My 3 Ft Tank After 3 Months

[Melvyn Tan]

Thinking of getting Harlequin Shrimps for my tank, have anyone any experience with such shrimps in tanks ?

[Melvyn Tan]

Anyone know where to get paired shrimp & goby?

[Melvyn Tan]

Anyone know where to get paired shrimp & goby?

[Melvyn Tan]

Oh My Goodness !! My Copperband snipped off both crowns of my coco worm !

[jd_n]

Oh My Goodness !! My Copperband snipped off both crowns of my coco worm !

Not surprising, u shd knw well wat butterfly fish can do to some of ur corals and inverts...

[Domino]

Hi!

Tank looks nice! very colourful!!

I have a similar setup and I'm asking myself a few questions:

I don't see much a lot of LR in your tank to support the high level of LS + no skimmer How are your water parameters performing? Are your NH3 & NO2 always close to zero? How to you reduce the NO3? Chemicals & water change?

Also what lights are you using?

Note for trader_best:

I'm using the aquaclear Surface skimmer from Hagen n I'm very happy with it. I adapted it to the intake of the pump for my HOT skimmer.

Cheers!

[Melvyn Tan]

I am using Sunta with Ocean Sun - 420 Acetinic and Coral Sun - 10,000K

LR a few big pieces only the rest are rocks with the corals.

My water parameters are all almost close to zero most of the time.

I do water change about 1/5 - 1/6 tank volume approx 1 - 1 1/2 months.

My Sand + aragonite is almost as clean as originally put in.

Advice from my Mentor - 3 feet tanks no need skimmer. So till today everything appears ok. My indications are from my livestock - basically the copperband, shrimp + tangs.

[Bob]

Nice & clean tank.

I think you need a skimmer !

Its one of the best fillter you gonna miss.

[Melvyn Tan]

Skimmer ah? any recommendation - did some reading and found that really H&S is probably the only one that is good and they dun come with hang-on types, so my set-up cannot utilise it (besides it cost like $600 ++ cheapest) ! phew !

I think do regular water change and control feeding might perhaps help, what do u think?

[Bob]

Can try cheaper type like sander maxi using lime wood.I think less than 100 bucks.

Had use before when started with 2 feet tank.Quite good but needs to change air wood every month.

[Melvyn Tan]

Seen alot of Skimmers by Red Sea (Israeli Brand) are they any good?

[Melvyn Tan]

A new addition to my tank - after a few days it still has not open

[Melvyn Tan]

A close-up pic of my Red Star, fire clown and top right - Bi-colour blenny

[Melvyn Tan]

Christmas tree oh christmas tree !

[Melvyn Tan]

I purchase a piece of soft coral and it came with an attached piece of hard coral (was told) can anybody tell me what coral is this (been searching - no avail) Thanx !

[Melvyn Tan]

My latest addition today ! Staghorn

[Melvyn Tan]

Shrimp Wandering Around. Sun Coral still has not open....sigh.....

[Michael Young]

I purchase a piece of soft coral and it came with an attached piece of hard coral (was told) can anybody tell me what coral is this (been searching - no avail) Thanx !

Melvyn,

you should at least provide me a link to your thread...... Anyway that looks like a shriveling piece of open brain Trachyphyllia with its skeleton exposed.

By the way, did you really added an acropora into your tank (it looks fake)? I can also see something that resembles Porites in there. If they are indeed sps corals, they will not survive in your tank for too long because you lack the proper lighting, filtration system, circulation etc.

Oh.. and I also disagree with your mentor that you don't need a protein skimmer for your tank size.

[Melvyn Tan]

Hahahah !! shrivelling piece of open brain - hope it'll survive, anyway when it came, its already in this condition.

Oh yes ! the acropora (or staghorn?) is not fake - its aquacultured.

[Melvyn Tan]

Michael - would you care to share the lighting levels, filtration and circulation required? i will be adding more corals (sps + lps) pretty soon. Thinking of adding a refugium, comments?

[terryansimon]

how old is your tank? and what are your parameters?

3 month old tank and SPS...you may be getting yourself into a bit of trouble here.

did I mention the lighting requirements, the prestine water condition, the amounts of additives/what not. the list goes on.

[Melvyn Tan]

Water parameters appears fine, Tank now 4 months old, below the starpolyps (acquacultured) comes with an attached piece of clam (hehhehehe) been surviving for nearly a month already.

[jd_n]

Seriously bro, ur tank is too new for sps especially with the system and equipments u r running. LS also kinda of high for a plain 3ft tank.

U mentioned ur water parameters appears fine? Care to list dwn numbers? Coz the word "fine" is pretty general . Some pple can take N02=0.1, N03=50, P04=0.2......etc as "fine"

[Michael Young]

Melvyn,

these are the basic equipment you would need to keep the animals in your aquaria in good health (does not include sps corals):

Filtration:

What you are using currently is workable if your tank is lowly stocked. Currently, I'd would say that your tank is already overstocked and your Eheim canisters will not cope with the bioload because there just aren't filter media surface for nitrifying bacteria to grow; especially when I can see that you do not have a lot of live rock as well. What you need to do is to add one or two overflow boxes to your tank and use a sump filter instead. One with a biological compartment and a macro algae refugium to export nutrients will be a good way to start. You would also need to purchase a skimmer of the right size for your tank as well. I don't care what your 'mentor' said; but a skimmer is an absolutely must unless you have a 10 gallon tank. It is the only way you can export unwanted nutrients out of your tank mechnically.

Lighting:

I do not know how many watts of lighting you have but if you are only going to keep soft corals, then I'd say what you have now is sufficient. However, if you aspire to keep light dependent corals like lps and sps, you'd need to upgrade your lightings. T5s or PLs are a good investments if you want to keep lps corals but you'd need MH if you want to venture into sps corals and clams IMO.

Circulation:

Your tank definitely do not have enough circulation right now if what you have are the returns from your Eheims and one powerhead. Corals need lots of water flow to thrive. Water flow around corals are important because it brings with it nutrients and micro plankton which the some corals feed on and these currents will also wash away detritus which will settle on them through time. Other than keeping your corals happy, good water flow will also stop fish waste, uneaten food etc from accumulating by suspending them in the water column and eventually exported out by your filter and skimmer. If detritus are allowed to accumulate, nuisance algae will proliferate. Note: circulation is about 'flow' not 'speed'. Therefore, its better to have more small powerheads placed stratigically then to have one or two large powerhead blowing and knocking over corals in the same direction all the time.

Melvyn, I've not even scratch the surface to the science of reef keeping with what I've done here. There are still subjects such as reef chemistry, reef temperature, husbandry etc which are also extremely important. Therefore, I suggest you do more reading up on the subject of reef keeping before adding more livestocks to your tank. Lack of knowledge in what you do will lead to frustration and a loss of your investment.

[Marineman]

My 3 Ft Tank - Suffered quite heavy casualty in the beginning now its stabilised.

Hi there,

A 3 months tank cannot be considered established, you need at least 6 months, preferably a year to consider a tank established and stable provided there is no more livestock dying and you do not have any algae problem.

Some of your livestocks in your tank are not compatable, like finger coral don't go well with SPS (your tank is not ready yet for SPS and lighting and current is not enough and worst of all it is placed at the bottom), fingers are one of the most toxic corals to have it doesn't need to touch an SPS to kill it. Your seafan/gorgo need strong water movements, better the pulsating type which Tunze can provide, your seahorse cannot stand stong current and depends on live food, if you were to introduce any live food, your fishes will get to them first, so starving your sea horse. You see you have already a few conflicting issues here.

Reconsider your tank's configuration and livestock, be a liitle more patient to succeed. Good luck.