Gabbone
Active Member
Hi all,
As a newbie, I have a few considerations after my experience in keeping no3/po4 in check in my 30g mixed tank. I started my tank 3 months ago, at the beginning of January with no knowledge. My father had years ago sweet water tank and nothing else.
I believe the key for an healthy ecosystem is avoiding chemical and/or removers but finding the perfect balance between "natural factors" that we can control, in a controlled environment such as our tank.
What play the major role in my mixed reef are:
- Light
- Export System
- Feeding
- Temperature
- Flow
- Herbivores
Quick premise: One of the major component of the tank success is do not neglect. Do your homework and make your hand dirty. Autopilot is something that takes years.
Light: we all want our coral to thrive, grow and look nice and puff but sometimes the less is more. In my "fairly new" system, too much light (intensity x hours on) can make a huge impact on how "dirty" my tank will look in the next few days/weeks in terms of algae grow on glass, sand, rocks. Just to understand the correlation, even if I go from 50% blue to 45% blue in intensity, it gave me an extra day of "cleaness" before my glass gets dirty. I personally do 9 hrs of full blue + 1hr ramping up and 1hr ramping down. In total 11hrs, no moonlight. Why no moonlight? I noticed that during moonlight my corals are still active, puff and all inflated and this I believe disturb their day cycle. With moonlight off, they are much more "performing" during the day.
Export system: Three major ways here: water change, protein skimmer, macroalgae. Unfortunately I have a AIO therefore I can rely only on WC and Skimmer. I normally go with a 25% WC weekly. Yes, I am a fan of bigger WC and this helps me a lot. It dilutes messes, specially if you are a noob like me. In my case, with a weekly 25% WC, I keep my NO3 between 10-16ppm and PO4 between 0.08 and 0.15.
Also, I see lot of people struggling with dkh,ca,mg dosing but I've find my peace in using Red Sea Pro Coral Salt. In my tank, it gave at 35ppt salinity 11dkh, 1400mg, 450ca. In this way I never dose skeleton elements. I do not have SPS but 80% LPS and 20% Softies. Regarding the skimmer, since I don't dose carbon, I can skim thick brown dry and avoid my ATO to go crazy by topping up rodi water to compensate the "fake evaporation" made by the skimmer and not by the real tank evaporation. This problem is more related to small tank since 200ml of water export will make my ato work.
Lastly, I attacched a CO2 scrubber to my skimmer hose and I was able to keep my ph at a stable 8.3 for a week straight. I tested every day in the morning and in the night for a week. Nice success tho!
Feeding: Speaking for myself, the less is more. In my case bags of live copepods, live mysis and phytoplankton are a no-no for my small system. Will dramatically increase nutrient and it's not necessary. I only feed high quality pellets (herbivore and carnivore) + frozen mysis with spirulina/garlic/omega3. Also, I always drop one tear of liquid multivitamin for my fish. I always dose, waiting them to eat everything before dropping a bit more. Right now I am feeding 2-3 times a day.
Regarding coral food, everytime I target feed my BTA, heliofungi, torches and lobos, they "vomit" the whole food the next day and I am not talking about expelling Zooxantelle; therefore coral ab+ is my to-go every other day after lights are out. Keep in mind that corals will get most of their solid food from what is floating in the tank.
Temperature: In my case, I tent to go a bit lower than the average 78f. Around 76-77f I find my sweet spot. Anything higher increase the production of algae.
Flow: I have a small tank therefore my reefwave25 is too strong even at lowest settings. What does the trick in my case is to go in random mode at 100% in "reverse flow only". This will move everything without blasting everything out. However, it's not enough to move detritus from the sand. I fixed it by doing 58 minute in reverse at 100% and 2 minutes in forward at 10%. 24h, 7/7.
Herbivores: They helped me A LOT. If you planned to have corals, avoid blue hermits crab. I rehomed my two beautiful friends. They were making all my corals very mad. My favorite "On the sand" cuc are conch/strawberry snails, turbo snails, tiger cowrie, money cowrie, trochius snail, tectus, globular sea urchin and red linckia. Red Linckia is my personal challenge. They bet my red linckia is gonna starve but after three months she seems doing very good. I feed her with claims/mussels pieces in a separate container once a week. Will see! "Below the sand" I go with leopard snails and mitra mitra snail (carnivore). Having good hervibores keep my tank clean from algaes and possible algae outbreak.
To conclude, these considerations are for reef starters who are approaching reefing for the first time. Really try to look daily in your tank, observing for signs. They'll let you know if they are happy or not. Don't be scared to try.
Probably all the experts will laugh at this post but maybe someone will find this helpful. Sorry for some english mistake but I am Italian lol.
What's in my tank?
Inverts:
1x Emerald crab
1x Fire Shrimp
1x Cyprea Annulus
1x Tiger Cowrie (small)
1x Leopard Sand Snail
1x Mitra Mitra snail (small)
1x Tectus Conus
1x Turbo Brunnes
1x Red Linckia
1x Globular Red uruchin
1x Dog Conch
1x Strawberry Conch
1x Strombus Gibberulus
Fish:
2x pair ocellaris clownfish
1x yellow wrasse,
1x Wetmorella Nigropinnata,
1x little cleaner.
Corals/Anemone/NPS
1x BTA (hosted by both clownfish)
1x Sarcophyton (Weeping willow)
1x Sinularia Asterolobata
6x Euphyllia of different dimension and colors (Ancora, Parancora, glabrescens, divisa, paradivisa) (Black with orange tip, purple, 24k gold, purple and green, blue electric, toxic green).
1x Yuma Godzilla Bounce
1x Clavularia (Metallic orange/gold)
1x Goniopora Ultra Red (Small)
1x NPS - Red finger gorgonian (I got this a week ago but never opened).
1x Australian Lobophillya
1x heliofungia actiniformis
1x green fluo caulastrea
As a newbie, I have a few considerations after my experience in keeping no3/po4 in check in my 30g mixed tank. I started my tank 3 months ago, at the beginning of January with no knowledge. My father had years ago sweet water tank and nothing else.
I believe the key for an healthy ecosystem is avoiding chemical and/or removers but finding the perfect balance between "natural factors" that we can control, in a controlled environment such as our tank.
What play the major role in my mixed reef are:
- Light
- Export System
- Feeding
- Temperature
- Flow
- Herbivores
Quick premise: One of the major component of the tank success is do not neglect. Do your homework and make your hand dirty. Autopilot is something that takes years.
Light: we all want our coral to thrive, grow and look nice and puff but sometimes the less is more. In my "fairly new" system, too much light (intensity x hours on) can make a huge impact on how "dirty" my tank will look in the next few days/weeks in terms of algae grow on glass, sand, rocks. Just to understand the correlation, even if I go from 50% blue to 45% blue in intensity, it gave me an extra day of "cleaness" before my glass gets dirty. I personally do 9 hrs of full blue + 1hr ramping up and 1hr ramping down. In total 11hrs, no moonlight. Why no moonlight? I noticed that during moonlight my corals are still active, puff and all inflated and this I believe disturb their day cycle. With moonlight off, they are much more "performing" during the day.
Export system: Three major ways here: water change, protein skimmer, macroalgae. Unfortunately I have a AIO therefore I can rely only on WC and Skimmer. I normally go with a 25% WC weekly. Yes, I am a fan of bigger WC and this helps me a lot. It dilutes messes, specially if you are a noob like me. In my case, with a weekly 25% WC, I keep my NO3 between 10-16ppm and PO4 between 0.08 and 0.15.
Also, I see lot of people struggling with dkh,ca,mg dosing but I've find my peace in using Red Sea Pro Coral Salt. In my tank, it gave at 35ppt salinity 11dkh, 1400mg, 450ca. In this way I never dose skeleton elements. I do not have SPS but 80% LPS and 20% Softies. Regarding the skimmer, since I don't dose carbon, I can skim thick brown dry and avoid my ATO to go crazy by topping up rodi water to compensate the "fake evaporation" made by the skimmer and not by the real tank evaporation. This problem is more related to small tank since 200ml of water export will make my ato work.
Lastly, I attacched a CO2 scrubber to my skimmer hose and I was able to keep my ph at a stable 8.3 for a week straight. I tested every day in the morning and in the night for a week. Nice success tho!
Feeding: Speaking for myself, the less is more. In my case bags of live copepods, live mysis and phytoplankton are a no-no for my small system. Will dramatically increase nutrient and it's not necessary. I only feed high quality pellets (herbivore and carnivore) + frozen mysis with spirulina/garlic/omega3. Also, I always drop one tear of liquid multivitamin for my fish. I always dose, waiting them to eat everything before dropping a bit more. Right now I am feeding 2-3 times a day.
Regarding coral food, everytime I target feed my BTA, heliofungi, torches and lobos, they "vomit" the whole food the next day and I am not talking about expelling Zooxantelle; therefore coral ab+ is my to-go every other day after lights are out. Keep in mind that corals will get most of their solid food from what is floating in the tank.
Temperature: In my case, I tent to go a bit lower than the average 78f. Around 76-77f I find my sweet spot. Anything higher increase the production of algae.
Flow: I have a small tank therefore my reefwave25 is too strong even at lowest settings. What does the trick in my case is to go in random mode at 100% in "reverse flow only". This will move everything without blasting everything out. However, it's not enough to move detritus from the sand. I fixed it by doing 58 minute in reverse at 100% and 2 minutes in forward at 10%. 24h, 7/7.
Herbivores: They helped me A LOT. If you planned to have corals, avoid blue hermits crab. I rehomed my two beautiful friends. They were making all my corals very mad. My favorite "On the sand" cuc are conch/strawberry snails, turbo snails, tiger cowrie, money cowrie, trochius snail, tectus, globular sea urchin and red linckia. Red Linckia is my personal challenge. They bet my red linckia is gonna starve but after three months she seems doing very good. I feed her with claims/mussels pieces in a separate container once a week. Will see! "Below the sand" I go with leopard snails and mitra mitra snail (carnivore). Having good hervibores keep my tank clean from algaes and possible algae outbreak.
To conclude, these considerations are for reef starters who are approaching reefing for the first time. Really try to look daily in your tank, observing for signs. They'll let you know if they are happy or not. Don't be scared to try.
Probably all the experts will laugh at this post but maybe someone will find this helpful. Sorry for some english mistake but I am Italian lol.
What's in my tank?
Inverts:
1x Emerald crab
1x Fire Shrimp
1x Cyprea Annulus
1x Tiger Cowrie (small)
1x Leopard Sand Snail
1x Mitra Mitra snail (small)
1x Tectus Conus
1x Turbo Brunnes
1x Red Linckia
1x Globular Red uruchin
1x Dog Conch
1x Strawberry Conch
1x Strombus Gibberulus
Fish:
2x pair ocellaris clownfish
1x yellow wrasse,
1x Wetmorella Nigropinnata,
1x little cleaner.
Corals/Anemone/NPS
1x BTA (hosted by both clownfish)
1x Sarcophyton (Weeping willow)
1x Sinularia Asterolobata
6x Euphyllia of different dimension and colors (Ancora, Parancora, glabrescens, divisa, paradivisa) (Black with orange tip, purple, 24k gold, purple and green, blue electric, toxic green).
1x Yuma Godzilla Bounce
1x Clavularia (Metallic orange/gold)
1x Goniopora Ultra Red (Small)
1x NPS - Red finger gorgonian (I got this a week ago but never opened).
1x Australian Lobophillya
1x heliofungia actiniformis
1x green fluo caulastrea
