Looking for advice on what to do next. Nothing? Pods? Mandarin? Corals?

[JasonG1]

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone would mind helping decide what I should/could do next on my new tank. My overall plan for this tank is easier corals and just 1 more fish hopefully (mandarin) and reasonably low maintenance. Tank is 2.5 months old. So my questions are...do I wait longer for things to stabilize?, could I add a couple more easy corals? Is it too early to add pods and the final mandarin?

Here's what I have so far:

Gear: 40 Gallon IM AIO with 1" sand bed, 30 lbs reef saver, AI Prime 16 (~25% 9 hours/day), Protein Skimmer, ATO, Aquaforest Reef Salt, RODI, ChemiPure Blue, Carbon, GFO, Filter sock.
Livestock: (2) clowns, (1) six-line wrasse, (1) yellow clown goby, (1) magenta dottyback, (1) Peppermint Shrimp, (6) hermit crabs, (3) Crabs, (1) Green star polyp frag, (1) zoa frag, 2 big snails, 4 zombie snails, (3) bumble bee snails

Here are my most recent levels from 6/17/2023:
Salinity hydrometer 1.025
Salinity Milwaukee 1.026
pH Salifert - 8.4
pH Red Sea - 8.3
pH Pinpoint Monitor - 7.9 (brand new and calibrated)
Nitrite Red Sea - 0.05
Nitrate Red Sea - 2
Ammonia Red Sea - 0
Phosphate Hanna Checker - 0.03
Alkalinity Red Sea - 15
Calcium Hanna Checker - 463

Alkalinity is high I know. I was somewhat ignorantly dosing (for a couple weeks) AquaVitro eight.four and All For Reef based on recommendations to bring the pH up (was at 7.6). I paused dosing based on most recent levels. pH is somewhere between 7.8 and 8.4. Tank inhabitants look healthy. New growth seen on green star polyp and zoanthids, but zoas are just brown in color and lacking what they had at the LFS.

 

[Falc!]

Tank still looks very sterile….if u want a mandarin I would start dosing pods and let tank mature more I would hold off on mandarin at least till you see pods crawling all over glass

 

[JasonG1]

Thank you @Falc! - This is new to me...any pointers you'd share on where to buy good pods?

 

[Dburr1014]

Hold of on the manderin for a couple years.

Add some coral.

Lots of good places for pods. Dinkins here on the forum.

 

[Kanshi]

Way too soon for a mandarin.
They are little eating machines. You need a well established pod population, even then they might wipe it out quick even if you can get them to eat other things.
Check out algae barn for pods and phyto. I've always had good luck with them.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Take your time! Adding easy corals, or even SPS corals should be easy. You already have quite a few fish for a 40g AIO tank.

I have two tanks, both 40g AIO. A 40g breeder and a 40g cube (I made).

The breeder has 2 clowns (rescues from a tank being shut down), a small (i.e. 2") mantis shrimp (I collected in the Florida Keys), some corals, a bubble tip and a rock flower anemone along with some clean up crew. Oh, and a small rock boring urchin. I'm going snorkeling next week and intend to look for some uncommon tank mates, like an up side down jellyfish or a small fire worm.

The 40g cube is mostly sps and lps corals, a few RFAs and a couple maxi-mini anemones and some clean up crew. I have some small feather dusters and a small serpent star. NO FISH at all, and no intentions to put any in.

Both tanks have good mechanical filtration (socks and floss). But no other chemistries like GFO or carbon and no skimmers. I feed the clowns rather lightly and the coral tank extremely lightly. I dose Ca and alk every day by hand and test once a week.

Everybody seems very happy and I have to do very little maintenance. Clean filters once a week, clean the glass every other week and do 15% water changes every other month.

 

[PotatoPig]

Thank you @Falc! - This is new to me...any pointers you'd share on where to buy good pods?

With Pods:

For commercial pods get Tisbe pods or perhaps a mix like Galaxy Pods/Eco Pods from algae barn with a few species. You shouldn’t need to dose more than once - the species that will do well in the tank will colonize it. The ones that don’t do well in reef tanks will be promptly wiped out. Anything that doesn’t survive the first dosing won’t colonize your tank no matter how many times you dose.

And/Or: Hit up your LFS and get a few small chunks of live rock if they sell it direct (this will be in a big tank there have with a heap of rock and not much else). Even a small piece - like 1/2 pound of it - will be covered in random pod species that will survive well in reef tanks. Put it in the tank and they’ll colonize it. You can also buy this online, but expect to pay a lot for even a small quantity due to shipping costs.

Tigger pods are a popular pod species to culture, because they’re hardy, reproduce well in cultures and can be easily harvested, but they don’t do all that great when actually in these tanks because they’re easy to catch free swimmers (vs hiding out on rocks) and are big enough to interest all your planktivores, so will get wiped out very quickly, and those that aren’t will get removed by your filter socks. I culture them as a treat for some of my fish - even adding them daily for weeks at a time they’re all gone from the tank within a couple of days. No harm in adding them - the fish will all chomp them down with enthusiasm- just don’t expect them to take.

 

[shakacuz]

definitely hold off on the mandarin unless you know for a fact it eats frozen/pellets/anything else that is not pods.

the tank looks very new (less than a year old), so occasionally dosing pods and phyto will help establish a population. once your rock matures more, i would begin adding more corals.

focus on keeping parameters stable before adding anything like more fish or corals.

 

[kenchilada]

I think the six line wrasse will wipe out pods and work against you.

 

[JasonG1]

I think the six line wrasse will wipe out pods and work against you.

I worried about that. I added him early on upon a recommendation to kill any parasites that got into the tank. Ugh. Thank you though.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

New hobbyists always want to "do" something, but nothing to do, just enjoy the tank, spend some time reading about the hobby.

Everything you add to it will increase the diversity, it comes with time.

Pods are good, but don't go overboard, they are extremely over-rated, and will eventually end up in your tank for free anyway.

Algae will start growing soon anyway, then you will have stuff to do.

 

[Lebowski_]

Hold of on the manderin for a couple years.

Add some coral.

Lots of good places for pods. Dinkins here on the forum.

I am not sure they need to wait a couple of years. I mixed some LR from a mature reef in with my Caribsea Liferock. Now when I turn on my moonlight after the tank lights have been on for a while, my tank is absolutely filled with pods. It's crazy how they all come out after dark. One of my favourite aspects of the hobby.

The tank in the current state is cleaner than most people's drinking water though lol, definitely needs time or an infusion of life from a mature tank.

OP, you are doing great brother.

 

[PotatoPig]

I am not sure they need to wait a couple of years. I mixed some LR from a mature reef in with my Caribsea Liferock. Now when I turn on my moonlight after the tank lights have been on for a while, my tank is absolutely filled with pods. It's crazy how they all come out after dark. One of my favourite aspects of the hobby.

Agreed.

Only two weeks ago set up a small 5.5 gallon invert QT tank with nothing but dry rock, a couple of finger sized sticks of live rock branches and a bunch of snails/crabs and a cheap grow light on it to generate some algae for the critters.

No intentionally added pods.

After dark the thing is pod-soup. It’s an unintentional but wildly successful pod culture.