Finally started 20G all in one tank

[Martin in China]

Measured the water parameters again after a 10% WC

pH 7.6
Mg 1290
Ca 380
KH 7.5

The rest was still the same as before.

It's only a 20 Gallon tank and I wasn't expecting this much drop (I also measured the freshly prepared water before adding to the tank...all perfect), also not many corals at all.
I was hoping to get away with just a 10-15% WC every week.
Would dosing kalkwasser (and magnesium) help me out here or should I be thinking of dosing in another way (e.g. 2 or 3 part dosing)?

 

[Martin in China]

One of these days I need to get someone who has a decent camera to take some pictures for me, I just won't be able to get the colors right with my android or sony cybershot.

 

[Martin in China]

Did you ever thought, " lets go to buy a worm, because it's so pretty", before you had a marine tank? For sure I didn't, worm and pretty are not two things that come to mind if combined.
When I laid my eyes on this one for the first time, it was really an eye opener for me ....uh, this is a worm???... but now I did buy a worm because it is pretty.

My Damsel wanted to show that he is pretty too.

 

[Martin in China]

My order (2 skunk cleaner shrimp, 2 red legged dwarf hermit crab and 2 blue dwarf hermit crab) arrived alive and kicking.
This time I went for skunks as they come out to show them self more and it should be OK to have 2 in one tank.

 

[leonel619]

Looks great so far!

 

[Martin in China]

I need to glue my corals now, those hermits are bulldozers, but I find it pretty difficult for the glue to stick when I glue under water.

 

[Martin in China]

It's still going well with my hermit crabs and shrimp, the 2 Halloween hermit have molded and are now up and about, the 2 shrimp just molded last night. Those shrimp are like twins, always together and now even molding at the same time.

 

[lhof]

I found the electric blue hermits to be the biggest bulldozers of coral frags.

Best to glue them down. You could take out the rock and coral, spot dry both the area where you will affix it and the frag, glue it , and let it cure for about 30 seconds. The whole process should take no more than 2-3 minutes.

Or you can do what most folks have had success with and that's to take the frag out, dry the area on the plug where it will be glued and use a glue/putty/glue sandwich. Then when you place it in the tank press down and give it a little twist. The twist breaks the layer of cured glue and the putty helps it conform better to the rock location.

I've been doing this for the last 8 months and it's been great. I haven't had a frag get pushed around yet.

 

[Martin in China]

Thanks Ihof...I did see this method before, I will give it another try...or 2...or 3...or

 

[Martin in China]

Some update about my tank.

It's all going pretty much without much trouble, I have some cyno in my filter where the chaeto is, so far as it stays there it doesn't bother me. My openings to the filter compartment were a bit to big as it didn't skim, nothing that a little piece of plastic can't solve, now it's working fine.

 

[smtank]

Tank looks excellent. Nice scape and coral arrangement.

 

[Martin in China]

Tank looks excellent. Nice scape and coral arrangement.

Thank you, I do my best.

 

[Martin in China]

The dottyback is the king in my tank and thinks he can bully everyone else, the shrimp are running around with really short antennas and even my damsel hides most of the time. I'm sure I will get in a fight with my 6yr old son, because he loves the colors of the dottyback (I love it too), but I think he has to go (the fish, not my son...lol).
Finding good replacement will be difficult, unless it's a nice couple of pink colored fish, so I was thinking of a pair of pink skunk clown fish, but I'm not sure if my tank (20 Gallon) is big enough for them.

 

[Bubble_Eyez]

Amazing Looking Tank and setup

 

[rjkrejci]

Yea, unfortunately only the Orchid Dottyback seems to be relatively docile. Royal Gramma would be a great replacement for yours, since the colors are similar and they are pretty friendly.

 

[Martin in China]

Yea, unfortunately only the Orchid Dottyback seems to be relatively docile. Royal Gramma would be a great replacement for yours, since the colors are similar and they are pretty friendly.

My hope was that the Dottyback and the Damsel would even eachother, but the Damsel became skittish and kept hiding away. Today the Dotty went back to the shop and we (my wife and I) planning to get a pair of clownfish.

 

[Martin in China]

Little photo update.