this teacher doesnt know fish too well. a dozen guppies with a quick waterchange from us every week and bravo. nothing on the scale of what you are planning
What kind of budget should I be looking at?
- Thread starter Oompa Loompa
- Start date
the like was for the tank... sad about your aunt.View attachment 1202371 just for proof. Just found out that my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancerso any further work on the tank will be delayed for approximately two weeks. I've got a buddy who's going to keep up regular maintenance, I'll be sure to let you all know if anything major happens
Damn it, it deleted my reply for some reason. Anyways, four steps of a plan for the tank when I get back:
1) Move a good bit of those fish around. The royal gramma (monster, about 4") will get his own 5 or 10 gallon setup, the two green chromis (1" and 1-1/2") will get their own 5 or 10 gallon tank, and the banggai cardinal will get his own 10 gallon tank, as well as a new mate so we can breed them. There's one other fish that came with the tank - the best looking lemonpeel angelfish I have ever seen. He is definitely staying in this display. As of now, I have no clue what will be going in the tank for the long term. My general idea is the little angelfish, a pair of clownfish, some kind of goby (thinking a yellow watchman goby/pistol shrimp pair), a midas blenny (hoping this isn't too much yellow in the tank), some kind of wrasse or hawkfish (considering a christmas wrasse or a flame hawkfish), and then a pair of firefish (more on them later). That's pretty heavily stocked, and definitely at the high end of the scale - again more on this later.
2) Get a sump on this thing. There's currently only one form of filtration (aside from powerheads and live rock) - a crappy, dirty HOB filter. I have no clue how the fish are looking so healthy. There's going to be an algae turf scrubber (basically a tank where you grow algae on it and then remove it, helps with nutrient exportation), and then hopefully a sump and refugium. This will be 20 gallons or more, mostly because I want a nice sized refugium for more nutrient exportation. I also need room for a return pump and for the heater in the sump, as well as a bit of media. The HOB filter is going to be removed, the heater will go in the sump, and the two oversized powerheads will be removed. For flow in the main tank, we're going to have dual loc-line returns coming from the return pump at either side of the tank, so we're going big on the return pump. In the refugium, I want to have the pair of firefish (or the pair of banggai cardinals, if the cardinals go in there then the firefish will remain in the display). Another project I want to do is build a simply canopy for the tank, because I don't like the light fixture showing and I want to use eggcrate versus plastic tops so that light can get through better.
3) How will funding work? I had to think this through myself, because the tank was donated - we don't have a budget for this. That doesn't mean I have all the money I want, it means I have no money. Which really sucks, but I think what will happen is my buddies will organize a bake sale at the school and all the funds from that will go to the tank - goal is $200 or more.
4) Once all that is done, we're going to make this a reef. We are going to get a CUC going in there as well, because I noticed a single small aiptasia (peppermint shrimp will solve the problem) and the hair algae has grown even since this morning. So that's a major issue - to top it off, the substrate appears to be somewhat dirty, so an emerald crab or something to keep that clean will help. Once we decide to go reef, we will find a local reefer's club and try to get a few cheap/free frags from them and hopefully they will fill the tank. I am in no rush to get this thing converted to a reef, but it would definitely be nice. I am considering an anemone for the clownfish pair, as it has been requested by a few kids - I don't think it will end up happening, but if I wanted to go with one of them, the tank is very well established - it's been running for over 5 years as far as I know. I'm debating GSP in the tank because once it goes in we really can't get it back out, lol. One final thing I need to do is work on the substrate - there's a bit of sand, but it's all on the bottom and there's this ugly layer of coral gravel on top. I am probably going to take that out and crush it up, hopefully producing something at least similar to sand. I don't want to throw that away and have to buy more sand, that wastes money and the gravel.
One more thing - I have requests for a flounder tank, something I have never done before. I definitely don't want a flounder in the reef, so I might be setting up a new tank. This would be for like the smaller flounder you see in the marshes and such - I can get them pretty easily. Best of all, the high school principal requested this so there's a good chance it can happen. This would be probably a 20 gallon tank, sand bottom, some seagrasses along the back and a few scattered rocks. Probably build a simple canister filter for it and keep the heater in there so there's no clutter in the tank. Basic white lighting on it to make it stand out and we're set.
Oh, and to Hendre - thanks, I'll be going up to help her out with that for around the next two weeks, already told my boss so that's finalized. It sucks, but the good news is she said they can probably cure it
1) Move a good bit of those fish around. The royal gramma (monster, about 4") will get his own 5 or 10 gallon setup, the two green chromis (1" and 1-1/2") will get their own 5 or 10 gallon tank, and the banggai cardinal will get his own 10 gallon tank, as well as a new mate so we can breed them. There's one other fish that came with the tank - the best looking lemonpeel angelfish I have ever seen. He is definitely staying in this display. As of now, I have no clue what will be going in the tank for the long term. My general idea is the little angelfish, a pair of clownfish, some kind of goby (thinking a yellow watchman goby/pistol shrimp pair), a midas blenny (hoping this isn't too much yellow in the tank), some kind of wrasse or hawkfish (considering a christmas wrasse or a flame hawkfish), and then a pair of firefish (more on them later). That's pretty heavily stocked, and definitely at the high end of the scale - again more on this later.
2) Get a sump on this thing. There's currently only one form of filtration (aside from powerheads and live rock) - a crappy, dirty HOB filter. I have no clue how the fish are looking so healthy. There's going to be an algae turf scrubber (basically a tank where you grow algae on it and then remove it, helps with nutrient exportation), and then hopefully a sump and refugium. This will be 20 gallons or more, mostly because I want a nice sized refugium for more nutrient exportation. I also need room for a return pump and for the heater in the sump, as well as a bit of media. The HOB filter is going to be removed, the heater will go in the sump, and the two oversized powerheads will be removed. For flow in the main tank, we're going to have dual loc-line returns coming from the return pump at either side of the tank, so we're going big on the return pump. In the refugium, I want to have the pair of firefish (or the pair of banggai cardinals, if the cardinals go in there then the firefish will remain in the display). Another project I want to do is build a simply canopy for the tank, because I don't like the light fixture showing and I want to use eggcrate versus plastic tops so that light can get through better.
3) How will funding work? I had to think this through myself, because the tank was donated - we don't have a budget for this. That doesn't mean I have all the money I want, it means I have no money. Which really sucks, but I think what will happen is my buddies will organize a bake sale at the school and all the funds from that will go to the tank - goal is $200 or more.
4) Once all that is done, we're going to make this a reef. We are going to get a CUC going in there as well, because I noticed a single small aiptasia (peppermint shrimp will solve the problem) and the hair algae has grown even since this morning. So that's a major issue - to top it off, the substrate appears to be somewhat dirty, so an emerald crab or something to keep that clean will help. Once we decide to go reef, we will find a local reefer's club and try to get a few cheap/free frags from them and hopefully they will fill the tank. I am in no rush to get this thing converted to a reef, but it would definitely be nice. I am considering an anemone for the clownfish pair, as it has been requested by a few kids - I don't think it will end up happening, but if I wanted to go with one of them, the tank is very well established - it's been running for over 5 years as far as I know. I'm debating GSP in the tank because once it goes in we really can't get it back out, lol. One final thing I need to do is work on the substrate - there's a bit of sand, but it's all on the bottom and there's this ugly layer of coral gravel on top. I am probably going to take that out and crush it up, hopefully producing something at least similar to sand. I don't want to throw that away and have to buy more sand, that wastes money and the gravel.
One more thing - I have requests for a flounder tank, something I have never done before. I definitely don't want a flounder in the reef, so I might be setting up a new tank. This would be for like the smaller flounder you see in the marshes and such - I can get them pretty easily. Best of all, the high school principal requested this so there's a good chance it can happen. This would be probably a 20 gallon tank, sand bottom, some seagrasses along the back and a few scattered rocks. Probably build a simple canister filter for it and keep the heater in there so there's no clutter in the tank. Basic white lighting on it to make it stand out and we're set.
Oh, and to Hendre - thanks, I'll be going up to help her out with that for around the next two weeks, already told my boss so that's finalized. It sucks, but the good news is she said they can probably cure it
I'm back! So the tank appears to be doing pretty well, the glass was kept clean, powerheads need a bit of work so I'll be cleaning those at some point today. All of the fish are fine except for one chromis, he died. We're going to get some corals in here soon. We picked up a Reef Octopus skimmer rated for up to 55 gallons (with a heavy bioload) so we're going to run this along with a 20 long sump/refugium. I would like to put a door on the lower part of the stand, however it's curved so I would have to find a way to do that - the other option is to custom-build a new stand. I am talking with the headmaster about what kind of funding we can get for the tank - it looks like we may have to come up with it ourselves, like a bake sale or something.
I don't know what fish we want in the tank, but we will figure that out at some point. I'll probably just send the headmaster the link to Live Aquaria and tell him to pick out what he likes, then I can get a few off of the list that he likes.
I don't know what fish we want in the tank, but we will figure that out at some point. I'll probably just send the headmaster the link to Live Aquaria and tell him to pick out what he likes, then I can get a few off of the list that he likes.
Yeah, the royal gramma is a big boy, seems to be pretty aggressive so I think I'm going to banish him to the fuge. The angel might not be too reef-safe, lemonpeels look to be the least-trustable of the dwarf angels with corals.
You seeing this
Freshwater4Life
?
Somebody bought one of their bowl goldfish for the teacher, im trying to find a taker while she waits for a chance to get a heater and proper bulb.
I saw a gramma at the LFS, beautiful fish indeed
Freshwater4Life
?Somebody bought one of their bowl goldfish for the teacher, im trying to find a taker while she waits for a chance to get a heater and proper bulb.
I saw a gramma at the LFS, beautiful fish indeed
I'm sure there's someone around with a goldfish/koi pond you could throw him in.You seeing this
Somebody bought one of their bowl goldfish for the teacher, im trying to find a taker while she waits for a chance to get a heater and proper bulb.
I saw a gramma at the LFS, beautiful fish indeed
Grammas are pretty sweet, this one is easily 3-4" and it's the biggest one I have ever seen! I'll put a ruler near the tank and try to get a good shot of him
What are you asking if I'm seeing ? If he said they would set up a 60 gallon saltwater tank than I would have believed him from the beginning .You seeing this
Somebody bought one of their bowl goldfish for the teacher, im trying to find a taker while she waits for a chance to get a heater and proper bulb.
I saw a gramma at the LFS, beautiful fish indeed
