Its official, I've converted to the dark side!

Firefish are swimmers. I don't know what your dimensions are, but a firefish might be a little cramped. Take a look at aquariacentral and look at marine nano fish. There are some neat ones and a firefish may be OK.

As far as a skimmer. IMHO, if you're bioload is low and you keep up with filter maintenance, then you should be OK. I know some people swear by them, but my tank is doing just fine without one right now. I may need to change this after I get some fish.
 
OgreMkV said:
Firefish are swimmers. I don't know what your dimensions are, but a firefish might be a little cramped. Take a look at aquariacentral and look at marine nano fish. There are some neat ones and a firefish may be OK.

As far as a skimmer. IMHO, if you're bioload is low and you keep up with filter maintenance, then you should be OK. I know some people swear by them, but my tank is doing just fine without one right now. I may need to change this after I get some fish.
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I take it you meant liveaquaria.com? :p: They have them listed as being ok for a 10g tank, but I'll do some more reading across the net. If they are active swimmers, I'll likely forego on them, since I don't want anything feeling cramped in this tank. The tank dimensions are 16"x10"x10". Since I keep it filled to 1" below the brim, theoretically it'd be ~6 gallons volume-wise. (I could get technical, and deal with the glass thickness, accomodate the curved front edges, etc. but with the numbers coming out to 5.98 on a quick calculation, I figure its safe enough to call it 6) Granged, its only got a bit over 4.25g of actual water in it, after sand, rocks, etc.

A Hi-Fin Red Banded Goby would be a fun alternative, as would a green or yellow clown goby. I'd be quite happy with a watchman goby, but I remember reading somewhere that one should never buy a watchman goby or a pistol shrimp without having both. I somewhat doubt this tank would be adequate for a tiger pistol shrimp and a yellow watchman goby, but I'll leave that to the opinions of you folks. (I'd love to go for it, as they are one of my favorites to watch, but if it'd be unsuitable, I'll pass 'em up)

I'm really considering bumping up my lighting a bit... as I've mentioned, I have an 18w compact fluorescent @ 10000k. Right now I'm looking at a model which is essentially the same housing, with two 18w bulbs rather than one. Both are 50/50 10000k/actinic. I am willing to bet the colors of my corals would look significantly better under this lighting, and bumping up to 6wpg I imagine would be beneficial to any photosynthetic corals. ($62 on drsfostersmith.com) They have a model that I could somehow set up above my tank, and has two 40w bulbs, one a 6700k/10000k 50/50 and the other an actinic 420/460 50/50. I don't really want to be dealing with TOO much water evaporation, so that seems like overkill. (and its $100)
 
Oh, and I finally purchased a reef test kit as well, so I'll be testing the KH, CA++, and Phosphates shortly, along with all the other parameters. I've purchased some supplements to help with these numbers as well... all by Kent Marine. "Essential Elements," "Strontium & Molybdenum" and "Liquid Calcium." I also spoke with the pharmacists over at CVS, and they were kind enough to give me six 5ml syringes.
 
Ok, I'll be testing everything but Calcium... evidently the machine messed up when manufacturing the bottle, put the dropper tip in sideways, smashed it under the cap when it secured it, and no one in QA caught it. Never had this happen before. I may have to go buy a separate Calcium test now. Darn. -_-
 
As of right this moment, tank params are as follows: SG - 1.023, Ammonia - 0.00, NitrIte - 0.00, Nitrate - 10.0, pH - 7.8, dKH - 8, Ca++ - Unknown, Temp - 81 F. I happen to have a few extra bottles from FW Nitrate test kits... I'm very tempted to pour the Ca++ bottle 2 solution into a thoroughly cleaned bottle from that, to see if that'll work. I have no idea if that'd have any affect on readouts... but I'm tempted to give it a shot. (planning to rinse multiple times and shake with RO/DI water in it)
 
Ok, came up with a better solution. I had an old bottle of pH testing solution which had only ever been used once, had not been used in years, and was stored upright. I took the dripper cap off of it, rinsed it profusely with RO/DI water, including forcing RO/DI water through the spout, and dried it off, attaching it to the bottle for my Ca++ test kit. I'm hoping the reading is still reliable, as it came out to 320ppm Ca++. I realize this is a smidge low for a reef, so perhaps now I'll be glad I bought calcium, strontium, iodine, etc. supplements.

Edit: forgot to notate earlier: Phosphates are at 0.00.
 
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OK, you seem to have the same problem I do in keeping the pH OK. I'm going to suggest a hardness buffer to keep the kH and pH a bit higher. Calcium seems really low, especially considering your pH is slightly low. Also, salinity is a little low for reef.

The buffer I use is Seachem Marine buffer and I mix it in with my RO water for evaporation replacement.

Have the calcium checked at your LFS. If the reading is way off from you just tested, then the cap change didn't work. Contact the manufacturer and get a new bottle.

So far so good. It really looks great.
 
Yeah, I've looked into and will likely be buying some form of buffer to help with the pH. Ultimately, I will likely end up mixing my own salt water, but for the first few weeks I'll rely on the pre-mixed stuff. Where do you usually keep your KH? I spent probably an hour reading up on it last night, and got a LOT of mixed opinions, but general consensus was somewhere between 8 and 10. (but that was also with a pH closer to 8.2) The salinity is something I'll look into solutions for as well... I realize it should be more like 1.025. (easily remedied once I start mixing my own water) As for the calcium, I've got a calcium supplement I can dose, amongst other supplements, so I'll go and have 'em test the calcium levels at the store, and if the test kit I've got wasn't too far off, I'll start dosing a drop or two of the supplement mixed into some water to see if I can get that boosted. (in theory, that may affect the KH and pH as well, no?)
 
Here's a quick FTS, sorry for the crummy angle and quality - light coming in from my window, even with the blinds closed, made for an overly irritating glare. And as I'm sure it'll likely be pointed out, yes, the mushroom is curled slightly upward in the back of him. I'm not sure why he started doing that today, he's been content since being placed there a couple days ago. With all hopes he'll settle back down and lay flat as he has been doing. Oh, and the "hermit crab" in the front right of the tank is actually an empty shell the LFS added with the 5 hermits I originally purchased. Since bringing them home, two have swapped into the empty shell, leaving this one currently in its place.

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Just a quick question as well: I noticed that my tank dropped down to 77 F last night... is that too cool? (I had to cool it off in my room, pc generates SO much heat!) Generally I don't keep the fans on that long. I am planning to buy a mini heater for the winter anyway, just in case. (probably set it to 79ish)
 
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