New to reefing and have a few questions.

Kryssie · Dec 13, 2017

Hello all! I started my Nuvo Fusion 20 a little over 3 months ago. I bleached Pukani and Tonga branch rocks for 2 weeks, then cured them in saltwater until mid November. I added my live Hawaiian black sand, my rocks, a bottle of biospira, and Dr. Tim’s ammonia on Nov 20th. I’ve been testing regularly and everything seems to be stable now at day 20. I just added a Current USA Orbit IC light, but I can’t figure out how exactly I should set up my light cycle.

My plan is to eventually add a Phantom Clownfish, a MochaVinci Clownfish, an anemone, a Flame Hawkfish, a yellow Watchman Goby/ pistol shrimp pair, and one more bright open swimming fish. I’m not sure what other fish would be ok to add because of the Hawkfish, but I’ve had my eye on the electric Indigo Dottyback. I know I should add the hawk last though.

As of now I just have 2 Astrea Snails and a Cerith Snail for clean up, but once I’m more established I’d like a Pom Pom crab and a small urchin.

For corals I’d like mostly Ricordea, Torches, Duncans, Cespitularia, Zoas, frillier, and Hammers.

Sorry for the long post and probably wrong place for it. Does any of this sound realistic or correct?

Kryssie · Dec 13, 2017

I forgot to mention that after my cycle I added some rock from my wife’s tank to seed coralline growth. I haven’t seen much happen as far as algae bloom yet. Is it too soon? I don’t plan on adding anything else until the new year because of Christmas budget.

dutch27 · Dec 13, 2017

Sounds mostly reasonable to me. I would recommend not doing a pom-pom crab though. IME they just find a place to hide and you'll never see them again, may as well just stuff your money under one of those rocks, lol. Also, IMO, I would stick to 4 fish in that tank, it'll get congested quickly. Maybe 4 of those 5, with a couple of smaller ones like neon gobies would be fine.

Not sure about your light cycle, I run T5 that have an option of on or off, no ramping, etc. I've always run my lights 8 hrs/day. They turn on an hour before I get home from work so everything is open when I get home, and turn off later in the night, to maximize my viewing time. It really depends on your corals demands, and how much you want to view the tank.

Don't worry about the algae, I'm sure it'll show up, it always does, lol.

Kryssie · Dec 13, 2017

dutch27 said:
Sounds mostly reasonable to me. I would recommend not doing a pom-pom crab though. IME they just find a place to hide and you'll never see them again, may as well just stuff your money under one of those rocks, lol. Also, IMO, I would stick to 4 fish in that tank, it'll get congested quickly. Maybe 4 of those 5, with a couple of smaller ones like neon gobies would be fine.

Not sure about your light cycle, I run T5 that have an option of on or off, no ramping, etc. I've always run my lights 8 hrs/day. They turn on an hour before I get home from work so everything is open when I get home, and turn off later in the night, to maximize my viewing time. It really depends on your corals demands, and how much you want to view the tank.

Don't worry about the algae, I'm sure it'll show up, it always does, lol.

Thank you. If the Pom is just going to hide I’ll leave it off the list. I definitely don’t want to have too many fish either, so I could stick to the list I have and not add anyone else. The clowns will swim enough to make up for the fairly stationary Goby and Hawk.