30 gallon hex from a newb

Well here is my first saltwater endeavor, actually it's my girlfriends

It's a 30 gallon oceanic hex with stand. A custom hood housing the 2X36W compact fluro kit from ahsupply. We're currently running a 36W actinic and a 36W 10,000K. We'll probably switch to the combo tubes when we get new bulbs. WE have a zoo-med power sweep powerhead and an emperor 202 power filter that will be replaced with a skimmer whenever Fed-ex makes it by the apartment. About 45 lbs of live rock, some mushrooms, assorted damsels, assorted hermits, a conch, a scarlet skunk, a BTA, and some turbo's, maybe a fiddler or two as we bought two, saw three at the same time one day and haven't seen any since. We're getting ready to do a large order from liveaquaria to finish up on some mushrooms, zoas, and a cinnamon clown.

I've been using lugols, very very light kalks, and seachem buffer.

I'm still very new at this so let me know if I am heading in the right direction or completely overlooked anything. The tanks been up for about 6 months and we started with someone else's water. I also recently got a 100gallon setup cause you can't have just one.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

 

nice

 

Looking good Cody.

 

Very smart move with using someone else's water. That will reduce the time it will take to cycle. Just make sure you have a good filter as a backbone to sustain a healthy ecosystem and prevent any ammonia spikes. Your going reef, you can build a small fuge with a 10g.

When you dose, make sure you have the necessary tests to ensure you dont overdose or it's dooms day for everyone in the tank. Lugols is very powerful! Because you have zero corals, I would refrain from using too much. Maybe one drop every week or two. Also, easy on the kalk, that will sky rocket the calcium and might buffer the pH too high.

 

Thanks for the compliments, it's nice to finally have it up and running.

Hopefully by good filter's you mean protein skimmer, because that is all we really have room for, we are debating a sump/UV sterilizer/refugium. I love the layout of a hex for looks, but functionally it's a chore. We really want a fuge, but fitting something, besides another hex, isn't easy to find, any ideas on a 10-20g that I can fit under a hex to make into a fuge or sump? The protein skimmer is hang on so that can sit on the tank. Maybe I should just line the whole stand in glass and use it as a fuge...

As far as dosing...well...I think I nuked the tank with the lugols. We were using kent's iodide supplement and had the lugols on hand for when we ran out. I used the iodide about 5 days ago then dropped one drop of lugols into a dilution cup and added slowly into the filter to get dispersed, when I woke up this morning the scarlet skunk shrimp had died. I also used the seachem buffer last night and topped off the tank with some RO as we recently removed the glass and are dealing with some serious evaporation. Should I not worry about the lugols until we introduce the rest of the mushrooms, zoas, shrimp, and such?

The kalk has only been used once thus far and the live rock beefed up, so it seemed to be benefecial.

What test kits do you guys recommend?

 

Salifert and Seachem make good kits.

What kind of skimmer?

 

I can't remember for sure but we either got the SeaClone protein skimmer 100 or the Typhoon hangon, I hope we got the typhoon as the venturi seems to be more effective than the vortex. They're both rated up to 100g, should we put it on a timer?

Thanks for the headsup on the test kits, we're gonna grab them.

 

No prob.
I understand the concept of putting skimmers on timers, but the reality is that all skimmers can be moody and hard to reset so most just leave them on 24/7.

 

Be froogle, Salifert is probably the best in test kits so I've heard. They are pricey! Try to order from marinedepot.com, they are extremely fair with prices!

Also, refrain from using iodine until you get corals in there, like zoanthids, which love the iodine. If you read up, everyone needs Iodine, you just have to dose carefully, or you will kill off everything. I use the Tech-I from Kent Marine, it's pretty good and I might consider using with Lugols in the future to keep the Iodine constantly in the tank. My shrimps molt like crazy.

If you fear you did nuke, you should do a water change as you have no skimmer to help with the clean up.

I too have a hex that is extremely difficult to fit any good filter down there. Your best bet is to probably handcraft one! It's pretty simple to work with acrylic, just the cuts are a bit difficult.

I know someone who uses the SeaClone, not very good. Hope you got anything other than the seaclone.

 

If being frugal were a part of this hobby I would have a few more tanks.

Well the skimmer came yesterday and it is a seaclone. I liked it better than the typhoon but your right...I'm not very impressed. It takes a lot of adjustment to get it to foam just right. We also lost a TON of waterflo by changing the filters, might need another powerhead. But luckily everything took to the transition well except the BTA but he has yet to settle since we brought him home.

Thanks for the help, we've got a good start and all are parimeters are pretty solid so we are ordering a large order from liveaquaria this month, all tank-bred and farmed livestock (or as much as possible) since were still new at this.