Trinituner Reefers, Saltwater Aquarium Fish Keepers

[bir123]

Looking good .but that looking like a little bit of live rock.

[thatlife]

its 20gal of water
10lbs dead rock
15 live rock, theres more to the back that you cant see

is that correct?
its what raj recommended

[HondaB20B]

You have room for allot more live rock. You can still go 1/2 way or even 3/4 way up the back glass with no issues.

[HondaB20B]

So i finally decided start my build after over two years of only thinking about it.

Here's the specs on the tanks
72Lx18Wx30H made from 1/2inch glass
2 sumps 24x14x20

I've got the rodi system already and i've ordered the lighting. i still need the rest of stuff, next purchase should be the skimmer im thinking of getting the reef octopus diablo DCRS 200.

Nice setup man. Welcome to the saltwater hobby. The skimmer is a verry good choice. The only thing you have to make sure is the pump for it is easily available. Thats sometimes the problem. Well at least you can start cycling the tank by the mean time without the lights and skimmer. Get some additional live rock and a handfull of sand from a stabalized tank, drop in some bacteria and just let it cycle

[dgobo]

Yep, raj said he'll give me some of his live sand and water from his tank when I fill mine to get things start going.

[HondaB20B]

Just dont put in and damsels. They are very good to cycle a tank but after awile the get very teritorial. Any fish you put in after big or small is in for a beating. (Domino, yellow tail, blue) Better you go with a few blue/green chromis. If you do decide to keep the damsels and think you will easily catch them........ trust me, you will have to take out nearly all your rocks just to get them out. The azure damsels not that aggresive though. I have no damsels in my reef tank. Cant take out 300lbs of live rock to catch a few fish. I went the chromis way. Best thing to do is figure what fish you putting in and it goes in order of most peacefull first and the most agressive last.

[greenlime100]

Tank setup looking great... nice tank stand there too man

And agreed on the damsels... I have 2 yellow tails and once I add in any wrasse its warfare. But eventually....most times hopefully they live together. So no save yourself and dont get any damsels.

[HondaB20B]

Another good investment you wont regret is a good voltage regulator.
http://www.amazon.com/APC-LE600-Automat ... pd_sim_e_1

Not the strip. When you have expensive equipment this can save your system. Its hard to watch $50-60,000 worth of fish and corals go down in a few hrs cause T&TEC do some nonsense. I have 2 of these units hooked up to my system (thanks from the advise of RORO from day one) and sometimes when I home I hear the clicking noise of it going from normal, up to high or down to low. I actually have all my plug outlets hooked up to the 2 voltage regulators. All the power bars hooked up to them I changed out all the plugs and wires and bought better plugs and used the bigger rhino cable and soldered every thing back in place. All together its 22 items plugged in. All the many lights, backup air pumps, numerous powerheads, reactor pumps and main return pump, dosing pumps and top-off pump.

just my lil 2cents worth of info...............

[bir123]

I want to bring down some equipment for my tank what shipping company alluh suggest i use.(the cheapest)

[HondaB20B]

^^^^^ what kinda equipment we talking about

[bir123]

Well i see fo black friday sale they have skimmers ,rodi system and pumps and thing so i want to upgrade my skimmer and rodi unit and probly buy reactor for bio pellet

[HondaB20B]

Well i see fo black friday sale they have skimmers ,rodi system and pumps and thing so i want to upgrade my skimmer and rodi unit and probly buy reactor for bio pellet

Just a thought or something to look at, You ever went by raj and compared his prices compared to shipping it down? Some things his prices are higher. I bought my RO/DI unit by him over 2yrs now for $2500 and its working great. I even got a warranty which if you buy it in the US and something goes wrong, its too costly to ship it back. Raj has the parts though. Unit comes with pump, main membrane, odor membrane (drinking), 5 micron, charcoal, 1 micron and the DI. I get all my replacement cartriges right by him. Same thing with the pumps and skimmer................ it might be a bit more but you can check around and see still. I prefer buying the stuff from him cause in the event of a failure, I just call him and I get a replacement within hrs borrowed till he gets one in. If I didn't, it might take week to fly the part in. By that time, your whole system could of totally crashed. I prefer spend the lil extra money and enjoy the comfort of calling him at 5AM and by 6AM I was at his door collecting a part for my Magdrive 24 return pump. It had a faulty impeller which broke the pump housing. Two days after, it broke again (early the morning), He replaced the entire pump to a Mag 18 and its working great. Later found out that the Mag 24's at the time had a fault with cavitation issues.
If had not bought the pump from him I would of been in problems waiting to order a new pump or would have had to buy one from him. That's just my view. I cant wait a few day for a main part for my reef tank, cause in 2 days every thing could be dead.

[bir123]

I just considering it but in bulk reef supply every day for the past week they having like 50 percent on one item so the had rodi systems for like 120 and vortech pumps 150 and up they also had the little fishes 150 reactor for 34 .
All prices are in US

[HondaB20B]

I just considering it but in bulk reef supply every day for the past week they having like 50 percent on one item so the had rodi systems for like 120 and vortech pumps 150 and up they also had the little fishes 150 reactor for 34 .
All prices are in US

OK, that's the MP10?....... cant be a MP40?

[HondaB20B]

Now went on, all vortech pumps out of stock and its $235 with a $47 rebate from Ecotech. its not a discount. you still have to send in the coupon. That's $188, then by time you pay the taxes.......$$$$
something to make sure of is if they sell you the pump for the RO/DI unit. A lot of people buy some units and when it reach here it doesn't come with the pump. I have met a few people by Raj trying to buy a pump. By time it was landed, the total unit plus pump cost more than what he was selling. So just make sure the one you buying has the pump

[HondaB20B]

Did you check Marine depot?

[HondaB20B]

Anyone has any links for jellyfish??? Got one of these from my aunt as a gift and haven't even unboxed it yet...

http://www.jellyfishart.com/shop/desktop-jellyfish-tank

Anyone ?

Raj said he was bringing soon. go yourself and catch them

[bir123]

Or well i gess it better to buy form raj .he say he buys directly from ecotech .if you go on ecotech website and click where to buy you could scroll down to trinidad and it have his info

[HondaB20B]

Or well i gess it better to buy form raj .he say he buys directly from ecotech .if you go on ecotech website and click where to buy you could scroll down to trinidad and it have his info

I not saying you have to buy from Raj, but that's just my view and it has worked effectively for me so far. Any problem I encountered so far he was there to help me. I bought my 1/2 HP chiller from him and when it gave trouble early last year (some plant debris got inside the exchanger and got clogged), he lent me a chiller. This year I wasn't so lucky when my temp indicator went. He didn't have a spare chiller but I got an external temp unit from him. Only lost a few fish and some corals.

[bir123]

I was calculating the price of shipping and then it was like 2 ,3 hundred dollars i saving and it any thing go wrong i have to ship it up to the company so i rather have the warranty by raj like you said .the only think i might do is when ever i up there i would bring down some things in my suite case.

[HondaB20B]

Yup, you come out better in the long run.............. Anytime I go up I also bring stuff in my suitcase.

[greenlime100]

Yupp...raj prices good...still have to invest in an mp40. Ive brought in stuff and when all the costs add up there is a small savings but nothing much to talk about.
Now I buy 90% of my stuff from raj.

[dgobo]

I bought my 1/2 HP chiller from him and when it gave trouble early last year (some plant debris got inside the exchanger and got clogged), he lent me a chiller. This year I wasn't so lucky when my temp indicator went. He didn't have a spare chiller but I got an external temp unit from him. Only lost a few fish and some corals.

^^ i was hoping not to run a chiller, what puts out the heat on your system, im getting the mp40's and my led lighting is on it way, so the only source of heat is going to be my mag24 which im planning to run externally or i'll just buy a proper external from Raj when the extra funds are available.
BRS has a special on controllers today, do you all think its needed ??

[HondaB20B]

fill the tank with fresh water and see what your temps looking like first for a few days and see what the temp swing is. Cant be too big of a swing in deg C.
Make sure you get a good Mag 24, they had some serious issues over a year ago with cavitation issues. The have a tendency to brake the impellor which breaks the front housing. Happened twice in 2 days. Up to this day I never found those two pieces. Something to remember is when you have a tank in your house and you run pumps, reactors and skimmers externally, you run the risk that the day it should possibly leak, and you not home, that's your whole house flood out and your tank run nearly empty.
I put everything inside the sump so if it have to leak....................it leaking in the sump which is no big deal.
Remember you will be running a return pump, a skimmer, 2 or maybe 3 reactor pumps, might add powerheads in the sump like me...................... refugium lights. Also remember a tank that is long, wide and short has better water cooling than a tank that is long, narrow and tall. It has more surface area that is exposed to the air. You can run some fans but then your evaporation of fresh water will be greater. I am running nearly 250gal and my evaporation is between 1/2-3/4 gal of RO/DI water daily. I have read online where people with the same size tank has 2-3 gal loss per day. I run my tank 78-79F. I bought a reef keeper Elite controller and sold it 3 wks after. The day I not home and something malfunction, my wife will never figure that thing out. Made all my plugs and switches simple and to the point. All are marked. The day my chiller went out, the day was blazing hot. When I called raj, his chiller went out also and he lost some corals. I was just unlucky. The fish I lost were my 4 Bartlet Anthias which are actually cold water fish. Checked other people that ever encountered that problem stated that bartlets always have that problem with temp issues.

[thatlife]

just an update

added some more live rock from raj a couple days ago

with some coral

also added this guy


and yesterday I added these



water parameters are still fine
phosphates at 0
slight rise in ammonia this evening, did my first 20% water change today (7th day)- addition of fish yesterday along with some not eaten food
everything else at 0
salinity is fine
and temp is constant at 26-27
I'm running the chemi pure in the filter media basket (crystal clear water)

next couple weeks I'll start running the purigen in the media basket and turn on the skimmer

as for more fishes, just keeping it like this for the next 3 weeks and I'll add about 2-3 more
and some more coral

[HondaB20B]

pretty fast there in adding the small clam. How much is a rise in ammonia we talking about.
Whats your nitrate and nitrite readings.
Just to let you know that when you start to add snails, you gonna find them dead one by one. Hermit crabs kill the snails for the shell and sometimes don't even use it. 2 other problems I had with them early on is when they started to eat my coralline algae (urchins also) and they used to pick on some of my corals and eat it. I gave away all hermits. The rest I threw away.
See you went with the black clown.

Tank will pick up nicely soon......... just take your time with adding the fishes.

[thatlife]

yea just saw the clam by raj and asked him if my tank could handle it and he said yes

nitrite at 0
nitrate at 20
ammonia was at .25 this evening, then I did the 20% water change, tomorrow I'll take new readings

good advice on the hermit, i did notice it go on the coral and it ate a little, if it persists i'll get rid of him and put some snails

I really like the black clown
any other fish/invertebrate suggestions for my tank?
by month end I want to add a couple

[HondaB20B]

Your tank is very small so you cant add a couple. 1 every 2-3 wks. Sorry to say you cant add much fish in that tank again do to territorial reasons. If you want a colorful fish, a royal gramma, and maybe a firefish. All tangs and angels (large and pygmy) is definitely not advisable. after that, maybe 2 small chromis. Remember fish grow and they later fight for space. You can pun many snails and shrimp in your tank cause they have nothing to do with bioload. I gave back raj my pair of black clowns after having them over a year cause the get very aggressive and literally bite you when you doing work in your tank. Not discouraging you but just look for the aggression. My friend on the forum here had a pair from small - 3/4" until they got to 2" and while he was cleaning the tank the male bit him and actually drew blood. I got them sold for him the very next day. Clams are filter feeders and usually require a mature tank to actually get nutrients. You could be lucky.

[greenlime100]

Raj has clams ? Need some more coral before Christmas lol

And yeah I agree with honda....when I was adding fish.... I added like 2 every 4-5 weeks and my tank is 100 gallons. So yeah add those fish slowly and do alot of reading before. Just a few months ago I had to rip apart all my rocks to catch an angel fish. Even now I would like to catch both my yellow tail damsels.

So do alot of reading and cater for in the long run interms of the bioload, the capability of your filtration and your maintenance. As you going with corals...also make sure all are reef safe.

[vs_unique23]

I HAVE A reef octopus diablo 200xs skimmer for sale $2300.00 you can call me on 374-0414. reasons for selling it mi sump is to small for skimmer. skimmer has some scrapes on it happen when i was trying to put skimmer in the sump and space between the tank and skimmer scrape the skimmer.