Tank Journal

[pat8you]

Ok so previously i have been posting about our tank at home (at college now). I have a 12 gallon biocube that i will be setting up down here. Heres the story so far...

I went out and bought about 17 and change pounds of live rock that has been sitting in some saltwater waiting to be scrubbed and cleaned before going in the tank. 2-3lbs of that are rubble that i will be putting in the back filter portion of the tank for those of you who are familiar with the set up on the bio cubes. (i'll be posting picture tomorrow).

I took out the sponges and ceramic rings and bioballs because i have heard that replacing it with LR rubble is a better option. Still can be changed though if anyone has different opinions on that.

I put in a thin sand bed. Only about a 1/4 inch so that my cleanup crew will be able to keep it turned up and algae free. (fingers crossed). Here is what i am thinking about for a clean up crew after the tank cycles.

- 3-4x Mexican turbo snails
- 3-4x Trochus snails (yay for being able to flip themselves)
- 3x Nassarius snails (the larger super tongan ones if i can find them)
- 3x blue leg hermits

As for an eventual stock list I'm debating between a pair of clowns and a purple firefish or one clown, purple fire fish, and one blue neon goby. I would also like to stock it with some soft corals, mushrooms, polyps, and LPS corals. Not sure which specific corals i want yet but here are a few that i have my eye on.

-Tourch
-Frogspawn or hammer
-Ricordea mushrooms
-polyp of some kind (when i find a color i like)
-Pink pulsing Xenia

after that i will have see see how much room i have and what ever catches my eye.

All comments and criticisms welcome. I will take some pictures tomorrow as I'm setting things up.

-edit: just fyi the tank has two 24watt 50-50 bulbs (10,000k and blue actinic). I'm hoping the 4watt/gal will be enough for the corals i have listed.

[pat8you]

Ok so i finished adding the rock and water and here are the pictures. Water is still a bit cloudy.

[roka64]

Ohhhh.....I love the shelves!

[severum mama]

I agree. Nice job! That will be really fun to scape when you are ready to start adding coral.

[pat8you]

In my first post i was tossing around ideas for what kind of fish i want in the tank. I have ruled out the pair of clowns because i don't think i could put an anemone in there for them. and i was wondering if i could put in there one clown, purple firefish and one of these guys

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...cfm?pCatId=162

not sure if that would be to many fish or if my tank would be to small for that fish. Please let me know what you think.

[severum mama]

From what I understand, most pseudochromis species can get pretty aggressive. I'd suggest sticking with one clown (preferably a smaller species like amphiprion ocellaris or percula) and the purple firefish.

You will have sufficient lighting for the corals you listed IMO. This is going to be a really fun project for you, I'm sure!!! Good luck.

[pat8you]

hmm that sucks cuz i really like that fish. We have one of these in the tank at home and he doesn't seem to bother anyone except the occasional encounter with our sand sifting goby. which i think he does more cuz he is bored... very interesting fish.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...fm?pCatId=1117

they don't really fight i guess. there is rarly even a nipped fin. it almost looks like they are playing a game of tag. he will run out and bob the goby and then bolt back to the rocks and then nothing for a week. kinda funny to watch.

I was looking of some of the other pseudochomis and there seems to be a wide range of aggression between the different types. If i let the other two fish become fairly established and maybe let them grow a while before i added the pseudochromis last would that help at all? Severum please don't think i am disregarding your advice just kinda throwing around ideas. appreciate the help.

[pat8you]

Well after taking the aggression into account i don't really wanna risk having a pseudochromis go bad and then have to try and battle with it to get him out again.

So i've changed things yet again and i'm thinking i will still go with a small clown and the purple firefish and then one of these

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...cfm?pCatId=181

It would be cool if i could put a pistol shrimp as well and have them pair but i don't know much about pistol shrimp. Do they need a bigger tank and about how deep a sand bed to keep them happy?

[roka64]

12 G might be pushing it. It seem the shallower the sand bed, the more they like to pile up sand in other places. I have one in my 55 and my sand bed was about 3 inches, he has moved a few pile higher than 6 inches. Austinsdad has 2 in his 155 and they didn't seem to move much sand around. Also they will make caves under every piece of rock you have. I'll get 2 for my 125 which has about a 5-6 inch sand bed and see what they do.

[pat8you]

Hmm i was afraid of that. Will the hi fin goby be ok with a shallow sand bed or does he need more sand to make burrows as well? In general what is probably the max number of fish i could put in this tank? would i be able to add a small 4th or would that be putting to much stress on the system?