looking good!
thanks its very rewarding to finally have something in the tank after looking at rock for the past few weeks. next addition will be the blue hippo tang in a few weeks after we see how the first fish makes out he looks really good and is swimming all over the place he even ate flake food after only being in the tank few a few hours so he should be fine
Good luck with your new inhabitants in your tank <
so i was admiring my new inhabitants tonight and low and behold the nassarius that hitch hicked in from either Tim or Paul’s tank is still alive!!! he was a small nassarius and i hadn’t seen him in 2 weeks or more so i assumed he had died in the cycle and then all of a sudden boom there he is cruising around the sand
sweet my lil buddy’s doing good PBJ!
fish is still doing great. my wife is definitely on board now she already wants to add more fish
Quick update. Firefish is doing great ive added more snails I am up to 3 nassarius, 4 nerite, and 8 Cerith tho 1 might be dead ( nassarius tried to eat it as soon as they hit they sand). I also put an emerald crab but he hides usually. I am finally getting brown algae (diatom) unfortunately its not a massive bloom yet but decent size, one reason for the ceriths. My nitrates are always 0 tho so I’m not sure why its as bad as it is. I need to test the phosphates tho, does anyone know of a fw phosphate test will work for sw , I have a test kit for My freshwater tanks but not sure on compatibility.
On a lighter note the piece of lr Tim gave me had a soft coral on it gsp? Maybe. Well somehow even with my junk lighting setup and cycling the tank about 1/3-1/2 of it survived and last night for the first time the polyps opened! They didn’t look too healthy but its a start.
Ben, if I were you I wouldn’t put any more animal in there till the diatom are gone. I could be wrong, but the reason for the diatom bloom is due to the amount of animals you just put in. I believe your tank hasn’t completely cycle or not too much bacteria has establish in your filter.
What phosphate test kit are you using for your FW. Sometime they are made for both especially if you using API. Read the box that the kit comes in, it usually say FW and SW use.
Yeah I’m not gonna add anything for a few weeks, really need to get some decent lighting so I can support corals. My kit is API its the master fw kit ill have to look and see if it’ll work for sw or not.
So my brown algae is almost entirely gone I’m pretty sure I was overfeeding which is easy when you have one small fish who only eats food that floats past his face. Right now I am feeding every 2-3 days once I get a few more fish the overfeeding will be easier to control
Also I now have metalhalide lighting and my one coral ( gsp) seems very happy. Oh and I finally got my filter up and running and I’m running seagel in it which is a mix of carbon and phosphate remover.
Starving the fish is the wrong answer. you need to improve your bio filter and waste removal systems. one should be able to feed them well everyday without problems. Check out rosti’s tank and systems. It just takes time to tweak things as you go along, and build up the bacteria in sandbeds, rock and the skimmers and fuge. how about a bigger fuge?
well i know i was overfeeding i was having to put 4x too much food each feeding just to get enough floating in the water for him to eat it. but the algea is pretty much gone so i will maybe increase feedings a little
ok pics with the new light fixture one with the room lights on and one with them off
and a new shrimp that my wife had to have
looks real good, i miss my cbs, but now i can have more with him gone still miss him though
Looks good Ben. Brighter lights. I bet you wish you can take out that center brace huh?
yeah its just thin plastic i’ve been contemplating cutting it out
While I’ve seen some people cut out the center braces on tanks and get away with it I’ve also seen some tanks crack after doing so. I wouldn’t recommend touching it.
Or, somehow replace the black brace, with a nice clear acrylic one. looks like that new light just shines right on that brace!
Yeah it does shine right on it. The brace does not seem to have any tension on it I think it was mainly a support for the glass top