New to the Ottawa Area and reef keeping

[gjgordon]

Hello all

I am new to the Ottawa area and decided to set up a mixed reef for my son when we moved into our new house.  I had no clue what I was doing so I did about 6 months of research before spending my first dime.....now I am addicted.  I have a 40 Gal soon to be mixed reef which cycled in about two weeks with 37 lbs of base rock and 2 lbs of live rock with 25 lbs of live sand.  After cycling, I put a bunch of different types of snails, blud and red legged hermit crabs, a common cleaner shrimp and a blood shrimp.  After about a month I added some zoas which are doing very well and then I purchased a hammer coral and a GSP which also seem rather happy.  I have been doing 10% water changes every other week using the reef salt.  My base rock is covered in green coarline algea and I am starting to see lots of purple as well.  My zoas came with asptasia or at least I have only seen one to date which I poked with a syringe filled with vinegar and this quickly eradicated the problem (for now).  I have yet to add any fish to the system as I want to wait at least 3-4 months to make sure all is goooooood.

My tank details are as follows:

40 Gal Mixed Reef
T5 lighting with suplemental blue LEDs
SG 1.025
N03 - 0
Ammonia - 0
NO2 - 0
PH - 8.1

I plan on adding fish wise:
2 Clowns
2 Bangi Cardinals
1 Blue tang (maybe too big for tank would like something that looks similar but have yet to find it)
1 lawnmower goby
1 neon goby

As for new corals I would like to add:
1 rose bubble tip anemnon
a few SPS
a few mushrooms

Glan to now be a member of the OVAS

Cheers

Graham

[Stussi613]

Welcome to Ottawa, to OVAS and to reef keeping Graham!!

Glad to see you are doing your research and taking your time.

My only comment on your fish stocking list is that a blue tang (I assume you mean a hippo tang) might be a bad choice long term in your 40G tank.  Those fish can grow to be close to 10 inches in length at full size.  He might be fine for a while, but you'll eventually have to move him on to someone with a bigger tank.

I assume you don't have a sump in your system, so you aren't running a skimmer...is that right?

If so you will want to monitor nitrate as you start adding fish and potentially adjust your water change schedule as you add fish...most people keeping softies and LPS try to keep their nitrates at 5.0 or lower.  Without a skimmer and with some fish in it you might have to water change once a week to keep your nitrates down.

If you have any questions feel free to post them, there aren't a lot of people who keep salty tanks active on OVAS these days, but a few of us are around most of the time

[gjgordon]

Thanks so much for the info. I kinda knew that the hippo tang was probably a bad idea but an looking for alternatives that kinda look the same but are not agressive like a damesl.

I do have a HOB skimmer running 24/7 and it seems to be doing the trick. I am also using a penguin biowheel filter HOB. I am planning a 55 long in the near future with a 15 gal sump but probably not for a year or so.

Great forum and thanks again for the info. The research has almost been more fun than the setup!!!