polyps. I moved it to another spot that gets moderate light and still nothing. I feed marine snow to the tank once per week and feed mysis, roti and bloodworms on an alternating basis daily. Should I feed it something else? Should it be glued to a rock upside down? Planted in the substrate? I am having NO luck with it. At the moment it is getting medium flow. It fell into an elegance coral the other night after the Urchin was out and about but that didnt seem to effect it. Here I thought my Goni would be the most unhappy in my tank!

Water parameters:

Salinity- 1.025 SG
Phos- 0ppb
Nitrate- 0ppm
Alk- 8dKH
Calc- 420ppm
Temp- 27-27.5

ahhui
03-12-2014, 06:01 PM
It is good that you aware of it. However, moving the powerhead around creates another problem, it means your flows/current is keep changing, and it could be the reason why your anemone is keep moving too. The more your change things around, the more the anemone will be moving. So maybe a better option is to use some egg crate to make a protection around the powerheads. Once things are stable and the anemone find a good spot to stay you can then remove the egg crate. Good luck!

reefwars
03-12-2014, 06:03 PM
Good to know. I havent been able to find much information on them and dont know anyone with experience keeping them. I did read that they prefer no light, so I put them in a cave which gets virtually no light. I still saw no polyps. I moved it to another spot that gets moderate light and still nothing. I feed marine snow to the tank once per week and feed mysis, roti and bloodworms on an alternating basis daily. Should I feed it something else? Should it be glued to a rock upside down? Planted in the substrate? I am having NO luck with it. At the moment it is getting medium flow. It fell into an elegance coral the other night after the Urchin was out and about but that didnt seem to effect it. Here I thought my Goni would be the most unhappy in my tank!

Water parameters:

Salinity- 1.025 SG
Phos- 0ppb
Nitrate- 0ppm
Alk- 8dKH
Calc- 420ppm
Temp- 27-27.5

to be honest youll spend a whole lot of time trying to get it fed properly i would just pass it on, reason i say this is they dont fare well in new tanks as the mico life isnt there for it to get a feeding response and dry pollution is high.

you can feed it live food like rotifiers but unless your culturing on a large level youll run out of food pretty quick and it will become expensive to feed it daily.

i can tell from the pic that it is starving , the shriveled skin is a for sure sign of malnutrition .

these corals belong is a dedicated system with live foods, over sized filtration and steady water parameteres all of which a new tank finds hard to offer.


im not saying its impossible but its not easy to do on short notice and without planning you'll end up doing more harm then good to your young reef(small changes)

best advise in this situation is bring it back to where you bought it for credit and get something more designed to a mixed reef and for your care level.

info on this coral can be found on the NPS forumns on reef central if google isnt giving you much, i think you'll find after some reading it was a poor purchase and the seller should have told you of its requirements, its a common thing for larger box stores to do and the customer usually bites it as a newb loss when in fact they never stood a chance :)

if you do decide to keep it i can put you on the right path to getting it healthy, its not easy though just a FYI:)




beauty though!!


cheers

denny

EquiReef
03-12-2014, 06:05 PM
I never thought of the change in flow causing a problem, but it makes sense. I will have to try and cover them up.

EquiReef
03-12-2014, 06:16 PM
I sent you a PM

to be honest youll spend a whole lot of time trying to get it fed properly i would just pass it on, reason i say this is they dont fare well in new tanks as the mico life isnt there for it to get a feeding response and dry pollution is high.

you can feed it live food like rotifiers but unless your culturing on a large level youll run out of food pretty quick and it will become expensive to feed it daily.

i can tell from the pic that it is starving , the shriveled skin is a for sure sign of malnutrition .

these corals belong is a dedicated system with live foods, over sized filtration and steady water parameteres all of which a new tank finds hard to offer.


im not saying its impossible but its not easy to do on short notice and without planning you'll end up doing more harm then good to your young reef(small changes)

best advise in this situation is bring it back to where you bought it for credit and get something more designed to a mixed reef and for your care level.

info on this coral can be found on the NPS forumns on reef central if google isnt giving you much, i think you'll find after some reading it was a poor purchase and the seller should have told you of its requirements, its a common thing for larger box stores to do and the customer usually bites it as a newb loss when in fact they never stood a chance :)

if you do decide to keep it i can put you on the right path to getting it healthy, its not easy though just a FYI:)




beauty though!!


cheers

denny

reefwars
03-12-2014, 06:32 PM
sent you a plan to get this coral back on track , please post your findings and let me know if it works :)

any questions shoot:)




"nps corals use food to create energy , this created energy is used to find more food , when a coral becomes starved it has no reserve energy in storage to feed off so its a slow process when one is starved to start with."

EquiReef
03-21-2014, 07:22 PM
Update on my tank:

Red chile got scrubbed a few times and fed cyclo, phytofeast and marine snow twice a day since. It's starting to put some polyps out.


Bought a few new corals off kijiji the other day- sun coral, hammer, frogspawn, torch, open brain, long tentacle plate and a few mushrooms. Feel free to give me any tips you might have or any incorrect IDs. The only one that hasn't fed is the open brain. http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/ta5ury5e.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/upe7edyp.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/a3e9agyq.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/by7equ8y.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/ygudumep.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/enequpa8.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/etuqa4y2.jpg


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pgtanks
03-22-2014, 12:05 AM
i can't select individual picture but in your first post there are two pictures of anemones one on the sandbed and one on the glass. are these the same anemone?

EquiReef
03-22-2014, 12:07 AM
I'm not sure which you're talking about, I only have the one anemone (ritteri) on the glass. I have a Goniopora on the sand bed(also pink) and a green elegance.


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denny_C
03-22-2014, 12:25 AM
looking good:)


so youll need to keep the chili clean , it needs to be clean in order to get a feeding response, once it feeds often enough its polyps will stay out all day and night:)

alot of your corals are photosynthetic so i wouldnt bother feeding them as pollution takes a couple of months to notice the declining effects and they dont need to be fed , most of the requirements are met thorugh photosynthesis and particulate in the water column.

your suncoral though is NPS like the chili , the suncoral needs meat and needs it daily(best reults)

glad to see the chili is coming back for you i told you it would work ive had to do the same i bet a thousand times lol


cheers


denny aka (reefwars)

EquiReef
03-22-2014, 01:06 AM
Thanks again for the help. I also have it suspended upside down and I think that's helping. I just fed each polyp of the sun coral with tweezers. It seems pretty happy. I know I over feed the tank I'm terrified that something will starve though.


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pgtanks
03-22-2014, 03:44 PM
I'm not sure which you're talking about, I only have the one anemone (ritteri) on the glass. I have a Goniopora on the sand bed(also pink) and a green elegance.



I think I see now, your second picture in your first post is a green elegance coral. I have a nem that looks almost identical

EquiReef
03-22-2014, 03:47 PM
I think I see now, your second picture in your first post is a green elegance coral. I have a nem that looks almost identical


Wow really? I would love to get one that color. What is it called?


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