Hi Lee,
Here is the information you were asking for. I hope it helps give you an idea about my system and I would appreciate any insight about it and what I can do to improve it. It is a work in progress.
The lfs I got the last 3 gobies from seems to be like that. Some maintenance, no quarantine or treatments. Fish come in and fish go out. The tanks get feed flake and brine shrimp and mysis. Not the cleanest of places. Now the lfs I got my first goby that survived is clean, the folks seem to be knowledgeable, I see them doing some maintenance on occasions when I’m there and the owner told me they run a low level of copper in the fish tanks to help control parasites. I feel more confidant with them.
My tank is a 180 g with a 55g tank as a sump/fuge with about 40g of water in it. The 180 is 6’x2’x2’, has about 200 lbs of live rock, I would guestimate that about 50% of the bottom is sand around 4” deep. So, about 6 square feet maybe? Total water volume including the sump, I’m guessing 172g (GARF calc). My return pump pushes 1100 gph and I have a Korellia 4 and a Sicce 4 for flow (about 2400 gph).
My tank was established the first week of January, 2010 so it’s almost a year old. I put about 70 lbs of life rock and about 160 lbs of diy rock that I made with crushed oyster shells and type III Portland cement (kured in fw for 4 months). After I got the SG and temp up I tossed in a couple of raw deli shrimp and started the cycle. The cycle seemed to last about a month but I let it go (with shrimp and flake food) until the end of February and then moved my corals and fish over. Frankie helped me rerockscaped the tank about 3 months ago and we pulled out all the diy rock and replace it with about 130 lbs of live rock. There was a slight spike in nitrite and nitrates but not much and was back down to 0 and less than 12 ppm within a week.
My filtration system includes a filter sock that I change out every 2-3 days and a big clump of cheato in my sump (6500k, 55 w cfb flood light on 18 hours on reverse cycle). I haven’t used carbon but I’m looking at adding a media reactor with some at some point. I did not have a skimmer until 2 days ago when I got a SWC 200 from skimerwhisperer. It’s been running now for almost 40 hours. I haven’t used any chemical filtration. Now that I have a skimmer in the system I was thinking about doing zeovit (need to do more research).
My live stock include:
2 occellaris about 2” and 1 ½”
2 green chromis about an inch each
A yellow tail damsel about 1 ¼”
A 6 line wrasse about 2 ¼”
A Blue Tang (Paracanthurus hepatus) about 2 ½”
2 cleaner shrimp
4 peppermint shrimp (haven’t seen them since they went in)
A coral banded shrimp
4 nassarius snails (haven’t seen them since they went in)
About 100 dwarf cerith snails
About 10 nerite snails
A bunch of small tube worms (hitch hikers)
5-6 hermit crabs
3 montis about 4” in diameter
3 montis about 1 ½ - 2” in diameter
A green acro about 2” tall with branching
A purple acro about 1 ¼” and starting to branch
7 fungia ranging from 0.5 – 2” in diameter
Hammer head about 4x4”
Frogspawn about 3x3”
Acan about 1 ½” in diameter
3 Candy canes 2 head, 3 head, and 5-7 head
Duncan about 6 heads
A finger leather coral about 3” tall
2 toad stools 2” and 4” diameter
4-5 riccoidias about ¾ - 1” in diameter
Anthelia big cluster, about a 5x5 patch
2 GSPs 2x3”
3 zoanthids 1/2x1/2” 1x1” 2x2”
2 Kenya trees about 2” tall
At some point I would like to add some star fish, clams and urchins.
When I first started I did not QT my fish until I found your QT posts. I had the occellaris, green chromis’, and a royal gramma (lost after a month in the 180) for over a year but I QTed and treated them before they went into the 180. The rest were QTed following your guidelines. Fresh water dip, QT tank for six weeks and dewormed, then released into the 180 (acclimated first). The blue tang I had to treat with cupramine for 2 weeks (after it was in Qt for 5 weeks) and QT continued for 6 more weeks after the cupramine treatment was completed. I QTed the diamond sifter for 6 weeks and gave him mysis shrimp soaked in dewormer. I also put a Tupperware container with sand in the QT tank (29g) for him.
I feed on a daily basis. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I feed either mysis shrimp or marine cuisine (I alternate every other feeding). On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I feed flake food. Sunday I feed either flake or mysis/marine cuisine. About once a month or so I will feed some live black worms. I also put in some green or purple algae on a clip about once a week. I’ve tried the gelatinized table food that came as samplers in an Instant Ocean salt bucket but no one would touch it. Not even the hermits or shrimp. I finally got some powdered kelp and spirulina last week and some agar agar and will be trying to make my own mush in the near future.
I had the diamond sifter goby for 9 weeks. 7 weeks in the 29g QT and 2 weeks in the 180. He didn’t eat for the first week but then he started eating mysis shrimp soaked in vitamins. Tried garlic once and he did go for the food right away. He started eating marine cuisine and would eat flake food every so often. I feed him some live black worms a few times. The first time he ignored it, the second time he nibbled at them, the third time he went after them. When I brought him home, he got a fresh water dip, I acclimated him to temp and water quality, and released him into the QT after about an hour. The second week I started a cupramine treatment as a precaution. I didn’t want to wait for 5 weeks only to find out he had ich/velvet and have to treat him when he was in a weaker state like what happened with my blue tang. For the first 4 weeks he would hide in the pvc joints I had in the QT and for the last 3 weeks, he would come out of hiding every so often and swim around even when food wasn’t being given. When I moved him form the QT into the DT, I put him in a bowl and drip acclimated him for an hour. I try to keep the water parameters in the QT as close as possible to the water parameters in the DT.
I used Boyd’s Vita Chem vitamins and soak the mysis/marine cuisine in it before feeding. I’ll also use it in the mush I’ll be making. I don’t have any fat additives other than what’s in the food. I haven’t used any elemental additives other than a Kent buffer to help bring up my Kh when needed.
Here are my last parameters:
SG 35 ppm
pH 8.0
Kh 7
Ca 460
NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 10-12 mg/L
Phos 0
Mg 750
Temp 74.8 – 75.6
The pH will fluxuate between 7.9 to 8.1, the alk drops frequently (down to 5) and I add a buffer every other week or so. The rest tend to remain constant.
I do have some green hair algae and some cyano in the tank that is under a 250 w MH on the right of the tank. I have some T5s over the middle and left side but now algae under them. (I’ll be switching to MH when I can). I found some pale green bubble algae the other day on a rock near the top under the MH. I have some cheato in my sump that has doubled in size over 6 months and there is some cyano in the sump as well. The cyano in the tank is on some of the sand bed and some on a rock or to on the sand bed. I try to do a 30g water change every week and I siphon it off the sand and rock.
My source of water is RO/DI. I have an Ocean Reef + 1, 5 stage 75 gpd filter. One of the filters is for chloramine. My TDS going into the DI is 6 and is 0 coming out.
I don’t think I have added or taken out anything over the past 6 weeks. We did rerocksape the tank about 3 months ago. The last thing I added to the tank was the blue tang and he went in about 3 months ago as well.
Maintenance schedule includes changing the filter sock every 2-3 days, adding buffer as needed, and a 30 g water change every week. Occasionally I might have to go 2 weeks between water changes. I’ll scrape the glass of any algae or coralline once a week. Last water change will be 2 weeks ago Sunday. Buffer was added last week.
Ok, I think that answers all the questions. If I missed something please let me know. If I’m doing something majorly wrong I want to know so I can fix it. Any comments and advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks again Lee.
Chris