Fish size to gallon of tank.. How many can i fit?

Humm.. nice quote,
SO last night I wrote 3 paragraphs on everything to find out that RC was under maintained once I finally sent it. Here is what I have in a nutshell. Let me know what u know, we can try this again

FIsh
1 Sandswifter starfish StaRfish
1 Cleaner shrimp
1 Yellow with 2 black line through it Chromes (Behr's or something)
1 Brown Clown goby
1 Blue and Yellow tailed Damsel, 1 Gold Damsel ... that I am going to be taking out ASAP and selling to the LFS BECAUSE, .... I have 2 Green Clown Gobies ( the fish guy gave me an extra one) and 2 Pink Skunks waiting in my QT for 3 more weeks.

Coral ECT.
1 large Rose tip
1 Haitian anemone ( He looks like a swimming one but I’m not sure)
2 Leather Corals the Cabbage bulbs ones
1 Pavona green coral
1 rock with 10 Mushrooms the size of silver dollars
1 rock with a colony of pink Zooanthoids
2 baby bubbles the size of the tip of my pinky finger
1 rock of Cove Polyp
1 rock of GSP
1 feather duster, not including the 20 lil All-nat-ural ones :) on "Duster Island"
and .... 2 baby pink\white Anemones that I got from SF, ca. I got wiped out by a wave and almost died getting them too.

Tank
27g sand included, live rock included when I got it fully stocked already cycled
Coralife lighting, 2 double bar bulbs; one 65W Actinic, one 65W 10,000K white light?
a stump that sucks 7.5W on the left ... then the water goes through sponges and acrylic beads then drops and spits out on the right
1 Rio something powerhead, the sticker is sorta faded and it's lil
1 Maxijet 900Power head

I use nonchlorinated water from the grocery store with Instant salt after its safe deoxinating and heated

as of 3\27 my test kits read...

PH- 8.3
Ammonia-0PPM
Nitrate-20
Phosphate-0.5
Nitrite-0ppm
and on 3\17 Calcium was 540, so I stopped adding Calcium BIonic Buffer
and I add Kent Marines Essentials Elements 1-2x every 2 weeks
Carbon my Nylon
small water changes every week or two weeks max

So tell me everything other than " it's going to crash"
 
tank looks great however you have 2 clowns in the pics why are they not listed? the only fish i see in your pics that you mentiond was the yellow tailed damsel.

the starfish will need to be spot fed to help it survive or it will starve to death.

i would stop adding the kent elements, all the elements you will need will come in with the salt.

phosphates are actually very high i would try to run a phosphate remover.

nitrates are a little high but not real bad.

3 diff. types of anemones in a small tank may create problems later but look great now :D

other than a few little changes i say keep up the great work.

ps. do you have an alk. and mag test kit? having high cal. will prob. mean you have low alk.
 
Yeah i got rid of 2 of the fishes that came with the tank. I felt they were to big for me that is why I am going for little and nice. DO u still think my Skunks will b ok and that I should add a third Clown goby, for a total of 3?
And spot feeding, do u mean feed him once a week in the same place on the sand?
and no I don't have those test kits. I should check the Cal. again.... it just took 4ever to add a drop and wait, and add then wait, it took 27 drops =27 mins later
 
i would stick to 2 clown goby's. as for feeding the starfish just get a piece of silverside or raw shrimp and put it by his legs and he will get it. 1-2 times a week should be fine.

the skunks will be fine with the rest of the fish if you remove the damsels.
 
Hum.. and this is a picture of the anemone I found at the beach in San Francisco, ca. Does anyone know about them? Also what do you think about my lighting and water movement?

DSC02873.jpg
 
If you got the anemone from the ocean near SF it will most likely die. The difference in water temp will probably be too much stress. I would watch it carefully so that if it starts to die you can remove it to limit the pollution to your tank.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12251381#post12251381 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SabrinaJean
Humm.. nice quote,
SO last night I wrote 3 paragraphs on everything to find out that RC was under maintained once I finally sent it. Here is what I have in a nutshell. Let me know what u know, we can try this again

FIsh
1 Sandswifter starfish StaRfish
1 Cleaner shrimp
1 Yellow with 2 black line through it Chromes (Behr's or something)
1 Brown Clown goby
1 Blue and Yellow tailed Damsel, 1 Gold Damsel ... that I am going to be taking out ASAP and selling to the LFS BECAUSE, .... I have 2 Green Clown Gobies ( the fish guy gave me an extra one) and 2 Pink Skunks waiting in my QT for 3 more weeks.

I would stay away from the starfish. They usually just waste away in tanks. In your size tank it will deplete life in the sand bed fast and slowly starve to death. I would also stay away from damsels.
 
I really like your tank. Its always scary stepping into the middle of an established system, but you are off to a good start.

You are obviously very excited about your tank. I remember my first reef tank. I also put stuff from San Fransisco waters into my tank. Within two days the green tidepool anemones died. Then I went out and bought a book.

Learning is fun!

Odds are very slim that the anemones you collected will survive. They need very cold water (50-60F) and have the ability to die very quickly and decompose even faster. All the organic mess leftover could pollute your tank, so please keep an eye on them.

They are very pretty though. I am preparing a coldwater tank and would like to know where you found those at... I might want to go collect some myself.

As for the rest of the stuff in your tank....
Rose tip is awesome looking. Still, I have to caution their extreme difficulty to keep alive (not impossible, just hard). Please independently research about them if you are going to keep it. These are notorious for wandering and stinging stuff as it moves. Powerheads shred wandering anemonies all the time also.

Haitian anem. Pretty, but likely to alleopathic fight other stuff in the tank and can potentially eat any of your fish (clowns as well). Good for a species tank, but not ideal for mixed reefs. These wander and sting stuff as they move also.

Leather corals. Excellent, hardy corals. Some can be alleopathic against other corals so watch for any issues with newcomers.

Pavona (cactus) coral. Nice, easy SPS type coral. Good sized colony as well.

Mushrooms, zoanthids, clove polyps GSP. All very hardy types of coral. Hard to go wrong with any of these. Eventually, any of these could overgrow your entire reef!

Baby bubble corals. Simple type of LPS coral that can eventually grow to very nice sizes. (my first coral was a bubble and I love them still!)

Featherdusters.....I wish the big ones multiplied like the little ones do....Very easy to care for.

Fish.....................................................
Sandsifter star. These get a bad rap. They are voracious and will eat all the "live" out of your live sand. Then they quickly starve, their legs fall apart and then they die. I had one long ago. Learning is....

Cleaner shrimp. I am thinking about putting a bunch of cleaners in my 90 gal tanks instead of the Assesors. Decisions decisions. Cleaner shrimp are just awesome!

The chromis sound pretty. Odds are, one will kill the other inside of a year. thats just what happens. A little too agressive for my personal taste. I once bought 10 and it took a week and a half to get down to a single guy. He is now in my vietnamese tank. At least he is well behaved now...

Clown gobies are very cool. They are known to damage the polyps of the SPS corals they have decided to nest in, but, your corals are all pretty hardy and I would not worry about that. Careful introducing more, these can be territorial and might fight.
Best to remove the current one if you can, introduce the two new ones and then put the single one back into the tank.

Make sure there are lots of hiding places as well. These are reclusive little guys and they will try to run and hide insead of stand and fight most of the time.

The Damsels....Everyone starts out with some. Eventually we all learn to hate them. So pretty and so evil. Like poison jellybeans.
Sometimes learning is not fun.
 
As for your tank setup....
I am the last person who should lecture about the current trendy way of reefkeeping. So I will not.

Watch your powerheads. You need some sort of sponge cover on the intakes to prevent your anems from getting sucked into the powerhead and turned into fish food.

This is the #1 cause of anemone death in otherwise healthy tanks. And can be a reason for a healthy tank to crash overnight!

The water readings are inline with a cycled tank (ammonia nd nitrite reading zero) that has slightly underpowered methods of nutrient export and filtration (nitrates at 20ppm and phosphates at 0.5)

You might be able to imporove your water quality a little bit by slowly reducing the sponges used in your filtration system until none are left except the ones used to protect your pump intakes (for the anems). Sponges are a likely source of elevated nutrients in the tank. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-06/dw/index.php

I have no idea about the sump, maybe its a refugium type thing?... Hard to give an opinion about something I cant visualise.
Here is a link to a great series of articles about sumps. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-01/gt/index.php

Where is your skimmer? Skimmers are always a good idea. Just make sure you research them first. Some smaller ones are useless or very difficult to adjust. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-06/fm/feature/index.php

Your lighting is fine. Remember to change your bulbs every six to eight months. You will be shocked how much brighter the new bulbs are than the old bulbs you are replacing. If you do decide to upgrade your lights prepare for a huge learning curve. Halide, T-5, HQI, SE, DE, 175W,150W,250W,400W Reflectors, PAR, spectral analysis.....Sanjay Joshi..........www.reeflightinginfo.com

Without knowing the types of powerheads you have, its hard to know what your flow is at, but nothing in the tank needs huge amounts of flow, so anything between 450 to 1200 GPH total should work. (15X to 40X turnover) Just try and keep detrius from building up in the corners of the tank.

You have little uptake of calcium in your tank, so you probably can severly reduce your calcium dosing and your alk dosing. Look for a dKH test kit and maintain it between 8 and 11 dKH. Always monitor this in conjunction with calcium and pH. (All three are interconnected closely). http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

The essential elements is something I used to use also. Until there is a test kit for essential elements, I will not add any more of it to my tanks. So far, everything is doing fine without it. (I am not exactly sure what essential elements are anyways).

Last, the water from the store should be fine if its the stuff coming from the machine. Instant ocean salt is a great salt and has been around since the beginning of reefing.

You might want to look for a refractometer to test your waters salinity. I spent a lot of money on all of my tanks when I first stared reefing and resisted the purchase of a $50 refractometer as wasteful. I finally caved and found my salinity was dangerously low. (1.022sg) Never had that problem since. 1.026 steady in all my tanks ever since.


Overall, you seem to have a very nice tank that has some cool stuff in it and you are making some good decisions to take ownership of that reef and make it your own.

Learning is fun!
 
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if that is a sandsifting starfish, i would sell it to lfs..........
reason is they will strip the sandbed of alot of the good critters that you would like to have in your tank, then starve.

they are also kinda boring...
serpent stars are much funner and more useful IMO
 
Question. If I started the have this little green algea, that within 2 days turned into something that looks like Maiden's Hair, on ym Duster Island, do you think I should leave it there, or suck it out? I do\did want some green plant in there, but not something that can over take my tank. Let me get a picture...

DSC02888-1.jpg


DSC02887.jpg
 
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