Not a reef yet...but would like to begin

[jabrauna]

Right now I have a 30 gallon tank, i have about 20lbs of live rock , crushed coral, 10 turbo snails, 10 blue legged hermits, coral band shrimp, condy anenome, percula, yellow tailed damsel.
I would like to add more inverts such as star fish, anenomes, fan worms and other such things.
what would i need to do to improve my tank for this inverts and more???

 

[jimmy g]

What kind of lighting do u have?

 

[jabrauna]

Well actually i don't know too much about it I have only had my tank up and running for about 4 months but I replaced the original bulb with a bulb that is made to have special lighting for fish tanks i got it at a local pet store.
it reads:
Penn-Plax
FL20
Aquari-Lux

 

[bencc]

I would personally switch to live sand insted of cc. From my own experiance and what I have read Live Sand benifits the sytem alot as oppose to cc that can trap excess food and things causing nitrate problems. I had cc for a long time and always hade nitrate problems. I now have live sand and have not had nitrate problems for over a year. I'm not saying that is impossible to keep nitrates down with cc just not as easy IMO. Also lighting is a very important thing to consider before doing things like anemones and coral. Also Maybe adding a little more live rock. A Protein skimmers and Refugium really help keep excess nutrients down as well.

 

[jabrauna]

TO switch to live sand what would i have to do...take down my whole tank set up and rebuild it from scratch??
and it might sound bad but I have never checked my nitrates are amonia or anything like that..only ph and salinity and temp and i have never had anything die on my yet??? so do i need to be more worried about that?

 

[jabrauna]

thanks magic_carp....
but I have a question though my anenome has been fine and the place I bought it said it should be fine so what makes you think I should get rid of it??

 

[jabrauna]

well I have had it for almost 2 weeks now and no signs of anything and I know the place i got him from had him in about the same conditions as me for at least 2 weeks.....I had listed some stuff about my lighting above and thats all I know

 

[bencc]

There is a cycle that happens in your tank. When waste is created either by fish or excess food it brakes down and turns into ammonia, a bacteria develops that breaks ammonia down into nitrite anothe bacteria developes that breaks that down into nitrate. This process is knows and cycling it usually takes a little over a month. Nitrate is not to bad for fish in small amounts but inverts are a little more sensative to it than fish. from what I understand In a sand bed deeper then 3 inches a bacteria developes that turns nitrates into a gas that is realeased on the water surface. Another way to get rid of nitrates is by using macro algaes usually you will have this algae in a refugium. A protein skimmer also helps by removing undisolved organic compounds. I would recomend that you at least test for nitrates. When you really get into corals and if you want lots of the cool coraline algae that is the purple and pink algaes you will need to start looking into dosing calcium and buffereing alkalinity. To remove the cc I would just use a hose and siphon it out.

 

[bencc]

It is true about the anemones they are very hard to keep. Fish stores just want to sell you what they can. Most anemones need very good lighting. Most recomend Metal Halide. I use Metal halide lighting over my tank and everything looks and does very well.

 

[jabrauna]

then should I remove my live rock into a pale or something as I put in my sand??? and won't the sand have lots of lose matter and cloud up my tank real bad like the cruched coral did at first......by the way thanks for helping me out I am just trying to learn more cause I know little as of now

 

[bencc]

That really is the best way to learn about all the different things needed to have a succesfull tank. If you want to know about something do a search and you will find all kinds of good info. As to the cc removing the rock would probably be the best way to do it. If you buy live sand it will be in bag with water. Just use a cup and scupe it out of the bag and sink it in the cup and place it in the tank where you want it. Mine really didn't cloud up my tank that much at all.

 

[jabrauna]

ok thanks for all the help guys but i have one more question...where and how do you recomend getting live sand??
ps thanks for everthing

 

[bencc]

They should carry it at you local fish store. If they do not it is a on ---- but it's going to be expensive to get it shipped. Nature’s Ocean® Bio-Activ Live™ Aragonite this is what I used and it is on ---- now.

 

[jabrauna]

i found some under the dry goods in saltwaterfish. com could you check it out for me and see if this would be good for me to use???

 

[bencc]

yep, thats the stuff. It's also a very good price. This site has very very good prices on everything. I have ordered from here a couple times and have been very happy with what I recieved.

 

[jabrauna]

k..thanks for everything

 

[streetdoc]

I have ordered live items from here several times. The latest was a cleaner crew package.....over 80 total critters. I appreciated the fact they sent more than i ordered being as several didn't survive. 1st class deal.