Advice on a "new to me"

[sharuq1]

A "new to me" reef that is...

I did not know where to post this, so I ended up making two posts. Mods do what you will


I ended up with one but have no idea if these are any good (or how to make it work, lol, it is in pieces.... or if I even have all the pieces). It says it is a Turboflotor 1000 multi. The pump for it says it is an "aquabee", AC=115, Hz=60, 2000 L/h ). At least... I think that is the pump for it.

Info:

Eventually this is going to be my main sw tank. The livestock from my BC14 will be going in there as well at some point (listed in my sig).

Tank is I believe a 46 or 48g bow, no sump--stand will not allow for that and neither will my living room, running what looks to be some sort of coralife skimmer, also running a seio 820 I switched out of another tank (directed at the top presently) It is running a rena xp3 as well. It needs cleaning but I will clean it out "box" at a time to try and keep whatever good bacteria is in there. Might eventually either do away with the rena or take everything out of it and stick a LR in there or something.

First reading: Ammonia levels are high right from the get go (cycle here I come), nitrate (surprisingly due to the amt of detritus) level was 0. Didn't bother testing for anything else. The tank was neglected by previous owners due to lack of time. I am not complaining though, because otherwise someone would have bought it and then I wouldn't have it,

I started up a diatom filter on it yesterday which is already helping the clarity in the water enormously. Don't much care for the microbubbles coming out of the outtake on it, but right now the water quality means more to me than the bubbles. Also added algone to the rena.

Other known issues:

1) It also came with 2 clowns and a mandarin fish (this makes me very nervous as I have yet to see a single pod in this tank and it has not shown interest in mysis or anything else I have put in there.) The mandarin does not look fat, but is not emaciated yet either. It is constantly picking at whatever it sees on the rock.

Options I have considered thus far for him: trying to find someone to "mandarin sit" who has a well-established tank without tankmates that would kill him--unsure if I know anyone who could though; making a feeding station and sticking bbs and anything else I think he might eat.... I find it amazing they said they had kept him for a year or something like that, and he is still alive so he is either a trooper or the tank used to be in better shape and has only recently declined (most likely due to lack of time). I have always wanted a mandarin so I selling him off is not an option I want to look into yet, he has lived in those conditions so far. (I know someone will mention it, lol)

2) It also came with a small gsp rock (which had alot of gha on it, I tried to get much of that off gently--I see a few polyps but I don't know if it will make it) and a candy cane frag, which looks to be almost dead, poor thing. After testing the water I think if I removed these to a seperate tank of better water that they will die from the enormous shock of actually having clean water so I figure if they are going to recover it will have to be done slowly. I really do not think the c.cane has a chance in h%$ though, but I will wait and see if there is any improvement as water quality improves.

3) It came with a sand bed, which is very well established but also very dirty. It has detritus all over and in it, as well as some gha. I would have preferred to remove this (as I like BB personally) but I have not because I think it will cause a crash and if there is anything in it that has been keeping my mandarin alive that is a plus. Have considered siphoning some off sand with each WC. I am unsure whether I should get rid of the sand bed entirely at some point mostly due to the mandarin (what on earth has he been eating?? they have not fed him they said)


Right now my main priorities are trying to keep that poor mandarin alive and getting the tank cleaned up and stable. (at least as much as possible)

Future plans include setting up a little AC110 fuge on the back (expecting the AC110 in the mail at some point from another member). If anyone has some cheato please pm me. Would also like to add more flow as well. Will be looking at lighting options for it too.

Soooo after that very long post tell me your ideas and thoughts canreefers? Thanks all!