Hi friends! My husband and I are new to the sub/hobby and on Oct 2nd we started our first saltwater tank (I’ll put the specs below). 2 days later once filled with RODI water we put in Dr. Tim’s and 2 gladiator clownfish, 12 blue legged hermits and 5 turbo snails to start our fish-in cycle.

Our parameters were doing good for a few days I think but have been staying pretty stable with ammonia at .25. I don’t think we’re over feeding, we’re only feeding what the clowns can immediately eat. I’ve read that a partial water change could help but I’m just so anxious to mess this tank up and hurt our fishies. We have started having brown diatom algae growing on parts of the glass, rock and sand.

If anyone can offer us some advice I’d appreciate it! We’re trying to be as educated as we can be, we realize we were underprepared getting the tank but we’re excited to learn!

Tank Specs:
- 75 gallon Aqueon Megaflow overflow tank/kit
- Bubble Magnus Curve 5 Elite Protein Skimmer
- 1 2k icecap gyre flow pump
- 1 4k icecap gyre flow pump
- Fluval Reef 4.0 LED
- Caribsea Ocean Direct live sand
- 60 lbs of Caribsea liferock
- marineland heater
- eshopps reef sump 100 4th gen
- API saltwater master test kit
- bottle of Dr Tim’s all in one saltwater (for 80 gallons)

Parameters:
10/2: 1.025 salinity, 8 pH, 78°
10/4: ammonia 0, nitrite .5, nitrate 5
10/5: ammonia .25, nitrite .5, nitrate 5
10/6: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 10
10/7: ammonia 0, nitrite .5, nitrate 10
10/8: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 20
10/9: ammonia .25, nitrite 1, nitrate 20
10/10: ammonia .25, nitrite .5, nitrate 10
10/12: .25, .25. 10
10/13: .5, .5, 20
10/14: .25, .25, 10
10/15: .25, .25, 10
10/16: .25, .25, 10
10/17: .25, .25, 10

This is my pistol shrimp Roland, my little gunslinger

Is it rare or common? Paid 15$ for this ocellaris.

I noticed that the polyps on the green slimers base have stopped extending at all and its not encrusting, how ever polyp extension is great and it is growing, is whats happening at the base a result of the base getting not enough light? Or is this stn?

Pic one is today and the last pic is before i noticed the recession

Is it a) shedding
B) splitting
C) dying

Parameters are stable for months and all other coral seems unaffected. Nitrates at 1 and PO4 at 0,02, kh at 7,5. Again, stable.

The pair of clownfish have been hosted by the leather for months and I doubt they recently injured it.

The white marks and tearing started a few weeks back and I only noticed how big they were this morning when cleaning.

As I have been leaving early and getting home late, I mostly see the corals at night and this one always shriveled at night.

I recently got him and he was getting bullied by my starry blenny, I currently have him locked up in a lil container inside the tank so the wrasse can get a moment to chill he’s just now coming out more and I noticed this on his face? Not sure what it is, I’ll test my waters when I can I’m currently busy but this makes my anxiety worse lolol

Around 7-8 months old at this point I'd say, first corals went in less than a month ago. Slowly and patiently seeing how they do and then getting more if the answer is well!

So I have a 75 gal that I plan on eventually converting to saltwater once its freshwater inhabitants reach the end of their natural lives. In the meantime I like to daydream and plan though.

My local LFS has suggested that I could get certain species that grow too large for the tank, and just return them for store credit once they start getting larger.

Would this be ethical? Or is it crazy stressful for the poor fish and not something an ethical keeper would do?

I can say my LFS is a good place, and I'd know any fish I returned to them would receive excellent care, and that they do all they can do to vet customers, and are willing to decline sales if they think it's necessary. They are also less than 30 minutes from me, so there wouldn't be a lot of bag time.

But would it be ethical to buy a baby tang knowing full well I intend to bring it back in a year (or 9 months or whenever it got too big) and replace it with a new baby tang?

I didn't know they had so many.

Looking for ID on the small things with a green/blue ring, and pinkish stalk/foot? I’ve spotted 3 so far, but I can’t get an angle on the third.

Idk where these came from considering the only thing I’ve added in the past few months is a tail spot blenny, and some berghias.

Last year I put in this bubble coral which has been doing great. I put it around 8” away from a little patch of zoas I placed on the same rock work. Unfortunately, the zoas zoa’d and now they’re crawling up the bubble coral’s exposed skeleton and even restricting a small portion of it from opening fully.

I was getting anxious about it before but since the heads closest to the bubble coral are closed / partially closed + bubble coral are said to be hostile af to other corals and have a powerful sting, I was hoping it would fight the zoas off. But the zoas do not care about repeatedly being stung, and they are continuing to try to grow over my bubble.

For now, the bubble coral has been very healthy. Lots of tissue down the skeleton, inflates fully in the day, lots of tentacles around breakfast/dinner and night. But I’m worried.

Is there some sort of substance I can rub on the zoas to make them back off? What do I do to stop them from smothering my poor bubble coral?

All the par meters I’ve seen are in the 300$+ range and I’m looking for something sub 150 if possible but I still want something that will last and is somewhat accurate

hi everyone, i’m aware that this sub has a no selling policy, i am not looking to sell. around 6 months ago when i first set up my aquarium, my LFS sold me a small sand-sifting star, to help with debris in the sand. i had a strong copepod population and they told me he would be fine. doing research afterwards of course i saw that sand sifting stars are not recommended for small or new tanks (mine is both those things). but i couldn’t return him, they told me to just see how he does.

he did well for 5 months, looking plump, active, under the sand 90% of the time, able to right himself. i would bury mysis shrimp and algae pellets following LFS advice and just hope he’s eating. but unfortunately in the past 3-4 days i’ve noticed the tips of his legs are white and appear to be degrading. i’m almost 100% sure this is due to him starving. as such i am looking for anyone in the Netherlands, specifically around South Holland (Delft, Rotterdam, Hague, etc) with a large established tank who would be willing to take him (for free of course), cause i really dont want the little guy to die. :(

I’ve treated with chemi-clean on two separate occasions to no avail. An extended seemed to eradicate it but a few days after the lights came back on it was back and spreading rapidly. Any advice?

They seem to be doing well. They pull in food as it passes by. Haven’t noticed them reject anything or spit anything out. Even the small baby ones are seemingly doing good. Time will tell though.

Anyone know what it is?

Just noticed this, what is it?

I’m not actually trying to eat this but like I could imagine how nice and juicy this is to bite into it reminds me of a chicken leg

I got this feather duster worm about a month ago and only in the past few days it started emerging for extended periods of time.

I made a previous post about it not coming out and took some of the advice given there. I think what worked was having most of its tube surrounded by and in contact with rocks in addition to anchoring its base. And also feeding phytoplankton helps to encourage it to come out more.

It looks like he got bonked on the head… why?? Ive had him for 2 months and he’s always looked like this lol