Tank intro.

[silvercookie]

First post here on the forums. Name is Vinny, 23 y.o. Live in Queens NY.

Have had my tank up and running for around 3 1/2 years now. Various fish have come and gone but all have lived great lives. 1-1.5yr+ on all.

Currently have a standard 29 gallon tank. Was recently thinking about setting up a sump/refugium with a skimmer etc but decided not to switch since i have had such a stable setup for so long.

I currently have the following and yes they have names : also age from date of store receiving fish so id guess they are all a little older.
Chalk basslet - Panini roughly 1 1/4 y.o. (other basslet i had previously was named chowder from the show chowder).
6 line wrasse - Junior - roughly 5 months (previous 6 line was named watermelon who i had for almost 2 1/2 years).
Valentini Puffer - Valentini - Just got him a week or so ago and has been a great addition so far.
1 green chromis - Bullwinkle - about 6 months. Orginially bought 2 that had been in a tank together at the LFS for a couple weeks and name them rocky/bullwinkle but rocky decided to stop living.
1 Nasarious snail - Tank - i have had this snail for going on just about 2 1/2 years and he has lived through everything.

IIRC about 20 ish lbs of purple fiji rock. Most of the old rock has faded but has been in the tank since the beginning.

Light is a dual T5 Solarmax HE 24w actinic 24w 10000k with 4 moonlight led's.
Filter is a Penguin 350.

I mainly joined the site as yesterday me and my fiance re-vamped the tank a little bit. new light, 3 new coral frags, cleaned the tank up a bit, checked all levels etc etc and got me back into wanting a more than basic setup. All comments and criticism welcome. The main thing i want to do next is get a legitimate filter setup going and also a suitable protein skimmer setup that wont cost a arm and a leg.

Also on a sidenote, has anyone noticed some fish are more "photogenic" for lack of better words than others? My valentini puffers loves when i take my phone out to take pictures of her. on the other hand my chalk basslet just recedes into cover and gives the death stare as seen below.

Pics taken with a galaxy s5. Have a dslr that i need to dust off.

 

[Kristin1234]

Nice tank!

Welcome to swf!

I have a in sump protein skimmer so I'm not familiar with any other than that. Someone will Come along though and give you a good recommendation.

 

[flower]

Hi,
Welcome to the site! When it comes to SW tanks, whatever works is correct! Unless you have nitrate issues, or algae problems, so I agree with you...why mess with perfection? If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Congratulations on a 29g lasting that long, the smaller the tank, the harder it is to keep stable. So you seem to be doing just fine.

1 snail??? Just 1... LOL. I would think you need a whole clean up crew of various snails. You must have done a lot of clean up on your own before the pics. The sand could pose an issue, lots of toxic nasty stuff most likely is trapped in the very bottom...do not disturb it, if you have had only one snail that long, the sand has not been turned, it could hold toxins that will kill everything in the tank if it gets released.

You have plenty of live rock, the tank is stable, you don't seem to have any issues with water quality, and best of all your critters are thriving. Since you want a reef, a refugium and a skimmer would be the next thing to look into. I will say that in-sump skimmers are much better then HOB ones. I have never found a HOB skimmer I liked, and I have been keeping fish for over 30 Years.

With a refugium (even a small HOB type) you can keep macroalgae, which IMO would be the answer to many problems. Macros absorb all the nasty stuff from the water to grow, as you prune it back (called harvesting) you are removing it from the system. It works to keep nitrates, phosphates and even ammonia levels at 0. The stuff is a natural, easy to maintain method to keep your water parameters pristine, and a pint will keep on growing, so for $10.00 it also gives you the biggest bang for your buck. Check out "Golf Coast Ecosystems"

 

[silvercookie]

Thank you both.

There are a bunch of baby turbo snails floating around from a previous 12 gallon tank my fiance kept at my house that were transferred over but the puffer is picking them off one at a time.

As bad as it is to do i don't do water changes that often. My tank evaporates quick so i often just refill it and dispose of the salt that builds up. salinity levels always check out with nitrate and ammonia always a litttttle bit higher than average but nothing that has caused any noticeable disturbances. The fish are absolutely loving the new light coming from a single 15w lamp that i had to use for a few weeks after the last one popped.

A HOB refugium would probably be the only way to have one setup. i guess even as you said a small one is better than nothing. I'll definitely look into them. Thanks for the information. greatly appreciated.

 

[geridoc]

I don't know shy folks apologize when they name their fish. I have been keeping marine fish for over 40 years, and have named every organism that ever lived in my tanks. The best name I ever came up with was "Ini", for a flame scallop. Thus,he was...wait for it...scallopini