just acquired brothers 10 gallon tank, help!

[bishop82]

I've recently been given my younger brothers 10 gallon salt water tank, he can't keep up with it he's a bit immature for the hobby i guess. Anyways, the tank has the following inhabitants and filtration
1. Green Mandarin Goby - been in tank for 11 months, eats frozen brine and flake.
2. yellow Coris Wrasse - been in tank for 5 months, eats anything you give him.
3. Blue Chromis - been in tank since start, 14 months ago.
4. Starburst Anthias - been in tank 2 months, eats frozen brine, formula one, and flake.
5. Two Common condilactus Annenome's (spelling?) - been in tank since beginning, problem was one kept getting sucked up into filter and chopped up, Recently added sponge filter ends to filter and power head to prevent this.
6. black long spined sea urchin - been in tank 8 months, have no clue what he eats...
7. Sally light foot crab - been in tank since beginning, very aggressive and eats all kinds of stuff.
8. Coral banded shrimp - been in tank 7 months eats frozen brine and flake.
9. Flame Scallop - been in tank 9 months, am feeding it Phytoplankton once a day.
10. Feather dusters - been in tank 1 month, had two lost one and the second one just lost his "feathers" last night, i'm taking it this is not a good sign? was feeding them Phytoplankton like the scallop.
11. Over a dozen hermit crabs ranging in all different sizes, blue legs, red legs, common, scarlet.
12. mexican turbo grazer - I added him a week ago to help with algae growth on tank glass, he's doing great.
13. an astrae snail.
14. 14 sand sifting snails, nessarius? ( spelling) the ones that bury under the sand, they eat Detritus on the sand bed
15. Strawberry Sea slug - been in tank for 5 months, not sure what he eats but he eats.
Thats all for the bio load, I know it may be a bit much.
As for filtration he had just a normal whisper hang on the tank 10 gallon filter. I've replaced that with a penguin 170 bio wheel filter, and added a 404 power head to the tank, as well as replaced his stock tank bulbs with 18k powerglow bulbs, I'm keeping the temp at around 80, but i'm having problems with Nitrates, i do a gallon water change a week, nitrites are no problem and neither is amnonia. I add a dose of Bio-zyme to the tank every sunday, my LFS told me that would help with the nitrite problem..
NOW this is what i'd like to do with this tank, After looking at the pictures of Brooklyn Johnny's tank i'm awestruck, my wife wants something like that. someone please help lol i've got dial up, and waited 4 hours for johnny's pictures to fully load. *hates living with antiquated technology*
Oh also the tank has 7 1/2 lbs of figi live rock, with no trace of corraline algae or anything any help or advice would be appreciated, i don't have the room for a bigger tank, i live in a mobil home, this was allready my first idea...but new baby and wife kinda killed that idea... apparently the back bed room is for the baby... i can't have a fish tank room lol.
Thanks.
Bishop

 

[tuningvis]

sounds like an over stocked tank ... as far as youre nitrates
bio-wheels tend to be nitrate factories over time... so i've heard.
cant help you with much of the feeding ... best bet is to check websites for info on the fish
and i am really suprised the Green Mandarin Goby has survived as long as it has.... i have never heard of them being recommended(sp) for less than a 30 gal tank. they eat the pods of of live rock.... they need A LOT of live rock
also ... you should add some more live rock... get it up to about 15lbs total
and as far as youre lighting are you running 18W total?!?!?!?!?
if so .. youre condi's will not make it, and if they do.. they will release a toxin and perhaps kill everything in youre tank
all of this is IMO and should not be taken as youre only source of advice .. wait for more people to respond

 

[crazy4reefs]

i think that the high bio load and over feeding could be the cause for your high nitrates, that includes the Phytoplankton you add everyday. i personally would keep only 2 fish at the most and take the others back to the lfs for trade. i would also stop putting in the Bio-zyme. if you get rid of some fish and cut down on the feeding an do water changes every couple of days until your nitrates go down it should work. if you want a tank like
Brooklyn Johnny's your are going to need pristine water and a good lighting system. what do you have for test kits ? do you know what your calcium is at, that and proper lighting will help with the corraline algae. if you do want a reef tanks with lots of corals your best bet will be to keep reading all you can and ask questions. would it be possible for you to upgrade to a 29 gallon tank ? hope this has helped some.

 

[bishop82]

K, well after indulging myself in these message boards, i'm at the local library atm... high speed interenet. I've decided to start another ten gallon tank. Keep the one i've got just do something to it to help with the nitrates. I've done a 2 gallon water change, and according to my test kit they are a 10 now, they were well beyond 160. The test kit i've got is the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals NItrate kit, pruple box. The second feather duster did pass away, i was kind of expecting this. As for the fist, i'd love to get rid of the blue chromis, he's kind of aggressive. But as for the wrasse, anthias and the goby my wife loves those fish, they are so colorful. I was hoping that if i did do a tank like brooklyn Johnny's that i could put the anthia's and the goby in that tank. As for the goby still living, it's true. My LFS says that they should go into big tanks with lots of LR but with the green's you can train them to take frozen brine and flake food. Which is exactly what he eats, like a pig. And he's nice and plump, every once in a while when i'm at the LFS my friend that works their will give me a small bag of pods from his LR tank, the one's he finds in the filter. But this is far and few between. Anyways, here are a few of the things that i've read that i'm most definetly gonna have to get for a nice coral reef tank.
Good lighting - ATM i've got just one 15w 18k bulb. Am going to upgrade it to a 36W PC, similiar to johnny's lighting, 10k bulb and actinic.
Great Water - well i'm lucky here, one of my best friends is the fish guy at the LFS and gets me good deals, they have a RO thingy and thats where i get my water.
A few Good test kits - Any one have any idea's or suggestions, atm i've only got the one nitrate test kit, was my brothers and he gave it to me.
LR - here's the problem, there are two LFS that sell saltwater in my area, one of them has cheap LR 4 $ a lb, but his rock looks like crap, and the other never has any rock in and it's 7.5$ a lb. Anyone know of any good places i could get some great live rock? I'm wanting to go with about 20 lbs, but nothing to big in size, i'd like to have diversity when assembling the rock structure, the stuff i've got now is one big piece.
Refugium/filtration - I'm thinking of going with the Fuge, but would like to build my own, the price's of some I looked at earlier for my size tank, when i could find them, were insane. Anyone have any suggestions, or maybe their is a link to a DIY message about fuge's i've missed? the size of the fuge i can go with is 5 1/2 gallons.
Skimmer - not sure if i should go with a skimmer or not, i know of a guy in the area that builds his own, perhaps i could talk with him about custom building me one, but would this be overkill for such a small tank?
And last but not least.
Coral Frags - This is the biggest problem i'll have, we have no local Reef club in Central Illinois, and my LFS's corals are always either dead, or dying... One of the guys their doesn't know now to aclimate anything and takes the corals out of the bag and set's them on the counter for a few seconds, or he'll dump the entire bag of water and coral into the tank... not a pretty sight. SO.... This means i'm going to have to probably find them online, anyone know of any body that sells frags? i know the website here does, and they are quite expensive. I'm thinking of just starting out with some Zo's and perhaps some yellow button polyps. Let me know what you think.
So there you have it, another long rambling run on sentence post from me. Hope it makes a slight bit of sense, thanks and if i've forgotten anything please let me know.
Bishop

 

[crazy4reefs]

ok as far as live rock goes i believe you can purchase 20lbs thru this web site and it would be a good way to cycle your new 10 gallon tank. as far as the size of the rock you can break it into smaller pieces i do it all the time with a sturdy clean knife and a hammer. you are headed in the right direction with the RO water from your lfs and getting better lighting. i am not much help with the fuge. as far as the test kits go. i believe these are the basics- ammonia, nitrate, nitrate,ph with a reef tank you will want to monitor your calcium and alk. it will be a while before your tank is ready to add corals but most likely there are people on swf.com who would be willing to ship you some frags for a fair price.
you are very luckly that you can get the Green Mandarin Goby to eat food other than pods. i hear it doesnt happen very often. that would be a good idea to get rid of the chromis. hope this has helped

 

[tuningvis]

look online for a 96w quad light by coralife ... bout $88 online
very good light for a 10 (what i have

)
salifert makes the best test kits .. and they go for about $17 online for each topic of testing:notsure:
as far as live rock.... how do they look like crap?
try other forums like nano-reef dot com
and if you cut back youre livestock and up youre lighting and liverock i think you could get away with just LR filtration
as far as coral frags.. just ask around .. dont stop looking online.. there are so many resources out there