Need some help, want to add corals.

[bishop82]

Allright, I'm sort of new to the hobby, right now I've got a ten gallon tank, with 24 lbs of LR 15 lbs of LS. lighting is a a 96 watt quad coralife light. Filter is a HOB Penguin 170 Bio wheel filter. At the moment i'm having problems with hair algae and algae growing on the glass of the tank, my phosphates are about .4 I'm doing about a 20% water change a week. Inhabitants are a yellow Coris wrasse, African yellow anenome, about 10 BL hermits 5 or 6 RL hermits, a sally lightfoot, mexican turbo, fighting conch, and a green mandarin. all have been there since january. As for the mandarin I get about a bag of pods from my LFS a week, i'm friends with one of the workers there. I'm thinking of adding some xenia and shrooms, maybe a leather or zoo's. the question I have is can anyone think of anything else I should do to the tank before I'm ready for corals? my nitrites are 0 nitrates are > 5 amonia is 0 calcium is about 650. I'm currently dosing the tank with strontium, calcium and iodine once a week. each about 1 ml. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[vi3tb0i]

if u have bio wheel on ur pengiun take them off they give nitrate other than that ur ready for a coral!

 

[tizzo]

You actually don't need that filter at all since you have a sufficient amount of LR and LS.
Over feeding is usually the most common reason for water issues. So, how often do you feed?
What kinda lights do you have and how old are they?
Are you using tap water or RO?
Do you have a protein skimmer?

 

[tizzo]

Originally Posted by Bishop82
calcium is about 650. I'm currently dosing the tank with strontium, calcium and iodine once a week. each about 1 ml. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and QUIT ADDING ALL THAT STUFF!!!!!
Your calcium level is already past the desirable amount and iodine is a nutrient for greens like algae...even your grass!!
Strontium, calcium, iodine...all that will be provided in your salt mix. You do not need to add it!!

 

[bishop82]

Allright, as i said before the lighting is a 96 watt quad PC from coralife, has actinic and 10k bulbs. the penguin bio wheel filter does NOT have the bio wheel on it, I realized that after about 6 months the bio wheel itself loves to be a nitrate factory, so I just use the filter to remove solid wastes from the water, I also keep some Crushed coral in the bottom of the filter, this is where I stick my pods when i get them, they seem to do fine here and I'm hoping that they will reproduce rather soon, just started this about a week ago. The water is RO, I do not have a protein skimmer, although i'm looking into building one myself. I was thinking of adding a sump/fuge to the system a while back, and even got a 20g long to do this with, but space is limited to where I can do this. Think i've answered everyone's questions. thanks for the replies

 

[exile415]

Originally Posted by vi3tb0i
if u have bio wheel on ur pengiun take them off they give nitrate other than that ur ready for a coral!
i disagree. i think biowheels help you instead of hurt you.. they take away nitrate and ammonia. is what I think. I've never been hurt by these biowheels ..

 

[bishop82]

well in my experience with this tank, being a small size, I've realized that I can do my feedings once a day and my water changes weekly and I was still getting readings on nitrates, the highest i got was 80, which is insane high. I since then have removed the bio wheel from the filter and now the highest readings i get are slightly less then 10. Which is a workable number. I feed once a day like I just said, i rotate between frozen brine, cyclopeeze and marine flake. on top of the pods that are in and around the tank. I've been thinking of taking the goby out of the tank and adding a clown but i'm not sure if I'd like the clown better then the goby. The mandarin has a great personality. Another question i have is water flow for corals? the filter gives me good flow across the top of the water level, and I've got a maxi-jet 400 in the bottom left corner of the tank to give me cross flow. Does anyone see a problem with this? should I add another powerhead or perhaps a stronger one? should i remove the power head from the tank and use just the filters flow? Thanks for replies