i see problems with that, the once a year water changes? your levels will get very high and you'll lose allot of fish, i would recommend like once every two weeks
76-77 is a little cold i would have it 78-80
skimmer i would leave 24/7
why are you overfeeding?
salt gravity is good i think recomened for corals is 1.025-1.026

all of this is IMO :)

From what ive been told and what i understand overfeeding increases trates which plants need and use to grow. Levels yes will get high unless there are enough macroalgaes to balance the system. You cant just overfeed right off the bat. There needs to be enough plant life to uptake the extra nutrients. Instead of overfeeding people also dose KNO3, among other things to get the levels high enough but overfeeding does the same thing. Same thing for freshwater planted tanks which i run now.

I agree once a year doesnt seem like enough and I plan on doing more. The people that dont do WC often have very mature and stable tanks that take care of themselves. Ive even read about some reef tanks (10gal) that havent done WC in 2 years and their tanks are beautiful but they only have softies and a few fish as well as a skimmer. The tank I speak of now also did not use a sump. I as well as many others were very surprised.
The general concensus is that planted marine tanks are very different than reef tanks.

If the skimmer is on 24/7 it removes too many organics which the plants use, thus starving the plants. I think a skimmer is a good thing but not in a planted tank. I plan on running it for 12 hours at a time. If i see the plants showing signs of starving then I will shut off the skimmer and only run once a week or so.

the cooler temps come from people who keep macroalgae tanks with softies and seahorses or pipefish which need the cooler temps. All of them say these tanks need high nutrient levels and so they overfeed to achieve an environment healthy enough to maintain their horses and pipes as well as have a thriving macroalgae garden.

Everyone keeping these type of tanks agrees that there must be high nutrient levels or the tank will not be successful.
Macroalgae sucks up the nutrients and ends up balancing the system. Many of these people i spoke too also have reef tanks (no macroalgae) and they all agree a macro tank is much easier to care for and their water quality is much better because of the macro.

Even years ago when I started looking into macro tanks overfeeding or overstocking (which im not a fan of) to increase nutrient levels was a given. If you didnt do that then you needed to do some serious dosing.

Either way I want a macro algae tank and Im taking advise from people who have kept these tanks successfully for years (3+) not a couple of months or just over a year.
I am also reading up on tom barr's studies for saltwater planted tanks. He is very well respected for freshwater planted tanks. So far his studies are very similar between the two environments.

double post

I wish you luck, thats all I can say

I have been running my tank in the 77-76 range for about 3 years with no negitive effects

well i dont know alot about the aquarium business yet, just general guidelines

Here are some of the threads on macroalgae tanks.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1508826

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...acroalgae+tank

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...oalgae+display

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...oalgae+display

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=1

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...owtopic=175929

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...howtopic=99552

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/lofi...p/t177752.html

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1785144

http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showtopic=38609

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/greenalg.htm


And as for the WC because im assuming thats what the major issue is about; i said "WC are done minimally" That doesnt mean Im gonna follow some of the advise of doing it once or twice a year. Im gonna do it more than that but im not doing weekly WC. I cant with a new baby. Its just me taking care of all my tanks and im not a stay at home mom either. Every other week or monthly will be more for me. But Im going to do what the plants, coral, and fish tell me to do. If they look like they need more than that then I will do more than that.

High nutrient levels in a macroalgae tank doesnt mean holy poop high. Its higher than would be allowed in a reef tank. Nitrates need to be above 0 in order for the plants to recieve nutrients. Nitrite and ammonia need to be at 0. It doesnt take a lot to increase nutrients to the levels they need to be at. I mean geez people keep softy reef tanks at 20ppm of nitrates. Im not agreeing with it and i believe it should be lower for saltwater tanks. Macro tanks are not that high because the plants suck up all the trates. They typically end up at 0 anyway which is where they need to be. No overfeeding or dosing is needed unless the trates start to bottom out.

Because i am going slowly WC will happen often because I will bairly have any macro and the tank will be "new". Dosing/overfeeding wont really happen at the beginning because there wont be much for nutrient uptake. Adding fish with regular feeding at first will be all that is needed. Once the tank is full and bioload cant keep up with the macroalgae THEN you need to either start overfeeding or dosing or both depending on how much the plants suck up. Before then everything is almost the same as a regular reef tank.


Please tell me what are these successful tanks are doing wrong?? I would like to know. The more research I do now the better before I add anything to the tank.

If you don;t mind the algaes taking over your display tank, then its all good. I procrasonate on water changes myself. Med stocked 150g, 15g/monthly WC. I have been battling GHA and am FED UP More water changed and lower nutrients are in store for my tank.

No i dont mind the macroalgaes taking over the display tank. Thats what I want is a lush full mature display tank with macroalgae and some coral. I think they are beautiful. They dont look like candyshelved corals in a box of water.
Some coral only tanks are lovely because the hobbiest lets the corals grow to their potential and allows the whole tank to mature. Those are lovely.

i like your plan. hope you have a good camera:mrgreen:
you do know you owe us pics now!

Oh yea I will be posting pics.
As soon as I can get some LR from the lfs I will count the cycle as started and start testing. I will be taking pics then. right now its a box of water, sand and dead rock. Nothing interesting to look at yet.
The LR at the lfs comes from Hati and you know the issues they are having there. So they are trying to get some in from Jakarta but the dealer is not responding to them. I may have to buy some online from JLA. Ive not had issues with them except for the last shipment. Someone stole my Credit card ID via their secure website and tried to use it at Amazon.ca.
Amazon called and asked if I made a purchase which was a few hundred dollers. Umm no. Ive never been to amazon.ca. So they cancelled the order I cancelled my card and waited a month for my new one.
So now im wondering if i should wait for however long it takes for my LFS to get something in or do the JLA thing again.

As for the tank today: I was lowering the salinity very slowly. I took out about 2gals of saltwater and put in freshwater. Its still slightly above where I want it but Im gonna let it mix some more and then test. If its still the same Im going to remove another 2gals of water and add fresh water. Hopefully that will decrease the salinity enough to get to 1.025.

I cant wait to start getting some macro in the tank. Aparently with macro algae you dont need to wait for the cycle to be over. It wants to feed on nitrates. However no CUC until there is a complete cycle.
Still trying to figure out how much of what to put in there for a CUC.

the ammonia might not do great on your plants, as for slowly lowering the salinity i wouldn't worry about that as theres nothing in the tank.
Try to find some live rock someone has to much of, or that someone is shutting there tank down, im getting some tonight for $5 a lbs

Well, once again much time has passed with no updates. Still waiting to get some LR to seed the system. I will not considered the cycle started until I get LR. Looking at JLA LR. Im hoping they have some because the lfs from here to PG dont have any. They aparently get their supplies from Haiti and we all know what happened there.

Currently I am topping off every 3 days (1gal). The salinity changes from .025 to .029 or .030 within that time. Is that too much of a swing for livestock every 3 days??

I did however neglect the tank for a whole week (no topoffs) because my grandfather had passed away due to kidney failure from diabetes. Its been tough but Im sure my mom is having it harder. Her husband and her dad both gone within just under 7 months and now I have an uncle who is really sick and is being tested for pancreatic cancer. My husbands grandpa is also sick. Hes been in the hospital since christmas and has had 4 surgeries thus far. Hes got colon cancer and they found lumps in his lungs. The docs keep going back and forth whether it is cancer or not. Its like they dont know what they are doing in that hospital. (different from ours).

I am also now 32 weeks pregnant (about 8 weeks left to go) and Im scared as hell of "THE DAY". My hips are killing me, cant sleep, BH contractions, nausea, hot flashes, etc etc etc. Its not fun. But feeling my little man move is amazing and I wouldnt change that for the world.

I want to get the cycle started and a few macros in the tank before the birth so I dont have my hands in that tank much if at all.

Got in contact with a few suppliers of LR and they said they dont supply rock with macroaglae or their supply lately has had none, etc. Contacted my lfs and they are expecting LR from Indonesia in the next month but need to wait for the cites paperwork to go through. So i guess im waiting a while longer.

just want people to know im still here and still waiting for LR. I told my hubby that it will probably come in while im in the hospital giving birth lol.
Just so people know, Im expecting any day now

Update: I had my beautiful baby boy on May 5 at 7:09pm after 8 hours of Labour and delivery. So as you can imagine ive been pretty busy :)

The day before yesterday we went on our first family trip to the town over to pick up a few things and to check out the lfs. They did have LR but only a bit left. I picked up the nicest piece they had. The LR is covered in green and red coraline, sponges, some red fuzzy fat tree looking thing (looks pretty cool), covered in pods and shrimp and I counted 3 worms. It does have some nuisance algae but it has started to go away in the short time its been in my tank. All other life is doing very well and hopping around on their rock and surrounding sand.
I also recieved some dragons tongue macro algae for free from the manager of the lfs. It was pale pink and it is now colouring up nicely. The edges are getting orangie dots that fluoress (sp?) under my lighting. Tried taking a pic but my camera doesnt get it.

I am now looking for more macro algaes so, keep an eye out for my begging in the classifides section :)

Hey Congrats on your son!!

We need a name and pitchurs of course!! :mrgreen:

PICTURES!!!

My Son Logan
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/DSC_2291.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/DSC_2482.jpg


and my tank
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...June102010.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/DSC_2598.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/DSC_2595.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...whatisthis.jpg

what the heck is that in the last pic? apaistia??

looks like i didnt post my cycling results with the piece of LR. Here we go :)

June 10 at 12:30
PH 7.8
ammonia 0.0
nitrite 0.0
nitrate 0.0
Alk 2.65

June 11 at 6:15
everything is the same but PH is 8.0


I will not be doing more tests for a few days.

That liverock looks pretty established. I dont think you're going to get much of a cycle until you start adding fish for some waste production.

Yes that is aptasia in the last picture.

Yea I was thinking that about the cycle. Thats ok it means next time i go the LFS i can get my cuc :) Or maybe the good looking clowns they have there ??? what do you think.
fish or cuc first?? or both?

as for the little apaista .... GRRRRRRR!!!!!!
So far it is the only one ive seen on the LR so im going to try and blast it with some scalding hot water with my pipette. Ive seen it work before on another tank in another thread. Im hoping it will work with mine otherwise im off to order a pepermint shrimp :)

BAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

so i just finished precision blasting with hot water on the apaista. I did 3 good squirts with a full pipette which fit completely over its tube and entire body. I cleaned up my materials and came back to check. I guess pods and shrimp like the smell of cooked apaista because they swarmed the area and ate the remnants. HAHAHAHA. Totally awsome to see.

2 of my 3 tanks don't have a store bought cleanup crew and rely purely on the mini snails, brittle stars, worms, pods, and other bugs that hitch hiked into the tank. So my vote is for a fish first. But then again I have never started a tank from scratch so my advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

a familiar part of the cycle, finally! I have a flourishing brown invasion of diatoms. Looks like testing later today or tomorrow and then a small cuc.

Soon after the last post my diatoms cleared right up. Testing, everything was good. Went to the lfs and purchased 2 clowns (omen and nemo) they had from the Vancouver aquarium. Dragons breath macro algae was thrown in for free YAY! The clowns were perfect and still are. Very healthy and now come to my hand for food.
Today my husband went to the lfs and picked me up a pepermint shrimp. He too is doing awsome. Right away he started forraging for food, he didnt hide at all.

I have noticed with my tank I have to add nitrates via powdered ferts for my macro algae to stay red. They are too efficient at sucking up the trates. My testing still remains at 0 across the board. Unless i dose every week.
I dose baking soda 5mls a week to keep my alk up
KNO3 1/4tsp once a week to try and keep it at 5ppm

I will take a pic after I clean the tank and things have settled.

Apart from commercial clam farms I've never heard of someone needing to supplement nitrate before.

my livestock is still too minimal and overfeeding doesnt produce enough trates. when my macro algae go white/pale they are starving. i dose and within 1 day they are back to red. hopefully when the tank matures some more i wont need to dose as much, if any.
Oh! and i use tap as my top off because i want algae. the macro algae are more efficient at absorbtion than micro or pest/nuisance algae therefore they outcompete the micro algae. thus leaving me with a near algae free tank.

the macro algae looks pale here because it was right before i dosed.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/July2010.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...mintshrimp.jpg

Still looking for:
red with blue dots (superman) dioscema mushroom, rics and rics with blue in them, yumas, bicolour frogspawn or green with pink or purple tip frogspawn, cloves (not gsp), featherdusters, sargasseum macro algae and other macros that are not red or green. A softie or some coral that loves being in direct light and is not a calcium sucker.

How do you feel about the film on the surface of the water in your tank?

The film doesnt bother me in the least. Its mostly bubbles anyway. If i dont dose and my macro go pale/white the film nearly goes away. Id rather have a healthy livestock than worry about looks on the top of my water. Im not interested in buying a surface skimmer. Meh.
My tunze hob skimmer does a pretty good job as is. I have it on the lowest setting so it leaves more "junk" in the water for the macros to thrive.
The fish and shrimp are doing amazing. Ive been very lucky to get such good stock. They have huge personalities too.
Now i want to get a coral beauty.. but im hoping it wont eat my nice macro algae or munch on the softies im going to get. Yikes. Makes me think about another fish but not much else interests me.
6 lines are nice but ive read too many controversial things about them.
Yasha goby i LOVE but geez are they expensive.
Yellow tail blue damsels i LOVE but i would want a group and my tank is too small for them.
I just dont know hmmmm

Got some corals in yesterday from hockey nut. THANK YOU.
1 multi coloured ric
3 rhodactus shrooms
1 green spot shroom
1 ice blue clove frag
1 pink zoas
1 purple gorg
red macro
Im in love.
I will take pics when everything is happy and has coloured up. But so far it looks pretty good :)
Thanks again.

Im seariously considering this to be a mushroom tank now with lots of macro of course. No LPS.
Im still looking for blue shrooms and rics (im in love with rics so pretty much any colour is fine by me), Yuma, cloves, different kinds of macro, feather dusters, zoas but not many.
specifically looking for red with blue dots (superman) dioscema mushroom

for livestock im thinking of either a group of gobies or a coral beauty (afraid it will eat my macro) or maybe both. hmmmm

Alright im putting pics in early. Some items like the ric are still closed up but it still shows its colour :)
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...tankJuly26.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...roomjuly26.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...roomjuly26.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...ctusjuly26.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...dricjuly26.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...ctusjuly26.jpg

Great start Vanessa, I bet you must be happy to get your tank filled with corals....

I have hit the floor running and havent looked back. the only limiting factor for me is space argh!!!!

thanks. it was like chistmas. i even finally let my husband take Logan in the stroller so i could walk out of the airport with my box of coral. This is going to be it for quite a while because we are spending about 50,000 on house renos for the outside of our house (roof, windows, siding) it NEEDS to get done for safetys sake.

i am so ****ed off!!!
this morning i fed 2 clowns. about an hour ago i went to feed the corals ... guess what only one clown. i tore everything apart trying to find him. the whole room is a mess and i found him between the stand and bookshelf about 2 feet off the floor stuck to the side of the stand. i had to use a sheet of paper to scrape him off. he was dry with eyes sunken in.
he was 27 freakin dollars and super healthy.
to top it off my almost 3 month old is teething; super screamer, and i lost his soother. nothing is calming him down.
i havent even gotten dressed yet. im still in my tank top and undies since 5am when logan woke up.
geez what a horrible day.

Alright so i'm calmer now lol.
Im making plans to build a screen for the top of my tank. I was also strongly considering going invert only yesterday too lol

Im thinking im going to make the screen/cover in two pieces. One for the front of the tank and one for the back. The light in the middle will have nothing under it. Its sitting just over the water and spans my entire tank. No gaps at all for fish to squeeze out of there.

Im going to use polypropaline netting if i can find it for the front of the tank. I will string it to window screen frame if i can find that too. This way its light enough for me to remove for whatever i need for the tank. It also looks nicer too.

The back part of the tank is going to be an issue. I have a HOB Tunze 9002 and a few wires coming out the back corners of the tank. I would need a mesh that is sturdy enough for me to cut holes in it just big enough for the skimmer cup to fit and the wires to fit without it sagging. I will obviously need to build a frame for support but i will need something skinny enough to go in between the skimmer cup and my lights. There is very little space there and i need something that is not flammable.
I was thinking of using rigid plastic mesh and a plastic rod... maybe PVC im not sure yet as the frame. Im not worried about the back looking gross. No one is going to see it. It will need to be easily removable as well so i can clean the back glass.

Next time i go to the lfs im going to look for another clown... I hope the clown i have now doesnt kill the new one.
Im also strongly considering a 6 line wrasse.
I would also like to get a couple of hermits and a skunk cleaner.
I wouldnt mind a goby either or a dartfish but they arent carried much by our lfs and im worried the 6 line will attack and kill it.
We shall see though.

went to the lfs yesterday and picked up another clown and 2 blue leg hermits; i couldnt resist.
When i got home i noticed the new clown had no mouth. Grrr so i called the petstore and they will trade me for one that does have a mouth. So now there is one on hold for me. I will pick it up on saturday.


OH and I also got a bunch of corals from tang daddy a little while ago. Very nice corals. I love them and they are all doing well. I will post pics when they are more settled in and colour up some more.

My other corals from hockey nut are colouring up very nicely. The branching gorg however is a lost cause. Its melting away day by day. There is too much to clip away now. Im just leaving it in the tank to see what happens but 80% of it is now gone. :(
I really liked that purple tree. My husband called it "the broken stick"

So a few things have happened in my tank. The water got all cloudy for a few days and I was wondering WTF?? So I tested and noticed my trates were up a bit. I looked around, counted my livestock, everything was there... BUT, in the sandbed I noticed an open white clam shell. I thought, weird. I left the tank to clear out the cloudiness and it did. Then it got cloudy again and I looked around and noticed another clam shell. Then the water went clear again... then a couple days later cloudy again. I looked in the same spot.... Another clam shell. I grabbed a mirror to look at the underside of my LR and I couldnt see much but they are comming from that area. I wonder who is eating the clams... or are they just dying. Meh either way it doesnt bother me. They are hitch hikers and Im not getting mad at whom ever is enjoying fresh clams as much as I do ;)

I also watched something very freaky happen with my hermit crabs. My larger hermit had its claws in the smaller hermits shell. I thought "Nooooo" and in 2 seconds the large crab pulled out the smaller hermit in 2 pieces and flung him to either side and then immediately shoved his claws back into the shell. I watched in horror as the two pieces of little hermie floated and rolled along the sandbed hitting rubble and zoas as it went by. My poor little hermie. HOWEVER, 1 hour later I looked at my tank again and notice not 1 but 2 hermies. YES little hermie just molted. He was not ripped in half by big hermie. YAY!!! What a freaky thing to watch though. lol

I moved some corals around to make room for some new additions comming in September and then that will be it until next year.

My husband; God bless him; bought me a fish from the lfs. Its on hold there and he says its for my saltwater tank. He says its really cool looking and its one that ive talked about before. Hmmmmm I wonder what it could be. Its in quarentine until the lfs deems it safe to send to a new home. Now im not allowed to go to the lfs until the fish is ready for pick up so I dont ruin the surprise.
Im actually more scared than excited. What if he bought me a puffer or a tang or something. eeek

Pictures:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...ya/aug2010.jpg
big hermie with claws in little hermies shell
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../bighermie.jpg
blue ric
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...ya/blueric.jpg
green with orange spot mushroom
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...otmushroom.jpg
superman rhodactious
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...hodactious.jpg
some kind of new macroalgae... a type of bryopsis
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...a/DSC_3512.jpg

didnt like that green algae. Parts of it kept going white and then it was green again blah blah blah so i just removed it.

Got my shipment of coral in from Tang daddy yesterday. Nice stuff but it arrived in cold water. I guess the bus depot place kept it in a cool area.
I will let them get used to their new place before i take any pics.

I recieved:
Lariat zoas
ice blue cloves (hoping these ones survive, they dont ship very well)
neon green candycane (so bright it hurts my eyes)
green sinularia
green ric
pink tip froggy
Green and orange monti cap. (i wanted to give these a try.)

Dont know whats wrong with all my zoas. They opened up the day i got them and thats it. They are very wrinkley like an old persons face. Only one or two from each frag will open up sometimes and thats bairly. I just see a little skirt and thats it. Sometimes they open enough for a polyp to eat and then close up again.
Ive dipped them, nothing happened. I cant see any pests on them. No spots, nothing out of the ordinary from pics i see online. Just wrinkley like they are deflated or something like that. Ive tried to do research but i come up with nothing but unrelated issues. Ive moved them to a lower flow area and lower light.
Any suggestions??