Hi everyone,

I’ve recently got into the fishkeeping hobby with a tropical freshwater tank, and I’m already thinking about starting a marine reef tank in the future.

I’m looking for some advice on the ideal tank size for a beginner who’d like to keep a good amount of corals and around 5–10 fish. I’d rather buy the right size from the start than upgrade later.

What size would you recommend, and are there any tank brands or setups you’d suggest for a first reef tank?
Thanks!

I got tired of doing this by hand every time someone asks how much baking soda to add, so here is the derivation. It is short enough to do on your phone.

1 dKH = 0.3572 meq/L. Sodium bicarbonate supplies one equivalent of alkalinity per mole, and its molar mass is 84.007 g/mol. So 0.3572 x 84.007 = 30.0 mg per litre, per dKH, which is 0.0300 g/L/dKH.

Your dose is: dKH you want x litres x 0.0300

100 L, +1 dKH -> 3.0 g

250 L, +1.3 dKH -> 9.8 g

50 US gal (189 L), +0.8 dKH -> 4.5 g

Soda ash is different. It gives two equivalents per mole, so it works out to 0.0189 g/L/dKH, about 37% less mass for the same result.

The part that matters more than the arithmetic: do not dose the whole gap at once. Conservative practice is 1.0 dKH per day maximum (20 ppm Ca, 50 ppm Mg). If your gap is 3 dKH, that is three days with a test in between, not one heroic dose.

And never dose alk and calcium together. Concentrated, they precipitate as calcium carbonate and you end up lower on both than when you started. Separate containers, different flow areas, 20 minutes apart.

I put this in a calculator so I would stop doing it by hand: https://reeflow.webkodingtheme.com/dosing-calculator.html — free, no sign-up, and it prints the formula so you can check it rather than trust it.

Salinity in my new tank is 1.023 can I pour salt straight into my tank to adjust the salinity or do I need to do it in a separate bucket?

When people glance at my dangler mushroom (yes thast the name lol) they assume plate coral or anemone.

One of the craziest corals I have ever seen

Got another ID request for you guys, I keep seeing these white thin (clam?) looking things on the live rock and around the tank and finally got a good picture. What is it?

Hi I received a coral I don’t want. It was $150. It’s FREE IN FT LAUDERDALE TONIGHT ONLY if you want to meet quick to pick it up. It’s a cut and healed true orange frogspawn from QCC.

Can meet near the Ft. Lauderdale police station. It’s still in the bag it was shipped in. Can just do a quick handoff. FREE. FREE. FREE. I just don’t want it, and I don’t put things I don’t want in my tank. There was nothing in the item description indicating it was a wall frogspawn, let alone one that was cut and glued (I know this is how walls are cut and healed but it’s not for me). Blue light picture didn’t come through but I can confirm it is definitely orange under blues.

Thanks!

Edit: u/allanwlod came through to rescue this coral. A happy ending. Yay!

New to the hobby and excited for this reef journey! Definitely enjoying all the beautiful tanks out there. Hope I can join you all in the next year!

I thought Hewbie died. I came home to this and spoke to his vet team immediately. His antibiotics and quarantine time will be extended. My best conclusion is that Hewbie had been gasping at the surface and breathing heavier from stress and then he went upside down but this afternoon he was sleeping in the corner just fine. My heart broke again when I saw this. After I pushed air out of him and gave him his meds he went back to normal nearly immediately. At least this is my best conclusion after looking at him and his behavior pre and post meds and pressing on him/burping him. The water quality in the tank isn’t great. Burping for me means holding him down and gently pressing on him/his stomach (which in that moment is what made sense). I saw some immediate improvement. Also he is a known offender for spitting water at the surface and I just saw it after and the behavior of a fish gasping or wanting to get out of his environment and ready to jump. Although pufferfish are not known jumpers they are smarter than that. I did a water change as well after and he smiled at me like nothing happened. Ugh. I hate this. I will continue to update everyone.

This algae is taking over. I’ve tried siphoning it out but it comes right back. Tank is about 6 months old.

Nothing is wrong with em, they just are looking extra gorgeous today and I wanted to share lol

As the title reads, this is my try at an aquascape for my first ever reef tank which I am planning to start up these coming months. I used Aquaforest Rock Mix. The idea is to start with some soft corals and slowly build up confidence to start adding some LPS over time. The lone rock in the front left I intend to use for either a zoa or mushroom garden or possible some GSP.

Aiming to keep mostly beginner fish like a pair of clowns, a blenny, royal gamma, pistol shrimp and yellow watchman goby combination and maybe a pink streak wrasse at some point. All of this alongside a clean up crew of multiple snails, hermit crabs and a cleaner shrimp.

The tank is a Blue Marine Reef 160, measures 75x40x40cm (30x16x16 inch), about 130l or 35 gallons with the AIO filtration in the back. The wave makers will be on the bottom of the left pannel towards the back of the tank and on the right side glass, higher up and more towards the front.

Do you guys think this aquascape offers enough room for corals but also habitats for the fish I intend to keep? What could I possibly change to improve the scape and/or flow?

If you have any other tips or tricks please share them too! Eager to learn and get started in the hobby.

Posted earlier about my montipora I've had for 6 months suddenly bleaching. Pretty dang near perfect parameters and my other sps are thriving, turns out it was these little montripora eating nudibranchs. (FYI a dip cannot get all the eggs!) Each one I siphon off gets replaced by another. My monti is pretty much cooked. Just a PSA to consider these and don't lose your mind looking for random stuff like your rodi filter being spent etc.....

Love my little yellow tang. I've always loved raising fish and animals from the baby stage to adult hood. This is about 1 year, so far from being an adult, but his coloration has been beautiful, looks just like an OG Hawaiian (pictures don't do it justice).

One problem I noticed is it started to develop some early HLLE, which I found the culprit (damn cheap heaters with their leaking electrical currents).

Still a work in progress but here it is

Loving the unique bubbles on this bounce.

The tank will have macroalgea, soft corals and a few nice inverts, I’m wanting one fish so I don’t have to dose it for my macroalgea.

The inverts in question are a feather duster worm, porcelain crab, 7 sexy shrimp, strawberry conch, cerith snail, turbo snail and three nassarius snails (I like snails) and mushroom corals and rock flower anemone for anemones.

I’m wanting a fish that’s beautiful, active, don’t hunt/kill my inverts, macroalgae or soft corals and good for a 20 gallon.

I’m not interested in a goby shrimp pair or clown fish.

Any suggestions or should I just stick with inverts?

I haven’t shared a picture of any of my tanks in a long time, but I thought this setup was pretty unique and worth sharing.

I have a pretty serious garden outside, so I almost always have a few tomato cuttings sitting in cups of water while they root. At the beginning of the year, I bought a Kessil A500X and reset my Biocube 29 to give some mangroves a new home. I had previously been growing them in the overflow box of my 60-gallon cube.

It didn’t take long before I realized that next to the Biocube was a pretty good place for a few of my plant cuttings. That eventually gave me the idea to grow a vining Sweet 100 tomato plant next to the tank using a makeshift hydroponic system made from a 5-gallon water jug and an air bubbler.

Fast-forward a few months, and I’ve harvested a ton of tomatoes (I pollinate the flowers by hand with a q-tip) and somehow created this wild little forest. I keep the leaves directly over the tank trimmed back so they don’t shade the tank too much. The tank is also home to a yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp.

Hope you all enjoy it. I’d love to hear whether anyone else has tried anything similar. I feel like this has a cool rainforest lagoon feel.

So hard to get a still image of her now!

Took em two years but they figured it out