i have just started buying coral for the past few weeks...and i tell you what, its beautiful... but its a pain in the ass. constantly dosing calcium, kalkwasser, elements, a phytoplankton.
i think i may see my few pieces back to the pet store, and just have a FOWLR tank. zebra eels seem cool...and my lfs has a 30inch one for $100. anyone here have a real pretty FOWLR tank? lots of colorful fish?
so corals are a pain
5 posts
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puffedupseagull - Posts: 623
- Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:38 am
look at my tank pics . I dont use any of that crap. Your mix up water in my opinion supplements enough. And maybe once a week to every two spot feed with something.
Piece of piss
Piece of piss
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schigara - Posts: 468
- Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm
I feel your pain but it is a right of passage that all reefers endure. Until you learn your particular system over a period of 12-24 months, it can be very daunting.
As far as calcium, kalk and elements, start with a good balanced reef salt like RC, Oceanic, Tropic, Seachem, etc.
If you start with a salt mix that already has good levels, all you have to do is maintain those levels with a kalk drip or calcium reactor and regular water changes. Water changes will replenish trace elements. Trace element supplements are a waste of money.
Almost every reefer starts out using phyto and most end up never using it longterm. It's pointless. Most of the coral we keep thrive with proper light and food from fish poop.
The maintenance on my 75g SPS tank:
1. Clean skimmer neck and cup every 3-4 days or when I see the foam head declining.
2. Refill the 5g bucket of kalk every 4-5 days.
3. Feed main tank every 2-3 days with mysis shrimp, cyclopseeze and puree'd mix of many different types of frozen food.
4. Feed perc clowns in Xenia refugium every 1-2 days.
5. When I think about it, I change 1 or 2 gallons of water. Usually I do this everyday or every other day. Nitrates are always at zero due to the Xenia scrubber and skimmer wether I do water changes or not. Water changes are only to replenish magnesium and trace elements.
6. Once a week, I run the mag-float around to clean the glass.
7. Twice a month, I scrape the coraline off the viewing panes of glass.
Just walking past the tank and glancing at the temp and PH meters tells me all I need to know.
Keeping a reef tank is not easy but it can become easier.
As far as calcium, kalk and elements, start with a good balanced reef salt like RC, Oceanic, Tropic, Seachem, etc.
If you start with a salt mix that already has good levels, all you have to do is maintain those levels with a kalk drip or calcium reactor and regular water changes. Water changes will replenish trace elements. Trace element supplements are a waste of money.
Almost every reefer starts out using phyto and most end up never using it longterm. It's pointless. Most of the coral we keep thrive with proper light and food from fish poop.
The maintenance on my 75g SPS tank:
1. Clean skimmer neck and cup every 3-4 days or when I see the foam head declining.
2. Refill the 5g bucket of kalk every 4-5 days.
3. Feed main tank every 2-3 days with mysis shrimp, cyclopseeze and puree'd mix of many different types of frozen food.
4. Feed perc clowns in Xenia refugium every 1-2 days.
5. When I think about it, I change 1 or 2 gallons of water. Usually I do this everyday or every other day. Nitrates are always at zero due to the Xenia scrubber and skimmer wether I do water changes or not. Water changes are only to replenish magnesium and trace elements.
6. Once a week, I run the mag-float around to clean the glass.
7. Twice a month, I scrape the coraline off the viewing panes of glass.
Just walking past the tank and glancing at the temp and PH meters tells me all I need to know.
Keeping a reef tank is not easy but it can become easier.
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nicholas542 - Posts: 384
- Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:50 pm
Yeah the task of house keeping can get quite manotanous at times, but after only 9 months keeping corals I found a routine that works for me. Reef is definatly the way to go much more too look at.
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Deltasigpony3648 - Posts: 314
- Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:21 am
hey dont get discuraged, i know the maintnace is a pain but the pay off in the end is well worth it. if you want the maintance to be down to a min ( i dont know how much money you have) do what i am going to be doing buy a controller system and hook up a dosing pump to it and have it automatically add calcium and alk to the tank, only this you have to worry about is having a failsafe in place just in case it malfunctions but with dosing pumps i think there is little to worry about just have a samall enough resivour that if it does malfunction it wont kill the whole tank and a controller with a bat back up so the settings dont wipe incase you go on vacation or some thing.
some day when i have a fish room im going to have it so it does automatic water changes for me... it will stop my return pump pump water out of my sump and into a drain and then pump pre mixed water in a huge tub in the fish room to the sump fill the missing water and turn the return pump back on so basically all i have to do is mix water every now and some other 5 min mantiance
some day when i have a fish room im going to have it so it does automatic water changes for me... it will stop my return pump pump water out of my sump and into a drain and then pump pre mixed water in a huge tub in the fish room to the sump fill the missing water and turn the return pump back on so basically all i have to do is mix water every now and some other 5 min mantiance