My very first marine tank.

[cloudpanther]

Hi All,

I'm just starting my very first reef tank. Here are some specs:

Fluval Evo 13.5g
Sicce Syncra Silent 0.5
Hygger 100W heater
Intank media basket (1st basket: Aquarium filter floss; 2nd basket: stock carbon, ChemiPure Elite, andd Seachem Purigen; 3rd basket: Stock Fluval biomax rings, Marine Pure Gems)
Live rock from my local LFS
Dry sand (CaribSea Oolite Sand)
Gravity ATO
Currently have a prefilter sponge on 1 of the 2 output valves because it seems like my baby clownfish are struggling to swim

The following are other things I plan to get as my tank matures:
AI Prime HD or Blade
Kraken Reef lid
RFG
Nero3 wavemaker (still deciding if I'm going to need one at all)

 

[nothing_fancy]

Nice! That's a clean looking setup. +1 on the Kraken Lid, that would be a good upgrade for you if you're going down the road of upgrades. A little bit of surface agitation and aeration goes a long way especially for corals but for fish too. One thing you might try is going with chemi-pure blue and instead of purigen, phosguard. Unless you're going for ultra low nutrient tank IMO purigen isn't really necessary if you're running chemi-pure blue... Have you started testing your water yet?

 

[cloudpanther]

Nice! That's a clean looking setup. +1 on the Kraken Lid, that would be a good upgrade for you if you're going down the road of upgrades. A little bit of surface agitation and aeration goes a long way especially for corals but for fish too. One thing you might try is going with chemi-pure blue and instead of purigen, phosguard. Unless you're going for ultra low nutrient tank IMO purigen isn't really necessary if you're running chemi-pure blue... Have you started testing your water yet?

Thanks!

I have started testing my water and the phosphates were out of control apparently (over .9 per Hanna). 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, but somewhere between 0 and 5 nitrates (API). 1.025 salinity (Hanna).
I actually switched out the Chemipure Blue with the ChemiPure Elite (with phosphate removal) because of my water parameters. I've been reading around here that high phosphates are to be expected with a new tank though...?

 

[nothing_fancy]

Thanks!

I have started testing my water and the phosphates were out of control apparently (over .9 per Hanna). 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, but somewhere between 0 and 5 nitrates (API). 1.025 salinity (Hanna).
I actually switched out the Chemipure Blue with the ChemiPure Elite (with phosphate removal) because of my water parameters. I've been reading around here that high phosphates are to be expected with a new tank though...?

Oh ya, you're going to go through all sorts of changes in parameters at this point. Some people can avoid these things early on because they've had a lot of experience with tank transfers and cycling but its normal to have some issues with stability at this stage. This is probably the main reason why a lot of folks get corals and are shocked that they all die right away. You'll see posts here everyday with this concern. If you really want to get rid of those phosphates right now you can get a micron bag and throw some GFO in there and let it sit in your overflow for a few days. Since you don't have corals yet I believe, it won't be a big deal to strip the phosphates out. In the future though a little bit of phosphates is good in my opinion. Phosguard has worked very well for me in maintaining phosphate, its not as powerful as GFO. If you can get your nitrates to be around 2-5ppm and not let them bottom out, and your phosphate not greater than .1 you'll be in good shape. Brightwell has a good nitrate supplement thats easy to dose. Maybe some other will chime in as this advise is just what works for me, there are many many ways to maintain your new tank.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Nice looking tank!! Can't wait to see it once it is filled with life!

 

[cloudpanther]

Oh ya, you're going to go through all sorts of changes in parameters at this point. Some people can avoid these things early on because they've had a lot of experience with tank transfers and cycling but its normal to have some issues with stability at this stage. This is probably the main reason why a lot of folks get corals and are shocked that they all die right away. You'll see posts here everyday with this concern. If you really want to get rid of those phosphates right now you can get a micron bag and throw some GFO in there and let it sit in your overflow for a few days. Since you don't have corals yet I believe, it won't be a big deal to strip the phosphates out. In the future though a little bit of phosphates is good in my opinion. Phosguard has worked very well for me in maintaining phosphate, its not as powerful as GFO. If you can get your nitrates to be around 2-5ppm and not let them bottom out, and your phosphate not greater than .1 you'll be in good shape. Brightwell has a good nitrate supplement thats easy to dose. Maybe some other will chime in as this advise is just what works for me, there are many many ways to maintain your new tank.

Thanks! I'll try it out!