Salt Water 4x2x2 setup

I will post a few pics of a saltwater set-up I am playing around with (it belongs to my bro and mum) - you will notice that is quite bare in terms of corals as it only has a couple of Kenya trees, a hammer coral, tree coral, half alive bubble coral and a couple of corallimorphs. I will be updating the blog over the next couple of months whilst updating the tank and hope to have one awesome tank by the end of it.



So at the moment the tank has been cycling for about 2 -3 years. When I first started playing around with it the corals and, the fish weren't doing that great. There was loads of left-over dead coral skeletons in the tank. The water chem was a bit funny as it had a bit of phosphate, Ammonium, nitrite = 0 (as you would expect with a cycled aquarium), nitrate was a bit high (roughly 30ppm -40ppm) but, the main problem was the salinity (around the 1.030 mark).

SETUP

* It is running about 20 kg live rock fully cycled

* 2 1/2 foot mini-reef system with a bi-spinning arm

* Hailea Chiller set at 24 degrees

* has a protein skimmer that hasn't been used for about a year and, it doesn't seem to be a drama (think its JEBO or something like that)

* Mini-reef is full of Bioballs and, coral sand, sponge, filter wool

* Quad T5's with chinese tubes (were just replaced)

* Substrate is a mix of fine coral sand and 3-5mm coral sand

* about 5 fish (damsel, coral beauty, domino + two others I have forgotten the names for.. will update).

* 1 x sea urchin and 1 x red starfish

Corals prior to pic were :

1 x Kenya tree and 1 x other white coral that looks like two hands (not sure of name - let me know if you do know common or scientific name)

2 x Corallimorph were already there however, weren't as large as they are at the moment.

Changes I have made:

- Reduced the salinity to 1.021-1.023
- Washed and rinsed the biomedia in the mini-reef in tank water (it was very clogged)
- Added some filter wool
- added the kenya tree (blue-green), hammer coral and tree coral (green polyps)
- regular water changes i.e. every two weeks
- added trace elements too the tank once a week + sera coral food once a week also

* as soon as I adjusted the salinity it made a huge difference to water clarity, the fish and, the corals.

I also adjusted the water temperature to 24 prior it was set at 26 degrees.

- I think this tank could look absolutely smashing with a few more corals and, a couple of interesting fish - I hope to add a Frog-spawn, cataphyllia, torch coral maybe a few donuts and, try a golf-ball coral. Will add a few tangs (not the coral eating types) and, hopefully make one beautiful tank.

sil3ntj