Biggest Beginner Mistake?

[Dan White]

Let's say a newbie has a marine tank (fish and live rock, basic stuff).
Excepting the process of cycling a tank, what do you think is the biggest
mistake that marine tank owners make, which may result in dead fish?

dwhite

[Billy]

"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
| Let's say a newbie has a marine tank (fish and live rock, basic
stuff).
| Excepting the process of cycling a tank, what do you think is the
biggest
| mistake that marine tank owners make, which may result in dead
fish?
|
| dwhite
|
That's an easy one. Going too fast. I was told when I started, "start
out slow, then taper off from there." He wasn't kidding. Many people
will tell you that from the time you put water in the tank, you
shouldn't put fish in there for 3 months, some SPS corals for a year.
You'll get many bits of info like that, but the constant is patience.
Everytime you change something....change it by degrees...over time.
Then observe for days, even weeks to see what the results are going
to be. When in doubt, wait a while.

billy

[Billy]

"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
| Let's say a newbie has a marine tank (fish and live rock, basic
stuff).
| Excepting the process of cycling a tank, what do you think is the
biggest
| mistake that marine tank owners make, which may result in dead
fish?


As an aside, have you signed up at www.reefcentral.com yet? I'd
highly recommend it. There are others, but it's my favorite.

[Dan White]

> As an aside, have you signed up at www.reefcentral.com yet? I'd
> highly recommend it. There are others, but it's my favorite.
>
>

I bookmarked it, but haven't spent much time there. I thought I'd get
(hopefully) some quick feedback here so I can think about it. I'm in
renovations right now so if I did do the tank it wouldn't be for another
couple of months probably. I really don't know how the technology has
changed over the years, but I thought that with skimmers etc etc that maybe
marine tanks were much easier now. But maybe the technology isn't the main
thing -- maybe it is the knowledge of what to do. You say "patience," wait
weeks and months after changes. That could be very important info that
wasn't well known 25 years ago...

thanks,
dwhite

[Dsybok]

Id have to agree with the other comment, overstocking too fast, too much.
People see all these great mature tanks on the net, but forget that some of
these tanks have been set up for 3, 5, 10 years!

It took me a couple of years to truly get my tank to a point it hummed along
nicely. And even then one hot weekend with me out of town wiped out
everything.

Think about what you want to do, and then do about 10% of it until you
measure the time the tank has been set up in years and not weeks or months,
and then, add things slowly, one coral, one fish at a time.

D

"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
> Let's say a newbie has a marine tank (fish and live rock, basic stuff).
> Excepting the process of cycling a tank, what do you think is the biggest
> mistake that marine tank owners make, which may result in dead fish?
>
> dwhite
>
>

[j]

Dan White wrote:
> Let's say a newbie has a marine tank (fish and live rock, basic stuff).
> Excepting the process of cycling a tank, what do you think is the biggest
> mistake that marine tank owners make, which may result in dead fish?
>
> dwhite


My big mistake was replacing evaporated water. I thought I had to mix
salt in with make up water. Anyone want to guess how many top-ups it
takes to get a 1.030+ reading in a 75 gallon on the good 'ol hydrometer?
Thought I was precipitating sodium in the aquarium for a minute there.
Casualties: one beautiful yellow tang. Thank God I listened to everyone
here with the "take it slow" advice. Instant ocean MY A$$.

[Ray Martini]

I think the patience thing is the toughest part. I started my 72 gallon fish
only tank 2 months ago and there are no fish as of yet. I added the live
rock (about 100 lbs) and watched as an empty tank cycled. Like watching
grass grow! Not only that but the room that houses the tank is very bright
during the day so you can imagine all the lovely growth on the rock. So much
so that I have now encased the tank in black garbage bags while the rocks
cycle. Within a couple of days the white spider web looking type stuff and
other junk has gone.

But talk about patience!! Now I look at a 72 gallon expensive garbage bag
with ammonia levels through the roof. But patience is the key. All the
technology in the world can't replace good old fashioned time and patience.
When I take my daily "peeks" into the tank it looks better and better each
day. I am actually hoping to add a few clean up crew members by mid to late
February. Hopefully a damsel or two by early spring.

It's hard since I came from the freshwater world where you can whip up a
beautiful tank in a month or less. I have several awesome looking freshwater
tanks in my home but wanted to venture into sal****er. If you're going to
make the investment in a marine tank. I would take my time and do it right.

--
Happy Fishin' ...
Ray

"j" > wrote in message
...
> Dan White wrote:
>> Let's say a newbie has a marine tank (fish and live rock, basic stuff).
>> Excepting the process of cycling a tank, what do you think is the biggest
>> mistake that marine tank owners make, which may result in dead fish?
>>
>> dwhite
>
>
> My big mistake was replacing evaporated water. I thought I had to mix
> salt in with make up water. Anyone want to guess how many top-ups it
> takes to get a 1.030+ reading in a 75 gallon on the good 'ol hydrometer?
> Thought I was precipitating sodium in the aquarium for a minute there.
> Casualties: one beautiful yellow tang. Thank God I listened to everyone
> here with the "take it slow" advice. Instant ocean MY A$$.

[Dan White]

"Ray Martini" > wrote in message
...
>
> I am actually hoping to add a few clean up crew members by mid to late
> February. Hopefully a damsel or two by early spring.
>

You will have had a tank up for about 6 months before you put any fish in?
This can't be right, is it?

dwhite

[Billy]

"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
| "Ray Martini" > wrote in message
| ...
| >
| > I am actually hoping to add a few clean up crew members by mid to
late
| > February. Hopefully a damsel or two by early spring.
| >
|
| You will have had a tank up for about 6 months before you put any
fish in?
| This can't be right, is it?


Right? It's careful. For a full reef tank, with a long-range plan of
sensitive inverts and corals, I'd say it's wise. I'm unable to wait
that long, but for those that are, more power to them. They're likely
to have less problems and a fabulous tank.

[Dan White]

"Billy" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> "Dan White" > wrote in message
> ...
> | "Ray Martini" > wrote in message
> | ...
> | >
> | > I am actually hoping to add a few clean up crew members by mid to
> late
> | > February. Hopefully a damsel or two by early spring.
> | >
> |
> | You will have had a tank up for about 6 months before you put any
> fish in?
> | This can't be right, is it?
>
>
> Right? It's careful. For a full reef tank, with a long-range plan of
> sensitive inverts and corals, I'd say it's wise. I'm unable to wait
> that long, but for those that are, more power to them. They're likely
> to have less problems and a fabulous tank.
>

Does anybody know exactly why waiting so long improves health, or is it more
of a trial and error thing that just showed that longer waits had more
success?

dwhite

[Toni]

"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
>
> You will have had a tank up for about 6 months before you put any fish in?
> This can't be right, is it?
>


Not only right- but I see it as preferable.


--
Toni
http://www.cearbhaill.com/reef.htm

[j]

Dan White wrote:
> "Billy" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>
>>"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
>>| "Ray Martini" > wrote in message
>>| ...
>>| >
>>| > I am actually hoping to add a few clean up crew members by mid to
>>late
>>| > February. Hopefully a damsel or two by early spring.
>>| >
>>|
>>| You will have had a tank up for about 6 months before you put any
>>fish in?
>>| This can't be right, is it?
>>
>>
>>Right? It's careful. For a full reef tank, with a long-range plan of
>>sensitive inverts and corals, I'd say it's wise. I'm unable to wait
>>that long, but for those that are, more power to them. They're likely
>>to have less problems and a fabulous tank.
>>
>
>
> Does anybody know exactly why waiting so long improves health, or is it more
> of a trial and error thing that just showed that longer waits had more
> success?
>
> dwhite
>
>


The way I see it you need to identify your timeline and willingness to
accept a certain level of risk.

There is already a more substantial time investment involved in a new
tank versus a matured tank. If you hurry the maturation process that
time investment will be unavoidably multiplied. IMO in a reef style
tank with corals and inverts that whole equation is multiplied. If you
are going with a fish only tank with live rock you can move things along
faster.

When you move too quickly, however, the results are chemical imbalances.
Every time you add a new creature to your tank you change the dynamics
of how your tank works. For example new animals will be consuming and
eliminating food. Your tank environment will respond by increasing
bacterial and other oraganisms(brought in by the live rock) to help
process the increased bio-load. This is great and is what is meant to
happen. But there is a catch. Your new tank is for all practical
purposes a sterile environment. There are no existing organism
populations to readily expand to meet your needs. What organism
popluations are present must essentially explode to keep up. In such a
sterile environment the explosion takes a lot of time. In the mean time
toxic levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are accumulating
adversely affecting the short and long term health of your animals. If
your animals make it through the short term effects there will most
certainly be long term effects. So let's say you get an animal before
you really should. Your organisms start the upward swing to meet
demand. He stays alive for a little while. Then the worst happens -
your $100 purple tang dies. Even worse he died after you closed up shop
and you found him the next morning - or whats left of him. Now you've
gone and done it. Now the chemical balances in your tank are totally
wacked because of a decomposing corpse. So what do you do next? You
may add another fish right away (not smart). In this scenario you are
really punishing your new charge with a totally wacked environment that
wasn't ready in the first place and now is really thrown off by the
recently decomposed. You can see where that option is going. Or maybe
you're just too busy and you leave your tank for a period of time before
you replace your animals. Then you think well it's been long enough,
the tank should definitely be ready now. Let's add all the fish I've
always wanted. There's only one flaw with that thinking. You left the
tank empty which means your organism population is waning. Remember the
"your organism population needs to increase to meet demand" thing?
Multiply that by however many fish you put in and the probably square it
because when bad things happen in a marine aquarium they usually happen
exponentially. Back to square one. Dead fish. Lots of dead fish this
time. Actually not really square one because at this point your tank and
probably your confidence in your abilities is at an all time low.

The whole purpose of going slow is to insure the both the short and long
term viability and happiness of your charges. The happier you keep your
animals short term them more insurance you have for the long term. If
you do go fast its not like your tank will be permanently doomed. You
will still eventually, and I emphasize eventually, mature your tank.
Although you will have done it completely by accident and at great
expense and frustration.

When you feel you have done everything to make you tank ready for it's
first fish it should go something like this:

1. Add the animal.
2. Observe the animal and it's environment for adverse signs.
3. Test the environment with water quality test kits.
4. Observe
5. Test
6. If 2-5 above are ALL good add another animal.
7. Repeat

Keep in mind the more animals you add the more observant you need to
become perhaps increasing the number and duration of observations and
testing steps. You have probably caught on by now that this is just one
big balancing act. I like to look at it as a game of poker. You up the
anty on livestock and wait to see if your tank is going to call or raise
you. But you want to put a number on it. OK. Write these numbers down
on a piece of paper 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. Now draw a circle around each one
getting bigger and bigger until you get to 12 and grab some darts. Each
number represents the number of weeks till you are ready to start adding
fish. OK. Go. Just kidding. On a more serious note, only your tank
can tell you when you are ready. IMHO 6 months is being very, very,
cautious. But no doubt that poster will have the most successful and
cost effective reef aquarium you have ever seen - you can tell just by
the way he writes that he will be an excellent and conscientious reefer.
Also keep in mind that he added 100 lbs of live rock to his system.
Thats a lot of dead and decomposing organisms if he is curing it in his
system, which is what it sounds like with the garbage bag thing. This
will in fact require much time and many water changes to complete. If
you plan on having live rock in you system, curing a small amount in
your system will in fact give you the cycle you need to begin keeping
fish. I do not recommend curing all of it in the main system if you
want to move as quickly as possible. Try to obtain mostly cured live rock.

So you see, the terms success and time are only relative in reef
keeping. Ask you self some questions:

1. Do you understand the time investment involved?
2. Do you understand how much care, planning and time you spend now
directly relates to how much you will have to do later?
3. Do you understand the monetary investment involved?
4. Do you understand/care about ethical considerations of your animals?
5. Do you have a stick with it personality or what I call a "to hell
with it" personality?
6. Are you ready to explain to your niece and nephew, little Suzy and
Johnny, how you managed to teach their favorite movie character (Nemo)
to do the backstroke a the surface of the water?

[j]

Dan White wrote:
> "Billy" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>
>>"Dan White" > wrote in message
...
>>| "Ray Martini" > wrote in message
>>| ...
>>| >
>>| > I am actually hoping to add a few clean up crew members by mid to
>>late
>>| > February. Hopefully a damsel or two by early spring.
>>| >
>>|
>>| You will have had a tank up for about 6 months before you put any
>>fish in?
>>| This can't be right, is it?
>>
>>
>>Right? It's careful. For a full reef tank, with a long-range plan of
>>sensitive inverts and corals, I'd say it's wise. I'm unable to wait
>>that long, but for those that are, more power to them. They're likely
>>to have less problems and a fabulous tank.
>>
>
>
> Does anybody know exactly why waiting so long improves health, or is it more
> of a trial and error thing that just showed that longer waits had more
> success?
>
> dwhite

The way I see it you need to identify your timeline and willingness to
accept a certain level of risk.

There is already a more substantial time investment involved in a new
tank versus a matured tank. If you hurry the maturation process that
time investment will be unavoidably multiplied. In a reef style tank
with corals and inverts that whole equation is multiplied. If you are
going with a fish only tank with live rock you can move things along faster.

When you move too quickly, however, the results are organic imbalances.
Every time you add a new creature to your tank you change the dynamics
of how your tank works. For example new animals will be consuming food
and eliminating waste. Your tank environment will respond by increasing
bacterial and other organisms (brought in by the live rock) to help
process the increased bio-load (waste, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate). This
is great and is what is meant to happen. But there is a catch. Your new
tank is for all practical purposes a sterile environment. There are no
existing organism populations to readily expand to meet your needs.
What organism populations are present must essentially explode to keep
up. In such a sterile environment the explosion takes a lot of time.
In the mean time toxic levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are
accumulating adversely affecting the short and long term health of your
animals. If your animals make it through the short term effects there
will most certainly be long term effects.

So let's say you get an animal before you really should. Your organisms
start the upward swing to meet demand. He stays alive for a little
while. Then the worst happens - your prized $100 purple tang dies.
Even worse he died after you closed up shop and you found him the next
morning - or what’s left of him. Now you've gone and done it. Now the
balances in your tank are totally wacked because of a decomposing
corpse. So what do you do next? You may add another fish right away
(not smart). In this scenario you are really punishing your new charge
with a totally wacked environment that wasn't ready in the first place
and now is really thrown off by the recently decomposed. You can see
where that option is going. Or maybe you're just too busy and you leave
your tank for a period of time before you replace your animals. Then
you think well it's been long enough, the tank should definitely be
ready now. Let's add all the fish I've always wanted. There's only one
flaw with that thinking. Remember the "your organism population needs
to increase to meet demand" thing? Multiply that by however many fish
you put in and the probably square it because when bad things happen in
a marine aquarium they usually happen exponentially. You left the tank
empty which means your organism population is waning. You’re actually
back to needing to get your organism levels up enough to support even
minimal fish loads. Back to square one. Dead fish. Lots of dead fish
this time. Actually, not really square one. At this point your tank
and probably your confidence in your abilities is at an all time low.
The whole purpose of going slow is to insure the both the short and long
term viability and happiness of your charges. The happier you keep your
animals short term them more insurance you have for the long term. If
you do go fast, it’s not like your tank will be permanently doomed. You
will still eventually, and I emphasize eventually, mature your tank.
However, you will have done it almost completely by accident and at
great expense and frustration.

When you feel you have done everything to make you tank ready for its
first fish it should go something like this:

1. Add the animal.
2. Observe the animal and its environment for adverse signs.
3. Test the environment with water quality test kits.
4. Observe
5. Test
6. If 2-5 above are ALL good add another animal.
7. Repeat

Keep in mind the more animals you add the more observant you need to
become perhaps increasing the number and duration of observations and
testing steps. You have probably caught on by now that this is just one
big balancing act. So you want a number. OK. Write these numbers down
on a piece of paper: 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. These refer to the number of
weeks till you are ready. Now draw circles around the numbers like a
dart board and grab your darts What ever you hit is when you can start
adding fish. Just kidding ;) Only your tank can tell you when it’s
ready or when it’s struggling to keep up. Only you can determine how
far to push the limits of your new tank and your personal knowledge. I
like to look at it as a game of poker. You up the ante on livestock and
wait to see if your tank is going to call or raise you. IMO 6 months is
being very, very cautious. However I also can almost guarantee that
tank will be one of the most successful and long lived reefs you will
ever come across. I can also tell that reefer is probably the most
conscientious you will ever speak to. Also keep in mind that he also
put in 100 lbs of live rock. And, from the garbage bag statement, I am
assuming he will be curing it in his main system. Curing live rock
makes a tank completely uninhabitable. There is a lot of death and
decomposition associated with the process (and huge ammonia, nitrite and
nitrate levels). In my opinion the tank will be richer in the long run,
though. On the other hand placing a small amount of uncured live rock
in your tank will actually help to cycle your tank. If you want to move
as fast as possible, however, find some good cured rock to put in after
the initial dose.

At this point you have to ask yourself some basic questions.
1.Are you aware of the time investments necessary for success?
2.Are you aware of the financial investments?
3.Do you understand that there is a direct correlation between time and
money? The more time you spend now, the less money you will spend later
and vice versa.
4.Are you aware/do you care about the ethical considerations for keeping
such beautiful creatures?

Have you been to http://www.melevsreef.com yet? Also I visit
http://wetwebmedia.com quite a bit there’s tons of information there.
Reef central is awesome.

Hopefully this helps your thought process!! Good luck!!

[WayneSallee.com]

In article >, "Dan White"
> writes:

>But maybe the technology isn't the main
>thing -- maybe it is the knowledge of what to d

Yes both technology and knowledge have increased, but your right it's the
knowledge that's the bigest isue.

And no you don't have to wait 6 months to put fish in, but you do want to take
it slow.
Give it at least a week before adding fish, but ony ad a tiny amount. Figure an
addition of something to your tank every week or two. Test the water regulary.
If you go too fast you will get frustrated. So take it slow.

In fish, I like to start with the least agressive fish first, and taper towards
the more agressive fish. That way the more agressive fish are the new guyes,
not the other way around. It's better to go too slow, than too fast. And of
course never buy expensive fish untill you have had your tank a long time.

Wayne Sallee

[Dan White]

"j" > wrote in message
...
>
> So you see, the terms success and time are only relative in reef
> keeping. Ask you self some questions:
>
> 1. Do you understand the time investment involved?
> 2. Do you understand how much care, planning and time you spend now
> directly relates to how much you will have to do later?
> 3. Do you understand the monetary investment involved?
> 4. Do you understand/care about ethical considerations of your animals?
> 5. Do you have a stick with it personality or what I call a "to hell
> with it" personality?
> 6. Are you ready to explain to your niece and nephew, little Suzy and
> Johnny, how you managed to teach their favorite movie character (Nemo)
> to do the backstroke a the surface of the water?

I think a reef tank might be overkill for my application. I'm looking more
for the movement of colorful fish rather than fixed items in this store.
You made some good suggestions which I'll keep in mind. Let me put it in
real terms though:

Let's say I have a 55 gal tank brand new with the correct gravel, live rock
cultures and/or whatever else I need. I assume this can be started off
quickly enough with some damsels or the like. Now let's say I wait 2 months
with only live rock and damsels. Is it time then to add a little bit larger
fish? Can I add another larger fish maybe every few weeks to month? Again
I'm not talking about a reef tank. I know "it depends" from case to case
but there must be a good rule of thumb. There is also well water in this
location, and it isn't chlorinated or treated in any way. Maybe I should
peruse the FAQ some, but is adding RO water the only/best way to go? I
recall years ago that we used to change the tank water by removing some and
replacing with fresh water with Instant Ocean. I'm gathering that this
isn't considered the right thing to do anymore? It is confusing because
with fresh water tanks you must change significant quantities of water frequ
ently to keep things healthy. Is it not the same with salt water?

thanks,
dwhite

[Marc Levenson]

Hi Dan,

You set up your new tank with sand, and some LR and let it
cycle for 3 weeks. Testing the water daily is wise, as you
can chart (graph) the readings to see the cycle complete its
course.

At that point, you can put in a fish that you like. A
damsel is a test subject, but not necessarily the only one
to use. I still have my original blue damsel, 7 years later. :)

As your tank adjusts to the new bioload of added livestock,
you observe and enjoy. Adding another fish or two in a few
weeks would be okay.

Doing a 25% water change each month is still a good idea.
We use RO/DI water because it is less likely to result in
nuisance algae growth. Mixing up the water with the salt
you prefer, match temp and salinity then change the water.
Well-water tends to have some issues, depending on what is
in that water table. Might be fine, might be bad. Only a
report of the water will tell you for sure if it is safe to
use for your tank.

Top off your tank with RO/DI (fresh) water daily to make up
for evaporation.

http://www.melevsreef.com/overview.htm

Marc


Dan White wrote:

> Let's say I have a 55 gal tank brand new with the correct gravel, live rock
> cultures and/or whatever else I need. I assume this can be started off
> quickly enough with some damsels or the like. Now let's say I wait 2 months
> with only live rock and damsels. Is it time then to add a little bit larger
> fish? Can I add another larger fish maybe every few weeks to month? Again
> I'm not talking about a reef tank. I know "it depends" from case to case
> but there must be a good rule of thumb. There is also well water in this
> location, and it isn't chlorinated or treated in any way. Maybe I should
> peruse the FAQ some, but is adding RO water the only/best way to go? I
> recall years ago that we used to change the tank water by removing some and
> replacing with fresh water with Instant Ocean. I'm gathering that this
> isn't considered the right thing to do anymore? It is confusing because
> with fresh water tanks you must change significant quantities of water frequ
> ently to keep things healthy. Is it not the same with salt water?
>
> thanks,
> dwhite
>
>

--
Personal Page:
http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/oanda/index.html
Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com
Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com

[Dan White]

"Marc Levenson" > wrote in message
m...

> Well-water tends to have some issues, depending on what is
> in that water table. Might be fine, might be bad. Only a
> report of the water will tell you for sure if it is safe to
> use for your tank.
>

Thanks Mark. The only report I have seen so far is coliform non detectable.
I do know that sometimes there is a sulfurous smell to the water, and other
times, like now, you can't tell it from bottled spring water.

dwhite

[WayneSallee.com]

In article >, "Dan White"
> writes:

>But maybe the technology isn't the main
>thing -- maybe it is the knowledge of what to d

Yes both technology and knowledge have increased, but your right it's the
knowledge that's the bigest isue.

And no you don't have to wait 6 months to put fish in, but you do want to take
it slow.
Give it at least a week before adding fish, but ony ad a tiny amount. Figure an
addition of something to your tank every week or two. Test the water regulary.
If you go too fast you will get frustrated. So take it slow.

In fish, I like to start with the least agressive fish first, and taper towards
the more agressive fish. That way the more agressive fish are the new guyes,
not the other way around. It's better to go too slow, than too fast. And of
course never buy expensive fish untill you have had your tank a long time.

Wayne Sallee

[WayneSallee.com]

There's no reason to go through this when setting up a reef tank.

Wayne Sallee


In article >, "Ray Martini"
> writes:

>
>I think the patience thing is the toughest part. I started my 72 gallon fish
>only tank 2 months ago and there are no fish as of yet. I added the live
>rock (about 100 lbs) and watched as an empty tank cycled. Like watching
>grass grow! Not only that but the room that houses the tank is very bright
>during the day so you can imagine all the lovely growth on the rock. So much
>so that I have now encased the tank in black garbage bags while the rocks
>cycle. Within a couple of days the white spider web looking type stuff and
>other junk has gone.

[WayneSallee.com]

AOL is making a mess of all of the newsgroups. Posts are ariving verry late,
and of cours out of order.

Another mistake many people make is that they will add the salt to the mixing
container, and then start adding water. It's best to add the water to the
mixing containter, and then mix in the salt. submersible pumps work great for
this, and for tranfering water. The reason for this that you don't want
supersaturated salt water, else you will get precipitate.

Wayne Sallee

[Juan Valdez]

I would say getting into the hobby. By doing so, you open yourself up
to all sorts of bad possibilities.