Aquascape Inspiration
- Thread starter reefinginBD
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oldmonk
Active Member
If you have plans of refugium etc , why do you want to oversize the skimmer? If you incorporate good amount of CUC eventually of say ( 50+) and have decent bacteria that should suffice. Also if am not wrong you wont be adding all the fish at one go, so i think you will get enough time colonize the bacteria if you go slow.
If you read through the forum you will find many reefers don't even use the skimmer 24x7.
Chiller: If you an option of using a coil and aircon that would be efficient than a chiller. If not, then oversizing the chiller will help. Also check out JBJ Artica chiller if available, better performance over hailea.
Flow: Gyres are good, ultimately what you want to stock will decide the number of wavepumps
Lights: Again will depend on yr stock (lps or sps)
So rather than spending more on a skimmer, think towards circulation, flow etc.
Thanks
If you read through the forum you will find many reefers don't even use the skimmer 24x7.
Chiller: If you an option of using a coil and aircon that would be efficient than a chiller. If not, then oversizing the chiller will help. Also check out JBJ Artica chiller if available, better performance over hailea.
Flow: Gyres are good, ultimately what you want to stock will decide the number of wavepumps
Lights: Again will depend on yr stock (lps or sps)
So rather than spending more on a skimmer, think towards circulation, flow etc.
Thanks
reefinginBD
Well-Known Member
Yeah I will not be adding all that fish at once but over a period of 3-6 months. I am still debating on whether I should use a refugium or not. I may get a cryptic refugium instead as well. The only reason I may get a small refugium with chaeto may be to help stabilise the PH at night. Unfortunately Hailea chillers are the only ones available here. It will be a mixed reef, so do you think three XR 15 G6 Pros and two Maxspect Gyre XF 350 will be enough? I will be using a Maxspect Jump return pump and random flow generators. To make some random flow patterns in the tank. For the clean up crew, I plan to use a cleaner and fire red shrimp, trochus and nassarius snails. I don’t want crabs. What else do you think I can use? As cuc and how many should I get?
oldmonk
Active Member
You need to slow down buddy for adding fish. 3-6 months for that number of fish is way too fast. Too risky move. You are asking for trouble
Cleaner shrimp, fire red shrimp wont help much. You will need as many types of saltwater snails available. Trochus, Turbo, nassarius , bumble bee etc. Have a sand sifting star fish. Later Add hermit crabs( you will need empty snail shells too if adding hermits)
Refugium has much more benefits that just raising Ph. If sized, run and maintained neatly it will keep yr nutrients at bay. It will be good place for pods to populate.
Mixed reef will need more flow going ahead as corals grow. Especially sps. Similarly you may need additional lights but this is all later , but do plan for it even if not needed immediately.
Most important : You need to go slow, Be patient, let the tank go through its natural ugly phase, Keep yr water changes upto the mark, get parameters stable ..etc. Lastly read through the forum, go through various build threads, topics on flow, lights, fuge . You will find all your answers
Thanks
Cleaner shrimp, fire red shrimp wont help much. You will need as many types of saltwater snails available. Trochus, Turbo, nassarius , bumble bee etc. Have a sand sifting star fish. Later Add hermit crabs( you will need empty snail shells too if adding hermits)
Refugium has much more benefits that just raising Ph. If sized, run and maintained neatly it will keep yr nutrients at bay. It will be good place for pods to populate.
Mixed reef will need more flow going ahead as corals grow. Especially sps. Similarly you may need additional lights but this is all later , but do plan for it even if not needed immediately.
Most important : You need to go slow, Be patient, let the tank go through its natural ugly phase, Keep yr water changes upto the mark, get parameters stable ..etc. Lastly read through the forum, go through various build threads, topics on flow, lights, fuge . You will find all your answers
Thanks
reefinginBD
Well-Known Member
Thank you so much for the reply! So I forgot to mention one thing but that I so wanted to cycle my tank with ocean cultured live rock but unfortunately that is not available here so, the only option I have is using man made rock that has been kept in a tank with no fish or corals and ghost fed to help with bacteria growth. Then that rock has been seeded with copepods. So, I plan on quarantine the fish for 14 days using the HTTM method and using GC at the same time. Then Observing them for a week. On day 21 I will add them to a 30 gallon tank with the live rock and all the bio media that I will be using for the main tank. I will qt all the fish and then keep them here until everything for the main reef is ready. I will qt the easy to keep fish like clowns, banggais grammas firefishes etc. I will keep these in the observation tank for about a month and wait for the bacteria to develop during that time. When I fill the main display with water, I will let is run for a few days and then transfer all the bio media to the tank in the morning and then the fish a few hours later. So basically I would be adding 6-8 fish at once in the beginning. Do you think that would work as the bio media will already have the established bacteria needed? Then I will add fish every 21 days until all the fish are added. I will use dry sand as that is the only option and I will use dry rock as well. This is what I was thinking of doing. Do you think this way of stocking the tank would cause a problem? Please let me know. Thank you! I will also keep the lights off for the first 2 months and then slowly turn it on over a period of 1 month.
Widdlyscudds
Active Member
there is always a risk for an ammonia spike or bacterial bloom when adding that many fish at once, I can tell you from experience starting from dry rock is SLOW my tank has been setup for 10 months and I still probably have a couple months to start to see the system truly become stable. IMO I would try to add livestock more slowly especially to the main display. Its not that it wouldn't work but it sounds like a big risk especially if something whacky happens
reefinginBD
Well-Known Member
I see thank you so much! How long would you suggest to take to add all 17-20 fish to a 160 gallon tank? I will qt the fish using the httm method, so that will be 14 days and then 7 days of observation. I will be adding the fish every 21 days. So would you say just to add 2-3 fish every 21 days until I have added all the fish?
Widdlyscudds
Active Member
That sounds fine, once you have succesfully gotten the bulk of the fish in the system you can add the rest at the point. so maybe once you have 10 or so fish in and the system is stable in terms of bacteria you would be pretty safe to add the rest as that point.
reefinginBD
Well-Known Member
okie thank you so much! Also um it will be a 160 gallon tank. I was hoping you could help me out with the cuc. So, for the cuc I was thinking of adding
1 tiger conch to keep the sand bed clean
4 trochus snails to clean the glass and rocks
3 blue legged hermit crabs to clean the sand and rocks (I am really not sure if I should add these. I was thinking of going with a snail only cuc but some people are saying that it is better to add variety and that blue legged hermits are the best for that. I heard that they don’t bother corals, fish or any other cuc as long as there are extra shells. I don’t think they can do anything to the trochus snails but I am worried about the tiger conch. Will they bother it? If so what can I do to prevent this? Or should I not get hermits at all?
1 cleaner shrimp because why not
1 fire red shrimp because I really like how it looks
Both the shrimp will eat the uneaten food in the tank. But they are more because I like how they look than cuc.
I am planning on getting such few cuc as I will be feeding pellets to my fish (the only one available here. Most if not all the fish accept pellets as well). So I am worried that there won’t be enough algae and detritus in the tank for the cuc to feed on and that they will starve to death (I don’t want to supplementally feed them).
I will have 3 XR15 G6 lights and a roller mat and a BM curve 9 elite protein skimmer that is rated for 900 litres (mainly because I will have a heavy bio load. About 3-5 tangs and maybe a fox face as well) as well as Maxspect bio media in the sump.
Widdlyscudds
Active Member
4 trochus for sure wouldn't be enough to keep the glass clean, It's definitely on the light side of things. I don't know anything about conch's tbh, my system is 45 gallons, I feed mostly pellets (hikari seaweed pellets) for my tomini and Xtreme micro pellets for the rest of the fish, I also feed freeze dried brine shrimp, My CUC is 1 blue legged crab, 1 red tipped hermit crab and two large mexican turbo snailes, I think what you are saying wont be sufficient in the long run but I am unsure about some of the stocking. even for my 45 gallon tank I could probably use a larger CUC tbh but much like the fish I would add them slowly and see how many of each you actually need to help manage the tank. i dont think there is an exact number that fits for every system. Also the crabs are constantly walking through my zoa's so keep that in mind
reefinginBD
Well-Known Member
I see thank you so much! Yeah I will most probably have to add more later on as needed. Do you hermits ever bother your snails? What did you do to prevent them from attacking the snails? Please let me know. Thank you!
Also this may seem like a dumb question, but I believe that the pellets you feed are the floating type so do you like soak them and then broadcast feed or just feed them directly and the fish comes up to eat them? Please let me know. Tysm again!
Widdlyscudds
Active Member
the pellets are sinking but the fish come up and eat them as they sink anyway and the turbo snails are much larger than the crabs I believe thats what keeping them from messing with them, plus the crabs are well fed lol and I keep lots of shells for them to move into if they want
reefinginBD
Well-Known Member
Haha I see thank you so much!
