New to everything

[lnevo]

Hi all,

So I've been doing all my research and this past saturday dropped the bomb and went ahead ordering my 65gallon tank and other equipment over at Aquarium Village.

Setup my RO/DI filter and getting water ready while I wait for everything to be delivered (hopefully Friday!!!) I'm looking forward to getting everything hooked up and starting my cycling.

I'm planning on keeping things as beginner friendly as possible, but want the full gamut of CUC, Fish, and Corals. My wish list for fish is below. Planning on going very slowly though so plenty of time to plan.

2 ocellaris clowns
Fairy wrasse or six line
Some kind ofBlenny
Firefish Goby
Some schooling fish - PJ Cardinals or Green Chromis (3-7? - I heard to plan on some dying..)
Yellow tang (maybe?)
Some kind of mandarin

Any thoughts on the list, also what would the best stocking order be? Also I read somewhere that coral's should go in before fish? Does anything I'm planning preclude having an anemone? I know they can be a challenge, just wondering. I'm fine with or without...

Thanks in advance for the feedback and happy to be here!
Lee

 

[thirty5]

Well I would start slow. Make sure that you get a full cycle before you put anything into the tank.

I am not sure about putting fish before corals or vice versa. But all your fish there look good.

But I would not put in a Mandarin into a new system, unless you are certain that it eats other than pods. A single mandarin will be able to strip your tank of pods very quickly. Are you planning on a fuge in your sump?

You should describe a little of what other features on your tank? Like skimmer, lights, filration, how much rock. All that jazz!

Good luck!

 

[empire]

what equipment did you purchase? skimmer, lights, reactors, etc..

 

[lnevo]

Well I would start slow. Make sure that you get a full cycle before you put anything into the tank.

Yeah, I'm planning on taking my time. I'm in no hurry. I'm using this as an exercise for my patience

But I would not put in a Mandarin into a new system, unless you are certain that it eats other than pods. A single mandarin will be able to strip your tank of pods very quickly. Are you planning on a fuge in your sump?

I've heard waiting up to a year before adding one of them. Looking forward to that day

You should describe a little of what other features on your tank? Like skimmer, lights, filration, how much rock. All that jazz!

Good luck!

Well, I did put info in my profile before posting since I knew these questions would pop-up. But happy to describe my setup so far...

The tank is reef ready with overflow going to an Eshopps RS-100 sump. I'll be putting in 10 lbs of LR rubble and some algea in there to act as a refugium. I may add some baffles to the sump later, but for now it will just be in the main compartment. I'll be using an Eshopps PSK-100 protein skimmer. For lights, I got the LFS built 18" LED light strip, not sure the exact specs/model.

Thanks for the input so far!

Lee

 

[rbtwo4]

Don't get a 6 line there's better wrasses out there then that devil of a fish. Good luck with setup can't wait to see pics!

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

To be honest on the mandarin you would be surprised on how quickly they can exhaust a pod population in a tank. After about a week maybe a little longer you may be in the situation where you are going to have to buy live pods to supplement the mandarin's diet and that can become quite costly. Some have been lucky to get the fish to eat frozen foods but I would still stay away from them because of their picky dietary needs.

As far as the six lines wrasse goes they can become terrors in a tank. After a while they get settled in and VERY territorial. I would go with the fairy wrasse. They are awesome fish. Look up a Clown Fairy wrasse. Nice colors and a great personality.

Chromis tend to pick each other off until only one is left in the tank.

Cardinals sometimes will do the same thing.

Firefish are jumpers and need a covered tank. I had one in a nano and it got startled and jumped into the cover and killed itself it was swimming so fast.

This is all from my experience. People will disagree with me but this is from personal experience and from several years of reading threads here. Take what you want but I would search the forum for others experiences on both sides of the spectrum and weigh your decisions.

 

[lnevo]

To be honest on the mandarin you would be surprised on how quickly they can exhaust a pod population in a tank. After about a week maybe a little longer you may be in the situation where you are going to have to buy live pods to supplement the mandarin's diet and that can become quite costly. Some have been lucky to get the fish to eat frozen foods but I would still stay away from them because of their picky dietary needs.

How do you know how your supply of pods is? I've no problem waiting, dont' want to put any fish in a situation where they will starve

As far as the six lines wrasse goes they can become terrors in a tank. After a while they get settled in and VERY territorial. I would go with the fairy wrasse. They are awesome fish. Look up a Clown Fairy wrasse. Nice colors and a great personality.

Great info! The fairies look very nice. Will shoot for one of those.

Chromis tend to pick each other off until only one is left in the tank.

Cardinals sometimes will do the same thing.

Is there a better schooling fish to look at? or same problems regardless?

Firefish are jumpers and need a covered tank. I had one in a nano and it got startled and jumped into the cover and killed itself it was swimming so fast.

I did not get glass covers but I did get a canopy. Do you think that is enough or should I get glass tops later?

This is all from my experience. People will disagree with me but this is from personal experience and from several years of reading threads here. Take what you want but I would search the forum for others experiences on both sides of the spectrum and weigh your decisions.

Thanks! All feedback is welcome for me!

 

[duke62]

I wish i would have done alot more research before i started. when i start all over this is what i plan to do
brand new rock. nothing that seen water before i would get dry marco rock
i would NOT buy anything from a LFS or a hobbiest without CAREFULLY inspecting each piece. i dont care if he gave me a bad reefer rating or not. aiptasia and other nastiness will occur
i would definatly get a QT tank for all corals
i would not get any type of corals that spread quickly on the rock IE mushrooms ,palys, zoas, kenya trees or zenia. if i was to get zoas they would be on the sand bed on its own rock.
i would get equipment i would need and thats all i dont care the price. its cheaper to buy once then multiple times.
last is i wouldnt rush on fish. ive learned the longer your tank matures the easier it is to care for the fish you want.

 

[lnevo]

Don't get a 6 line there's better wrasses out there then that devil of a fish. Good luck with setup can't wait to see pics!

lol, 6 line is off the list! Sounds like I'll stick with the Fairy.

I did start a blog to document the build. The only thing up there so far in terms of pics is my RO/DI setup I can't post the link till I'm up to 5 posts though..

Thanks again for all the input! Keep it coming.

 

[lnevo]

Oh, I did forget to mention that I plan on setting up a gravity fed auto-top off. Has anyone done similar. Wanted to KISS and not have to deal with switches and pumps and electricity for such a simple task. I do plan on using only a 5 or 10 gallon container for FW so I don't expect any catastrophe's if there's any kind of failure...

 

[Imbarrie]

Dont be afraid of mandarin fish. Make sure your tank is well established and buy as small a one as you can find. They would be more likely to take to prepared foods.

I had two in my 75 that are now in my 150 when I upgraded. They are fat and happy for almost a year eating mysis, cyclopeez and any pods that may remain.

 

[lnevo]

Delivery day!

 

[lnevo]

Ok, so updates to the equipment list. The tank is a Deep Blue 65gallon reef ready with the corner overflow. Heater is a Deep Blue 150 Watt Heat Stik. Everything came yesterday and that tank is up and running. The hard part was getting the levels right with the overflow and sump, but the return chamber is sitting pretty at the water level line and the refugium section is just above the teeth. The skimmer is in 10" of water and it calls for 8-10. The return pump valve is tuned well and I tested the overflow if a power outage occurs and plenty of room to spare. And the parts for my gravity fed auto top off arrived. Just need to find the right container now and a way to elevate it. Not much room left in the 36" stand..

I had some trouble getting the light mounted with the cables. Since I only had 5 1/2" of clearance from the top of the canopy to the center bracket on the tank and I didn't want it to sit that low. The clips that attached to the light ended up stretching out the way I rigged it. I probably could have done a better job, but I ended up using split ring keychain to attach to the light fixture and then a set of quick clamps attached to eye hooks in the canopy. I'll take a shot of it, but it is perfect right now. Had to just use the split rings and the eye hooks on one part of the canopy since it was lower.

So right now my water is at 78 degrees which is odd since I don't know how to set the heater. The dial on top doesn't move, on a good note the led is on...Not sure if I'm missing something or not with this. Also the water is only up to halfway on the heater since it's in the refugium section. The protein skimmer is on and is currently wide open... I was told to leave it full for 72 hours.. what's after that? Salinity is at 1.021.. should I leave it like that or raise it up? Any tips on using the stupid plastic hydrometer (besides ditching it and getting a refractometer?)?

I've got everything all cleaned up... it was a long night. Up till 4am Anyway, here's some pics. Will test my levels, just to practice tonight...

 

[Imbarrie]

You won't need a heater until the weather cools off. Either leave it unplugged or take it out entirely.
The heater will have a water line. If it is a submersible one then it can be completely submerged. If you don't have water up to the minimum line then you will melt it and that can kill your tank.

 

[fishman1069]

Rockwork looks really good! From your posts, I can tell you've been reading before hand which is great! I wouldn't run your lights during the cycle, it only promotes algae. The skimmer running during the cycle is personal preference but I dont like to run it until the nitrites drop and you starting showing nitrates. Your stock list looks fine but would def listen to the advice already given. Good luck with!

 

[lnevo]

Hey all, just wanted to share some tank porn... I added a Reef Angel controller to my setup. I'm really loving this device. Have a few more features I need to add to the code I'm running, but for now it's doing much more than my dial timers and Coralife power strip (FS Coralife single analog timer bar... )

I've also got some corals added. A couple of acans, a pair of zoas, a brain, leather, mushroom, frogspawn and spaghetti finger, and a couple of others I forget the names of Currently swimming around are a royal gramma, firefish, and two tank bred baby ocellaris clowns that I picked up from Oxygen8569.

I know I had some cycle questions, but i've been 0, 0, 0 for a month now with all the live rock, sand, and cheato I had in there. It's going pretty well. My skimmer is getting some stuff, but not enough still to foam up and get into the collection cup. Only complaint right now is the lime green algea on the rocks, but I've heard that's common in new tanks. My clean up crew is small at the moment, only about 10 snails and 10 hermit crabs running around doing their thing. Any suggestions for some additions?

And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for...

 

[RAYISKING]

Don't stock so fast. One thing a week or 2 is Better have you been Qting your items sometimes stuff you can't see will be on coral or fish and then everything you have done would be for nothing.

 

[rbtwo4]

Chromis are cool don't believe the hype about them dying one by one. I have 3 for the last 3 months when I got them

 

[Oddomatic]

That's a beautiful hardware setup you got there. Very neatly organized...

 

[Mercury]

looks good!
im going the exact some experience