Nano Zoanthid Tank

[cburke401]

Hey everybody, I currently have my fluval spec v cycling with live rock, a small royal gramma, a nano clown pair, and a small peppermint shrimp. When everything is kosher I will be replacing the royal gramma, clown pair, and peppermint shrimp with a firefish goby, green spotted mandarin, pom pom crab, sexy shrimp, and two nassarius snails. It has been cycling for about 3 weeks now and i think it will be ready for coral soon. The tank is stock everything except for a heater in the first chamber(pump intake) and a sticker thermometer. My plan is to get the rest of my supplies and start my very own vibrant zoa tank. I am planning on turning the second filter chamber into a refugium with a bit of chaeto or making a "media sandwich" using chemi pure elite and purigen with two "poly fiber buns". As for the lighting I want to do a DIY led kit, I am thinking 8 royal blue, 4 neutral white, and either 4 UV or 2 red and 2 UV CREE LEDS. Any suggestions or comments on lenses for the LEDS (in other words are they necessary and what degree if they are) or how many of what colors? I also had a question about supplements, I will be using the entire aquavitro line as well as reef nutrition for the fish and zoas, but what about zooplankton or phytoplankton? I want to have zoas that thrive and grow fast but also zoas that open up completely and glow under my LEDS. I want to keep many different colored zoas that I will be ordering from many different websites. After I get the pink fiji sand and my aquascape ready, I will order the LED kit and set up the filtration. Any comments and or suggestions are greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[organism]

How big is your tank? That's quite a few fish and your mandarin needs a lot of live food that usually can't be found in smaller tanks. As far as your LED's it depends on what colors you like. I have 18 royal blues, 4 cool whites, and 4 violet UV's. I keep the whites turned down pretty low and my tank gets some insane colors, so you might want to check out a 3:1 or 4:1 blue to white ratio. If you're using whites, and especially reds, then you'll want a dimmable driver for those.

I don't know what the aquavitro line is but I can tell you that you don't need to feed your corals, especially with that many fish since they love fish poop. Phytoplankton is completely unnecessary, and zooplankton is for feeding fish if you feel the need to do so. I just feed my fish pellet food, and my corals crushed pellet food from time to time.

The main thing is take your time. You've got a lot of enthusiasm but that can translate into an overstocked tank that gives you so many algae issues you'll go insane. Take it slow, couple fish, couple corals, get your parameters right, and go from there

 

[organism]

Wait, isn't a fluval spec v a 5 gallon tank? You might, if you're lucky, be able to put one pair of very small ocellaris or percula clownfish into a tank that size. And even then that would be too little space for them. Since your other thread is for a 28 gallon with a yellow tang you need to stop buying things and start researching before you make any other purchases, just my 2 cents...

 

[cburke401]

@ organism,
Yeah I think I am going to go with the 3:1 ratio blue to white and a few UVs and a couple reds all of which have the dimmable ability and as far as the biocube 29 goes, I took the yellow tang out and put him in my cousins empty 90 gallon, you are right i was so excited that i started impulse buying because of my ignorance and lack of experience towards this hobby...but since then I have done much research and have made many changes to my biocube, i have my coral beauty still and a bangaii cardinal (plus 2 cleaner shrimp, snails, and coral), anyways not to get off topic but my LFS has green spotted mandarins that are all about .5" and I was going to get a small firefish goby, would that still be too much? What if I add the goby first and then the mandarin like four months down the road if everything goes well? and also thanks for the input

 

[cburke401]

Also what about filtration....refugium with chaeto or media?

 

[organism]

there is no way you're going to be able to keep a mandarin in either one of your tanks, nor can you keep a firefish in a 5 gallon tank. ethically, you should at most be looking at a clown or citron goby with maybe a few sexy shrimp. I know you want to keep a lot of other stuff in there, but you can't if you want to keep it alive, and even though other things can survive in there it's kind of like saying you can survive in a broom closet eating only bananas all day.

as far as filtration it depends, I've never had a tank that small so I can't give much input on that one.

 

[cburke401]

Hey man thanks for the advice and yeah living in a broom closet living on bananas sounds absolutely horrid...but it has been a goal of mine to have a mandarin...what would be the ideal surrounding for a mandarin