[smiff]

here are some pics of my new tank does it look bad cant understand where im going wrong all the other pics i look at seem bright n clean ?? andplease could someone advise me what kind of coral this is
many thanks
smiff
please help

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[chriss]

Hi smiff,

All tanks have to start somewhere and nothing good happens for free (financially or otherwsie).

Looks and appearance of a tank is somewhat a personal preference, particularly when it comes to things like the sides/back of the tank. Some folk let them go all 'natural', others, like myself, prefer the 'clean' look.

The 'overgrown' look is fine when you have plenty of corals and other stuff in the tank to take your eye off it, just look at 'Tims' tank, it looks great and you don't really notice the sides since the corals look so great, but on a tank like yours I think it would look 'cleaner' if you fitted a 'blue' background and cleaned off all the glass. How often you have to clean it will vary somewhat, I can get away with cleaning the back of my tank once every week or two, but the front gets a wipe over whenever I'm passing usually.

I use to let mine be 'natural', but once I started adding sps and I cleaned it I thought it made a huge improvement and would never go back.
If you are getting excessive algae growth, then that may indicate a nutrient issue that can be addressed separately.

What lighting do you have? It looks pretty 'white' which is fine, but I think in your tank , once you've cleaned it up, maybe a bit more 'blue' would help. Could you tuck your heater behind the rockwork? I'm guessing you don't have a sump, which would suggest that your budget would best suit a tank of 'softies'. Nothing wrong with that at all, they are easy/cheap to keep and a tank full of soft corals can look equally as good as a tank of sps corals. A well run 'softie' tank will always look better than a poorly run 'sps' tank.

Once you start adding some more corals it will give you something more to look at rather than rock and algae! Go easy on the fish, lots of fish result in lots of poo that needs lots of filtration to clean up.

My current tank started as a softie tank before I discovered the lure of sps a couple of years ago. Just to show you what time and effort results in, this is a VERY early picture of my tank, 6 or 7 years ago...



... and one from over a year ago...




As for naming your corals, hmm, bit tricky with the photos, but I'd guess the first could be an aiptasia (pest), the purple looks like a purple porities or could be re-tracted green star polpys which grown on a purple 'mat'.

Hope this helps

Chris

[chriss]

Quote

Thanks Chris I was thinking i was going really wrong i am up grading my lights this week yes budgets been a big issue here its just good to get someone elses opinion, im a bit out of my depth here and still have a million questions.
I'm hoping to upgrade after crimbo to a five foot set up ( with sump ) at present i have 2 external filters ive had some real bad problems with a hang on protien skimmer my supports up the top of tank are about 6 inches and the hang on models dont fit so im running with out one till next week ive also just disconected the UV and following advice will not be using one and im quite happy with lots of softies and fans thats the idea behind setting up the tank i have 7 fish i did lose a few in a bactirea wipe out we live n learn.

At present im running 3 tubes thin ones 1 sun 1 true light 1 blue moon but i am going for 2 haligens the weekend x aquatic centre ones.

Just 1 question how do i clean all that algi of the back of the tank is it ok to move the rocks a little ??????

The sump upgrade is always a good option as that allows greater scope for filtration and can tidy up the appearance of the tank as well as adding extra water volume. Your current tubes account for the un-flattering color, probably just a change in tubes and one or two more would be more than adequete for softies.

But if you are moving to a longer tank then your existing tubes may not be long enough to give good coverage, so there is nothing wrong with the halide upgrade. Cannister filters _can_ work well, but are hard work/high maintenance. Once you get the sump in, take advantage of the extra space and fit a good skimmer, a V2 1000 on a ehiem pump would be great and can be picked up second hand very often.

There's not much point cleaning behind the rocks unless you plan to move them around. Just get a metal bladed 'scraper' and work up-to the rockwork. I've got a couple of different scrapers, some get into areas better than others.

Chris

[lindsay]

Hi m8 ,as Chriss has said above plus i would say if you are not sure before you buy something ask here first and do as much research as poss then happy days normaly follow .Taking your time and research are the key to the hobby .