Newbie pico tank

[maxc]

Been considering for a long time to try my hands at a marine tank and I finally took the dive.

Reused some equipments from my freshwater setups and gotten the rest of the equipments that fits within my budget.

Here's my list of equipment:

Tank: 1 feet tank. Roughly 20 liters

Filter: Totto mini type ss

Filter media: filter wool and some live sand from LFS

Substrate: live sand and live rocks

Wavemaker: Jebao SW-4

Lighting: Nemo led light

Here's my FTS. Please feel free to comment, and forgive me if I made any noobie mistakes.

Next steps: to research and see what are the types of corals, clean up crews I should add in when the tank is cycled.

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[Guest]

You can do it ! Patience is the key. Pretty nice scape   What is the water temperature like ?

[maxc]

You can do it ! Patience is the key. Pretty nice scape   What is the water temperature like ?

Thanks for the encouraging words!
I just added a fan to keep the temperature down. The temp range so far is between 26-29 degrees.

It's been almost a week, ammonia level tested last night is around 0.25ppm. Shall keep up with the tests.

Any CUC and beginner corals to recommend?


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[Jairus]

Zoas and softies like leather corals, pulsing xenia, gsp are considered beginner corals


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[Ranz]

mushrooms

[maxc]

mushrooms

Zoas and softies like leather corals, pulsing xenia, gsp are considered beginner corals


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Thanks! Will start looking for some of these in the buy sell section once the tank is cycled. Googled and love the colors of the Rasta zoas!


By the way, where can I get CUCs?
Thinking of a few as follow:
nassarius snail - to keep the sand clean
Trochus and Nerite snail - to keep rock and glass clean




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[Ranz]

lfs will have the cuc.

trochus is quite hard to find (at least for me... i cannot find them), so alternative u can get astrea snails. downside is they cannot flipped back up if they fall on the sand. 

a couple of hermit crabs will also be nice- but they are hit and miss some people have experience they will eat coral if the coral is dying. 

[maxc]

lfs will have the cuc.
trochus is quite hard to find (at least for me... i cannot find them), so alternative u can get astrea snails. downside is they cannot flipped back up if they fall on the sand. 
a couple of hermit crabs will also be nice- but they are hit and miss some people have experience they will eat coral if the coral is dying. 

Thanks for the info. Yes, i read about astrea snail and wanted to avoid them as they can't flip back up when they fall. Anyway, if I can't find trochus, I might end up getting the astera.

I wanted to have hermit crabs too, but as you mentioned, I'm worried that they will attack the corals in the tank or stress them.

I'm also toying with the idea of sexy shrimps, too cute to resist.


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[sleexox]

So pretty!!

[maxc]

So pretty!!

Thanks for your kind words! Still a newbie in reef tank and still learning.


Anyway, a quick update of the tank.

Day 11:


Since setup, I have added a dymax fan to keep the temp between 26-29. And also added a ATO with distilled water from Ntuc. (Btw, the evaporation rate is quite high)

Starting to see some life form on the rocks, spotted a couple of tiny feather duster worms.

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 80-160ppm @@

I have no idea why are my nitrates so high. Read on other forums that it could be from the dosing of Bacterlife last week. (I had a bottle for my freshwater tank, and my itchy hands decided to dose some for my pico hoping to kickstart the cycling)

So the plan is to do a 50% water change tonight, add a small piece of dead prawn and monitor the water in the coming weeks.




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[diki88]

If you are using live rocks, then the previously registered ammonia could just be die offs from the transport. Now that ammonia is 0, means your tank has beneficial bacteria already to process ammonia to nitrite/nitrate. this coincides with you seeing the tiny feather duster, which didnt show when ammonia was present. 

no need to add any more prawn. you will end up lengthening the cycling process especially in a pico tank. the WC is a good idea, you can even go more than 50%.

maybe you can test your PO4 soon enough. and on your lights even though there is nothing inside to get the diatoms to start and get them out of the way before you start adding fishes and corals. it also gives you a reason to add CUC for the diatoms lol. 

good luck!

[maxc]

If you are using live rocks, then the previously registered ammonia could just be die offs from the transport. Now that ammonia is 0, means your tank has beneficial bacteria already to process ammonia to nitrite/nitrate. this coincides with you seeing the tiny feather duster, which didnt show when ammonia was present. 
no need to add any more prawn. you will end up lengthening the cycling process especially in a pico tank. the WC is a good idea, you can even go more than 50%.
maybe you can test your PO4 soon enough. and on your lights even though there is nothing inside to get the diatoms to start and get them out of the way before you start adding fishes and corals. it also gives you a reason to add CUC for the diatoms lol. 
good luck!

Thanks for the advice!

I did a 50% water change last night, and tested for ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: ~80ppm

Should I continue with my water changes until the nitrate level comes down?

I will also get a PO4 test kit over the weekend as you mentioned.

My lights has been on since the tank is setup for 6 hours daily. Is it enough? Or should I increase it to 8? So I should only start adding the CUC after the diatoms appear?



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[Jianpuu]

Frogspawn hammer coral


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[diki88]

I would say you can encourage the diatom bloom to happen earlier by making your photoperiod longer. at least you don't have to go through the uglies when you start putting corals inside. but no guarantees since it's dependent on your silicate levels also.

anws when the diatom bloom start, at least your cuc has smthn to do and you feel more shiok that you see your crew doing what they are called, cleaning.

[maxc]

Speaking of a diatom bloom, I just got back and surprised to see brown diatom appearing mostly on the right side of my the tank.



Some algae like stuff growing on the LR



And also spotted a lot more feather duster worms (not sure if I ID it correctly). They will retract into the LR when spooked.



front tank shot thus far.



I happen to find some leftover seachem matrix and added them to one of the chambers in the filter, hopefully will help with the high nitrate levels.





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[maxc]

It's been about a couple of months and here's a quick update.
I added a Smart ATO and a fan to keep temperatures between 26-27 degrees.

Did some rescape on the left in hopes of creating a Zoa garden.

Corals so far:
• A few different Zoas. (Rasta's, fire and ice, la lakers etc, not sure about the other IDs.)

• mushrooms
• pulsing Xenia
• frogspawn
• octopus coral (not sure what's the correct name)

CUC:
• 1 x hermit crab
• 1 x Nassarius
• 1 x turbo

3 x sexy shrimps

Here are some shots taken today, sorry for the lousy pictures.

Feel free to comment on how I can improve stuffs. Thanks!
















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[alvinyky]

nice..thk for sharing..

[xIHA]

Cool tank

[Jidan]

Power lah!

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[Tabungrahim]

Nice ones....

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[NubReefer]

It's been about a couple of months and here's a quick update.
I added a Smart ATO and a fan to keep temperatures between 26-27 degrees.

Did some rescape on the left in hopes of creating a Zoa garden.

Corals so far:
• A few different Zoas. (Rasta's, fire and ice, la lakers etc, not sure about the other IDs.)

• mushrooms
• pulsing Xenia
• frogspawn
• octopus coral (not sure what's the correct name)

CUC:
• 1 x hermit crab
• 1 x Nassarius
• 1 x turbo

3 x sexy shrimps

Here are some shots taken today, sorry for the lousy pictures.

Feel free to comment on how I can improve stuffs. Thanks!
















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Careful as SExy shrimp is known for eating zoas from time to time if they dont eat well

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