Hi, pretty new to the reefing with years of fresh water back ground(had to part with it when i moved from my home country) .
In this thread, i would love to get advice from fellow reefers on 1.coral placement, 2.fish stockings , 3.bio diversity and 4.equipment to be improved as well as capacity of the tank.
Tank Spec
Tank:17.7″ (45cm) glass Cube with over flow (roughly 20g in display and 10g in sump)
Protein Skimmer: second hand Tunze9004 skimmer
Media: Marine pure block L , Filter Pads(plan to replace weekly)
Flow: Random flow return with IM spin stream nozzle, Jebao SOW-4(is my wavepump placement okay?)
Lighting: AI Prime
Auto top off: with base and overflow sensor
Chiller: hailea chiller with external temp probe
Maintenance: Weekly 5Gal water change
Tank has been running for 10days 100% with dry rocks and live sand, a little seeding with Ammonia dosing, bottled bacs and second hand protein skimmer(lots of coralline algae on the surface with some used sponge stuffed). Waited for the ammonia to be 0 with some nitrates, did a 50% WC before adding livestock, introduced ammonia badge(though im reading lots of negative feedback about this).
Added 1x royal gramma and 1x leather coral today, fish looks pretty happy eating pellets the moment i feed, coral expands fully and no sign of stress(unless I'm missing out on something)
Questions
1.coral placement
Attached is the plan i have rn in my head for my future coral placement, as my rockworks are scaped rather low, i want to introduce a garden for corals that needs isolation from other species(like hammer,frogspawn) using a magnetic rock frag that gives the floating looks.
Besides that, I'm overwhelmed with the amount of corals available in this hobby and need an opinion if my plan will work out with the current wave pump placement i have and lights. Also, keen to hear suggestions on corals that would work out well with this sort of set up.
Stuff like this
2.fish stockings
Having a fresh water back ground, it's surprisingly shocking to know that marine fish needs much larger spacing and being a nano tank, there's not much option for me. My final plan for fish is to have a pair of clownish and some sort of goby, 4 small fishes in total and no more, with a fire shrimp. Will my tank be able to handle this bio load together with corals?
Currently there are no clean up crews and I don't believe getting 1CUC per gallon as suggested by my LFS(no disrespect but it just doesn't make sense to me that I need 20 Critters in a tank of this size with no algae at all for now). So need advice on this as well
3.Adding bio diversity
Been reading sterile starts using 100% dry rock is prone to Dinos and what i noticed on lots of Dinos related threads are all of them started with 100% dry set up, while build threads starting with live rock getting close to non of this(other issues like bad hitch hikers though) and i don't want seeing them in my tank. Learned that increasing bio diversity would prevent this thus I'm finding a solution to add them in my tank. Does dosing live pods, rotifers and phyto plankton works?
4.equipment to be improved
What can it be improved to keeping a successful mix reef? I'm reading lots of articles and thread here and planning to install a 1head dosing pump with all for reef in the future when my tank gets more stocked. Till then, will try to keep up my nutrient with weekly WC
Thanks in advanced for all advice!
In this thread, i would love to get advice from fellow reefers on 1.coral placement, 2.fish stockings , 3.bio diversity and 4.equipment to be improved as well as capacity of the tank.
Tank Spec
Tank:17.7″ (45cm) glass Cube with over flow (roughly 20g in display and 10g in sump)
Protein Skimmer: second hand Tunze9004 skimmer
Media: Marine pure block L , Filter Pads(plan to replace weekly)
Flow: Random flow return with IM spin stream nozzle, Jebao SOW-4(is my wavepump placement okay?)
Lighting: AI Prime
Auto top off: with base and overflow sensor
Chiller: hailea chiller with external temp probe
Maintenance: Weekly 5Gal water change
Tank has been running for 10days 100% with dry rocks and live sand, a little seeding with Ammonia dosing, bottled bacs and second hand protein skimmer(lots of coralline algae on the surface with some used sponge stuffed). Waited for the ammonia to be 0 with some nitrates, did a 50% WC before adding livestock, introduced ammonia badge(though im reading lots of negative feedback about this).
Added 1x royal gramma and 1x leather coral today, fish looks pretty happy eating pellets the moment i feed, coral expands fully and no sign of stress(unless I'm missing out on something)
Questions
1.coral placement
Attached is the plan i have rn in my head for my future coral placement, as my rockworks are scaped rather low, i want to introduce a garden for corals that needs isolation from other species(like hammer,frogspawn) using a magnetic rock frag that gives the floating looks.
Besides that, I'm overwhelmed with the amount of corals available in this hobby and need an opinion if my plan will work out with the current wave pump placement i have and lights. Also, keen to hear suggestions on corals that would work out well with this sort of set up.
Stuff like this
2.fish stockings
Having a fresh water back ground, it's surprisingly shocking to know that marine fish needs much larger spacing and being a nano tank, there's not much option for me. My final plan for fish is to have a pair of clownish and some sort of goby, 4 small fishes in total and no more, with a fire shrimp. Will my tank be able to handle this bio load together with corals?
Currently there are no clean up crews and I don't believe getting 1CUC per gallon as suggested by my LFS(no disrespect but it just doesn't make sense to me that I need 20 Critters in a tank of this size with no algae at all for now). So need advice on this as well
3.Adding bio diversity
Been reading sterile starts using 100% dry rock is prone to Dinos and what i noticed on lots of Dinos related threads are all of them started with 100% dry set up, while build threads starting with live rock getting close to non of this(other issues like bad hitch hikers though) and i don't want seeing them in my tank. Learned that increasing bio diversity would prevent this thus I'm finding a solution to add them in my tank. Does dosing live pods, rotifers and phyto plankton works?
4.equipment to be improved
What can it be improved to keeping a successful mix reef? I'm reading lots of articles and thread here and planning to install a 1head dosing pump with all for reef in the future when my tank gets more stocked. Till then, will try to keep up my nutrient with weekly WC
Thanks in advanced for all advice!