Hey guys. I am new to the site but I am not that new to saltwater tanks either. So here's the story.
I purchased this 29g Bio Cube in the beginning of 2009. It has been my first and only saltwater tank. Initially I stocked the tank fast. Within a month it had many corals and 2-3 fish. The tank cycled extremely fast and went without a hitch. But with every tank you have your un-expected losses. A few fish died, a few corals died, but I'd always replace them and the ones that didn't die thrived so everything was fine. But with owning all the corals the maintenance was too much so I wanted to change the type of tank it was after about 10 months of running fine.
I decided I would get a Bubble Tipped Anenome and get rid of the corals. Bad idea because I lost even more interest in the tank. Although the anenome was super interesting to watch after a few months it disappeared and never saw it again. At that point I really had no money to re-invest in any more expensive livestock so the tank sat running for months growing coraline algae. The water quality didn't change but hair and string algae definitely took over when the lights started to go bad. The tank had a few fish go into it just to keep something living inside but most the time after a few months they would eventually disappear as well.
Now were into 2011!! I've decided to start investing back into my tank as I do miss it, but I do want to do it differently. I changed the lights, did a 20% water change, and the only small problem was the salinity was a bit high. I started dosing the water again with dkh, magnesium, iodine and I wanna start adding calcium again too.
In January I added 2 yellow tail damsels to see how they would fair. So far so good they are eating and doing great.
Now were into February and I added a pink pseudochromis. So far so good with this little guy too. I also added an orange zoa frag and a green zoa frag. Both have 20+ polyps so they are off to a good start. I have decided to make this tank a zoa/ricordea tank. I hopefully can order in some interesting colored species that are harder to find and maybe have a small frag tank in the future to propogate them. But were months away from that!
To give you an idea of how the tank will look in the future I hope to have zoa's covering the rock above 4-5 inches and below that, ricordea will cover the rest of the rock and sand if it chooses to spread that way.
I will update this weekly with pictures and bi-weekly with some notes on whats happening in the tank, new additions, etc. By taking weekly pictures of this tank over a few months we can also learn the growth rate at which zoa's spread. I have found next to no info about this as it is species dependent a lot of the time apparently. Some grow fast, some grow slow so we'll see which ones are the most prominent growers and the ones who take their time.
I will add some pictures soon. Just need some time
Thanks for reading,
Kevin
I purchased this 29g Bio Cube in the beginning of 2009. It has been my first and only saltwater tank. Initially I stocked the tank fast. Within a month it had many corals and 2-3 fish. The tank cycled extremely fast and went without a hitch. But with every tank you have your un-expected losses. A few fish died, a few corals died, but I'd always replace them and the ones that didn't die thrived so everything was fine. But with owning all the corals the maintenance was too much so I wanted to change the type of tank it was after about 10 months of running fine.
I decided I would get a Bubble Tipped Anenome and get rid of the corals. Bad idea because I lost even more interest in the tank. Although the anenome was super interesting to watch after a few months it disappeared and never saw it again. At that point I really had no money to re-invest in any more expensive livestock so the tank sat running for months growing coraline algae. The water quality didn't change but hair and string algae definitely took over when the lights started to go bad. The tank had a few fish go into it just to keep something living inside but most the time after a few months they would eventually disappear as well.
Now were into 2011!! I've decided to start investing back into my tank as I do miss it, but I do want to do it differently. I changed the lights, did a 20% water change, and the only small problem was the salinity was a bit high. I started dosing the water again with dkh, magnesium, iodine and I wanna start adding calcium again too.
In January I added 2 yellow tail damsels to see how they would fair. So far so good they are eating and doing great.
Now were into February and I added a pink pseudochromis. So far so good with this little guy too. I also added an orange zoa frag and a green zoa frag. Both have 20+ polyps so they are off to a good start. I have decided to make this tank a zoa/ricordea tank. I hopefully can order in some interesting colored species that are harder to find and maybe have a small frag tank in the future to propogate them. But were months away from that!
To give you an idea of how the tank will look in the future I hope to have zoa's covering the rock above 4-5 inches and below that, ricordea will cover the rest of the rock and sand if it chooses to spread that way.
I will update this weekly with pictures and bi-weekly with some notes on whats happening in the tank, new additions, etc. By taking weekly pictures of this tank over a few months we can also learn the growth rate at which zoa's spread. I have found next to no info about this as it is species dependent a lot of the time apparently. Some grow fast, some grow slow so we'll see which ones are the most prominent growers and the ones who take their time.
I will add some pictures soon. Just need some time
Thanks for reading,
Kevin
