Rushy's first 55g Reef Effort - V Early Stages

The tanks looking great.Its going to an awesome reef.
Just keep your fingers crossed on the Lemon Peel.Maybe your will be the exception and not the rule:D
And whose tank is it any how? yours or the wifes? :mrgreen: Just joshing ya:D
 
yote said:
The tanks looking great.Its going to an awesome reef.
Just keep your fingers crossed on the Lemon Peel.Maybe your will be the exception and not the rule:D
And whose tank is it any how? yours or the wifes? :mrgreen: Just joshing ya:D
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Thanks Yote for the cool comments! I'm hoping so now it's in there, because it is a great looking fish, be a real shame to have to remove it, but fingers crossed. Who's tank is it - I'm beginning to wonder that myself buddy!! :mrgreen: I might just go and shave her dog!! :D
 
Have to agree the lemon peel is a very pretty fish. Hope he's a exception to the rule. Your tank is looking good.
 
Galaxeas are one of my favorite corals! Be sure to keep it several inches away from the other corals in your tank. If you haven't seen it already, they have sweeping tentacles that can extend 6 or 8 inches from themselves.
 
Bifferwine said:
Galaxeas are one of my favorite corals! Be sure to keep it several inches away from the other corals in your tank. If you haven't seen it already, they have sweeping tentacles that can extend 6 or 8 inches from themselves.
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Biffy it's gorgeous, the pics I've taken really don't do it justice. It is sat on one of the top ledges created with the LR so has plenty of room around it, and at the mo there are only 3 corals in there.

Also gone out and bought myself today an Octopus BH 300F (hob), just trying to figure out ho to get the thing to work!! The Red Sea is sitting in thesink, ready to be dismantled, boxed and sold on Ebay!!! :D
 
If you don't mind I do have a question. Since the 55 gallons tend to be pretty shallow from front to back does your rock touch the back of the tank? Can the fish swim behind the rock? As I was doing my rock placement I tried to do this but it seems to limit on how high and sturdy I can build the rocks. Thanks in advance.
 
biodarwin said:
If you don't mind I do have a question. Since the 55 gallons tend to be pretty shallow from front to back does your rock touch the back of the tank? Can the fish swim behind the rock? As I was doing my rock placement I tried to do this but it seems to limit on how high and sturdy I can build the rocks. Thanks in advance.
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Hi Darwin, I have quite a lot of room, and more than enough swimming room behind the rocks, I got really lucky with some of my LR pieces. The pieces I used to found the aquascape are really solid pieces, with a really big relatively flat base area, and I think Yote alluded to this method in another thread somewhere, is that you just have to play with it, and almost treat it like a jigsaw, and 'fit' the rock together. I think it also probably helps you get a solid base, if you have a relatively deep sand bed. I'm not saying that in certain terms, because obviously I'm still a newbie, I could well be wrong and others would possibly say different, but I think that has helped me. Hope that helps a little! :D There are some photos of the side views of my tank earlier on in the thread I think!
 
It's fine to have the rocks resting against the back glass, but you want to make sure that water can still flow back there. You don't want dead spots where old food and detritus can accumulate, and you want fish to be able to swim in and out.
 
You'll want to work your rock down through the sand to the glass.
That way you dont have to worry about the animals and water current from digging under the rock and causing a crash that could break the tank.
 
Evening Guys

A couple of things I hope my friends here will be able to help me with (again)!!! My Nitrites and Nitrates have been a little high of late, which I've put down to there now being fish in the tank, feeding etc, and the Red Sea Skimmer that I had, not working as effectively as I had hoped. Carried out a 10% Saltwater Change on 2nd Feb, followed by a 5% RO top up on 3rd and 10% Saltwater Change last night. Parameters tonight were:-

Temp: 80.7
SG: 1.022
pH: 8.5
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.3mg/l
Nitrate: 20mg/l
Alkalinity: 11.7dKH
Phosphate: 0.5mg/l
Calcium: 440ppm

Is it just perserverance with the water changes or should I try something else? Another thing, my Leather Finger has been looking a little ropey over the last couple of days, not puffing out as much as it normally does. I had moved the flow about a bit in the tank, and initially put it down to that, I assumed that it wasn't get as much flow as before, so moved my PH's and filter out back to where there were. No change! I've also installed the new skimmer this week and noticed that the temp in the tank has steadily increased over the two days its been affective in the tank. So wondered if it was that, I normally keep my temp at a steady 80, but it has gone up almost a degree, which is probably about 2 or 3 degrees above ideal for the coral. I guess I shouldn't be too concerned, as the polyps are still making a significant effort to extend, but any advice as always will be greatly appreciated. Rather unexpectedly my SG has dropped from the normal 1.024/1.026 to 1.022, tested the Saltwater (LFS bought) and it went 1.018 on the refractometer!! Think I'll make sure I mix my own salt from now on!!
 
Heres the thing about water changes to reduce nitrates.Lets say nitrates are at 20ppm.You do a 10% water change,so your left with nitrates at 18ppm.So it takes time to lower them.
What really concerns me is the nitrites.Any time you've got nitrites,you need to be doing fairly large water changes to get the levels down.But the reading could also be from a bad test kit,so have checked at your LFS to be sure.
Now for your finger leather.They will look like total crap from time to time.They'll usually slime up and shed when that happens.Its normal its their way of cleaning themselves.
 

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