[fishstyx724]

I purchased a 45 gallon IFS reef tank 6 weeks ago and now have the following:

30 lbs of live rock
algea eaters- 20 snails, 20 hermit crabs, 2 emerald crabs, and 6 other shell crabs (like hermits but a little bigger - I forget the name).
Skimmer
2 White lights/2blue lights specifically for reef tanks

I have some new purchases, week 5 of the tank
-Feather Duster: crazy worm creature with basically a feather duster on one end.
-2 Cleaner shrimp
-1 Midas Blenny

Coral:
sarcophyton
cladiella
Briareum
zoanthid

The only supplements I am adding now are chlorine and alkalinity (10 mm of each) for the coral.

Everything seems to be doing real well...the cladiella opened up real nice the same day I acclimated it to the tank and has since closed up a little, but I have been told that it is perfectly normal and should open back up in a few days. Things seem to be going well, and in a few weeks I should be able to get more coral and a few more fish. Any suggestions at this point?

 

[kris_leonardi]

just make sure you do plenty of water changes if your going to keep multiple leather corals in the same tank. they tend to release toxins trying to kill off neighboring leathers and if you leave that in the water for too long, it will work, and you don't want that. =]

for fish, you could add a couple more small ones, there are plenty species of gobbies that would love that size of a tank, also you could look into a psuedochromis, there are some really vibrant coloration's to those. maybe add a few schooling fish such as green chromis, they are cheap and very hardy, plus they look great in a small group.

hope this helped!

 

[fishstyx724]

Thanks for the help...another quick question.

Now that it's getting warm, my heater hasn't kicked on at all. I keep it cool in my place while I'm gone, but the longer light cycles (10 hours) is making my tank stay warm. It's usually around 79-80 right now, so I want it a couple degrees cooler, definitely not any warmer. Any advice? Should I purchase a cooler?

 

[kris_leonardi]

79-80 is actually perfect, I wouldn't change it at all. =]
that's what I keep my reef tanks at.

 

[fishstyx724]

Thanks Kris-what would you say is too warm?

 

[kris_leonardi]

not a problem, I love to help. =]
uhm, I would say it's getting too warm around the 83ish+ vicinity.

but if you just keep your tank between 78-80, your fish and corals will definitely do well, and you will notice your corals will propagate much quicker in slightly warmer temperatures, such as the 79's and 80's. =]