hikermike
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2019
- Messages
- 139
- Reaction score
- 92
- Location
- puget sound
- What state or country do you live in
- Washington
In the Early Days, (60"s-80's), all there was were metafame HOB filters and undergravel filters. They worked just fine. Canisters etc can get messy for a newbie...keep it simple. Add things as you go. An exception is to decide if you want a sump at the beginning cuz adding things like this later is a giant hassle! Other than that, just let it nickle and dime you to death. You don't have to limit yourself to one giant HOB nor should you. Take the recommended flow/volume for your tank then double it and split it between 2 HOBs. Keeps more of the water circulating. Starting out with a plethora of equiptment and the truckload of Stuff the LFS wants to send you out the door with will be daunting and very quickly depressing. (What did I get myself into and how can I get out of this!) Enjoy simplicity at first and evolve with your tank as it and you become older and more experienced. I.E. trying to memorize all the rules coming out of the gate rather than learning this looks great but why is this coral looking better than that? Is it light, current feeding Oh, This new food dodad or whatever..that's what its for. Little skimmers don't work well so get a decent sized one...but wait until you need it...maybe you won't. And remember, not only do you have a learning curve to work out but SO DOES YOUR TANK, which is an issue seldom discussed beyond the first cycling! Next comes the cloudy water of a bacterial bloom. That clears on it's own and then Them white transparent fungal slime that disappears followed in a few months with algae taking over. After that comes the dino attack. It's all part of the master plan as the tank grows and matures. YOU are not at fault! Don't get discouraged. We all go through this even after several tanks. Go buy that mandarin and it'll probably die inspite of all that hand feeding. 2 years from now add one to the tank and it'll do fine on it's own. Same with the corals...can't get that acro to grow? wait a year. When I had guppies, after a few months all the tiny babies were surviving even though I wasn't feeding them. They were eating aufschweits (sp) which is the gunk that starts growing on plants and tank walls that look clean. My 29 gal has a small ug filter, a "50 gal" hob, a small circ. pump to keep the gorgonian happy and for my own enjoyment, a 1 gal finnex HOB refuguium. (If you want to feed your fish live self grown copepods, it must be done by overflow as the pump must be in the tank, if in the refugium it might kill them as they are pumped out) I have21 corals, 11 fish, 5 peppermint shrimp, multiple cuc all doing happily after a year in my new tank. Have fun! It's a hobby, don,t make it a job!
