My first six pack

weep no more

weep no more

Member
You gave some wonderful information; but, I have to say that even though I have kept a tank for 8 years alot of what you explained seemed like a complicated process to me.:(
So much of it is really over my head.:eek: I don't know if I will ever learn all I need.
 
weep no more

weep no more

Member
CBSHARK, I'm sorry to trouble you; but, I really am wanting to attach some pictures of my tank and have been unable to do so. Would you mind helping me? I get a message that says that my picture file is too big. I'm sorry. I feel that I'm such a novice at technology sometimes. :(
 
cbshark

cbshark

Member
As far as my tank, i've had it up and running now for about 8 months. I have been amazed at how well and how fast everything took off! I've had corals in the past in other tanks and they ALWAYS died on me. I think I just didn't use the additives and check my water as well as I now do. At first I was usng tap water and came into a bad cyano algae problem. I didn't want to spend the money on an r.o. system so I started to use distilled water from the grocery. While not the cheapest, it's fine for such a small tank. I would use maybe two gallons a week between water change and topping off. Now that it is well established, i've been topping off with tap water and have experienced no problems with cyano. I do have some hair algae issues, but i just keep a handle on it and remove it by hand. It's really not as hard to keep one of these tanks as you may think. It's kind of a trial and error thing. Eventually you find what works, and from then on, it's nothing. It was my first couple of months that were the toughest. You can't rush into stocking the tank with fish. I've found that corals can put up with the ammonia and stuff, it's the fish that can't. Some people may say otherwise, but this has been my experience. Each tank is very different from one another. Maybe I got lucky, but it works and i'm loving it.
As for your pictures, try shrinking them down a bit with the windows pc paint program on your pc, checking the file size after you save them. Once you make them small enough, you should be fine to post them. My digital camera pics needed to be shrunk quite a bit.
Good luck and let me know if i can help you with anything, anytime. It's nice to be at a point where i can help and answer questions and not just ask them. It takes time but if your committed to the hobby yo'll do fine.
 
weep no more

weep no more

Member
Thanks, CBSHARK! I have had a tank for 8 years; but have had no help. I have had to drive to another state to find good quality fish. I am finally getting life rock. I will attach an image that I have shrunk down to size. If I can get other close ups to fit the format, I will attach them as well. :eek:
I can't seem to get enough lighting to have what I really want. :confused:
 
cbshark

cbshark

Member
About two months ago, I transfered evrything into my 125 gallon that previously housed two 22" banded cat sharks, a 20" moray ell and various fish. I got rid of the sharks, eel and some fish and did a massive water change. I had been keeping up my calcium and all that even while I had the sharks in there, so keeping those levels stable was no problem. My problem was sky high nitrates. I was testing and it was showing very low levels but everything looked very bad. I lost all of my xenias and most of my green zoos. I took some water to my lfs to test it, I didn't trust my kit, and they were waay high. I was right, my kit was giving me a bad reading. Well, eventually, I set up a fuge in my sump with caulerpa, LR, a bit of sand and some halimeda. After a month or so, and some water changes, my nitrates were down to about 10 ppm. I recently started adding more corals, fish and an awesome long tentacle anemone with a beautiful baby maroon clown hosting it(see pic). Finally, everything is stable and starting ot look pretty good again. It was very disappointing that I lost what I did and actually, that finger leather that you see in the upper right hand side is alive but looks nowhere near as good as it did in that photo. My recent additions are hammers, frogspawn, cabbage leather, LTA, a huge two headed umbrella coral and a scolymia that wasin a frag tank due to the fact that half of it was dead but it was on its way back an regrowing. the reason i bought it is I want to see how healthy my tank really is. If it comes back, which it already seems to be after a week, then i am good to go. All of my recent additions other than the umbrella are frages. The next step will be to add about 50 more pounds of live rock. My tank is a bit bare on rock. I have about 12-18" of clear space on each end of my aquascape. Anyways, i'm finally having fun with the tank again after about a month of depression due to the goings on with it. I just restructured my rocks and corals today and will post some pics asap. Thanks for the interest.
 
steve fl.

steve fl.

New Member
:) What a bueatiful tank, I can't believe you have all that in a 5 gallon tank! I have a 15 gallon eclipse which I have modified into a reef tank. I saw you had a pom-pom zenia. I have tried twice to keep them, and both time they have died. Have you had any problems with them? I have some more sensitive coral than them, and they are doing just fine.Please write back. use my e-mail until I learn how to use this site, Thanks, Steve
 
cbshark

cbshark

Member
Hey guys, thanks for the compliments. That tank has been recently broke down and everything ransfered into my 125. (Check my previous post for the explanation and details) As far as that 5 gallon though, it was doing absolutely awesome and got so overgrown that I had to transfer to a 10 gallon, which also just went spectacular. Once it got to be overgrown with no room to add anything new, I made my switch to the 125. That turned out to be an absolute disaster for about the first 2 months. i lost all of my xenias and most of my zoos. I just added some fish in the last week. My additions are a 3" unicorn tang(no horn yet), a firefish goby and a six line wrasse. My entire stock now is:
5" Hepa Tang
4" Sailfin Tang
4" Yellow Tang
4" Lawnmower Blenny
2" six line wrasse
3" firefish goby
2" marron clown (hosting),
2" cinnamon clown (wouldn't host so I bought the maroon)
2" watchman goby
3" baby unicorn tang
My corals and inverts are:
coral banded shrimp
2 red leg hermits
4 turbo snails
1 orange spot sand sifting snail (which I haven't seen in weeks) 8" LTA
2 headed umbrella coral
frogspawn frag
hammer frag
colt coral
finger leather
cabbage leather
candy cane
devil's hand frag
brown button polyps
scolymia
condy anemone
couple of mushrooms
I plan on adding lots of liverock in the next couple of weeks and some nice mushrooms and eventually many more corals. Frst I have to get the rock as I am about out of places to put anything. I also plan on getting a select few more fish and add to my cleanup crew. I would like to add a dragon goby to stir up my sandbed a bit and a couplr more small tangs and gobies. I haven't had a chance to get any photos lately but I will ASAP and will post them soon.
 
cbshark

cbshark

Member
Sorry I forgot to address your question. My light for that tank is a custom sealife 32 watt smartlite retrofit. CSL is out of business now, but you can probably find them online still if you search hard enough. The kit was like $50. I now use that light on my fuge that I made out of my wet/dry sump. I cut the sump area in half with some lexan that I drilled holes in the top edge of and placed it diagonally in my sump. I added some caulerpa and liverock and it is doing great. I run this light 24/7 on my sump. These lights are pretty cool but the blue isn't a true actinic bulb. Even so, I never had any problems growing anything that I had.
 
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