My First SW tank

[Cliff519]

I added to my salt water family a few days ago. I got a minic yellow tang and a scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp. The yellow tank was in a QT tank for about 2 weeks with no signs of illness. Everyone eats really good. The shrimp is pretty shy right now, hiding in the rocks and only coming out when there’s food or a fish swims by

The tang is an eating machine. He was even eating the diatoms off the rock. I put some dried seaweed in the tank for him but he hasn’t figured out its food yet. I’m sure he will in time.

Still no algae yet, but there's some coraline growinh on the dry rock that I put in the sump.

 

[Heathd]

Very nice. I love mimic tangs. They look like an angel, but theyre a tang.

 

[thisissimple]

I have a very similar yellow mimic. They're great. I also have two black percs and some cardinals. Crazy.

this is a great thread, it was good to see someone put a lot of thought and patience into their setup. I think that rockwork is going to be killer when it fills in with stuff. Keep the pics coming.

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

Nice project you got going. Cant wait for you to introduce the corals.

BTW, this could be useful since it's your first time starting a saltwater tank.
http://www.youtube.com/user/mrsaltwatertank

I watched his videos even though I don't own a SW tank.

 

[FLESHY]

Pretty mimic. I always think they are strange...you dont seem them very often. At least not around here which makes them cool.

 

[Cliff519]

Thanks guys

I'm hoping to post a few more pics this weekend (out of town right now)

I'm starting to get coraline on the dry rock I added in the display tank as well. I'm also going to add another cleaner srimp and a dwarf flame angel. I know they can be hard on soft and rather flat shaped corals, but I will give it a try and if this guy starts picking at my corals (when I add them), he will be re-homed into my freinds FOWLR tank. She'll give him a great home if he dosn't fit in with my tank.

Spiritofthesoul, thanks for the link. When I get home tomorrow, I'm going to check it out

Pretty mimic. I always think they are strange...you dont seem them very often. At least not around here which makes them cool.

Fleshy, I know what you mean about the minic tangs. This was the first one that I have ever seen (not that I've seen a lot of tangs). The guys at our SW LFS said minics are hard to find avalable from their suppliers as well. But then again, our SW LFS trys to specialize in the harder to find fish and corals. I was actually looking into a chevron tang they had, but the guys introducted me to this fish and I was hooked. I did a little reseach and picked him up the next day.

Now that I just picked up a good T5 light fixture, I'm hoping to start adding corals after the holidays

Thanks Everyone

 

[FLESHY]

Sweet...wish you lived in the states so I could ship you corals. I would like to do an international package though, just to gain the experience.

 

[Cliff519]

Sweet...wish you lived in the states so I could ship you corals. I would like to do an international package though, just to gain the experience.

Ya, that would be really sweet, but a little too big of a risk to the coral. Shipping live animals or corals into Canada can be a crap-shoot. I know people who have tried getting both fish and corals shipped to them into Canada from the US.

Even with the proper commerial invoice and declarations, the time it took to clear customs was any where from 2 days to almost three weeks. Unless your a registared exporting business in the US, Canadian customs goes through everything with a fine tooth comb at their own time.

After working a few years in a distrubtion business which imported 70% of the inventory, I've come to a conclusion. If the Canadian Government was a living breathing life form, Canadian customs would be it's ***hole.


Just my experiances tho

 

[FLESHY]

After working a few years in a distrubtion business which imported 70% of the inventory, I've come to a conclusion. If the Canadian Government was a living breathing life form, Canadian customs would be it's ***hole.

Lmfao. Dang...well...maybe someday when I have some cash to blow we will send one just to see what happens.

 

[Cliff519]

I got a few additions over the past week.

I added a dwarf flame angel. I thought I would give him a try. They can be hard on corals (mostly flatter fleashy ones) so I will be watching him closely

I also added a few small hardy corals. I’m only going for the tougher, easier to care for corals for now. I got a small frag of some green star polyps, moon polyp zoa, and a long polyp toadstool leather ( sarcophyton ehrenbergi I believe ). They have only been in the tank about 24 hours and they are already opening up.

I was planning to wait another month, but I thought why not. Still going to take it slow (ish). The tank is still doing good. All parameters check out OK, 0 ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphates. I switched my salt to a better quality one and it looks like it is starting to pay off as the parameters are still stable but a little closer within the normal range, Cal is right around 400, dKH at 12.5, and the PH is somewhere between 8.0 and 8.3

I’m going to try feeding them some microplankton in about a week or so when they have adjusted to the tank a little more.