Another 10g Diary.

katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Make sure you have enough emptry shells for the blue legged hermits.. I noticed mine are pretty teritorial and what not, dont really know if any of my snails got eaten yet.
Are you going to try to house the puffers to adult in the 10g? I think they need a min of 30g, I wanted to buy them for my tank, before I decided to convert to sw.
My tank has housed mollies, neon tetras, goldfish, small angels, cichlids, with pretty much little success(guess the tank was to small, but then again I never use to cycle my tanks lol.) before I finally decided to jump into saltwater.
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Looks great! Are you going to add another filter(carbon and maybe some phosphate removers) just to help with the bioload?
You also might not even needa light for the cheato(since you dont really want it to grow all that fast because of space).. I went without one for acouple months and it didnt die. It got enough light from the main lights, but then again my refugium isnt tinted.
I ended up just taking one of my stock aquarium hood lights and placing it ontop. Now its growing like weeds, you cant even see through it, from the amount it grew. Its also growing out of the water lol.
 
curry

curry

Member
Both the penquin and aquaclear have carbon bags, ceramic rings and both are going to have cheato in them. I modded the penguin using a piece of the aquaclear basket so it can hold some cheato... lol... No need for a clip on light since the Current USA 10 inch fixture gives off a ton of light....
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Yeah test it out first rather than wasting your money buying things you dont really need.
If the cheato is dying, it turns whitish, and once you see that then order something. You can even go to like a home store and buy a cheap light, it doesnt have to be made for aquariums.. I was going to go to ikea and buy some sort of night light, untill my old aquarium hood popped into my head.
 
curry

curry

Member
Originally Posted by Katsafados
http:///forum/post/3162280
Looks great! Are you going to add another filter(carbon and maybe some phosphate removers) just to help with the bioload?
You also might not even needa light for the cheato(since you dont really want it to grow all that fast because of space).. I went without one for acouple months and it didnt die. It got enough light from the main lights, but then again my refugium isnt tinted.
I ended up just taking one of my stock aquarium hood lights and placing it ontop. Now its growing like weeds, you cant even see through it, from the amount it grew. Its also growing out of the water lol.
If that's the case then I may pick up a handful today and toss it into the 5 gallon. By next week I should be picking up all my inverts and corals from my guy so this week I'll be testing my calcium levels and doing a water change.
The 10 gallon should be starting it's cycle this week. I'm just waiting on the Current USA 20 Inch light fixture and I'm good to go. After that its just testing and water changes for both tanks...
 
curry

curry

Member
Originally Posted by Katsafados
http:///forum/post/3162276
Make sure you have enough emptry shells for the blue legged hermits.. I noticed mine are pretty teritorial and what not, dont really know if any of my snails got eaten yet.
Are you going to try to house the puffers to adult in the 10g? I think they need a min of 30g, I wanted to buy them for my tank, before I decided to convert to sw.
My tank has housed mollies, neon tetras, goldfish, small angels, cichlids, with pretty much little success(guess the tank was to small, but then again I never use to cycle my tanks lol.) before I finally decided to jump into saltwater.
Well I was told they will be fine in the 10 gallon until they start to grow but this wont be for a while so I have time until i'm ready for a bigger tank. I was gonna do a 30 gallon in my living room but maybe thinking 75.
If things don't work out then I may just try to find a home for them.
What happened was my mom picked them up for me not knowing they would get bigger... lol. As soon as I saw them I said oh crap... the LFS wouldn't let me return for a credit or anything so I said screw it. I did more research and emailed a few people whom I know have GSP's. They then explained that I have some time before they get bigger and that they will be fine in a 10G... FOR NOW... but they do need a minimum of 30G EACH...
For the Blue legs im gonna order a large amount of shells becuase these wild caught hermits I got from jones beach already ate all my snails except one, and they are all sporting new shells.. LOLLL. I didn't mind tho the snails were lazy... lol
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
cycle the tank first then add things.. thats what I did. I 'm not sure if it'll kill anything without being cycled

What ever you do, dont rush anything! spend like $20 a week on livestock, untill you have what you want. Thats how I stocked my tank. I see people on here that have a tank set up and stocked within a month, then they all seem to run into problems. I havent really had a problem yet, except my LTP dying, which happend to a bunch of people.
 
curry

curry

Member
Originally Posted by Katsafados
http:///forum/post/3162305
cycle the tank first then add things.. thats what I did. I 'm not sure if it'll kill anything without being cycled %%
What ever you do, dont rush anything! spend like $20 a week on livestock, untill you have what you want. Thats how I stocked my tank. I see people on here that have a tank set up and stocked within a month, then they all seem to run into problems. I havent really had a problem yet, except my LTP dying, which happend to a bunch of people.
The 5 gallon has been cycled for a while... Its been running for close to 7 months but the problem was I never knew about testing and saltwater mixing and flow and all that stuff... LOL. So now I am in the process of correcting that tank..
Basically what I did was get water and sand from the beach and dump it all in with the killie fish, star fish and etc... It did run good when I checked ammonia for the first time it was 0 and remained at 0. The only thing I had numbers for was nitrites @ 2.0 and nitrates @ 10
So the tank is now running correctly. But I still have between 1.0 - 2.0 nitrites and 10 nitrates... So I am currently working on that.. Suggestions? I'm guessing its the bioload?
I'm sure after I get my salt and I do a waterchange the numbers should improve...
Yep the 10 gallon will be cycled before I do anything else to it.
 
goobe

goobe

Member
Hey guys just wanted to put my 2 cents in,
Before i started my SW tank i use to be obsessed with puffer fish. i owned a gee spotted puffer and i just wanted to give a few warnings about him.
GSP well for me was the more aggressive fish i ever owned. He ate and killed anything and everything in my tank. Pretty much the reason i got out of puffers i wanted variety in my tank. I know if they have enough room puffers arnt to bad but with a 30 gal i dono he might kill your 20-30 $ fish forsure you hermit carbs and snails. They love inverts.
If you are planning on keeping him screw the acclimation process i know a ton of ppl who put there baby GSPs in SW tanks and they did fine. Just plan on feeding them snails, and other hard inverts to keep there teeth down. Bc like rabbits they need to wear down there teeth or they stop eating and die. You can cut the teeth but again you need to drug them and put them to sleep before cutting the teeth stresses them out huge. I personly Bred snails i was the easiest way to keep an abundant amount of snails.
pretty much in a nut shell puffers are a hand full but have a ton of personality !
id accually advise you to take a look at the puffer forums
www.thepufferforum.com
ton of ppl to help you look after the puffer.
Sorry i rambled alot lol
Goobe
P.s. Tank looks great cant wait to see what you end up doing !
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Nitrites arent good, you have to get that down to zero. You're tanks still probably cycling and the bioload is still probably trying to catch up. Dont add anything else in there untill you get those levels at zero. Nitrates arent as harmfull but still not good. I think the trates have to be at zero, or they stress out corals or something like that. I recently got a spike in trates and I've been doing larger water changes and feeding every other day to try to get the level down.
All you can really do is water changes and ease up on feedings.
Goobe - when we gonna swap some corals? lol us Canadians haver to stick together on the American boards

My emails d_katsafados@hotmail.com
 
curry

curry

Member
Originally Posted by goobe
http:///forum/post/3162314
Hey guys just wanted to put my 2 cents in,
Before i started my SW tank i use to be obsessed with puffer fish. i owned a gee spotted puffer and i just wanted to give a few warnings about him.
GSP well for me was the more aggressive fish i ever owned. He ate and killed anything and everything in my tank. Pretty much the reason i got out of puffers i wanted variety in my tank. I know if they have enough room puffers arnt to bad but with a 30 gal i dono he might kill your 20-30 $ fish forsure you hermit carbs and snails. They love inverts.
If you are planning on keeping him screw the acclimation process i know a ton of ppl who put there baby GSPs in SW tanks and they did fine. Just plan on feeding them snails, and other hard inverts to keep there teeth down. Bc like rabbits they need to wear down there teeth or they stop eating and die. You can cut the teeth but again you need to drug them and put them to sleep before cutting the teeth stresses them out huge. I personly Bred snails i was the easiest way to keep an abundant amount of snails.
pretty much in a nut shell puffers are a hand full but have a ton of personality !
id accually advise you to take a look at the puffer forums
www.thepufferforum.com
ton of ppl to help you look after the puffer.
Sorry i rambled alot lol
Goobe
P.s. Tank looks great cant wait to see what you end up doing !
Thanks for chiming in! I did have that forum bookmarked and was checking it out, way ahead of ya on that one

I also did see a few care sheets where it was mentioned that their teeth do continue to grow... funny enough I did have a rabbit a few years ago... she had very healthy teeth. lol
Originally Posted by Katsafados
http:///forum/post/3162322
Nitrites arent good, you have to get that down to zero. You're tanks still probably cycling and the bioload is still probably trying to catch up. Dont add anything else in there untill you get those levels at zero. Nitrates arent as harmfull but still not good. I think the trates have to be at zero, or they stress out corals or something like that. I recently got a spike in trates and I've been doing larger water changes and feeding every other day to try to get the level down.
All you can really do is water changes and ease up on feedings.
Goobe - when we gonna swap some corals? lol us Canadians haver to stick together on the American boards

My emails d_katsafados@hotmail.com
Yea I'm gonna continue testing I have no plans to add anything into that tank as I think it is a bit too full for its own good. I'm guessing things spiked up a bit because of the new fish. Hopefully they start to go back down once everything gets adjusted and I do my waterchange.
 
curry

curry

Member
10 Gallon Update:
Started mixing the salt (instant ocean reef crystals) about a day ago tested with refractometer today and its at 1.024. Going to add a piece of live rock to start the cycling. The rock is not cured. Water parameters as of now are 0 across the board.
5 gallon update:
Bought eggcrate and suction cups to start making small racks for any frags I buy. Nitrites have finally started going down. Ammo is 0 and nirates are at 10 still. Did a water change with the new salt mix ( Instant ocean reef crystals)
Before I start adding corals I'm going to change the carbon bag with a new one and also add a bag or chemipure elite, run it for about a week, do another water change, check levels and I should be ready for some simple coral. (unless my numbers are still not 0.)
Salinity in this tank is 1.024 (refractometer) and the temp is around 77-78.
 
curry

curry

Member
Originally Posted by Katsafados
http:///forum/post/3164064
Sounds good!
Get those trates down or your going to have an algae problem..
I doubt they're gonna go any higher... its been stable... Plus I still haven't added the cheato... so they should go down to 0 once I do that... I hope! I think I'm gonna get some today... we'll see...
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
the cheatto wont take all the trates... It only takes what it needs to survive so depending on how much you have it'll corelate with the amount of nitrates.
 
curry

curry

Member
Ohhh ok... aren't levels under 20 supposed to be "ok" for corals tho? Ill try to get it zero but just wondering...
 
curry

curry

Member
Yea... Well in anycase lets shoot for 0's all across the board. Got my cheato today! 5 bucks for a handful...
 
curry

curry

Member
No updates on the 10 gallon today.
5 Gallon update:
I bought some eggcrate to setup later. Added 1.4 lbs more live rock that was already cured.
Total liverock in the tank is about 3.6lbs.
I'll post my test results tonight to see how my nitrite levels are doing. Ammo is still 0.
 
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