Hooked on Marine Life!

[TinaFoster]

Hi! I'm Tina, also known as Angel of Angel Foster Productions. I DJ for a living, and when I'm not earning(and sometimes even when I am)I'm obsessing over one of my other greatest passions--saltwater life! I'm new this year to the marine hobby, having had freshwater fish as far back as I can remember. Always wanted marine fish, and tried it when expecting my first child(who is now 24) but knew nothing about the differences in fresh and salt, had no advice, and quickly killed my fish and got discouraged. Just this year I decided to try it again after raising 35 tanks full of cichlids and still being unfulfilled. It's working!!! I have a happy 90G with 130# of LR and a sump with refugium, a 29G nano which is driving me mad, and a 55G sectioned off and cycling to be a shrimp breeding project. This is what I've always dreamed of! But I could use a LOT of advice, as I know nothing about corals and now have proper lighting in the 90 to have some. Thanks for having me! I'm looking forward to making new friends!

 

[Viva'sReef]

Welcome aboard....This is the place for answers to all your questions.

 

[GR808]

Hi Tina and welcome. With the amount of help u can get here on R2R, I'm sure u will have a successful reef tank. What else do u have in your 90 and what type off lighting? Has tank cycled?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Welcome to R2R Tina! Great to have you here and we will be glad to help you on your addiction, I mean journey! HA!

 

[swannyson7]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[TinaFoster]

Hi Everyone thanks for the welcome! GR808, I currently have a few soft corals that came with the live rock, one hard coral--it's purple with green polyps and a white center, a red linckia star, long spined sea urchin, red hermit crab I now realize I shouldn't have bought and will end up somewhere else(but he's so cute!), turbo snails, a lawnmower blenny, a diamond goby, a royal gramma, and cleaner, fire, and peppermint shrimp. I cheated--I bought the tank and rocks, sump, and sand(and most of the water) from someone in Toney, Alabama. It had been running almost a year. I've had it since the first of the year, and it's doing very well. I've added the fish and inverts, and had to let it go fishless for a while so they're just now going back in. Two more to go. Coral beauty and hippo tang are still in the hospital tank. It's proper to add them one at a time, right? The tang iched out when I brought home the coral beauty, so I needed to stop it from going further. But they've done amazingly well in the hospital tang all this time. It seems a success!
I had a two light t5 on the tank but it wasn't enough, and just yesterday I met Mike Martinez who sold me a 6 light solar t5. The tank looks SO much better with this light! Thank you so much Mike!
Going to do some reading now--there's a lot here to see!

 

[Paul_N]

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing some pics.

 

[Russellaqua]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[LittleDabOSalt]

Hello and welcome! :smile:

 

[TinaFoster]

Ok here come the pics! But it's still in the early stages. I haven't actually added any coral--it only has what was there. I happen to like the look of the rock, so it doesn't bother me. But good news--I've finally got some coraline algae coming back. It died in the move from Alabama to here at the beginning of the year.

The coral beauty and hippo tang are still in the hospital tank, and there are some things in hiding. But here's most of it! Think I have a little microalgae going on, but I'll work on that when I do water change tomorrow.

 

[TinaFoster]

While I've got pics up, and you all can see what I'm talking about, the sand bed is very very thin in this tank. I wanted to add more, but before I do it, is there a way to add it without throwing my tank into a cycle?

 

[clowns101]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Paul_N]

While I've got pics up, and you all can see what I'm talking about, the sand bed is very very thin in this tank. I wanted to add more, but before I do it, is there a way to add it without throwing my tank into a cycle?

How many inches are you adding? If you are adding a lot, you can try adding a little at a time. I am doing the same thing with rocks as we speak. I have about 100+ lbs of dry rock that I got from someone that broke their tank down a couple years ago. I just add like one or two pieces every two or three weeks. I haven't had any spikes at all. I had 3 boxes and now down to 1. I also dose mb7 regularly but add a little extra when I add some rock. I plan on doing this exactly with sand when I set my 220 up. I got rid of most of my sand from my 75 gallon so I will be adding all new dry sand.

 

[GR808]

you look to be well on your way Tina. Keep reading the forum and ask anything you'd like.
that looks like you may have some GSP on the first pic..

 

[skinz78]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[TinaFoster]

GSP is star polyps ? If so then yes. A lot of them were tucked in at the time. I'd just added the new light I think it freaked them out. They were out again yesterday. I hope it doesn't bother them.
Paul I really wanted to have at least an inch more in there, and adding it slowly sounds like a good idea. Here's the plan: to take a piece of pvc and a funnel, and pour the sand down that assembly to reach the bottom so it isn't going all over the water. Think this will work? Or is it going to rise up and make a mess anyway?