Bio-load on SPS in a 12 gallon AIO system?

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Hey Reefers,

I have (6) small fishes which are; (2) tiger goby, (2) red head goby, (1) yasha goby, and (1) barnacle blenny. I juIst cycled my tank 20 lbs live sand, 10 pounds live rock. I feed them 1 time every other days, just a small scrap off of frozen brine cube, so it takes me more that one week to use 1 cube. They all devour what is given to them. I don't over feed, it is all consumed.

I want to know if I should have less fish than this if I want to do a SPS nano?

I just started monitoring my nitrates, and they went from 40ppm to 20ppm to 10 ppm. During my first initial water changes of 50%. The tank has been up 1 month.

I am off to the LFS to see where my nitrates are today.

Thanks,

MG

 

[Jekyl]

I wouldn't have more than 2 or 3 fish in a tank that size.

 

[Jekyl]

Tiger goby should be in a 30 gallon also.

 

[Tamberav]

Tiger goby should be in a 30 gallon also.

He means Tigrigobius macrodon not the sandsifter one.

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[stephj03]

What kind of sps are you wanting to keep?

 

[AJsReef]

That’s definitely a healthy stocking for a 12 gallon tank. I’d buy a Nitrate and Phosphate test kit to track them daily for 10 days to so to see what your trend is. It’s definitely not impossible to keep SPS/Acros although you’re probably going to want some aggressive nutrient removal methods.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Tiger goby should be in a 30 gallon also.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

These are my fish that I have, the photos of them taken 2 weeks ago.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Tiger goby should be in a 30 gallon also.

This is my 12 gallon system with the 6 little gobies.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Keep in mind these 6 fish are little and stay little. These equal to 2 grown clown fish I would say. Your tank is still new, if it was me I would not add any corals yet if your rock was dry rock. If it is actually live rock then add a few easy corals like zoas or euphilia. With dry rock I would concentrate on adding biodiversity. Seed the tank from other mature reef tanks. I have found that getting small pieces of rock and rubble from your LFS coral tanks to work well and they tend to have a sump full of small rock that corals fell off of or died and are full of the stuff you want to add.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

What kind of sps are you wanting to keep?

I am first trying to get all the parameters set, before I venture to placing them into this system. So far, I have temp control of 77.5-78.3F because of Chill Solutions chiller. I have a 5watt UV light installed. I have Eheim 1000 pump with 264 gph divided by 12.5 gallons = 21.12 turn over rate, then I have AI Nero 3 additional flow, with AI Prime 16HD. Will be adding a small ball of cheato for reverse lighting with JBJ nano glow light and Nano Glass skimmer. All of these fit into the AIO compartment of my tank. So, I am just trying to find out what my baseline of Nitrates will be, for me to do water changes to keep up some really nice SPS, that is all I want to keep in there. So, I want to learn from the SPS growers that have some experience with small tanks. I will dose manually, and I purchased all the Hanna test kits for parameters of SPS calcium, phosphate, nitrate etc. If I need to remove some of the fish, I can. Any and all advise I can get is greatly appreciate.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Keep in mind these 6 fish are little and stay little. These equal to 2 grown clown fish I would say. Your tank is still new, if it was me I would not add any corals yet if your rock was dry rock. If it is actually live rock then add a few easy corals like zoas or euphilia. With dry rock I would concentrate on adding biodiversity. Seed the tank from other mature reef tanks. I have found that getting small pieces of rock and rubble from your LFS coral tanks to work well and they tend to have a sump full of small rock that corals fell off of or died and are full of the stuff you want to add.

Thanks for the advise on the bio-load of my fish, you gave me a good perspective of two clown fish equal to the 6 little guys I have. I can take out one each of the gobies, red and stripped. I went overboard when I got them because I saw how they were jumping all around at the LFS but it looks tiny the tank, however it is connected to a huge system.

I have live rocks from KP aquatics, 10 lbs and 20 lbs live sand, the tank is cycled as the rock was already cycled when it arrived, just needed 2 weeks to reset and now I have zero Ammonia and zero Nitrites that are detectable. Just the Nitrate that is showing up. But I just started the water changes about 2 weeks ago

I got my water Nitrate checked again at the LFS they use API tests and it was showing 0 ppm.

I am doing another water change at the end of the week after I see what the nitrates rise two from feeding every other day very small amount of brine shrimp that they devour.

Thanks,

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Here is the results of my nitrates today at my LFS...

 

[lemonade]

If the gobies aren’t showing signs of aggression towards each other you’re fine with those choices. Looking down the road they will just be a part of your overall bio load. If you do weekly/biweekly WC and have adequate lighting it won’t be hard to keep SPS.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Thanks, I want to try best to get this dialed in. The gobies all get along, they chase each other only to move the other out of the way, no nipping on fins at all.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Here is my nitrates using Hanna LR checker. Going to feed every other day just a scrape of the cube food, what they can finish and keep water changes every Sunday 2.5 gallons out anf 2.5 gallon in. To see where my Nitrates stay?

 

[Perry]

Choosing a salt that mixes as close to where you desire your parameters is key in this setup. The advantage is and will always be dilution, and a large water change is let's say... 5 gallons! Using water changes for minerals and trace, plus nutrient export is an advantage, that will likely suffice for awhile.

 

[Micro-Reefs Aquarium]

Choosing a salt that mixes as close to where you desire your parameters is key in this setup. The advantage is and will always be dilution, and a large water change is let's say... 5 gallons! Using water changes for minerals and trace, plus nutrient export is an advantage, that will likely suffice for awhile.

I have to first find a baseline of where I am to the corals I have, then I can move to the next variables. Makes sense what you said...