is this possible?

[ubgone]

hello,

I'm still trying to figure out what I want. I had an idea today that I would like to share with you guys and have your opinions on it:

what if I will keep a small tank:
30G tank
live sand & rock
Zoa's and other types of easy to keep corals
some clams
1 dwarf angel and a couple of nice nano fish and shrimp

now the idea is to build above the reef tank, a display fuge that will run when the reef tank will go off. the fuge will have:
20-25G tank
live sand & rock
alot of plants and algea
and a couple of breeding SH

now the whole system will work without a sump but with a DIY FBF and a DIY counter air flow skimmer.
I think its possible to make a very nice and intersting fuges, and I love green plants!
I think this setup will look great don't you?

Q's:

1.I'm afraid not using a skimmer because I will keep dwarf angel(probably a rare one) and some fish. I will connect the skimmer only to my reef tank so it won't harm the SH. what do you think?

2.the light timer will work like this:
05:00 main reef tank light go on, fuge main light go off and moon light on
17:00 main reef tank light go off and moon light go on, fuge main light go on

that's it.
it means that I will have 12 hours of light on each tank per day, it will be inverted to each other. I chose this hours so the two tanks could be observed while i'm at home(morning till noon I will have reef tank and noon till night the fuge tank)
do you think its ok?

3.do I need to connect any direct filtration to my fuge or the DIY FBF and skimmer connected to my reef tank will be enough?

4. I will keep a quarantine tank with a small DIY FBF and skimmer(BTW -> what quarintine tank size should I keep, it will only house very small fish or a 3-4" angel). I will keep it dry untill I will have to use it(sick fish or new fish) then I will add water from the main tanks to it, add some sand from my main tank FBF to my nano FBF so it will have bio colonies in it and ready to work and that's it. The Q is: if I will need to use medicine in the quarantine it will kill the bio colonies and will be without a bio filter in the quarantine... how can I solve this?

5. I know its recommended to use titanium heaters. I want to use an in line heater because I don't have a sump and I hate to see equipment in my tank. I never saw an in line titanium heater, how bad is it to use the regular ones?

6. I want to use eheim 1262 (3400L/900G per hour at zero and 3000L/800G at 2 feet) because I heared great things about its quitness and reliability and at the price of 130$ I don't know a better pump of the same class.
anyhow, my system will be this way: reef tank out tube->DIY foam/debris filter->eheim pump->T connector, one tube to sqwd flows in tank and one tube with ball valve(for controlling fluidised bed) to DIY FBF -> back to tank.
the Q is if I should use the eheim pump for my skimmer? I will then connect another T after the first T, then connect one tube with a ball valve to my FBF and back to tank and another tube with ball valve to my skimmer and back to tank. so my pump will need to pump will have alot of work and it will need to make flows... is it too much on a 1262 eheim pump?

7.what additives I need for my tank aside from salt and iodine...?

thanks guys!

[Fredfish]

I think your proposed setup will work just fine. I have a couple of comments:

1. If you have the space, I would go with a 30g fuge. You mentioned that you want a breeding pair of seahorses. They will need a tank height of 3 times their length and that will be hard to do with a 20g tank. You will need a water column height of 18-21".

2. Keep in mind that seahorses in captivity seem to do much better in cooler tanks. Many people suggest no warmer than 74 degrees

A skimmer is fine. People used to think it caused gas bubble disease in seahorses. GBD is now associated with supersaturation of CO2 or nitrogen in tank water.

As long as you have a reasonable exchange of water between the main tank and the fuge, you won't need any direct filtration on the fuge. The only other filtration item you should consider is carbon. If you have a lot of algae in your fuge, it will cause the water to turn yellow. Carbon will remove the compounds that yellow the water.

A 10 gallon is fine for a quarantine tank. Normally you would not medicate a quariantine tank. It is there so you can observe any new fish corals etc for a few weeks before adding them to the system. If you end up with a sick fish and need to medicate, use a separate 10g hospital tank or remove the biofiltration from your quarantine tank before medicating.

I personally use the Tronic line of heaters and they work very well. I do not think you need a titanium heater.

I have never used an eheim pump, but I know that they are of a very good quality.

If you keep stony corals, you may need to add calcium to your tank. Also, keeping alkalinity/pH up is important for most corals so you may need a buffer.

Other than those two, you do not need any addatives. Concentrate on feeding your fish and inverts high quality foods. This is much more important than addatives.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[ubgone]

Originally posted by Fredfish
I think your proposed setup will work just fine. I have a couple of comments:

1. If you have the space, I would go with a 30g fuge. You mentioned that you want a breeding pair of seahorses. They will need a tank height of 3 times their length and that will be hard to do with a 20g tank. You will need a water column height of 18-21".

2. Keep in mind that seahorses in captivity seem to do much better in cooler tanks. Many people suggest no warmer than 74 degrees

A skimmer is fine. People used to think it caused gas bubble disease in seahorses. GBD is now associated with supersaturation of CO2 or nitrogen in tank water.

As long as you have a reasonable exchange of water between the main tank and the fuge, you won't need any direct filtration on the fuge. The only other filtration item you should consider is carbon. If you have a lot of algae in your fuge, it will cause the water to turn yellow. Carbon will remove the compounds that yellow the water.

A 10 gallon is fine for a quarantine tank. Normally you would not medicate a quariantine tank. It is there so you can observe any new fish corals etc for a few weeks before adding them to the system. If you end up with a sick fish and need to medicate, use a separate 10g hospital tank or remove the biofiltration from your quarantine tank before medicating.

I personally use the Tronic line of heaters and they work very well. I do not think you need a titanium heater.

I have never used an eheim pump, but I know that they are of a very good quality.

If you keep stony corals, you may need to add calcium to your tank. Also, keeping alkalinity/pH up is important for most corals so you may need a buffer.

Other than those two, you do not need any addatives. Concentrate on feeding your fish and inverts high quality foods. This is much more important than addatives.

Hope this helps.

Fred

Thank you so much for the great info Fred!!!

will I be able to keep fish(1 dwarf angels, a couple of nano fish and shrimp) and corals(Zoanthids,clams and some eays keeping corals)? in 74 temp?

do you think that the filtration will work? in other words: will the 1262 will have enough power?

[Fredfish]

will I be able to keep fish(1 dwarf angels, a couple of nano fish and shrimp) and corals(Zoanthids,clams and some eays keeping corals)? in 74 temp?

I don't really know that much about keeping tanks at cooler temperatures because I keep mine a little warmer (76-78 in the winter, low 80s in the summer)

I asked Eric Borneman about corals in this thread I suspect that a lot of corals will survive in this temperature range, but some will do better than others.

Carribean gorgoinans and ricordia will probably do very well at these temperatures as they are exposed quite cold temperatures during the winter.

Here is another thread about even colder tank temps.

Tridacnid clams come from warmer areas so, again, I do not know how well they will do.

I really don't know about the Eheim pump. Hopefully someone else can help you there.

Fred

[cmsargent]

I have a seahorse tank that I keep at 74-76. I have a variety of zoas and palys, a couple of leathers, a sun coral, a sea whip, and a "corky finger" type gorg. All are fine at these temps. The tank does get warmer in the summer (76-78) and I've noticed better growth when it's warmer. The cooler temps don't seem to hurt any but they might slow down the growth a bit. I figure this is a natural cycle for flordia and carribean corals anyway.

I don't have clams so I can't help you there.
Chris

[Fredfish]

I did a search last night on high latitude reefs to see what turned up regarding corals and water temperature.

Havn't had much time to look at the results yet, but corals will tolerate temperatures much lower than I thought for extended periods of time: as low as 17C (62F). However, these same corals get temperatures in the high seventies over their summer months.

Interetingly, there was one study using an acropora where calcification was recorded even at 17C. I doubt any tropical coral would survive long term at this temperature, but it was interesting to see that growth continues at this low temperature.

Given the temperatures Chris and I keep our tropical horses at, people reading this thread may wonder why the 72-74 degree recomendation was made.

Although I keep my horses at higher temperatures, and obviously, others do as well, in general, people seem to have less problems with their horses at lower temperatures.

Fred

[ubgone]

Fred, thank you once again for the great feedback!
CMsargent, thanks and I would really like to see some photos....

The main thing I'm trying to find out right now is what other fish could be at this temp, my dream fish is:
Multibarred Angelfish.
I'm researching about it as much as I can. the fish is from western Pacific, north to the Ryukus, Japan, east to the Society Islands to south the Great Barrier Reef, It also occurs at Cocos-Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean, I still don't know if it could be at the temp...
I found this amzing site:
http://www.rcthawaii.com

they have bred Multibarred Angelfish, and other species.. I would really like to support their cause by buying and angel fish from them. I've got an e-mail from them a couple of days ago and they told me that they don't breed Multibarred Angelfish anymore ....

do you think it would be possible to keep 2 pygmy angels (I'm talking about the smaller pygmies..) in a 30G?

[cmsargent]

I'll get some more recent photos over the weekend. I have a tank cleanup day planed for tommorrow so after it settles I'll get some pics.

I'd keep the tank around 74 all the time if I had a chiller....but I didn't want to spend that kind of money so the temp creeps up in the summer when it gets hot out.

If you have your heart set on keping some fish that need warmer water you could try a temp in the middle..say 76-77 or so. Just be aware that you may have more problems with bacterial infection in the horses. Make sure you have meds on hand to treat it and know the problem symptoms to look out for. You can do a few other things to reduce your chances of having to deal with infections, like buy CB from a reputable dealer, buy all the horses from the same sourse, don't buy from a LFS that has the horse tank inline with fish tanks. The idea is to reduce the possible sources of bacteria that the horses will be in contact with.

Humm....something just occurred to me. The fish in the system will intoduce bacteria, pathagens to the seahorses. So you'll need to be extra careful about the sourse of the fish and QT as well. But no matter what you do you'll be introducing bacteria from different system to the seahorses. It might not be a problem, but something to be careful of.

IF you want to be extra cautious maybe add a UV sterilizer between the reef tank and seahorse tank so anything in the reef will be killed before it gets to the seahorses. Then again this is a bit paranoid since lots of people add fish to thier seahorse tanks without problems.

[pledosophy]

I think the pygmy angels would be fine in a 30g.

[ubgone]

thanks guys and cmsargen I'm looking forward to those pic's!

how many hourses could I keep in the 30G fuge in your opinion?

[pledosophy]

If it was just seahorses two pairs. If other tankmates I'd stick with one pair.

[ubgone]

Originally posted by pledosophy
If it was just seahorses two pairs. If other tankmates I'd stick with one pair.

it will have only seahorses, and some sea stars, and inverts of all types... I want to keep: 1 pair of kuda 1 pair of eractus 1 herm of some kind of dwarfs... will that be ok?

I think it won't be a fuge but a planted marine tank, the Q's are:
1.if it will be a planted tank will it have the same affect as a fuge?
2.I understand you need to dose planted tanks, but my planted tank will be as a fuge to the main reeef tank, will that be a problem?
3.I understand some types of plants require calcium reactor's, is that true?


BTW

I ran thru the info thread to see what types of horses looks good to me, but I don't know which TB/CB types is reachable in the US.. so what types are available?

thanks!

[Fredfish]

planted tank will it have the same affect as a fuge?

Yes and no. The idea of a refugium is to provide a protected area for small food/prey items for your main tank. Your horses will feed on the amphipods and copepods, and they will not be available as much of a suplementary live food for your horses or fish.
It will still perform the same fucntion as a filter to absorb nutrients like nitrates and phosphates though.

I understand you need to dose planted tanks

Only if you horses and main tank do not provide enough nitrates/phosphates for the algae to keep growing.

Many people think that caulerpa goes sexual because of a light cycle. It is really induced by a lack of nutrients. The algae dies and produces gamates because it is starving. If you get good at recognizing the signs of nutrient limitation (the algae starts to get paler) you can even dose without measuring for nitrates.

I understand some types of plants require calcium reactor's

most do not. Halimeda forms a calcerous (sp?) skelleton and has a calcium need, but it is not as high as most stony corals, at least not that I know of. If you really want halimeda and it is not growing, you can use either calcium hydroxide or a two part additive to up your calcium a bit. Reactors are generally used in large systems with a high calcium demand.

For cb horses available check out seahorsesource.com or draco marine.

Fred

[pledosophy]

Originally posted by ubgone
[B]it will have only seahorses, and some sea stars, and inverts of all types... I want to keep: 1 pair of kuda 1 pair of eractus 1 herm of some kind of dwarfs... will that be ok?

No.

Becareful on the types of inverts. Many are not good tankmates

Pick one species and go with that. Multiple species tanks have proved to be problamatic for many keepers.

I would not advise mixing dwarfs and larger species.

Seastars will also be very diffucult to keep alive long term in a tank that size depending on the species.

I think you need to do some more reading. I know there's a lot to learn. I've only been in the hobby 6 years and am starting to understand some stuff. I read everyday, so I don't mean that as a put down at all. I think it's great your asking before just doing. Applause for that.

IME no corals need a calcuim reactor to thrive. If you don't have a reactor, you just need to dose more. I have kept many many types of corals, and macro algaes, never used a reactor. JME

[ubgone]

thanks guys!

I do want to read as much as possible the problem is I seem to be unfortunate in finding good and extensive articles...

[pledosophy]

Google is good. I belong to 9 different forum boards, and find some good stuff there. Most stuff on forums is ancedotal, but I find it helpful. I'm not a scientist so ancedotal is fine with me.

Problem with articls are so many are out of date, even on good sites. This hobby moves so fast, articles are hard to keep up. I do enjoy the online magazine from this site as well.

[acrodave]

i would watch the angel with the clams if u go wiht a clam pygmys are a 50/50 wiht them

[Fredfish]

As far as reading goes, Dr. Ron Schimek has published a lot of articles on invertibrates in RK mag. Go through the archives. That will keep you busy for a long time.

IMO Eric Borneman is the definitive source of info on corals as he is both an active researcher and an avid hobbyist. He has done a series of articles on RK mag on coral feeding that is excellent. He also has a forum at the Marine Depot site (as soes Dr. Shimek)where you can read and ask questions.

Ancedotal info can be helpful, but can be misleading because it is based on casual, untested observation. Skimmers and gas bubble disease is a good example of the kind of false information that can be propagated this way.

Fred

[ubgone]

thanks guys.

I think I will start reading alot of reefkeeping...its really great.

thanks guys.