My First Build ever...and need some direction

[Marz]

She will be with me when we come to the London Fragfest as her and my youngest will be picking the clowns, and my wife and I will be looking at corals. So yes, hopefully she enjoys it once its setup....however, I will be doing all the maintenance

 

[Jewel]

I find with Clowns, that they are the perfect addition to a smallish tank, Like yours. There are so many choices and varieties. Their are the Designer Clowns such as Black Ice, Piccasso,Wyoming Whites, etc. Or B&W or Percula and Ocelarris. Then the Tomato, Marroon, Clarki, and they range from 15 bucks a piece to several hundreds. You should do some research on them, I'll send you a pick of mine.

 

[Marz]

Those are my preference as I love the black but the family has decided on orange. I like the Picasso and the Platinum, but (and I saw them on this site) the gold banded ones are nice as well - to be honest I was surprised at the price. I have to read, as you mentioned, since it seems they have differing temperaments. There may be an addition of a Bangai, but to your point I may only end up with 20G of water in the tank.

 

[Jewel]

  2 Clowns and a Bengai, sounds okay, I have 3 Blue Streak Cardinals and they're nice. The Orange Occillarous or Percula are nice, they are cheap,not too big, and not aggressive except they will bite if you get too close to them. Mine bite me but I can barely feel it.

 

[Marz]

Sounds ok? Or just stick with clowns in my size tank? I have no desire to overstock the tank. If I want more then I will convince the wife to get a bigger one

 

[Jewel]

What I like about these is that don't harass the Corals, I've always found that the Orange always want to get in the Torch or the Bubble or what ever. Maybe I just got lucky.

 

[pulpfiction1]

i go through orangeville every day,have to meet up and see your tank in person some day

 

[Marz]

Pulp, any time...well at least wait until I get it setup

 

[Marz]

Since this is a new tank, can I add water and salt to the new tank (I don't have any live rock and live sand) and let it mix and heat in there?

 

[pulpfiction1]

absolutley,when its up and running  lol

myself i would have no issues with mixing in the DT,water in first then add salt

 

[Marz]

Ok, so I would like some opinions. I have glued the rock together, added a shelf, and put the sand in. I am not going for a DSB as I don't believe I have enough experience. I have added between 1" - 1.75" of aragonite and placed the rocks. I changed it up a bit as I wanted more height and I wasn't interested in it being symmetrical.

Do I have enough sand and have I made enough room for the fish to swim around?
Last question, I only have the Koralia 425 but the WP10 will be coming. Where should I place my Koralia within the tank for now?

 

[MrHermit85]

Looks good to me, I have about the same depth of sand. With the koralia it's all about trial an error and the best placement where it can keep all the water in the tank moving with no dead spots. My brother inlaw has a nano and he has a tunze blowing against the front glass, but again it's best to try different places until you get what you want. I have moved mine several times after adding different corals with different flow requirements too.

 

[Jewel]

That top piece doesn't look too stable, but i'm not there. Like the previous poster said it's all trial and error. Your return blows straight out so I'd place the power head on the side.

 

[Marz]

All screwed and glued kinda like me. Also have some acrylic rod glued in.

 

[Jewel]

Glued is good, What do you mean by screwed? it looks good, time to put water in and start that cycle.

 

[Marz]

I added
Some acrylic rod, so not really "screwed" ... Lol. Anyway, I am planning on adding water in tonight. When mixing in the tank and starting the cycle, I shouldn't run the skimmer or any other mechanical filters like chemi elite and purigen correct - just floss and the yellow filter that came with my system? Then in a couple of days I can add the chemi elite and purigen.

 

[Duke]

I'd hold off on anything for a bit, get some salt water in there and give it a day or two and then if it was me I would run the skimmer from there on out. Wouldn't worry about chemi clean or anything till after the cycle is finished

 

[Jewel]

I'm not familiar with either of these products so I hope someone else can help out here. Not sure about a filter either, I'd just circulate the tank, putting in some flake food every few days, no skimmer either. let the process do it's thing, just ATO and that's it, you don't even need the lights on at this point.

 

[Jewel]

Thanks Duke, You can run the skimmer if you like, no biggy but forget the other stuff, I believe these other item are to combat problems that you do not have,  Yet

 

[Marz]

Awesome....I keep edging closer !!!