Hi All.
I started my tank about 2 1/2 weeks ago.
Specs are:
Boyu MT-50
80 litre capacity
3 chambers in the back
1 x Boyu powerhead 1000l/ph
1 x 24Watt PL Combo lighting
1 x Sun Sun blower
4 kg Live Rock - Will up that to about 8kgs come payday
Using NSW and Natural Sea Sand
(Water from 2 Oceans and sand collected between Big Bay and Melkbos,
collected at low tide and looks clean and has reasonable life forms)
Here are some pics after 1 week.
Now the question time!
1. Filtration.
In the 3 chambers I have the following:
Chamber 1 - Live rock rubble and filter floss
Chamber 2 - Charcoal, bio-balls and ceramic rings
Chamber 3 - Powerhead/return pump.
I intend removing the bio-balls and ceramic rings and replacing with a Boyu 308 skimmer, as it seems to be the only one that will fit in this compartment. Am I on the right track? I do not want to alter the "neatness" of the tank so I do not want external plumbing or appliances.
Will this filtration be adequate as my intent is to keep 2 x clowns, 1 or 2 x gobies, CUC, mushrooms, zoas and 2 or 3 sps's (Xenia, kenya tree, ??????)
Should I get a more powerfull pump? Turnover is slightly more that 10x per hour.
2. Lighting.
The tank comes standard with 1 x 24W PL Combo tube (blue/white). I realise this is not ideal and will either add another 24W PL Combo, or add 2 separate lights, 1 x actinic & one white.
I think the easier solution will be to add another Combo, however, if I do add 2 separate tubes what strength do you recommend?
3. Heat buildup.
Our house gets EXTREMELY hot (Brackenfell;) as it faces the sun full on the entire day.
Temps were hovering around 29-31degrees, untill I installed 2 x 80mm PC fans into the feeding flap portion of the hood. One blows directly onto the water and one blows outward. After testing, this drops my temp by 5 degrees over a 4 hour period. Temps are now between 25-27 degrees.
Will post photo's of this DIY as it looks quite neat and not "stuck on".
4. Substrate.
I went to do a bit of window shopping at Sam's new store in Brackenfell over the weekend and had a little chat. But after that I was a bit confused. He almost did a backflip when I mentioned that I was using Natural Sea Sand. Now I have read up a good amount on the different substrates and feel that this is not such a bad thing. However, now is the time if I want to change the substrate to Aragonite, before adding any livestock. He is using a very coarse type of Aragonite in his display tanks and I quite like the look of it as it might not get blown around as much as the "sugar fine" Aragalife. Your thoughts please.
5. Parameters
So far I do not know.
Will get test kits this weekend or next as I am only cycling the live rock for at least 4 weeks.
Please advise on good value for money kits and what the most important items to check?
6. Water changes
I have been doing a weekly 20 liter water change. Siphoned off some diatoms from the surface of the substrate. This should go away when the cycle is complete?
The live rock that had the mushrooms attached also has a fai amount of algae (GHA?) on it. This is now starting to turn brown and looks like it is busy dying?
7. Hitchhikers
I have seen about 5 bristleworms crawl around on the liverock, also 2-3 small snails that came out of the woodwork. A couple of days ago a tiny white starfish also miraculously appeared. It looks exactly like the rock pool starfish (5 sided and not five legged if you know what I mean) you get in the local tidal pools.
A funny thingie has attached itself to one of the rocks as well, it looks like a transparent 5 sided jelly bubble, about 5mm big?
Are these hitchikers safe to keep?
Thank you in advance for your help and big up to MASA being so informative!:yeahdude: