phawk44
New Member
Hello Reef2Reef! I'm a newbie to the hobby of reef aquariums and just stumbled across this website! I bought a 15 gallon all-in-one back in mid November. I cycled the tank with Fritz turbo start and dosed ammonia, and added my first fish on December 26 (after my API test kit showed nitrates with zero ammonia and zero nitrites). I bought an RODI filter to make my own saltwater. I also bought an ATO to keep my salinity stable.
My first fish were a pair of clowns. They have been healthy and happy since I added them to the tank--minus some minor fin nipping from the larger female as they paired up. This all healed very quickly. I also added a cleanup crew (3 bumblebee snails, 1 nassarius snail, and 5 cerith snails).
My all-in-one has three chambers in the back. The first has the filtration system--sponges, charcoal, and biomedia. I set up a refugium in my second chamber with chaeto and more biomedia. I added an LED refugium light that I run at night (8pm - 6am). The third chamber is the return pump and heater.
I seeded my tank with some pods from Algae Barn in mid-January. Within a month the pod population has boomed! I see tons of pods during the day crawling around the walls of the tank.
I went to my local fish store (where I bought my clowns) to get my first Zoa frag Feb 7th. I bought a two polyp frag to add to my tank. One of the polyps already has a bud that has been slowly growing.
While at the fish store the person working there talked me into buying a baby biota mandarin. (I know this was probably a mistake!) He said it's been fed frozen brine shrimp and b2 pellets so it should do fine in my tank. It's now been two weeks and so far the little guy is thriving, though I'm not sure what the long term success rate is going to be for this guy... Any advice or tips appreciated!
My first fish were a pair of clowns. They have been healthy and happy since I added them to the tank--minus some minor fin nipping from the larger female as they paired up. This all healed very quickly. I also added a cleanup crew (3 bumblebee snails, 1 nassarius snail, and 5 cerith snails).
My all-in-one has three chambers in the back. The first has the filtration system--sponges, charcoal, and biomedia. I set up a refugium in my second chamber with chaeto and more biomedia. I added an LED refugium light that I run at night (8pm - 6am). The third chamber is the return pump and heater.
I seeded my tank with some pods from Algae Barn in mid-January. Within a month the pod population has boomed! I see tons of pods during the day crawling around the walls of the tank.
I went to my local fish store (where I bought my clowns) to get my first Zoa frag Feb 7th. I bought a two polyp frag to add to my tank. One of the polyps already has a bud that has been slowly growing.
While at the fish store the person working there talked me into buying a baby biota mandarin. (I know this was probably a mistake!) He said it's been fed frozen brine shrimp and b2 pellets so it should do fine in my tank. It's now been two weeks and so far the little guy is thriving, though I'm not sure what the long term success rate is going to be for this guy... Any advice or tips appreciated!
