Fish Tank filter/ skimmer advice

[Christian7]

Hi guys.

This is my first post on this forum...what a great group you all are.

I have a 30 gallon salt tank. Its about 4 months old it has 6 fish largest a flame angel the smallest is a dwarf angel. It has about 5 snails 2 are large 3 tiny, 2 small hermit crabs, 1 green crab and a banded shrimp. I have a few polp plants and 2 encroaching cup type things?

Im running a 250 stealth heater at 78'
350 penguin BioWheel. i use 4 filter pads and change every 3 weeks.
I have a power head blowing low across my plants and waterfan thing stirring up the top water. (seems like good circulation)

Im running 4 h5 lights 2 antic and 2- 10k

I dont test my own water. I have a great fish store that does it for me!
since it has been completely cycled, my levels are always good. i dont know the numbers sorry. My salt is just below 1.04, and my fish are doing great. lots of corraline is growing on rocks and glass.

I feed these guys the half Spiro/brine mix and half PE missis (SP?) im thinking about ditching the PE. Its seems to cloud my tank.

Im unhappy with my water clarity. It never seems to be as clear as I would like. (slightly cloudy) My question is whats the best approch to improve water clarity??

Im thinking I might add or swap to a canister fiter. Another possiblity is to get a protien skimmer. What do you folks think would be the best addition or replacement move for my tanks health and clarity?

I welcome any information or additional questions and greatly appreciate the input.

If you have recomendations that would be great

P.S. feeding? how much and how often?


Thanks , God bless
Christian

 

[nf37]

How long have all those fish been together in your tank and how long has your aquarium been running? A 30 gallon tank for 2 angelfish seems like a bad idea to me. What are the other 4 fish that you have? Also, I hope the 1.04 salinty was a typo, it should be 1.022 to 1.026ish.

On to your question, how often do you do water changes and when you are doing your water changes do you remove any detrius (uneaten food, fish poop, etc)?

What type of powerhead do you have?

A protein skimmer probably wont do much for a tank with little water volume like yours and from what I've read, the lower rated skimmers are junk. If possible and budget allows, get rid of the HOB filter and get a HOB sump/refugium. The filter will most likely give you more problems than it is worth.

As for feeding, once every 2 or 3 days is good. I would only feed the brine shrimp as a treat because it really has no nutritional value. Fish are known to get addicted to brine shrimp and not eat the food they should be eating.

Keep feeding the mysis, in fact, its a good idea to feed a variety of foods. Such as feed flakes, wait a few days then feed mysis, wait a few days then feed pellets/flakes again.

Also, are you using rodi water or tap? How much live rock do you have?

You said that you have your LFS test the water for you, do they ever tell you the water parameters? I highly recommend getting your own test kits so you can carefully monitor those levels. You can get an API test kit for $17 from petsolutions.com and they are well worth the money.

And welcome to AA!

EDIT: Also wondering if that heater you have is a Marineland Stealth Pro? Those are being recalled, in case you didnt know already =)

 

[Christian7]

1) All The fish have been together for couple weeks. I have a bicolord blenny and a perco clown that have been in there since the tank was 1st cycled. I also have a yellow wrasse and a royal Gamma.

2) 20% a month.

3)Generic chepo but its only to blow on the rocks and plants. it seems adequet for that. the other water circulator for the surface was high end and does a very good job of completely stirring the surface.

It seems everyday is thanksgiving in my tank. According to your feeding recomendations Im completely out of line with feeding them 2x a day?
The brine I use has spirolena in it. Is that ok or stick with the mysis and the other recomendations?

4) um using tap water with instant ocean but i am going to change to store bought water from a reputable LFS. They have thier own premixd water. As for live rock about 5lbs or so?

5)they always tell me the exact levels but all I hear is everything is looking good! I guess Ill take a few minutes to figure out whats what. I work alot, but I guess its time for me to do this myself.

If you could tell me exactly what filter, refrgium to use Id appreciate it. What would you buy? I am thinking about going to a 50-60 gallon so if I buy that gear Ill want it to be able to handle a larger tank. I dont like wasting money but my budget is solid.

Yes my Heater is a marineland sp 250. Is it going to explode or just suck at keeping a temp?

AHH 1.024 is my level

Thanks for your response.

 

[Christian7]

would a hot magnum pro be a good filter solution for this tank??