serpentine5
Member
ok, I am extremely new to all of this, and your lingo is like reading Greek.
I am running a 55 gallon
50 pounds of LR
@60 pounds of sand with about 5 pounds of LS that was removed from an establisted dealers reef tank
1 PH (powerhead) 300 gph
1 Emperer 300 power filter
1 Whisper 60 power filter
1 Prizm skimmer
1 65X4 JBJ CP light 2 10,000k day and 2 6,500 blue actinic the blue come on an hour before the day lights and stay on an hour after the day light go off. The day lights are on for right at 10 hours a day.
As for amimals, I have:
5 Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp
20 Hawaiian Zebra Hermits
15 Peppermint Shrimp
25 Scarlet Reef Hermits
25 Blueleg Hermits
40 Turbo Snails
1 Emerald Crab
1 blood red fire shrimp
4 shaving brush
This tank has been running like this fully for about a week. The last part added was the light.
I built it starting with the tank, a standard tube light, I added the wisper PF, then: sand, lace rock (20 pounds), the powerhead, the Emperer PF, the cleaner package from saltwaterfish, the shaving brush, 50 pounds of LR, more shrimp and snails and hermits, then the light finally was added. I lost one of the original shaving brush. I pulled it and tossed it. My ammonia only spiked once after the live rock was added. I change my water at about a 25% rate every 5 or six days and will do this for a total of 6 weeks after the LR was added, I have about 4 1/2 weeks left. I use tap water that is put into a 5 gallon bucket where my salt and stress coat is added. I leave the water there until I can see clearly to the bottom of the bucket, then I use a battery powered sump pump to pump the water into my tank. I do this until I get my water level to where I want it. Then I use a refractomiter to test the salinity level and level it out to right at 1.023. And I do check my salinity about once every other day. I do have what I think is salt build up on the glass tops and on the front of my power filters. (A friend told me he read that it was more than just salt, but a combonation of salt calcium and other things so never scrape it back into the tank.)
I have been loosing a lot of my snails. I find them on the sand bed being eaten by my shrimp.
Three days ago, I found my tank was just covered with the brown algea that I am reading about in the previous posts. I cleaned the front and sides of my tank, but cannot get to the back side. Today, I added three chemicals that a freind gave me and told me that is all he uses. while or just shortly after I added these chemicals i noticed the rear of my tank was virtually clean of the brown stuff that was all over the tank the other day. Is this normal. The three chemicals I added were 10mL each of:
(all seachem) Reef Complete, Reef Calcium, and Reef Plus. I did not notice the disipearance of the brown stuff before I added the chemicals, but I doubt that if the chemicals would have done anything to it in such a short period of time, I noticed it being gone within ten to fifteen minuted after I added the chemicals.
After reading this, please give feed back as to what you think I am doing right and doing wrong. Like I said, I have never done this before and it is a very expensive hobby and I cannot afford to screw up too much. Thanks for everyting. Mike
I am running a 55 gallon
50 pounds of LR
@60 pounds of sand with about 5 pounds of LS that was removed from an establisted dealers reef tank
1 PH (powerhead) 300 gph
1 Emperer 300 power filter
1 Whisper 60 power filter
1 Prizm skimmer
1 65X4 JBJ CP light 2 10,000k day and 2 6,500 blue actinic the blue come on an hour before the day lights and stay on an hour after the day light go off. The day lights are on for right at 10 hours a day.
As for amimals, I have:
5 Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp
20 Hawaiian Zebra Hermits
15 Peppermint Shrimp
25 Scarlet Reef Hermits
25 Blueleg Hermits
40 Turbo Snails
1 Emerald Crab
1 blood red fire shrimp
4 shaving brush
This tank has been running like this fully for about a week. The last part added was the light.
I built it starting with the tank, a standard tube light, I added the wisper PF, then: sand, lace rock (20 pounds), the powerhead, the Emperer PF, the cleaner package from saltwaterfish, the shaving brush, 50 pounds of LR, more shrimp and snails and hermits, then the light finally was added. I lost one of the original shaving brush. I pulled it and tossed it. My ammonia only spiked once after the live rock was added. I change my water at about a 25% rate every 5 or six days and will do this for a total of 6 weeks after the LR was added, I have about 4 1/2 weeks left. I use tap water that is put into a 5 gallon bucket where my salt and stress coat is added. I leave the water there until I can see clearly to the bottom of the bucket, then I use a battery powered sump pump to pump the water into my tank. I do this until I get my water level to where I want it. Then I use a refractomiter to test the salinity level and level it out to right at 1.023. And I do check my salinity about once every other day. I do have what I think is salt build up on the glass tops and on the front of my power filters. (A friend told me he read that it was more than just salt, but a combonation of salt calcium and other things so never scrape it back into the tank.)
I have been loosing a lot of my snails. I find them on the sand bed being eaten by my shrimp.
Three days ago, I found my tank was just covered with the brown algea that I am reading about in the previous posts. I cleaned the front and sides of my tank, but cannot get to the back side. Today, I added three chemicals that a freind gave me and told me that is all he uses. while or just shortly after I added these chemicals i noticed the rear of my tank was virtually clean of the brown stuff that was all over the tank the other day. Is this normal. The three chemicals I added were 10mL each of:
(all seachem) Reef Complete, Reef Calcium, and Reef Plus. I did not notice the disipearance of the brown stuff before I added the chemicals, but I doubt that if the chemicals would have done anything to it in such a short period of time, I noticed it being gone within ten to fifteen minuted after I added the chemicals.
After reading this, please give feed back as to what you think I am doing right and doing wrong. Like I said, I have never done this before and it is a very expensive hobby and I cannot afford to screw up too much. Thanks for everyting. Mike