The next step

[J Feez]

Hey Everyone,

I just recently started my first saltwater tank about 6 weeks ago. It's a 39 gallon with an eheim 2213 filter, 250 watt Jager heater, a basic coralife 36" 96 watt light strip, 2 Maxi-Jet 400 powerheads, and a Sea Clone 100 protein skimmer. I have about 22lbs of live rock and about 2 inches of crushed coral substrate.

As for inhabitants I have a yellow tailed blue damsel, a princess damsel, 2 algea eating hermit crabs and a sand sifting starfish.

All my tests are registering zero as of a couple days ago.

I was just curious where I should go next. I know I should get some more live rock in there ASAP, but the cost of it is stopping me from buying the remaining 17 lbs or so quickly. I'd like to get some more fish and/or some coral. I came close to buying 2 false percula clownfish and an anenome they had already hosted but I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do.

Thanks so much for you time.

[J Feez]

Every bit of informations will be very much appreciated! Thanks again

[muck]

Where are you located Joel?
Maybe a wanted post in the Buy/Sell that you are looking for Live Rock will yield a cheaper alternative.. :mrgreen:

As far as adding an anemone Id wait till you have had a few months of stable water conditions first.
They are a little more sensative than other inverts.

[J Feez]

Sorry about that I didn't realize my location wasn't showing. I live in the SW of Calgary.

I figured it would be too early to be putting anenome's in my tank, especially for their price.

But if anyone has some live rock they're looking to get rid of in the Calgary area I may be interested.

[christyf5]

Definitely try to get more rock in your tank. When I started out I didn't really have enough LR but because of the price I thought I could get by without it. I had all sorts of problems with algae and such. After getting more rock, the algae wasn't so bad but it still had a foothold and I wished I had bought more rock earlier. I would definitely try to get more rock in there before you increase your bioload.

The addition of more rock will also allow you to ditch the mechanical filtration (only if you want to). The mechanical filter is something that you really have to watch and clean fairly often as lots of detritus can build up and any sponges inside can become nitrate factories for bacteria.

It sounds like you have a pretty good setup though :biggrin:

[danny zubot]

Sounds to me like you have your first steps in order. Now you can look forward to lots of trial and error, upgrades, downgrades, good times and bad, through sickness and health.......

In other words your sucked in now.:biggrin:

[J Feez]

I will put all available funds towards some LR then!

I have been told that I should look at getting rid of the mechanical filtration, however, I don't have a sump. Is that going to make it a problem? And to be honest with you I don't know all that much about the sump system and how it works and even how easy it would be to add one to my set-up.

Whereabouts in Nanaimo do you live? I lived there for 9 years.

[Ruth]

What they said and welcome! The other thing to consider with an anemone is that they are fairly light demanding if you want to get one to hose clownfish and you may want to consider a light upgrade before you consider one of these creatures.

[Kabong]

Crushed coral isnt the best choice for a healthy sand bed.
You'd be better off getting rid of it and going with sand of some sort.
It will provide better filtration and more diviersity to you sand bed.

The sand sifting star isnt really suitable for a tank your size. ecspecialy since you dont have any sand to sift. Its pretty much a goner.
Not to tell ya what to do but id take it back to the LFS and see if i could get credit.

Filters generally produce nitrates, so they arent the best choice with corals.
Your protein skimmer does the same job and doesnt spike your nitrates.

Damnsels are genrally highly aggresive. May people regret ever putting them in the tank.

You clean up crew need some new recruits for sure. You should definatley get some snail's. Some more hermits too if you like them. (scarlet hermits are considered one the reef safest)

LOL sorry i feel like ive crapped all over your new hobby. Welcome to the hobby though, and good luck with your new tank.

[J Feez]

As I've read more I've been reconsidering my lighting choice, but again money is and has been the limiting factor for getting the best of everything I need. Going used I'm sure is the cheapest route. Slowly but surely is the process I've adopted and from what I've read it's really the most sensible as well! :)

[J Feez]

No thank's for your input there Tim. Everything you said I have been considering. I think I would really like to move to a sand substrate, but do you know of a good way to put it in there without clouding the water for a week?

[christyf5]

I will put all available funds towards some LR then!

I have been told that I should look at getting rid of the mechanical filtration, however, I don't have a sump. Is that going to make it a problem? And to be honest with you I don't know all that much about the sump system and how it works and even how easy it would be to add one to my set-up.

Whereabouts in Nanaimo do you live? I lived there for 9 years.

I live in Scarewood (Harewood) near Malaspina College.


The mechanical filtration is fine, I just think that after you get more rock you won't need it. Plus the weekly cleaning and such will become a chore.

Theres nothing wrong with buying used. I have hardly bought anything new, I've just upgraded when something better used came available. Money is tight in this hobby and quite frankly I need it for more corals :wink:
Your lighting seems fine, but remember you'll be restricted to lower light corals but theres plenty of great tanks out there that aren't lit with blinding lights :biggrin:

[J Feez]

Sorry the weekly cleaning of the filter? Or the weekly cleaning of the tank because there is no filter?

It's like I'm talking on msn right now haha :)

[muck]

How about a pic or two to show us what you got so far? :mrgreen:

[christyf5]

Well I've never had a mechanical filter on my tank before but they get filled with crud pretty quickly. All that crud makes a happy home for bacteria which in turn produce nitrates which affect your water quality for both fish and corals. In order to get that out of there I would imagine you'd have to clean it pretty often, whether it would be every week or every two weeks I'm not sure.

[Kabong]

I dont think there's any easy way to swap out for sand, But its defintlay better to do it now rather then later.
The two ways that ive heard off are

1. Bomber bags:
Turn off your power heads,
pre wet some sand, place it in a sandwich bag place,
open the bag at the bottom of your tank and slowly pull the bag up until all the sand come's out.

2. Sand syphon. (works best when doing water change)
Take a gallon of water out off the tank into a bucket.
Add sand to the bucket and let it settle over nite.
Syphon the sand into the bottom of your tank.

Both ways are going to be messy and should be done in stages.
Most reef life can handle sand getting kicked around anyway. It happens every time there a storm.

[Kabong]

I run mechanical filtration on my nano and yeah i clean the sponge weekly.
But time frame whould all be relative to your bioload.

[J Feez]

So I guess the best thing to do would be to keep running the filter right now until I get all the LR and then get rid of it? Or could I get rid of the filter now?

I'm just uploading some pics right now :)

[danny zubot]

As far as fluvals are concerned, what I've done in the past is run only carbon and bio balls or live rock in them. It significantly cuts down on the nitrate, and increases the flow through the filter for your carbon to utilize.

As far as your light is concerned, 96 watt Pc's will keep some anemone's happy. Considering that light is only one way for an anemone to feed, you'll have to have a regular regiment of feeding the anemone. I've kept Condalactis and BTA's under about 100 watts of light, but thats me. I'd continue to research this topic befor jumping in.

Another alternative for your sandbed is to go bare bottom. It seems to becoming more popular and has even tempted me (die hard SB supporter) to ditch my sand from time to time. I think that crushed coral is only good for FOWLR tanks. (fish only with live rock)

[J Feez]

So if I ditch the canister filter (eheim) and go with a hang off the back filter and use some carbon in there?

(Sorry if I'm asking so many questions, but I just have so many! :) )

[J Feez]

Ok so I can't upload the photo's. I'm using a MAC and I'm fairly new at them so I don't know how to do it yet. Is there another way I can upload them??

[digital-audiophile]

The HOB filter is always a good idea IMO becuase you can also use it as a fuge.

If you can fit an ac500 on the back along with your skimmer it would be great.

You can make some 'fuge type mods to it and be able to tuck you heater in there and run a little carbon or a small sponge and some macro algae. Some people love them, some people hate them.

[christyf5]

You should be able to attach them by clicking on the little paperclip in the toolbar above the reply box when you hit "reply". If you want to upload them, you'll have to upload them to another website, such as photobucket or putfile. :biggrin:

If you're still having problems you can email them to me at seamonkey68@hotmail.com :biggrin:

[muck]

http://www.muiscontrols.com/ryan/IMG_2303.JPG


http://www.muiscontrols.com/ryan/IMG_2304.JPG

[J Feez]

There she is.

Thanks for posting those pics Ryan! :)

I've got all the LR grouped over to the left there, as you can see, just because I wanted to make my two little damsels as comfy as possible with the tank cycling.

I'm gonna look into getting rid of the filter though if I can do it.

Thanks for all your input everyone!