- Joined
- Apr 21, 2020
- Messages
- 64
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I've been out of the salt water hobby for 6 years moving and job kind made me close up shop. You can skip to my last paragraph to save you from reading my life story
So my girlfriend had a 29 gallon tank somehow i have become the keeper of that tank. Nothing special hob filter good amount of rock and a aqueon led that can grow algae like crazy. Two clowns and bi colored dwarf angle.
10-12 weeks ago her male clown died really unknown why only thing i could think of was PH. This sparked me build the new tank i didn't want to lose another fish if i could help it.
New tank 40g breeder with a 20 long sump bean animal drain with a overflow box across one end to make peninsula tank return pump is a mag 9 with two random flow generators that are plumbed through the over flow box. The two bean animal drains dump into filter socks. Running a bubble magus 5 elite skimmer 24/7 i stop it 45 mins for feeding. I have a refuge set up on the end of the sump due to how much flow the sump actually sees i can adjust how much goes to the refuge I've been running my cheap led 6.5k light 24/7 in the refuge. I run carbon and purigen 24/7
I cycled the tank fishless with bacteria and dosing amonia. Three times brought the level to 4.0ppm watched it go through the process after three times the nitrates we're very high 80-160ppm (api test kit) did a large water change got the level down to 10ppm added a new clown then 5 days later i added girlfriend clown then five days later added three pajama Cardinals day later lost the smallest one because he wasn't eating and he was pretty skinny. Went to the LFS got my dead cardinal replaced with a watchman and a diamond goby also got a frag of GSP and a frag of zoanthids. Its been in the for two weeks last weekend i added a rose anemone last weekend. My girlfriend clown has never seen an anemone took her a less than 24 hours and she was all over it.
So my question my tank is still very young and my previous tanks ive had i never really got to concerned checking calcium,alk,mag always did biweekly water changes. I was lazy but i could grow zoanthids like crazy and acons did well. This tank im trying to be better on the husbandary things my stats
PH 8 api
Nitrates 0 api
Phosphate 0 maybe .01 hard to tell with the redsea test kit
Alk 8 api
Calcium is 400 api
After reading up on reef tanks having your nitrates and your phosphates at 0 is not necessary a good thing.
I have shut off my refuge light see if i can get thing to come off of zero. I also think i feed everyone well, and after the pump turns back on what little food that is flying around normally gets eat but then again i change socks out every 3 days so food doesn't rot. Maybe i should play with my skimmer how much it runs. Just looking for advice or maybe im just over thinking it. Other than having zero Nitrates and Phosphates every thing seems to be happy my zoanthids seem a little closed up i believe the no3 and po4 having something to do with it.
So my girlfriend had a 29 gallon tank somehow i have become the keeper of that tank. Nothing special hob filter good amount of rock and a aqueon led that can grow algae like crazy. Two clowns and bi colored dwarf angle.
10-12 weeks ago her male clown died really unknown why only thing i could think of was PH. This sparked me build the new tank i didn't want to lose another fish if i could help it.
New tank 40g breeder with a 20 long sump bean animal drain with a overflow box across one end to make peninsula tank return pump is a mag 9 with two random flow generators that are plumbed through the over flow box. The two bean animal drains dump into filter socks. Running a bubble magus 5 elite skimmer 24/7 i stop it 45 mins for feeding. I have a refuge set up on the end of the sump due to how much flow the sump actually sees i can adjust how much goes to the refuge I've been running my cheap led 6.5k light 24/7 in the refuge. I run carbon and purigen 24/7
I cycled the tank fishless with bacteria and dosing amonia. Three times brought the level to 4.0ppm watched it go through the process after three times the nitrates we're very high 80-160ppm (api test kit) did a large water change got the level down to 10ppm added a new clown then 5 days later i added girlfriend clown then five days later added three pajama Cardinals day later lost the smallest one because he wasn't eating and he was pretty skinny. Went to the LFS got my dead cardinal replaced with a watchman and a diamond goby also got a frag of GSP and a frag of zoanthids. Its been in the for two weeks last weekend i added a rose anemone last weekend. My girlfriend clown has never seen an anemone took her a less than 24 hours and she was all over it.
So my question my tank is still very young and my previous tanks ive had i never really got to concerned checking calcium,alk,mag always did biweekly water changes. I was lazy but i could grow zoanthids like crazy and acons did well. This tank im trying to be better on the husbandary things my stats
PH 8 api
Nitrates 0 api
Phosphate 0 maybe .01 hard to tell with the redsea test kit
Alk 8 api
Calcium is 400 api
After reading up on reef tanks having your nitrates and your phosphates at 0 is not necessary a good thing.
I have shut off my refuge light see if i can get thing to come off of zero. I also think i feed everyone well, and after the pump turns back on what little food that is flying around normally gets eat but then again i change socks out every 3 days so food doesn't rot. Maybe i should play with my skimmer how much it runs. Just looking for advice or maybe im just over thinking it. Other than having zero Nitrates and Phosphates every thing seems to be happy my zoanthids seem a little closed up i believe the no3 and po4 having something to do with it.