Time for my tank thread.
My tank has been running since march (6 months old at time of writing) and to be honest I didn't have a cooking clue about marine tanks when I first got involved. I seriously thought it was a case of get a tank and filter. Put salt water in and add fish... I didn't have any idea about salinity and even thought you topped up with salt water... I really had no idea what I was getting myself into...
Well to cut a long story short I saw a mates marine tank and it was akin to a drug addict being hooked! I just had to have one... I then saw a small tank at my local LFS with just a fish in it and liked the idea of a tiny ecosystem so to speak so I knew from then that a pico tank would be the direction I would go in.
My first attempt didn't go to well as the advice I recieved wasn't exactly great... It cost me a bit and almost put me off the hobby. I lost 2 baby clowns and 2 small porcelain crabs.
I then hit the reset button on everything and went to speak to someone my mate suggested. Had a long chat with him and he gave me the best advice I've recieved thus far. Firstly, you look after water, not fish or corals. If your water is perfect everything else will fall into place. And secondly, research. You can never know enough.
This is a rundown of my tank and hardware as it currently stands:
25cm x 25cm x 30cm Boyu tank (18.75L total volume. Actual water volume 16L)
I have approx 2kg of liverock in the tank.
Modified Aquaclear 70 HOB filter. Using a AQ50 impellor to reduce flow a bit. Divided into 2 compartments. One contains heater, skimmer and purigen and the other contains chaeto, live rock rubble in a mesh bag and seagel.
Heater is a tiny 9cm long 25w glass heater that I sourced from china and its nicely hidden away in the HOB.
The skimmer is from Gnome Glass in the states. It is an air powered glass skimmer and is hand blown. It works really well. It is 20cm long and 35mm in Ø.
Have a digital thermometer and the probe is in the HOB as well. (I try keep minimal equiment in the tank)
I also have 2 x boyu sp-100 pumps in the tank for additional flow.
The stock tank lighting (9w PC) was removed (it is now being used above my chaeto) and replaced with 2 x 24w blue and white tubes (10000k) and fitted in a custom hood I made. They are on a timer coming on at 11am and switching off at 7:15pm.
30cm strip of high bright blue LED's just for night time viewing.
I am still busy making a chiller but am considering ditching it for a fan on a thermometer switch instead as the old water cooler I was using has copper in contact with the water.
I originally just wanted FOWLR tank... and that phase lasted all of about an hour of having water in the tank.
Once I set the system up again I exercised patience and let it cycle finished... it took just over 6 weeks.
My current stock list is as follows:
livestock: 1x yellow tail damsel, 1x gold neon eviota goby, 1x sexy shrimp, 4x small local hermits, 2 starfish, 2 snails
Corals:various mixed zoanthids, Mushrooms (red, blue, green and brown), a favia, a hammer coral, open brain, plate coral, a few polyps, a orange and green ricordea and a red/pink BTA.
I've had my ups and downs... But on a whole I've be very diligent with caring for it and addressing problems as soon as they popped up. I've lost livestick, had GHA, Briopsis, bubble algae.... But I've stuck at it and come out on top. For the last 3 months I'd say, my tank has been rock solid stable. ammoia, nitrate and nitrite all at 0. Ph at 8 and salinity kept at 1.025. As an experiment I didn't do a water change for 3 weeks to see what would happen. Tested the water and everything was still at 0. (and no, there is nothing wrong with my test kits.)
I will upload random shots from when my tank was started and how it progressed to how it looks now.
Sorry for the essay but I wanted to cover all bases... and first impressions count.
My tank has been running since march (6 months old at time of writing) and to be honest I didn't have a cooking clue about marine tanks when I first got involved. I seriously thought it was a case of get a tank and filter. Put salt water in and add fish... I didn't have any idea about salinity and even thought you topped up with salt water... I really had no idea what I was getting myself into...
Well to cut a long story short I saw a mates marine tank and it was akin to a drug addict being hooked! I just had to have one... I then saw a small tank at my local LFS with just a fish in it and liked the idea of a tiny ecosystem so to speak so I knew from then that a pico tank would be the direction I would go in.
My first attempt didn't go to well as the advice I recieved wasn't exactly great... It cost me a bit and almost put me off the hobby. I lost 2 baby clowns and 2 small porcelain crabs.
I then hit the reset button on everything and went to speak to someone my mate suggested. Had a long chat with him and he gave me the best advice I've recieved thus far. Firstly, you look after water, not fish or corals. If your water is perfect everything else will fall into place. And secondly, research. You can never know enough.
This is a rundown of my tank and hardware as it currently stands:
25cm x 25cm x 30cm Boyu tank (18.75L total volume. Actual water volume 16L)
I have approx 2kg of liverock in the tank.
Modified Aquaclear 70 HOB filter. Using a AQ50 impellor to reduce flow a bit. Divided into 2 compartments. One contains heater, skimmer and purigen and the other contains chaeto, live rock rubble in a mesh bag and seagel.
Heater is a tiny 9cm long 25w glass heater that I sourced from china and its nicely hidden away in the HOB.
The skimmer is from Gnome Glass in the states. It is an air powered glass skimmer and is hand blown. It works really well. It is 20cm long and 35mm in Ø.
Have a digital thermometer and the probe is in the HOB as well. (I try keep minimal equiment in the tank)
I also have 2 x boyu sp-100 pumps in the tank for additional flow.
The stock tank lighting (9w PC) was removed (it is now being used above my chaeto) and replaced with 2 x 24w blue and white tubes (10000k) and fitted in a custom hood I made. They are on a timer coming on at 11am and switching off at 7:15pm.
30cm strip of high bright blue LED's just for night time viewing.
I am still busy making a chiller but am considering ditching it for a fan on a thermometer switch instead as the old water cooler I was using has copper in contact with the water.
I originally just wanted FOWLR tank... and that phase lasted all of about an hour of having water in the tank.
Once I set the system up again I exercised patience and let it cycle finished... it took just over 6 weeks.
My current stock list is as follows:
livestock: 1x yellow tail damsel, 1x gold neon eviota goby, 1x sexy shrimp, 4x small local hermits, 2 starfish, 2 snails
Corals:various mixed zoanthids, Mushrooms (red, blue, green and brown), a favia, a hammer coral, open brain, plate coral, a few polyps, a orange and green ricordea and a red/pink BTA.
I've had my ups and downs... But on a whole I've be very diligent with caring for it and addressing problems as soon as they popped up. I've lost livestick, had GHA, Briopsis, bubble algae.... But I've stuck at it and come out on top. For the last 3 months I'd say, my tank has been rock solid stable. ammoia, nitrate and nitrite all at 0. Ph at 8 and salinity kept at 1.025. As an experiment I didn't do a water change for 3 weeks to see what would happen. Tested the water and everything was still at 0. (and no, there is nothing wrong with my test kits.)
I will upload random shots from when my tank was started and how it progressed to how it looks now.
Sorry for the essay but I wanted to cover all bases... and first impressions count.
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