Newbie, my 280L corner pentagon

quick pick of the GSP frag. All still good with tank, added a cleaner shrimp and a couple snails.

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Been busy lately...


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New Skimmer - @[MENTION]submariner[/MENTION] you are the man


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All is healthy and happy, water has been stable
PH 8.2
KH 7
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Ca 428

The suns eat mysis daily and live on top of a clam.
 
Hi jra, welcome to masa, ive just seen your thread now so sorry for the belated welcome, but its great to have you join masa and even nicer to see a corner tank system:)

there are a couple of things that realy seem to be going a little south and i just want to bring your attention to them. Its been mentioned already by belinda that perhaps putting a gsp in after two weeks was a little early, and you acknowledged that saying you would take things slower so the tank can cycle. It seems thats not been the case and I am afraid the LS choices you have are likley to lead you into difficulties with such a small new and unstable tank:( I am not sure if you get all your LS from TSR or if they advise you what to buy, but wherever you got the three anenomies and sun corals from are NOT giving you advice suited for your long term running of this tank. :( I would suggest taking those things back to wherever you got them from to start with and tell the LFS your tank (or possibly even yourself) isnt quite ready to look after them. I know is not what any one wants to hear, and its not realy my place to tell you what to have in your tank and why, those choices are all yours, but i make those suggestions purely out of experience and knowledge. I can substanciate why not to have three anenomies in a tank, why not to have one nennie in a younge tank and why a sun coral in such a small unstable tank is not a good idea. So if you would like to know, just ask, else i suggest a little reading on masa or other forums will give you the experience of other reefers as why not to do what you are doing. Please believe me when I say im not trying to be nasty, it realy is best for your tank and your enjpoyment of the hobby.

oh and one other tiny thing but an interesting indicator is the cyano thats about to get a good foot hold in that uncycled tank. Its a good indicator that you are over feeding or that the biological filtration isnt converting the available N in the system and its likley to go south fairly soon.

Did you fill her up on the 21st April..1st time..?...2weeks...if it's "good old natural cycle", then I'm afraid she might not be ready...:blush:...you mention reading and getting Info on the Site beforehand...so is it ok if I assume you then helped you'r cycle along with Stability...or Special Blend or another similar product...:blush:..if that's the case...good luck with you'r 1st Frag purchase...:thumbup:

Just an update...frag (GSP - thanks again Nathan @ The Serious Reefer for all the help!) opened up within 30 minutes of being in the tank and has looked good since. Belindamotion, I agree it may be a bit early, but with lots of really good LR I am hopeful that it cycled quicker. I do however think that this means I will have to add livestock slower than normal though...this frag will be a good test of that.

Clownfish - excellent and amen on the corner tank, I have only seen a few of them on here. And no, JRA has nothing to do with the roads agency thankfully. I look forward to sharing ideas.

Now to start choosing out creatures to get for the cleanup crew

Been busy lately...


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New Skimmer - @Submariner you are the man







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The suns eat mysis daily and live on top of a clam.
 
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Hi Crispin and thanks for your comments, feedback is always welcome. Couple things - I hear what you are saying but am not sure on a few things and would welcome your thoughts. There is only one anenomie in the tank, the two on the top are a torch and a plate. I'm not sure where you are seeing the cyano - I had it when the tank cycled but since then have had none? The LPS where I got the sun from didn't look to be taking care of it correctly, so I know that it is 100x happier in my tank than it was there, at least it is feeding every day. It has opened up well in the couple weeks I have had it - almost all of the heads are now opening up opposed to the 1 or 2 that did when I first got it... You mentioned that a sun isn't suited for a small tank like mine, what size tank do they typically need? The only LS I know that isn't suited for the tank is the Regal, but that is why I have a juvinal that will be leaving for a larger tank when he gets bigger in a year or so.

Not sure what other problems you are seeing - you say that my tank is uncycled, but I can assure you it spiked on ammonia, then nitrates, and since has had 0 of either. Stability/Bacteria dosing and great LR make a big difference on the cycle length. Constant monitoring and measurements are ensuring that all are on track - all my critical measures have been spot on for the past 3 and a half weeks. I have been adding livestock slowly to minimize the small spikes that can happen when introducing stock so the bacteria can grow in relation to the inhabitants. Before I started this I did lots of reading and research and one of the biggest conclusions I came to is that what an individual can keep in his tank, as long as the animal is fit for the size of it, is largly dependent on how much time, energy, and effort that individual is willing to put into maintaining the water in the tank. Maybe you can educate me as I never found anything on this...why exactly is it "recommended" to wait 7 months before getting an anenomie? Is it something that actually changes in the water/enviornment or is it just that is the proving time that an individual is willing to do the necessary things to keep the tank happy and healthy and therefore keep the nennie happy?
 
Hi Crispin and thanks for your comments, feedback is always welcome. Couple things - I hear what you are saying but am not sure on a few things and would welcome your thoughts. There is only one anenomie in the tank, the two on the top are a torch and a plate. (My apologies, its the BTA nennie i saw first and reacted to, not seeing the base of the corals i took them to be the tentacles of heractis anemone. Glad its only one too many nennies then:)) I'm not sure where you are seeing the cyano - I had it when the tank cycled but since then have had none? (firstly let me say i doubt that tank is cycled, but will expand on that later...the cyano i see is on the LR closest to the glass on the left side, the piece resting on the bio rock. that red slime just getting its foot in) The LPS (in our speak, LPS stands for long polloped stony and Is a type of coral, and not local pet store. We call that LFS, local fish store :))where I got the sun from didn't look to be taking care of it correctly, so I know that it is 100x happier in my tank than it was there, at least it is feeding every day.(try NEVER to buy out of pity, you are simply supporting LFS that doesnt look after its LS properly and they shouldn't be encouraged, while also putting your entire system at risk by getting LS you probably wouldn't have otherwise. Best advice you will ever get is to have a plan and stick to it!) It has opened up well in the couple weeks I have had it - almost all of the heads are now opening up opposed to the 1 or 2 that did when I first got it... (great to hear its doing well and that its feeding:)) You mentioned that a sun isn't suited for a small tank like mine, what size tank do they typically need? The only LS I know that isn't suited for the tank is the Regal, but that is why I have a juvenile that will be leaving for a larger tank when he gets bigger in a year or so.

Not sure what other problems you are seeing - you say that my tank is unicycled, but I can assure you it spiked on ammonia, then nitrates, and since has had 0 of either. Stability/Bacteria dosing and great LR make a big difference on the cycle length. Constant monitoring and measurements are ensuring that all are on track - all my critical measures have been spot on for the past 3 and a half weeks. I have been adding livestock slowly to minimize the small spikes that can happen when introducing stock so the bacteria can grow in relation to the inhabitants. Before I started this I did lots of reading and research and one of the biggest conclusions I came to is that what an individual can keep in his tank, as long as the animal is fit for the size of it, is largely dependent on how much time, energy, and effort that individual is willing to put into maintaining the water in the tank. Maybe you can educate me as I never found anything on this...why exactly is it "recommended" to wait 7 months before getting an anemone? Is it something that actually changes in the water/environment or is it just that is the proving time that an individual is willing to do the necessary things to keep the tank happy and healthy and therefore keep the nennie happy? I'll answer down below ok [/QUOTE]
Hi Jra, sorry for the delayed response i took a tumble off my horse, have been in lots of pain and haven't been online much, but i have a good glass of Pinotage and a little time so perhaps I should expand my comments and explain why i reacted like i did, sorry i wasn't clear to start with. I'll add some though ts in blue above and expand the rest down here if thats ok.

with regards to a cycled tank and te speed at which you stock, three weeks or so ago you said that you used mature LR from another system (great idea:)) and some base rock (which wont have started to host much bacteria and isnt really doing anything other than holding your LR up and helping get flow around it, which in itself is good as it keeps detritus moving, but the base rock itself doesn't have much to do with the processing of Nitrogen through its cycles. You said also then that you knew you'd need to stock slowly and the amount of LS u have put in over a 2 or three week period ismnt going slow. Cycling is a necessary process, its only really impatient reefers that find it a pain as there are so many processes and things to observe as to how a tank is progressing (that cyano for example) that I find it fascinating to watch, but thats just me. I always cycle tanks long, and dose with bacteria, and use previously cured LR. But thats mainly because i want to try maximize the bacterial content of my tanks, so that i can reach a point of balance and then as N or Carbon start increasing the bacterial population can expand with the increased available nutrient. The other huge advantage of taking a tank slow is allowing populations of micro organisms and clean up crew to develop. Pod populations are fantastically beneficial if allowed to grow without predation for the first couple of months. They are brilliant at removing tiny traces of algae deep in LR and a great source of food, once you introduce fish, provided the populations are given a chance to establish, grow and sustain themselves once fish are in. I am just talking about one Little organism, but bristle worms, sand dwelling micro organisms etc etc etc all fall into the same category. In short a cycle to establish bacteria to help process the waste in a system in great, but there are lots of things that need to establish. Its also very useful to get on top of any difficulties like aquas caping or removing aptasia without having LS in it. being able to move the rock to inject an aptasia is alto easier without corals and fish to get stressed. I just feel you are rushing a small volume tank without decent biological filtration being established and you may well run into difficulties.

tangs shouldn't ever go in small tanks. not small tangs and not big ones. relay it is as easy as that.

nennies are such wonderful things to keep. Ive had a number in my life and I truly do love them, but they give me so many sleep deprived nights i wonder if they are actually worth it! The age of a tank, that 9 month rule of thumb is difficult to substantiate but the general consensus is that it takes a tank that long for it to balance and be stable enough to give a nennie a realistic chance of survival. the biggest thing to worry about with a nennie is that if its not happy it will walk. and fast. and everywhere. that often leads to a meeting with a pump and the potential wipe out of a tank due to it being cut into millions of small pieces and causing an ammonia spike. Its been found that a tank is generally more stable after 9 months and thats the main reason we wait that long. Also is doesn't harm a reefer to learn how to keep a tank in that time so that you understand the intimate aspects of water chemistry and so on.

the concern i have with a sun coral in that tank is two fold. One its a new tank, as Ive said and the biological filtration not as developed as it could be. You need to feed that coral alot and thus you have to over load a new tanks filtration in order to keep one coral, simply because you think you can look after it better than an LFS? and in so doing you run a massive risk of over feeding (as the sun coral needs daily feeding) and thus stressing and damaging the other LS you have......nennie aside. Its just not a good choice of organism for a new tank, and no non photosynthetic coral relay is. That all said and coupled to a small volume tank like you have at this stage would worry me personally if it were my tank.

now my glass is empty and i am sure you're getting bored of what I'm writing:) I'll go get a refil and if i haven't explained myself on a aspect please feel free to ask me to do it again:)
 
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