Recommendations, Advice or Critique Needed!!!

treedog5

Member
Ok everyone, this is my first attempt at a reef aquarium. Here's what i got,
1. 37 gallon aquarium
2. 40 pounds dry base rock, 1 live rock to help seed.
3. Aqua C Remora HOB skimmer.
4. 2 Korilia power heads.
5. JBJ 4bulb lighting.
6. 2-3 inch sand bed. Dry
7. Fluval 405 filter, not installed yet.
8. 20 gallon QT with heater and HOB filter.
So, my tank is at the end of it's cycle and already has a small CUC going. I'm ready to add my first fish but would like some of your expertise to help me change or adjust what i have right now before i add my first fish. What do you guys think of my aquascpae? I'm thinking about cutting the one really tall piece of rock to allow more flow, not sure about that. I'm really debating on removing the sandbed i have now and putting in some aragonite, what do you think about that also. Anyway, here is a short video tour of my tank, all comments are welcome and appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SSvLL0052s
 
That tall rock would be better suited as a foundation piece of your rockwork. IMO. I'd put that horizontally at the bottom, then stack on top. Try to create caves and swim through areas for the fish. Also, make sure you leave plenty of room between the rocks and the front and sides of the tank to allow for easy scraping or sweeping with a mag-float.
 
Hi tree dog5,
Looks like your off to a very good start, the advice i could give you would be to NOT use the fluval canister filter because it's a nitrate factory and will only cause problems for you in the long run.
It will collect and trap lots and lots of detritus and will wreak havoc. I like the Berlin method with just the skimmer and rock, that is your biological filtration, hope this helps and happy reefing!
 
Thanks for that advise Chaotic, i never thought about it that way. And thank you also Sugar, I have really been pondering about what to do with that large rock, i might try your suggestion. What is a recommended fish stocking guideline for my tank? I was thinking about 1 ocellaris clown, 1 yellow goby and 2 chromis.
 
You could sub a starry or tailspot blenny for 1 chromis. The royal gramma would also be a bright addition. Compatible with all.
 
Also, if you watch the video near the end you will notice a lot of mirco bubbles. Will those decrease once i get some real livestock in the tank or do i need to keep playing with my skimmer to reduce the bubbles? The skimmer has been running for 3 weeks.
 
Tree dog,
Don't worry about the micro bubbles once you start stocking it with livestock it will eventually subside once it sets in and everything settles
Your doing a great job and keep asking away we're here to help you along :)
 
Thanks, my goal is to have a complete system and stay on my planned budget of less than $400. I'm doing good so far, only thing left is some fish and corals and a lot of patience..
 
One of the big joys of reefing is watching the natural behaviour of fish. Two clowns would be much better than one as they will form a pair if you buy them young enough to be unsexed or buy an established pair. They interract with eachother and live pretty much the same way they would in the ocean, especially if you some months down the road buy them an anemone. Chromis on the other hand are often boring to watch in a small tank and having 2 usually means that the stronger one will beat the crap out of and kill the other. For any small tank I prefer fish that has a strong connection to the live rock, blennies or Wrasses for example. Anything that is a little more free swimming can look unnatural or worse, sad.

To be fair, I really don't like Chromis in general but I especially hate them in smaller tanks. They can look great in a really big system where you have 20 or 30 of them interacting and kinda schooling but 2 will just sit there looking bored and boring.
 
A good refractometer is a good investment also a means to do a 20% water change ea month IE containers for old and new water, a spare pump to transfer water to and from with enough hose also try and keep some of the hasic chemicals IE prime,super ick cure,and maybe a buffer of nome sort for a little while at least. Will you be buying RO water from LFS
 
Thanks again for the helpful advise everyone. But yeah i didn't mention all the other basic supplies that i already have, refractometer, test kit, salt mix, RO/DI filter and buckets. I have all those things. I will take your advise about the chromis into consideration nyNick. I was only going to get one because there cheap and hardy, just in case i make some mistakes i didn't want $40 and $50 fish to throw out. But hopefully that want be the case..
 
Any really cheap fish that is not tank raised tends to be anything but hardy imo. Those $5 Chromis and Damsels have usually not been treated well on their way to your lfs. If they die it can be any of a thousand reasons and probably not at all an indication of your tanks health.

If you want a hardy fish, a tank raised Clown would be hard to beat. Unless you behave like a total moron, which sounds unlikely judging from your posts, it will weather most problems with relative ease.
 
OK so after some of your comments I decided to rearrange some of my rocks. Let me know what you think...
mevezyga.jpg


Sent from my Galaxy S 3...
 
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