tofubox

Cromis would be your best choice bro, easy, hardy and not shy. They also take pellets v readily. TBH, it will take a long time before they kill each other off, can try 6 or 7 for a start.

New fishes under QT and food training! Got to love schooling fishes

All 3 brands are equally good in my opinion, its more of your personal choice. Read on reviews for all 3 products, and pick the one u like best. If you wan good support, try skimz or deltec. Reef depot does great customer service for deltec, drop them a mail, and they got back to me immediately, only downside is that the product must bear the reef depot sticker. Skimz, well...its under AM, so u probably wont have trouble getting warranty claims or supports. As for Vertex, i don't have much experience, but you can always check with iwarna before purchasing. Both needlewheel and venturi has its benefits and downsides. Needlewheel: Creates more finer bubbles, hecks bubbles apart, resulting in better foam head with dense froth. Requires a smaller pump and footprint in comparison, lower wattage. Downside : Lesser waterflow through the skimmer, chance of damaging living critters, needlewheel impellers may cost more for replacement. Venturi: Moves a large amount of water, increased contact time due to whirlpool effect within chamber. Besides cleaning the venturi valve, its pretty much maintenance free. Downside is that it requires high pressure, dedicated pumps which can deal with back pressure in order to function well, properly rated pump size to maximise efficiency of skimmer, heat from the pump, higher wattage of running. Personally, anything more than 300 gallons, its worth going venturi. For smaller volume, needlewheel would be good. Thats probably the big factor why the marine industry made the switch to needlewheel.

Hey bro Red devil, im looking for the same thing, do let me know if u manage to find one! Cheers!

Isn;t madpetz closed on sundays now? http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/topic/127898-change-of-operating-hour/

Usually a brown film will indicate too much bacteria. Can be caused by overdosing on bacteria, carbon dose etc.

Finally all done transferring the corals from the 2ft tank! Kinda surprised how many corals I had squeezed in there! Also got two new corals from am this morning. Here's a fts of how it looks like now.

Updates! Its the end of the 14day cycle. Diatoms have gone, small speck of hair algae, but shouldn't be a problem. Added most of my corals from the 2ft tank except for some frags. Rocks and sand are back to clear white. Either zeovit is amazing, or my clean up crew is doing a hell of a job. CUC: 6 Astrea turbo snails, 1 Turbo snail, 3 Abalone, 3 Strombus, 1 Starry Blenny Also just added in my pair of black ice clowns (been in a separation box longer than i intended) Switched on my calcium reactor, will be doing a time base calcium dose. So I set a standard effluent rate, and i adjust my co2 to get a ph of 6.5. Set on timer for 12hrs a day. Too high, will reduce the time, too low, increase the time. Works pretty well! And decided to switch my skimmer to dry skim according to zeovit First full tank shot with the corals! The right scape is not complete. Just placing corals on the table top while i decide where to put them.

Im with you on this one

Just to contribute to the thread. I got this dosing bottles from Daiso as well. Its supposedly a soap dispenser. All u do is remove the head of the dispenser, and it will fit a clear tube perfectly. The clear tube can be purchased from any freshwater shop or nanyang seaview for a dollar. The rest is eggcrates =D Works brilliantly

Hi bro, I think you should be looking for something similar to this. The ecoxortic stunner leds..... http://www.ecoxotic.com/stunner-led-strips-24-watt.html Can be rather costly imo to set up for a 5ft tank, and only comes in 4ft. Else u can always check out taobao, they have blue led strips using cree bulbs, I was contemplating getting one before. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.0.0.xJ8UAo&scm=1007.10009.1442.0&id=36841292256&pvid=2894f501-8fb2-42e8-828d-0d6621939b09 Or alternatively, can try diy your own with rapid led. http://www.rapidled.com/ Hope those links help. Cheers

Best bet for central area would be madpetz.

Heres what i did. Setup tank, sump, plumbing -> Add in all equipment needed in sump (skimmer,return, reactors,auto top off system)-> Place lighting and all electrical cords correctly--> Fill up with Rodi water--> Fire up system and test return pump, piping and tank for leaks--> Add in wavemakers--> Add in salt and let it mix till u get correct salinity (1.025/026)--> Add in rocks followed by sand--> Add sand in refugium if using any--> Test reactors, skimmers and all other equipments (you may choose to leave the skimmer on or off through the cycle)--> Ensure the skimmer is sitted at the correct water level recommanded for the make and modal--> Start your auto top off system if any--> Add any bacteria additives u might want to use--> Kickstart the cycle(many ways)-->wait--->wait--->wait --> no more ammonia and nitrite, nitrate in acceptable levels--> put in a clean up crew--> wait---> put in fish Gd luck.

Day 11 of the cycle! Decided to step back on adding a pair of clowns, and to put in a herbivorous fish instead! Got myself a cute 2.5inch starry blenny. Plenty of natural diet for this fella, so i can hold back on feeding for now. CUC doing a great job with the sand and rocks, no deaths, so that should be a good sign. BN, monti and octo doing well. But have a feeling i will be needing more light. Some plans for the tank: 1. Replacing the return pump to a DC pump 10k or 12k 2. Adding on 2 additional diy t5 tubes to the lightset 3. Lower the height of the lightset so t5 get better penetration 4. Adding on a dosing pump for Zeostart3, potassium and magnesium As always, thanks for viewing

Haha, its tough at the moment to really justify how effective or good the zeovit system is. When it comes to coral, the key factor besides having a good probiotic system + additives is also having a stable tank parameter like PH, KH, CA, MG etc etc. and not forgetting the type of lighting. Right now, its just getting the important factors of the tank right, before i can even play around with the additives from zeovit. I'm guessing its gonna take at least 3-6mths for the tank to achieve good stability and thats when the fun comes. On the positive side, at least now i know the 14 day cycle works, so i got high expectations for zeovit.

Easy to spot a true reef junkie = When he builds the tank to be part of he's house. Welcome back, and look forward to more of your updates!

Haha yeah James, easy sps can be placed in on day 10. Additional sps corals can be added further each day after that if water parameters are stable. So using these few as test subjects. Just following the guide. Haha

Anyone seen starry blenny?

Nice growth and shape of the monti. Can see why ur proud of it. Keep it up =D

Update of the 14 day cycle! Officially today is day 10 of the cycle. According to the guide, i can introduce cuc, easy sps corals and 1 fish per 200l. Also, it did mention that if i was starting off with dead rocks, it might take slightly longer. But honestly it didn't seem to be a problem at all! Heres my review of the 14 day cycle. It works like a charm. There really isn't much for me to say. Its just basically following the dosing instructions. At first i was skeptical, how could a tank cycle in just 10 days, but I'm impressed with the results myself. Heres a couple of test i did on day 8 and day 10 Nitrite (No2) on day 8 (slightly pinkish) Nitrite (No2) on day 10 Nitrates (No3) on day 8 Nitrates (No3) on day 10 Day 10: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate under 2ppm. I have already placed in my cuc overnight, and they all are doing well. Stombus hard at work cleaning the sand, these are the best sand cleaners I've come across Single Turbo snail, just cleaned an area on the rock. Will only be using this guy for starting phase, than hes back to the smaller tank. And lastly, added 3 abalones. Never tried these before, but heard very good reviews, and dame right they are good. This guy cleared this patch in just a minute Lastly, added 2 frags of Birdnests, 2 encrusting monti, 1 true fiber optic, 1 true octo lps. Will be adding fishes later this evening if everything goes well. The next part will be tuning the calcium reactor, boy...thats gonna be a pain. Thanks for reading. If you guys ever consider starting a tank, do consider the zeovit 14 day cycle. It worked for me and I'm sure it should for you if you follow the dosing instructions well.

Mainly for better light penetration and for ease of maintenance. You don't lose a lot of PAR with a shallow tank. Don't think theres an exact figure for the word "shallow". All depends on your tank dimensions still. Shallow tanks can be used for any purpose. But if u intend on keeping any fish with tendency to jump, best to get a cover done.

Alright..... time to show the UGLY! Day 8 of zeovit 14 day cycle Time to get some hardworking cuc. Intend to get some abalone and trochus for the rock work. All i can say, this skimmer has exceeded my expectations. Nothing in the tank, with cleaned rocks, and its already pulling this out. Would recommend it for anyone looking for an oversized skimmer. Easy to tune. Outperformed both of my previous branded skimmers. Tiny bubbles moving up smoothly Will try to get a video of the skimmer running when i'm free.

Ups for this dancing wavvvveeee ~~~~~~~ still available

CestTresBon has a point. I went through the same process. I had a 3ft, than downgrade 2ft, now back to 4ft. But would i have rather just gone to the 4ft right away? Probably not. Theres 2 reasons for this: As a new hobbies, u tend to make the most mistakes if you do not equip yourself with the correct knowledge and patience. So starting out with a bigger tank straight off will indeed be much more costly overall if you happen to make a mistake along the way. Give for example, the simple analogy of having a pest introduced in your tank. The cost of tearing down a 2ft tank to eradicate pest , safe to say will be about 1/4 that of tearing down a 5ft tank. Just remember the larger you go, almost everything doubles or triples in price. Second reason is pretty much obvious, you wont know if you actually like this hobby. My recommandation end of the day, is really to get an averaged size tank that you can handle alone and fits into your budget. You will slowly realise that a marine tank will occupy a lot of your time. Keep it for some time, learn how to maintain good coral and fish health. When the time comes, trust me, you will be fully prepared and will be planning for the absolute best and perfect setup for the upgrade. I spend months planning for the 4ft tank, trying to get everything right and making sure the equipments chosen were suitable. (i.e, Calcium reactor or dosing pump? Internal or external overflow? Wavebox or powerheads? What size sand? refugium required? etc etc ) I know of my fellow reefer friend that spent a year designing he's tank and cabinet. Turned out to be the best looking tank i've come across. I believe many here, if given the choice, would like to have something done differently to their tank design if they were to make it again.

Its day 7 of the 14day zeovit cycle. As expected and mentioned in the guide, Diatoms have started to appear on the rocks, nothing too serious though. The rocks with the most obvious diatoms are the 2 pieces of aquaroche i have. Probably because i didn't soak it long enough in rodi, didn't expect the need to. Couldn't capture the diatoms with my phone camera as the lights appeared too blue. Will try taking a shot tomorrow with leds off. Will be making a trip on sunday to get some snails, so i can put them in on day 10. Anyone knows where has a good supply of cerith and trochus snails? Need about 5-7 of each.