New and need help please. :)

[funkyseamonkey]

Hi, I am new to the salt water hobby. I currently have a 40 gallon salt tank. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to come over and help me re arange all my rocks and corals to help bennift them. they seem to be doing ok but i feel that some of them may not be in the best spot in the tank that they will thrive. I have a watchman goby and he keeps throwing sand on top of lots of my stuff and I keep moving things around to avoid this but then they seem to just stay closed up for days and I dont know what I am doing wrong or where the best spot to put them is. any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sarah

[txav8r]

What side of town are you on?

and WELCOME!

[hobogato]

welcome to maast sarah!

unfortunately, those watchman gobies have a habbit of doing that. one thing you could do is post a picture of your tank, and then maybe we can give you some pointers here to help you out. also, if you could give a some more specifics about your tank like types of filtration, lighting, amount of live rock, etc that would help.

[Big_Pun]

what type of corals do you have? another thing is to try and keep stuff off the sand with sand sifters unless its a big piece they cant bury, you should glue down what you can or get a frag rack. if you can pics will help. I can help if you want also.

[funkyseamonkey]

I will work on some pictures. I have a coralife light fixture with 2 65w bulbs compact florescent. I don’t keep them both on at the same time too much because I was told that it was too much light for my tank and that it will make algae come like crazy. My filtration system is just a tetra filter that is good for up to 75 gallons and then a fuval submersible filter as well. I am located off of I10 and Fredericksburg.

[Big_Pun]

no such thing as too much light, unless your tank just started cycling. how long has the tank been setup. do you have any powerheads for more water movement.

[funkyseamonkey]

no power heads but the flow is pretty strong I think. um but its been set up for maybe 2 weeks but Kind of longer lol. I had a customer who was taking down his 100g and he gave me some rock and then half to 3/4 of the tank is filled with his old water and the rest is filled with new salt water. so the water is older but in my house its only been there for a few weeks.

[Neptune@gabesfish]

Sarah call me at store so we can set a time for me to go over Ill take care of it no prb..

[funkyseamonkey]

http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hs418.snc3/25196_657195009025_25419291_38095189_6927060_n.jpg (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=38095190&id=25419291)


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[funkyseamonkey]

Gabe said he would come by and check it out on wednesday but I would still love to hear yalls advice too so please keep it coming. Thanks
Sarah

[BigKGlen]

Welcome to MAAST! NICE looking tank!

[Europhyllia]

please be sure to feed the little mandarin. A brand new small tank like a 40g will not have enough pods to sustain it long term> You got to get it on frozen ASAP.
PC lighting isn't very strong at all compared to most reef lighting. You might want to have the actinics come on first to give everybody a chance to wake up and then have the daylight bulbs and the actinics on at the same time until evening.

[Third Coast Tropical]

nice looking cube

[funkyseamonkey]

The mandrin is already on live brine shirmp :) I he is fat and healthy and gets fed a couple times a day to keep him that way :) I work at a pet store we dont have much as far as corals thats what I am new to but I know about the fish :) they are way to pretty to let go down the drain by not feeding enough. :)

[alton]

Are your rocks sitting on the glass or on top of the sand? If the latter you stand a chance of one day your goby digging until a rock drops on his head. Run your lights at least ten hours and make sure your PC lamps are not over 12 months old. If you are not sure change them out and keep track on a calender. The perfect rockwork could be argued all day here, I don't think there is a perfect way to layout rock, other than making it stable when you stack. Just keep a couple of caves for fish to hide in, everything looks great. Your softies including the Xenia and your macro algae will help you control phosphates which lead to algae growth. Since this tank was just moved you will have the usual new tank syndrome like brown algae, but will clean up in time with frequent water changes with good R/O water and a quality salt like reef crystals or others. Welcome to MAAST.