Wading carefully into the waters.... 30G Cube

[BryanDuggan]

Hello everyone, I'm new.

I have very little experience with keeping fish at home, almost zero in fact. I did work in a fish dept in Petco during college but that isn't a credential of any sort (as you know).

I recently got a 30G Oceanic from someone and decided that I'm going to set it up as a reef tank (focusing on fluorescent corals) with some careful guidance and plenty of preparation. My coworker, Ed Wilkinson, has been very generous with his knowledge and has started me on the right foot with lighting, live rock, good water and live sand. I've tested the water a few times since setting it up this weekend and so far things seem fine. The live rock has a bonus supply of amphipods (?) brittle stars and a snail or two along with a handful of asteria starfish.

My next step is to add a few shrimp. My eventual goal is to have a few nice clowns (picasso's) and an abundance of zoanthids, frogspawn, buble corals, hammerheads etc.

Here's my setup so far. At this point I'm just happy the plumbing works! I have a 5 gallon sump below with a protein skimmer and a heater. I may make the sump larger as it runs low too quickly and it was sucking bubbles into the tank. I know the light should be on the tank, I'm fixing that tonight now that I have the legs for it.

Any help or advice is appreciated.

 

[Edwardw771]

Hey get back to work.

 

[mnat]

Welcome to the club, I ran that same 30g cube for almost 1.5 years before I upgraded and it was a great tank.

First piece of equipment I would recommend would be an ATO unit. This will keep the water in the sump level so you are not sucking any bubbles into the display and possibly burning your return pump out.

You did get off to a great start and the tank looks good. If your live rock and live sand are cycled (which is sounds like they are) then you can begin to add some hermits, snails and whatnot to the tank. Start slow, and add a bit at a time so if you do have a cycle, it will be small. I would also recommend some Dr. Tims instant bacteria as this will make sure you are cycled and ready for fish.

What are you testing at this point?

What lights are you running on there?

 

[jgraz]

Welcome to the club. Tank looks good. I agree with mnat about the ATO. I run one from autotopoff.com and love it, and they are far less expensive then most on the market.

 

[BryanDuggan]

- Ed if you saw the boring stuff on my desk right now... fishies are way more fun.

- An ATO definitely seems worth while, I've already pulled in air bubbles twice in 4 days. I'll check that link. This my my biggest concern right now.

- right now I'm using a cheap "all in one" test kit. I think it tests for: Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite/PH/Alkalinity.

- I'm using an ACAN600 LED for lighting (surprisingly easy to program)

In a week or so I'll add a few inverts. If all goes well I'd like to buy some clownfish in another 2-3 weeks. Some zoanthids frags 2-3 weeks after that. Is that reasonable?

 

[NikkiT]

I would suggest adding an instant cycle product (I like Dr. Tim's) to get your bacteria population up before you add inverts. I would start with snails and hermits, and wait a while before adding more delicate inverts like stars or shrimp, I would suggest around a month.
Other than that suggestion, your timeline looks OK to me.

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

be sure to feed the tank after you add the bacteria, otherwise it will die.

 

[mnat]

be sure to feed the tank after you add the bacteria, otherwise it will die.

Thank you Jeff. Forgot to mention the point that if you don't feed the bacteria either with food or with fish pooping in the tank it will die off.

 

[BryanDuggan]

Cool, I'll swing by the local fish shop and pick up some food and cycle product. Thanks for the advice, i wouldn't have thought to feed the bacteria.

 

[BryanDuggan]

Update: The tank has been up for just under 3 weeks now.

- As you may know I made the mistake of putting pair of yellow tail damsels in after about a week. Rookie mistake! I've been feeding them just as much as they will eat, so there isn't an excess of wasted food in the system. Protein skimmer is producing very little skimmate.

- I did have an algae bloom last week which has now subsided. The guys at AO gave me some phosguard and it seems to have helped. I went there for Dr.Tims but they didn't have any, we looked at biospira but I was told it would not benefit me much.

- I've done (2) 5 gallon water changes a week apart.

- My test strips look normal with the exception of nitrates, which is ~40-60ppm (my color perception isn't great so I have my wife read the tests). I was told the water changes would help that but so far it hasn't budged?

- SG is 1.025.

I'm not adding *anything* until the nitrates improve a lot. Even though zoas are my primary interest and I have been told they tolerate broader parameters.

Let me know what you think?

 

[mnat]

Sounds like a pretty normal tank cycle so far. Patience and some water changes should help. Hold off on the zoas for a bit longer.

 

[Hockeynut]

Great start, I love that little tank. I almost bought one myself

 

[Hockeynut]

Great start I love that little tank I almost bought one myself

 

[Hockeynut]

Ops pushed button twice sorry

 

[jgraz]

Sounds like things are moving well. The high Nitrates can be lowered buy WC's just do bigger ones. You could always do a 10 or 15 Gal WC a few days apart that should bring them down a good clip. 5 Gal a week apart probably won't touch it. Also do you have a refugium? If so, now would be a good time to get some macro going, that will also help to keep things in check.

 

[BryanDuggan]

I started reading up on refugiums last night. I think in my stand I have room for either an ATO or a refugium, but not both. Unless I do a HOB refugium but I hear they can be noisy?

 

[mnat]

In the long term, the ATO would be my choice (and was my choice on both my 57g and 45g where I could not have both). HOB fuges are not loud at all, ran those for a few years on my 20g and 30g and they were not in the stand, they hung right on the tank. Maybe the HOB skimmers drowned them out, but the design has a return that is below the water so there is no trickle.

 

[BryanDuggan]

Very helpful info on HOB's, thanks.

Ethan at AO gave me the same advice about a larger water change, so I swapped 15 gallons today. Apparently my alkalinity was low, 6.5, so I was told to check it again in 24 hours. I'll pick up an ATO this week. Ethan has some pressure driven units that he was suggesting. Reasonably priced too.

 

[BryanDuggan]

Dead algae

Where a week ago there was a grassy patch there is now this. It has a lot of bubbles in it.




I was tempted to siphon it out when I did the water changes but my guess is disturbing the sand bed is probably not advisable while cycling?? Sorry for the sideways photo.

 

[BryanDuggan]

Since yesterday a surprising amount of this brown stuff has proliferated throughout the tank.

Looks like diatoms? What, if anything, should I do about them?

Is the fact that I did a large water change yesterday relevant to this bloom?