Pics Of my first salt water tank

the tank looks cool but honestly, I would pull everything while the tank is young and replace the bed with sand. I would also lose the bubble and get another powerhead to go into the tank, pointed toward the top. I really love the tank though and the scape looks pretty clean.

 

My goals for the tank are to keep about 6 fish the more harty the better. No coral or reef for at least a year or 2. I am a dj so i travel sometimes a reef system would be too much to handle i do a ten to fifteen percent Water change weekly as well as test my levels each week so far so good ;-) Honestly i would love to pull the bed and put sand in but i already have fish thriving in the tank and don't want to pull everything out to add sand and restart my cycle. I was told gravel would be sufficient for a fowlr tank my nitrates are low but if you guys are absolutely certain it will cause a problem i will just wait until a tank crash to replace it who knows i could luck out and not have to. I just don't want to put my currant fish through another cycle they already went through allot and the tank is stable as far as i know. could i just add crushed coral over the top of the gravel?? or am I screwed...

 

Six in there is probably too many. I have four on my fifty and I have reactors and skimmer..

 

No, that surface skimmer does not replace a skimmer, but rather allows you to connect it to the suction line of a filter or skimmer that would normally be submerged under water.

I suppose if you keep up with water changes and consistently clean the substrate, you may be ok. What kind of damsels are they? I ask as some of the more aggressive ones will prevent you from successfully adding any additional fish :-/

 

I think you could replace the substrate pretty easily (not really easy but shouldn't be a huge issue in terms of starting another cycle) .....I could be wrong here though. You don't want to think of your tank as waiting until the tank crashes then do something - you want to be proactive from the beginning. Tank crashes are not pretty and you will find that you get pretty attached to your livestock so try as hard as you can to prevent a crash from the beginning.

 

been keeping an eye on thing the bed does get dirty but i vacuum it weekly and do a 10-15 percent water change weekly. Ammonia is lower than .25 at all and my ph varies between 8.0-8.2 things seem fine i really want to add more fish soon but really need a definitive answer on adding a new bed or not. And weather or not if the gravel will kill my fish in some way or another. i am noticing some algea growth on the gravel but i vacuum weekly so its not a problem...

 

love the tank shape! i too would swap for sand or crushed coral while the tank is still young. and also, your ammonia should be at 0, not close to it.

 

Ok so I am going to switch out the bed since everyone thinks I should. Does any one have a suggestion on how get the the gravel out and the new bed in with out harming the fish in tank and with out going through another cycle. Could i add a layer over the top of the gravel or will that just make more problems.