First Reef Tank - 16 Gallon Bow Front - Updated as August 17th

As long as you keep up on WC and use reef salt for them, you should be fine without dosing.

 

Can anyone tell me why these red mushroom's aren't opening up like my green one does please?

 

they might not like the flow where they are at

 

I moved the red mushroom's, and they are opening up a little more.

 

It has been a week since I added the corals and live rock. My prams are all really good.

What I was wondering is what equipment would be good for my 16 gallon tank. I just added a power head tonight for more flow rate and to help out with some of the dead spots. I would like to know what a good protein skimmer would be and what the best filtration would be for a small tank like this.

I have a layer of what looks like brown algae starting to form all over the surface of my tank. I will take pics later and post them.

 

These are the pics that I just took. You can see the brown stuff that I am talking about. That is why I added the power head for more water flow. Yesterday I changed out 3 gallons of water and I have been using Seachem Marine Buffer liquid to raise my PH from 7.9 to 8.2. The product has worked awesome. I used 3 capfulls once a day for about 3 days and my PH was where it needed to be. Now i just monitor my PH levels about every other day to watch for fluctuations.

Is that what my GSP is supposed to look like?

How do the rest of the corals look? I really have no experience with corals, so I want to catch any mistakes that I have made early on.

The power head that I bought today is a Penguin 550 with a flow rate of 145 gph. Do I need to use this put oxygen into the system?

PH: 8.2
Ammonia: >0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Alk: Normal (between 1.7 - 2.8 Milli equivalents per liter)

This is about all I can test for at this time.

I feed the damsels Omega One Super Veggie Kelp Flakes (no more then what they can eat within 3 minutes). One of the damsels is constantly picking at the LR. Is this normal?

 

That would be diatom algae, it feeds off the silicates in new tanks, and will die off in time. You shouldn't have any ammonia readings if you set up your tank in February...it's really important to keep up on water changes! Trust me, it will make less work in the long run ! And yes, damsels will nip at lr (and also hands, damsels can get nippy and territorial, I had 2 that would bite me every time I put my hand in the tank) Your tanks looking great, and don't be afraid to ask any other questions!

 

I just tested my prams again and Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia are all 0. PH is 8.2 and my ALK is somewhere between 1.7 and 2.8 according to my test kit. SG is 1.024. The diatom algae is really starting to take over my sand bed now.

All my corals look really good to me and I have some new growth on one of my rocks that I would like help identifying. The 1st pic has a brown thing growing in it. I'm not sure what that is. The 2nd pick has the white thing and the 3rd pic has all of the white things growing on it. I really have no idea what these things are. I know that the thing in the 2nd pic came with the rock, but whatever is growing the 3rd pic I just noticed today.

 

Looks great so far.

I have a couple of yellowtail damsels in my tank and one of them likes to bite me as well as the lr. lol

Diatoms should go away on their own in something like 2-6 weeks or so. They use the silicates in the tank water and die out once they have used it all. This is normal for most tanks so no worries.

 

Updated tank pics!