My new tank - Questions?

Mpthreer

New member
Ok as my name implies... I am a total noob when it comes to saltwater. I've been working on this hobby for about 4 months now and I've saved money for this new tank and some new equipment. I really need advise if you guys have the time for it. I had a old fifty gallon that i started with but the glass was temperd so I upgraded to something that was already drilled and got a sump for it. Its all plumed up, I filled it up with tap water but since I have installed an ro unit and am topping off and making water changes with RO water. I have no skimmer, and will hopefully get one during xmas. I have a co2 bottle and will hopefully buy a calc reactor within the next year. So I am using reef crystals salt, and after a month or two I will begin adding sea chems reef builder and calcium suppliment which garf reccomended until I can obtain the reactor. I have approx 200+ lbs of live rock in the system and 120 lbs of live sand in the main tank and sump. I am using a mag drive 1200 gph pump in the sump and have 5 maxi jet 1200 powerheads, three of which have rotating heads on it to make waves, and the other two with no rotator heads on them alternate on the left and right side of the tank at 20 second bursts. I have a cleanup crew that consists of 20-30 turbo snails, cerith snails, approx 60 nassiserus (please dont check my spelling lol) snails, a lettuce nudibranch, sally light foot and emrald crab, nerite snails, blueleg and scarlet reef hermits, a fighting conch, a sea cucumber, a horseshoe crab, two star serpants, and five peppermint shrimp. My new lighing consists of approx 450 watts of T5 lighting 50 percent acentic and 50 percent reef white bulbs in eight bulbs total (48 inches long). My tank is a starphire rimless 120 gallon, at 48" x 24" x 24" with 3/4 inch glass. I have one hammer coral, one colony of common green button polyps, three colonies of Star polyps, a couple colonys of zoo's, some mushrooms, a LPS flowerpot coral, one dead colony of some blue sps coral that has one growth tip that came back to life which has green polyps on it, and a red tree sponge. The rocks have sponges, coraline, tube worms (fans), mini brittle stars, web type worms, collinista snails, aptasia, some other clearish anenome with a red/orange base, and bristle worms growing on and in them (not to mention hair and brown algae still since this build is new, but i think the inital algae bloom is ending lol). I have two aneonemes, one sabae yellow one that I think is dyed and it wont extend its tenticles so I think its dyeing and one pink anenome that extends its tenticles but hides under a rock. They both looked this way at the LFS but I didnt know what I was buying at the time and now am trying to get them to live and be a host for my clown. The names ive given are what the LPS had written on the tank. Any idea of the specifics on the pink tipped one? I have one clown fish and one blue/green chromi at the moment and I am getting a 2 spot tang, a six line wrasse, a copperband butterfly, and a blue manderian dragonet in the mail soon.

I have some questions. How many tangs that max out at 8 inches can i support in here, I hear three is the best to keep so they dont pick on each other as much but I don't think I have enough room for them to swim. What other fish would be good for me to keep? How many stony corals can I keep in here, and what do I need to keep all my coral alive and growing? Do I need any other cleanup crew members? Do I have enough flow? I also have a top off unit that I will install one day but not yet. What light cycle should I use? Should I alternate the sump light (im getting some cheto in the mail soon) with the display tank light? How many watts of light do i need for the cheato, and should i get any more sump plants?

I'll stop there for now because I hate to bombard you good people with dump questions that I could research on more but I'm sorta stuck at the moment and need some more info to elaborate my studies on... and I work all the time and am out of money so time isn't free at the moment. Please feel free to elaborate and mention anything else that comes to mind that would help out my situation. Thank you all so much for introducing and helping me cross the many bridges I've been across so far in this hobby. Best of luck to all of you and your tanks!

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To be honest, (( and I am sure I am not the only one )) it was too hard to read your whole post. With the size of the pictures I would have to scroll left and right to be able to read it --- not the easiest thing to do, and with the first paragraph being fairly long it was pretty easy to lose track.

Try listing the facts about your tank in list form and same with the questions -- will make it a lot easier to read.
 
I have edited your first post. Didn't remove anything from it, just broke it up so that it is easier to read. And without the pictures people won't have to scroll left/right to read it.


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13842397#post13842397 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mpthreer
Ok as my name implies... I am a total noob when it comes to saltwater. I've been working on this hobby for about 4 months now and I've saved money for this new tank and some new equipment. I really need advise if you guys have the time for it.

I had a old fifty gallon that i started with but the glass was temperd so I upgraded to something that was already drilled and got a sump for it. Its all plumed up, I filled it up with tap water but since I have installed an ro unit and am topping off and making water changes with RO water. I have no skimmer, and will hopefully get one during xmas. I have a co2 bottle and will hopefully buy a calc reactor within the next year.

So I am using reef crystals salt, and after a month or two I will begin adding sea chems reef builder and calcium suppliment which garf reccomended until I can obtain the reactor. I have approx 200+ lbs of live rock in the system and 120 lbs of live sand in the main tank and sump. I am using a mag drive 1200 gph pump in the sump and have 5 maxi jet 1200 powerheads, three of which have rotating heads on it to make waves, and the other two with no rotator heads on them alternate on the left and right side of the tank at 20 second bursts.

I have a cleanup crew that consists of 20-30 turbo snails, cerith snails, approx 60 nassiserus (please dont check my spelling lol) snails, a lettuce nudibranch, sally light foot and emrald crab, nerite snails, blueleg and scarlet reef hermits, a fighting conch, a sea cucumber, a horseshoe crab, two star serpants, and five peppermint shrimp.

My new lighing consists of approx 450 watts of T5 lighting 50 percent acentic and 50 percent reef white bulbs in eight bulbs total (48 inches long). My tank is a starphire rimless 120 gallon, at 48" x 24" x 24" with 3/4 inch glass.

I have one hammer coral, one colony of common green button polyps, three colonies of Star polyps, a couple colonys of zoo's, some mushrooms, a LPS flowerpot coral, one dead colony of some blue sps coral that has one growth tip that came back to life which has green polyps on it, and a red tree sponge.

The rocks have sponges, coraline, tube worms (fans), mini brittle stars, web type worms, collinista snails, aptasia, some other clearish anenome with a red/orange base, and bristle worms growing on and in them (not to mention hair and brown algae still since this build is new, but i think the inital algae bloom is ending lol). I have two aneonemes, one sabae yellow one that I think is dyed and it wont extend its tenticles so I think its dyeing and one pink anenome that extends its tenticles but hides under a rock. They both looked this way at the LFS but I didnt know what I was buying at the time and now am trying to get them to live and be a host for my clown. The names ive given are what the LPS had written on the tank. Any idea of the specifics on the pink tipped one?

I have one clown fish and one blue/green chromi at the moment and I am getting a 2 spot tang, a six line wrasse, a copperband butterfly, and a blue manderian dragonet in the mail soon.

I have some questions. How many tangs that max out at 8 inches can i support in here, I hear three is the best to keep so they dont pick on each other as much but I don't think I have enough room for them to swim.

What other fish would be good for me to keep?

How many stony corals can I keep in here, and what do I need to keep all my coral alive and growing?

Do I need any other cleanup crew members? Do I have enough flow?

I also have a top off unit that I will install one day but not yet. What light cycle should I use? Should I alternate the sump light (im getting some cheto in the mail soon) with the display tank light? How many watts of light do i need for the cheato, and should i get any more sump plants?
 
Thats a whole lot of questions but first and foremost you will need to get your water quality up to par:
Here is an article that will help you:
Articles are taken from the archives on reef central and are written by various authors (i.e. not me myself)

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm

Then you will want to decide what corals will dominate the tank (stony's, softies, mixed reef, etc.)

Read this entire series it is a great start:

The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners, Part 1: The Salt Water Itself
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-03/rhf/index.php

The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners, Part 2: What Chemicals Must be Supplemented
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-04/rhf/index.php

The "How To" Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners, Part 3: pH
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-05/rhf/index.php

The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners,
Part 4: What Chemicals May Detrimentally Accumulate
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/rhf/index.php
 
Finally I remembered how to use HTML. Sorry for making you read so many articles but its is the only way not to spend weeks typing about how to start it up and successfully keep it growing.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13842736#post13842736 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ChrisKirkland
Finally I remembered how to use HTML. Sorry for making you read so many articles but its is the only way not to spend weeks typing about how to start it up and successfully keep it growing.

Good post, pain killers for a bad back prevented me from giving a proper reply, would have been to hard to type that much. :)
 
1588989513Reefnut_welcome.gif

To Reef Central

Let me see if I can help.

I think your moving waaaaay to fast :( , I wouldn' t add any additional livestock to this tank until you get some things straightened out.

The first thing that we need to know are your water parameters.
Please Post all of your water parameters for everything that you are testing for.

am getting a 2 spot tang, a six line wrasse, a copperband butterfly, and a blue manderian dragonet in the mail soon.
I hope you don't have all these fish in the mail. :(
 
From what I understand the Mandorins need a tank with an established fuge w/ a large pod population. Otherwise they'll starve.

I'd eventually upgrade your power heads to Korillas or something better like the Vortech or Tunze line.

You can keep as many SPS as you like, but they'll probably have to be in the upper half of your tank.

To keep your corals healthy you should keep the nutrients low (good skimmer) & keep an eye on your Magnesium, Calcium, & Alkalinity.

I have my lights on for about 12 hours a day.
 
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