Entering The Wonderful World Of Reefing! What Fish Should We Get??
Hello!
We're setting up our first marine tank. We haven't started cycling it yet, (been making all the water) but we're so close!
Here are the specs (Roughly in water flow order):
5 stage RODI, 23 TDS in 0 TDS out
2ft cube, ~200 litres
Jebao RW-4 Wavemaker
1-2 inch Microbe lift Aragonite Coral Sand bed (nothing like the aquarium hobby to make you randomly start using imperial units!)
Bean animal overflow
Display Lighting:
150 W 10000 K halide
2x 36 W CFL (Actinic + Daylight combo)
Sump is something like 50 litres:
First division of sump:
AquaOne G216 skimmer
1 litre of Marinpure spheres
Middle part:
28W LED Grow light (Approx 2000+ lumens)
Intend to be little refugium, planning to have macroalgae,
Currently contains some aragonite sand and one tray of miracle mud
Last divider:
1 block marine pure (vertical; water will flow through it lengthwise)
return section:
2 heaters
ReefAngel Controller:
- Ph probe, Temperature probe, Salinity probe
- 4 dosing pumps controlled by ReefAngel
- ATO pump
Return pump 4000 litres/hour
Bleed-line to reactor (we'll be running RowaPhos and aquamax carbon as a mix)
Other stuff
Big bag o builder's lime *cough* I mean kalkwasser.
Magnesium sulphate, Magnesium chloride
Seneye Reef (for the lux meter. Also neat to see the cycle in action, once we start it)
We're going to do a SPS tank.
Right now I've got a big tub of dry rock pumping out phosphate. We acid cleaned it first, and I scrubbed it all (that took ages). It sat in the tub and phosphate went off the charts. Changed all water, and overnight it's gone back up to 1 ppm. I'm adding lanthanum chloride and I'll monitor things until I've got all the phosphate out.
THINGS WE WANT TO KNOW:
I'm planing on cycling with ammonium chloride. Can't get non-soapy ammonia in Australia. You know, terrorism and all that. After going to all the trouble of not introducing random unknown organisms, how do you actually start your cycle? How can you safely introduce some seeding bacteria? We don't want to put in live rock or sand, because we don't want the disease risks associated with that. Are bottled products the only way to go then? If so, who's had success and with which products?
What's a safe clean way to start getting pods for the refugium? What's your preference of macrooalgae for a refugium?
In your opinion, would two clowns and two bengai cardinals be okay in this size tank? Just them, and some inverts. Anyone know anyone who breeds bengai cardinals?
Any tips on setting up our quarantine tank? Everyone talks about their display tanks' equipment and setup but no one seems to go into detail with their QTs. What do you have in yours?
I'm sure there are lots more questions but that's what's on my mind right now.
We're setting up our first marine tank. We haven't started cycling it yet, (been making all the water) but we're so close!
Here are the specs (Roughly in water flow order):
5 stage RODI, 23 TDS in 0 TDS out
2ft cube, ~200 litres
Jebao RW-4 Wavemaker
1-2 inch Microbe lift Aragonite Coral Sand bed (nothing like the aquarium hobby to make you randomly start using imperial units!)
Bean animal overflow
Display Lighting:
150 W 10000 K halide
2x 36 W CFL (Actinic + Daylight combo)
Sump is something like 50 litres:
First division of sump:
AquaOne G216 skimmer
1 litre of Marinpure spheres
Middle part:
28W LED Grow light (Approx 2000+ lumens)
Intend to be little refugium, planning to have macroalgae,
Currently contains some aragonite sand and one tray of miracle mud
Last divider:
1 block marine pure (vertical; water will flow through it lengthwise)
return section:
2 heaters
ReefAngel Controller:
- Ph probe, Temperature probe, Salinity probe
- 4 dosing pumps controlled by ReefAngel
- ATO pump
Return pump 4000 litres/hour
Bleed-line to reactor (we'll be running RowaPhos and aquamax carbon as a mix)
Other stuff
Big bag o builder's lime *cough* I mean kalkwasser.
Magnesium sulphate, Magnesium chloride
Seneye Reef (for the lux meter. Also neat to see the cycle in action, once we start it)
We're going to do a SPS tank.
Right now I've got a big tub of dry rock pumping out phosphate. We acid cleaned it first, and I scrubbed it all (that took ages). It sat in the tub and phosphate went off the charts. Changed all water, and overnight it's gone back up to 1 ppm. I'm adding lanthanum chloride and I'll monitor things until I've got all the phosphate out.
THINGS WE WANT TO KNOW:
I'm planing on cycling with ammonium chloride. Can't get non-soapy ammonia in Australia. You know, terrorism and all that. After going to all the trouble of not introducing random unknown organisms, how do you actually start your cycle? How can you safely introduce some seeding bacteria? We don't want to put in live rock or sand, because we don't want the disease risks associated with that. Are bottled products the only way to go then? If so, who's had success and with which products?
What's a safe clean way to start getting pods for the refugium? What's your preference of macrooalgae for a refugium?
In your opinion, would two clowns and two bengai cardinals be okay in this size tank? Just them, and some inverts. Anyone know anyone who breeds bengai cardinals?
Any tips on setting up our quarantine tank? Everyone talks about their display tanks' equipment and setup but no one seems to go into detail with their QTs. What do you have in yours?
I'm sure there are lots more questions but that's what's on my mind right now.
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