Fuzzy

Looks good, my concerns aside from fish jumping out, would be the rapid rate of evaporation from this layout, might need an ATO to maintain stable salinity. Also salt creep from any splashing that might occur might be an issue later. How are you going to be mounting any supplemental lighting? Pendant? Stands might be a problem unless you custom build them for your lights, because the available type are likely to be too low, or to block the natural sunlight from entering the tank after they are off. Aside from that and algae outbreaks, I don't see any potential issues with this design.

Have you measured your Ammonia or Nitrite levels? Having 0 Nitrate readings are quite rare, especially in a tank that has already been running for a few months, are you running a denitrator or chaeto in your refugium? And Wow you have 0 phosphate too? we might all need to learn your secret! How heavily stocked is your tank and how heavily do you feed your livestock? Hmm it could be that the canister is sucking bubbles from your skimmer which collect them prevent the impeller from working properly. Is the skimmer releasing any bubbles into the water? What kind of skimmer are you using? If the intake pipes and canister itself are ok, then it has to be sucking in air from the intake tube.

Hey Boss, just wanted to say thanks for posting these article updates, I find many of them quite intriguing.

You need to change at least 20% of the tank water every month. Preferably every 2 weeks, replacing it with fresh saltwater. I suspect there is a leak along the intake line of your canister. or in the canister itself. If you turn off the pump for a minute, stare carefully to see if you spot any droplets of water forming anywhere along the canister seams, or along the tubing.

Check the float switches to see if they are working properly / connected properly. If you need to take it somewhere to get it repaired, you can try Sim Lim Tower Basement. Big corner shop, Continental Electronics. The uncle there does repairs on all kinds of electronics, and their prices are quite reasonable, can go ask for a quote.

Nice planted, and nice marine! But whoah you are trying to keep SPS in that size tank?! Is there some kind of sump we are not seeing? Or are you doing daily water changes?

How many fish do you have in your 12 gallon? What are they, a picture will help, if you don't know what they are called. What are your water parameters that you think are ok? If you post those we will probably know right away what your problem is: Temperature: Ammonia: Nitrite: Nitrate: pH: Salinity: I'm assuming you tested these parameters. Additionally I don't think most of the veterans here would keep or recommend keeping a mandarin in a 12 gallon tank by the way.

Yeah, $488 for the tank+stand+liverock+wavemaker+chiller. Everything else was in addition to that, FR, CR, pumps, new MH tube, ATO, Crystal Pro, Tunze 9002, SALT, Test Kits, Additives etc, really sneaks up on you quite quickly. Most of this is not necessary, but will involve increased maintenance or poorer living conditions for livestock. If I was just going FOWLR I would have spent less than $800 I think. Part of the cost is for future use also, for example I have enough salt for the next 3 - 4 months of water changes... Oh and buying Biohome is a killer too, like $40 a Kg, could have just bought more LR I guess...but space is at a premium in this setup.

Fluval also not bad, but avoid Hydor Canisters, even though its a US brand, they are not that well made (and not that cheap either), some horror stories if you look around. Many of us (myself included) use Hydor wavemakers with no problems though. But what are you using it for in your marine, still wondering, If you're using to run carbon might want to consider getting an FR and a pump. If you're using to increase biological filtration, might want to consider adding more live rock into your tank. If you're using to filter the water, be sure to clean / change the media in the canister every 1 - 2 weeks or less.

you bad boy

Better to do 10% - 15% per week than 25% every two weeks, but more troublesome. The maximum you should wait between changes is 2 - 4 weeks. and at least 10% - 25% in that period. Depending on how low your bio-load is, how much you feed, and how good your equipment setup is, you can stretch these figures more. But generally changing 20% of the water every two weeks is regarded as the minimum for maintaining healthy conditions for your pets.

Bro which site did you order from? Have you checked out Continental Electronics in Sim Lim Tower Basement?

Do you have a quarantine tank available? I would remove this fish from your main tank immediately. Go buy one of those small plastic "terrapin" type tanks and a sponge filter, transfer tankwater and the fish into it. If it has a disease you want to get it out from your main tank, same if it is being stressed or harassed by your other tank inhabitants. Try feeding it in the small tank, and you can more easily monitor it. You may want to try Henry's food (Marine Land) as many have reported good results using it with convalescing livestock.

I think she has a 3 Gallon tank in mind. I personally wouldn't recommend it, but if you have the discipline to maintain it and to purchase only appropriate livestock for it, don't see why not. For me I wouldn't put any fish inside, as that would just be too cruel. A coral only tank I could do, but I wouldn't just because of the intense amount of daily maintenance involved to maintain it responsibly. Just my $0.02

Leave the live rock where it is, after the rock has cured the patches should disappear. Sounds like bristleworms, they will help keep your sandbed sifted and clean. Don't introduce any chemicals to the water at all. Once the Ammonia is 0, do a 50% water change and retest all parameters. I think your cycle was unable to complete properly because of water changes, leave it alone for another 2 weeks and then test. By the way are all your pumps/filters/circulation running? they should be all running, except for your skimmer, lights are optional.

lol that picture is so horribly photoshopped

Ok keeping a marine tank is not cheap, especially if you are serious about it, but neither is owning a dog or a cat. People pay $1000 - $2000 for a dog or a cat, and they don't even intend to breed them..which I could never understand. I guess if you have the money to burn and you think the animal looks cool/cute enough that you'd be willing to spend that kind of money on it..not happening in my world though. And monthly maintenance, food and vet bills also add up over time (potentially 10 - 20 years) We all know that you can't sell an old dog or cat, you'll probably have serious problems even trying to give the animal away. All my 3 cats are free "longkang cats", haha, but they are threatening to eat me out of house and home. There is a huge difference, between casual RC and competitive RC. I also bought an electric RC Car for Drifting about 2 years ago. Costs are relatively harmless compared to competitive racing, RC Cars quite hard to compare, because you can get a ready to run for $200 or less, but that's considered "not serious" into RC. I spent about $1200 on my RC drift setup a few years back and it was already quite simple(Tamiya TT-01 kit, Sanwa 3PK, Battery packs, Peak charger, upgrade parts, replacement parts etc) Many of the SG Drifters were running cars and equipment in excess of $2000 - $5000 per person (multiple cars, transmitters, batteries, spares etc). If you want to get serious competing in Tamiya Asia Cup for example, you are looking at at least several thousand dollars every year, unless you're good enough to secure a sponsorship. Things really break a lot when you are racing on track, accidents happen and those silly plastic parts are not cheap. Nitro RC Cars don't seem to be in fashion any more though, and they have even higher parts costs. The competitive money and serious competition seems to all be in electric RC now. I know the cost of entry into RC Aircraft is insane $1500 would probably be the minimum buy in, unless you are buying the "toy helis" Even those powered kites that were so popular in the last 2 years would cost you at least $800 to start (kit + transmitter and other accessories) I don't have the nerve (or the wallet size) for it, sudden gust or crosswind and you're looking at a potential $100 - $1000 repair bill. Crazy friends of mine into RC helicopters spend about $100 - $200 on a pair of rotor blades if they crash. And that is considered "very minor" damage, if you damage your electronics, servos, gyroscopes etc, you could be looking at a total write off in a crash..scary stuff. Nitro powered helicopters are even potentially more expensive to crash, heh. Also their Lithium Polymer batteries are only good for around 50 - 60 charge cycles. Total flying time per charge cycle is at most 5 - 8 minutes and the batteries are $30 - $60 a piece. For the casual marine hobbyist $500 should set you well on the way towards a Nano FOWLR, really not that expensive. There are definitely much cheaper hobbies, but ours isn't even close to being the most expensive. I agree if you get serious its not cheap, but then again neither are any of the other fairly common hobbies: Freshwater tanks, Golf, Astronomy, Scuba diving, Sailing, Photography, PC Gaming, skiing/Snowboarding, annual vacations even buying books can potentially cost more yearly than running a marine tank...heh.) So newcomers should not be intimidated, do your research, decide if you are still interested, plan a realistic budget, start slow. To put things in a more "Singaporean Perspective" for the price of one Louis Vuitton handbag, or one/two month(s) of car installment payment. I've bought a complete 28G nano marine setup.

They are more expensive than those china made filters, but will last easily 5 - 10 years. Depends on how big a canister you need, the smaller ones like the classic series are $150 plus. The bigger Pro series can go from $200+ to $300+++

Is it cheaper to use distilled water in the long run? I don't really have a point of comparison until I exhaust this set of cartridges for the DI. Or are you doing it for concerns of water purity / space constraints. I'm assuming you're ordering bottled water delivered to your doorstep? Which vendor and what kind of price/quantity are you getting atm? Hehe thanks in advance! Was actually quite surprised noone had brought up this topic earlier on here actually.

Thanks! The worker at GO didn't know what it was either

Whoah dude, your NO3 is at or above 100ppm? Its amazing all your fish are still alive! You have seriously been abusing this tank..what temperature is the water maintained at? What kind of lighting are you using for the tank? You have a very steep learning (and spending) curve ahead of you if you decide to continue running this tank. For starters you want to vacuum all the debris off the sand, and get NO3 down to 10 - 20ppm. What brand of Salt mix are you using for water changes? Are you using Anti-Chloramine in your tap water? I hope you can absorb the necessary information and make the changes necessary in time to save the rest of your livestock. Best of luck.

Mmm ok, I'm thinking this is Galaxea astreata, can anyone confirm?

What do you have in mind size wise? Pico meaning under 10 gallons?

Thanks bro! I'll probably cave in and invest in a chlorine test kit for peace of mind at some point. You top up DI water directly without buffering or treating it to your marine tank? I've been remineralizing for my brackish, FW and SW tanks. Heh, guess I can save some of the additives for my FW tanks.

Hows your tank coming along? Any pictures for us? hehe.