Urchin boy
Community Member
- Joined
- May 18, 2024
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- 42
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- Sweden
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So this is my first member tank thread and this time I am going to show what my tank looks like as of now and my plans going forward.
As I discussed previously my main goal is to replicate the Caribbean ocean not just that but a specific part of it and that is the sandbed used by various fish and several types of invertebrates like sand dollars and the yellowhead Jawfish where they may use it to hide or seek food.
The tank is a redsea G2+ 200 of 200 liters in total so about 150 liters in the main display tank and 50 liters inside my sump and I keep two expensive aquamedic titanium heaters connected to a heater controller and a cheap eheim heater as a backup heater in case any of my other heaters fail which is highly unlikely.
As of now I have added a coarse bottom sand layer with a much softer sand layer on top which I am going to have to increase during the coming months.
All the species I am picking are specifically those that rely on a sandy substrate such as the sand sifting goby or the sand sifting starfish.
These are the invertebrates I am considering keeping .
1. Red brittle starfish this one will be an important player in my clean up crew where it can pick up and eat any leftover food .
2. Cerithium snails these not only look gorgeous but more importantly they help stir up the sand which is going to be even more important as I am going to need a deeper sandbed of at least 5 centimetres for my sand dollars to dig in.
3. Sand dollars this is one of the reasons I decided to go with this setup as they make too much sense not to include them.
4.sand sifting goby fish the name is basically self explanatory and this one for me is a no brainer so of course I am going to keep it in my setup as it too helps to keep the sand clean.
5. Yellowhead Jawfish.
I am also considering to keep a pair of yellowhead Jawfish as these are known to be mouth brooding fish where the male not only incubates the female's eggs in his mouth but protects them this way even after they have hatched.
It would be a good idea to provide plenty of caves and rockwork to make sure there are plenty of hiding places such as for my brittle starfish to hide under during the day.
I have also heavily considered keeping macro algae of the caluerpa genus in this system instead of corals as it would be quite beneficial if I could have a lot of copepods phytoplankton and other micro fauna growing there to provide my filter feeders with food besides just spot feeding them when needed and if possible adding some mineral mud might be a very good idea to promote growth of my macro algae.
In terms of filtration I do have a redsea reef mat setup in my sump but as I have not yet started cycling the tank I have not started using it yet and I do have a protein skimmer from red sea that I am not using yet until later also I forgot to buy a return pump so I was forced to use the return pump from my protein skimmer until I can buy a proper return pump for my sump and actually start using my protein skimmer.
As I discussed previously my main goal is to replicate the Caribbean ocean not just that but a specific part of it and that is the sandbed used by various fish and several types of invertebrates like sand dollars and the yellowhead Jawfish where they may use it to hide or seek food.
The tank is a redsea G2+ 200 of 200 liters in total so about 150 liters in the main display tank and 50 liters inside my sump and I keep two expensive aquamedic titanium heaters connected to a heater controller and a cheap eheim heater as a backup heater in case any of my other heaters fail which is highly unlikely.
As of now I have added a coarse bottom sand layer with a much softer sand layer on top which I am going to have to increase during the coming months.
All the species I am picking are specifically those that rely on a sandy substrate such as the sand sifting goby or the sand sifting starfish.
These are the invertebrates I am considering keeping .
1. Red brittle starfish this one will be an important player in my clean up crew where it can pick up and eat any leftover food .
2. Cerithium snails these not only look gorgeous but more importantly they help stir up the sand which is going to be even more important as I am going to need a deeper sandbed of at least 5 centimetres for my sand dollars to dig in.
3. Sand dollars this is one of the reasons I decided to go with this setup as they make too much sense not to include them.
4.sand sifting goby fish the name is basically self explanatory and this one for me is a no brainer so of course I am going to keep it in my setup as it too helps to keep the sand clean.
5. Yellowhead Jawfish.
I am also considering to keep a pair of yellowhead Jawfish as these are known to be mouth brooding fish where the male not only incubates the female's eggs in his mouth but protects them this way even after they have hatched.
It would be a good idea to provide plenty of caves and rockwork to make sure there are plenty of hiding places such as for my brittle starfish to hide under during the day.
I have also heavily considered keeping macro algae of the caluerpa genus in this system instead of corals as it would be quite beneficial if I could have a lot of copepods phytoplankton and other micro fauna growing there to provide my filter feeders with food besides just spot feeding them when needed and if possible adding some mineral mud might be a very good idea to promote growth of my macro algae.
In terms of filtration I do have a redsea reef mat setup in my sump but as I have not yet started cycling the tank I have not started using it yet and I do have a protein skimmer from red sea that I am not using yet until later also I forgot to buy a return pump so I was forced to use the return pump from my protein skimmer until I can buy a proper return pump for my sump and actually start using my protein skimmer.
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