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Salty UKAPS?

Colinlp said:
It needn't be an expensive hobby but invariably it does. All you really need is a tank, light. flow pumps, heater, live rock and salt water (which is free if you live by the sea). But! Ideally you would add a skimmer (a thing that generates bubbles that collect organics and removes them from the tank), a sump is handy to keep stuff in, skimmer, heaters, carbon and phosphate reactors, miracle mud/deep sand beds etc. If you keep stony corals you will need to supplement your calcium/magnesium and Kh either by dosing or with a calcium reactor, lighting needs to be good then too, flow needs to be better. Still if you stay with the cheaper kit that's recently come on the market such as Jeabao and Evergrow rather than Ecotech and Dastaco etc you can keep costs down to the barely affordable.
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Yes I understand that carbon & phosphates are bad in the salty aquarium. I have so many questions, do you know any good youtube channels to check out?
 
Yeah I've been trying to do stuff relatively cheaply, re-use old equipment where possible and get staff discount on a lot of stuff and I've still probably spent £200 so far (10kg of live rock was a bit wedge of that). I could have saved about 50 quid by buying used LR and using NSW I guess. The only way to do it cheaper really is to pick up cheap rock locally from ebay/gumtree/fb/forums. Or use non-LR and run an external filter I guess.
 
Second hand rock can be a disaster, people usually give up when things go wrong, aips, flatworm, algae of some sort. Phosphates are usually bound up in the rock and can cause problems later, at least fresh live rock is relatively low. The other way is to buy reef bones, bleach and then soak with lanthanum chloride or similar to strip out phosphates then just cycle the tank as you would freshwater, it just takes an age
 
Can't be 100% from that photo but could be an aip. Not sure I've seen any with a spotty pattern though. I've had good success with aip-x but the key to success there is to follow the instructions carefully. If you mess up killing it, they're said to send out spores and you get baby ones appearing elsewhere shortly. To be extra safe, try killing it out of tank.

As for running marine tanks, there are some bargains out there if you look at the right time. Sometimes people just want rid of an existing setup fast, in one go, and they go for far less than the already lower cost of buying privately than from a store. Once set up I don't think running costs at all bad. For most things, spending more just makes it easier but isn't always a necessity. Oh, forgot to say earlier, keep up with water top up from evaporation. This is particularly important in smaller tanks. I was running a 10L quarantine/treatment tank and got distracted for a week. It had lost 1 or 2L water with corresponding increase in salinity, which thankfully the coral survived but was clearly not happy about. For this reason an auto-top up system is very useful.
 
little salty nanos are great fun tom, im sure youll get loads of enjoyment from it. I ran my 50lt for over a year with very little effort, even managed sps. High grade salt, i used bio-actif, seemed to make a dramatic difference.
Keep us updated fella 🙂
 
Speaking of aips, I just found a massive one on the back of a rock in a tank I thought was free, but had some in past. Guess what my next job is?
 
Aips are a pain, I had so many just over a year ago it wasn't true, how there was any space left over for the flatworm infestation I have no idea! Tried peps, aip X, Joe's juice, a file fish did the job in the end and some wrasse did for the flatworm. Still there of course but kept under strict supervision thankfully
 
For Aips, if you have some Kalkwasser Powder - you can mix a strong solution (about 3 tablespoons to about 100 ml of water), then inject some of this into the Aips mouth (middle of the disk shaped head - possibly resembling a slot rather than a round opening), and it will withdraw and take the Kalk mix in with it and kill the Aip if done correctly. Just do not do too many in any 24hrs as you will affect your water parameters.

Also - do not drop this solution on any corals if you have any as it will burn them. It is also
best to turn pumps off for a short time whilst doing this for best results.

Jay
 
I dont know a lot about marines but my local salty shop owner has aips in his display tank which are huuuuuge. Id say 15cm from the foot to the tip (technical i know) which he doesnt try and remove. He only gets rid if they venture close to his other corals. Not reccomending it but whats others view on this?
 
Martin in China said:
I like the placing of those rocks. What are you planning to get?....soft corals or others?
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Yeah probably softies and montipora. I also really like ricordea and chalice corals, but they're a touch trickier and $$$. I want to try and be a bit restrained and stick to 2-3 types, rather than have 'one of everything' like a lot of reefers seem to do. Fauna wise, probably smaller inverts such as boxer crabs and sexy shrimp and eventually a pair of blue-stripe pipefish once everything is nice and mature. Nothing is set in stone yet really.
 
Hi Tom,
That rock arrangement is very nice :clap:especially that outcrop. Good luck with the aiptasia, they sound like a nightmare.
Could you do an equipment list so that people could see the cost and hardware involved in a nano reef?
I would like give one a go someday, if my budget and time can cope 😉
 
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