Starting a reef tank
 

Big Habeeb wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007:
Well, my guess then is that my setup will go as follows: start doing the
r/o job to the water tonight so that I have a good 50 gallons ready to roll
(I bought a cheap r/o unit...35 gallons per 24 hours I believe was the
rating)...then it'll have time to stand with the salt in it

Just a small clarification: letting a salt mix "stand" in water doesn't
really do all that much good. What you want is water circulation. That
properly mixes the salt, and also (almost as important) the surface agitation
oxygenates the water too. You need plenty of oxygen in the water before you
put live things in there.

before I really get started on Saturday, at which point I'll put down the
sand (NOT live, home depot stuff), then add the water and start up the
filtration and heating process. I'll let it stay just like that for a
solid week or so before I even CONSIDER doing anything else. Does that
sound about right? Mitch

You don't need filtration (or even heat, for that matter), until you have
something alive in there. But I suppose it doesn't hurt.

A "solid" week won't hurt either, but I suspect after a day or two of water
circulating, it should be ready to go.

The step after that (and after you turn the heat on) should be the live rock.
Then let THAT circulate for a week before adding macro lifeforms (fish, etc.).
Keep in mind that the live rock now has lifeforms, so you're going to need
the heat, probably the filtration, maybe the lights, etc. And you need to
start measuring your water parameters (specific gravity, ammonia, nitrates,
nitrites, etc.). The "nitrogen cycle" should start once the rock is in there.

You want to add macrolife (fish, corals) very slowly after that. Give the
live rock/sand bacteria a chance to increase in population sufficiently to
deal with the waste products of each new macrolife.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
The Naked Gun 2 1/2:
If you only see one movie this year...you should get out more often!

Starting a reef tank
 

"Big Habeeb" wrote in message ups.com...
Well, my guess then is that my setup will go as follows: start doing
the r/o job to the water tonight so that I have a good 50 gallons
ready to roll (I bought a cheap r/o unit...35 gallons per 24 hours I
believe was the rating)...then it'll have time to stand with the salt
in it before I really get started on Saturday, at which point I'll put
down the sand (NOT live, home depot stuff), then add the water and
start up the filtration and heating process. I'll let it stay just
like that for a solid week or so before I even CONSIDER doing anything
else.
Does that sound about right?

I think it all depends on when are the books arriving
and when are you going to finish reading them ;-)

Starting a reef tank
 

On Sep 26, 1:18 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Big Habeeb" wrote in oglegroups.com...
Well, my guess then is that my setup will go as follows: start doing
the r/o job to the water tonight so that I have a good 50 gallons
ready to roll (I bought a cheap r/o unit...35 gallons per 24 hours I
believe was the rating)...then it'll have time to stand with the salt
in it before I really get started on Saturday, at which point I'll put
down the sand (NOT live, home depot stuff), then add the water and
start up the filtration and heating process. I'll let it stay just
like that for a solid week or so before I even CONSIDER doing anything
else.
Does that sound about right?

I think it all depends on when are the books arriving
and when are you going to finish reading them ;-)
Heh, the ones I listed I already read :p

Starting a reef tank
 

Don,
Understood and certainly appreciate the feedback. I actually do have
something I can use to agitate etc...this is also part of the reason I
figured I would let the empty tank just circulate for a bit - let it
get up and running, steady temperature, and give it some extra time to
get the way it's supposed to be before I try adding anything. I'm not
in a huge rush to build this thing: I want to do it slowly, and the
right way. As far as I'm concerned, I'll go the way that one of the
books i read suggested...which is not adding anything BUT live rock
for 4 - 6 weeks. I'm familiar with the concept of cycling a
tank...it's mostly the live rock concept which is new to me, as
someone who hasn't dealt with salt reefs before.

Also, as for the clownfish/anemone commentary, I did know that you
aren't supposed to mix certain clowns, and I know anemones are not for
newbie aquarists. As such my plan was just to add a single percula
clown. I dont plan on having a tremendous number of fish in this
tank: I want the main attraction to be the reef and some of the
cleaning crew stuff I'l leventually get in there (shrimp, crabs etc).
I'll likely just go with the clown, a tang of one variety or another,
and a couple cardinals and call it a day. The last sal****er (non
reef) tank I kept was far more ambitious in terms of the variety of
fish...even going a far as keeping a moorish idol for a time (if you
haven't done it, I don't recommend it...he got away alive, but did NOT
do well in my tank). I definitely learned from the
experience....little things...like that puffer fish are a royal pain
in the rumpus!!!

Mitch

On Sep 26, 12:47 pm, Don Geddis wrote:
Big Habeeb wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007:

Well, my guess then is that my setup will go as follows: start doing the
r/o job to the water tonight so that I have a good 50 gallons ready to roll
(I bought a cheap r/o unit...35 gallons per 24 hours I believe was the
rating)...then it'll have time to stand with the salt in it

Just a small clarification: letting a salt mix "stand" in water doesn't
really do all that much good. What you want is water circulation. That
properly mixes the salt, and also (almost as important) the surface agitation
oxygenates the water too. You need plenty of oxygen in the water before you
put live things in there.

before I really get started on Saturday, at which point I'll put down the
sand (NOT live, home depot stuff), then add the water and start up the
filtration and heating process. I'll let it stay just like that for a
solid week or so before I even CONSIDER doing anything else. Does that
sound about right? Mitch

You don't need filtration (or even heat, for that matter), until you have
something alive in there. But I suppose it doesn't hurt.

A "solid" week won't hurt either, but I suspect after a day or two of water
circulating, it should be ready to go.

The step after that (and after you turn the heat on) should be the live rock.
Then let THAT circulate for a week before adding macro lifeforms (fish, etc.).
Keep in mind that the live rock now has lifeforms, so you're going to need
the heat, probably the filtration, maybe the lights, etc. And you need to
start measuring your water parameters (specific gravity, ammonia, nitrates,
nitrites, etc.). The "nitrogen cycle" should start once the rock is in there.

You want to add macrolife (fish, corals) very slowly after that. Give the
live rock/sand bacteria a chance to increase in population sufficiently to
deal with the waste products of each new macrolife.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _________________________*____
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
The Naked Gun 2 1/2:
If you only see one movie this year...you should get out more often!

Starting a reef tank
 

"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones.
So get the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones.

Or... get the books I recomended, educate yourself
and then it will be easy to not only keep clowns in
a healthy anemone but with no problems have them mate
and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do.

I setup my tank in 2002, started with two young clowns
(maroon ones) later got a helthy specimen of bubble tip
anemone and few years ago had them breed in my tank
and rise fry to maturity. Sold off all the babies for about
$10 a pop and kept two pairs of babies for future in
a different tanks (I have total of 4 marine tanks now).

My ultimate goal is to close the cycle, what I mean
by this is to get the young babies I got from breeding
at home to mature and mate and have babies on
their own.

Currently one of the two pairs I have left died, cought
some disease came with live brine shrimp feeding.
My last pair is mating, the difference between male
and female is obvious (coloration and size) but they
did not lay eggs yet. I am waiting in patience.

Summinig up - keeping sea anemones is difficult
in the same way as keeping cats or cows when you
do not know what cats or cows need to survive... :-)
Anemones are just very different animals than these
we are used to in our terrestial lives. So unless you
read about their needs, understand how their body
functions - yes, you will kill anemones easily...
But this is not a reason to not keep them - different
does not mean they are difficult! They are different and this
is a perfect reason to educate yourself, do some reading
from trusted sources about host anemones and than
you will have all the tools you need to keep a helthy one.

BTW - the anemone I have in my tank now is the first
anemone I got, never killed one myself. Got it when
is was small, maybe 2-3" across oral disk, now it
barelly fits in my 58 gallons oceanic tank... it occupies
center of the tank, glued itself to the center column
for the overflow and reaches from the bottom of the
tank to the 1-2" from the top of the water column.

Clowns love it, they bath in its tentacles, nest in it,
lay eggs at its base (on the overflow column) and
they are like very happy family. Outstanding show!

Keeping a single clownfish in a tank with other fish
is kind of cruel in my view - these are social fish and
are best kept in pairs (Maroons) or small groups
(any other types, including your well known "Nemo").
Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I am not sure if this argument is valid for you guys or not,
but as you pointed out yourself, clownfish are not found
in nature alone so keeping them this way in the tank
is not quite natural either :-)

Starting a reef tank
 

I love the comment on keeping anemones as opposed to keeping cows or
cats - makes a lot of sense to me now looking at it in that way. The
concept of having fish breeding in my tank, I admit, somewhat
frightens me...bad experience with some convict cichlids aways
back...where they just wouldnt STOP breeding!!! I will definitely be
getting the books that you recommend long before I'm ready to add
either an anemone, or any clown fish to the tank. Like I said, I plan
on drawing out this process as long as necessary to make sure it's a
successful launch. Whether or not I'll be able to successfully keep
corals, fish, live rock etc remains to be seen...but at this point I'm
fairly certain I know enough to successfully run a sal****er tank with
non-live sand and not kill anything lol ;)

Mitch


On Sep 26, 2:06 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Don Geddis" wrote in ...
Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones.
So get the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones.

Or... get the books I recomended, educate yourself
and then it will be easy to not only keep clowns in
a healthy anemone but with no problems have them mate
and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do.

I setup my tank in 2002, started with two young clowns
(maroon ones) later got a helthy specimen of bubble tip
anemone and few years ago had them breed in my tank
and rise fry to maturity. Sold off all the babies for about
$10 a pop and kept two pairs of babies for future in
a different tanks (I have total of 4 marine tanks now).

My ultimate goal is to close the cycle, what I mean
by this is to get the young babies I got from breeding
at home to mature and mate and have babies on
their own.

Currently one of the two pairs I have left died, cought
some disease came with live brine shrimp feeding.
My last pair is mating, the difference between male
and female is obvious (coloration and size) but they
did not lay eggs yet. I am waiting in patience.

Summinig up - keeping sea anemones is difficult
in the same way as keeping cats or cows when you
do not know what cats or cows need to survive... :-)
Anemones are just very different animals than these
we are used to in our terrestial lives. So unless you
read about their needs, understand how their body
functions - yes, you will kill anemones easily...
But this is not a reason to not keep them - different
does not mean they are difficult! They are different and this
is a perfect reason to educate yourself, do some reading
from trusted sources about host anemones and than
you will have all the tools you need to keep a helthy one.

BTW - the anemone I have in my tank now is the first
anemone I got, never killed one myself. Got it when
is was small, maybe 2-3" across oral disk, now it
barelly fits in my 58 gallons oceanic tank... it occupies
center of the tank, glued itself to the center column
for the overflow and reaches from the bottom of the
tank to the 1-2" from the top of the water column.

Clowns love it, they bath in its tentacles, nest in it,
lay eggs at its base (on the overflow column) and
they are like very happy family. Outstanding show!

Keeping a single clownfish in a tank with other fish
is kind of cruel in my view - these are social fish and
are best kept in pairs (Maroons) or small groups
(any other types, including your well known "Nemo").
Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I am not sure if this argument is valid for you guys or not,
but as you pointed out yourself, clownfish are not found
in nature alone so keeping them this way in the tank
is not quite natural either :-)

Starting a reef tank
 

Pszemol wrote on 9/26/2007 2:06 PM:
"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get
the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones.

Or... get the books I recomended, educate yourself
and then it will be easy to not only keep clowns in
a healthy anemone but with no problems have them mate
and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do.


Yea but a pair of maroon clowns laying egg are
usually not good tank mates for other fish :-)


I setup my tank in 2002, started with two young clowns
(maroon ones) later got a helthy specimen of bubble tip
anemone and few years ago had them breed in my tank
and rise fry to maturity. Sold off all the babies for about
$10 a pop and kept two pairs of babies for future in
a different tanks (I have total of 4 marine tanks now).

My ultimate goal is to close the cycle, what I mean
by this is to get the young babies I got from breeding
at home to mature and mate and have babies on their own.

Currently one of the two pairs I have left died, cought
some disease came with live brine shrimp feeding.
My last pair is mating, the difference between male
and female is obvious (coloration and size) but they
did not lay eggs yet. I am waiting in patience.

Summinig up - keeping sea anemones is difficult
in the same way as keeping cats or cows when you
do not know what cats or cows need to survive... :-)
Anemones are just very different animals than these
we are used to in our terrestial lives. So unless you
read about their needs, understand how their body
functions - yes, you will kill anemones easily...
But this is not a reason to not keep them - different
does not mean they are difficult! They are different and this
is a perfect reason to educate yourself, do some reading
from trusted sources about host anemones and than
you will have all the tools you need to keep a helthy one.

BTW - the anemone I have in my tank now is the first
anemone I got, never killed one myself. Got it when
is was small, maybe 2-3" across oral disk, now it
barelly fits in my 58 gallons oceanic tank... it occupies
center of the tank, glued itself to the center column
for the overflow and reaches from the bottom of the
tank to the 1-2" from the top of the water column.

Clowns love it, they bath in its tentacles, nest in it,
lay eggs at its base (on the overflow column) and
they are like very happy family. Outstanding show!

Keeping a single clownfish in a tank with other fish
is kind of cruel in my view - these are social fish and
are best kept in pairs (Maroons) or small groups
(any other types, including your well known "Nemo").
Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I am not sure if this argument is valid for you guys or not,
but as you pointed out yourself, clownfish are not found
in nature alone so keeping them this way in the tank
is not quite natural either :-)

Yep, two clownfish do the best. I recomend
ossolaris, or percula, as they are the least aggressive.

I don't like anemones in the reef tank because they
are bad about moving around and stinging the corals.
mushrooms don't move around like anemones do. That's
not to say that I would never put an anemone in a
reef tank, but I don't normally recommend it, as
most people get real tired of loosing their corals
from the anemone.

Wayne Sallee

Starting a reef tank
 

Don Geddis wrote:

The step after that (and after you turn the heat on) should be the live rock.
Then let THAT circulate for a week before adding macro lifeforms (fish, etc.).

On qualification. If you buy "cured" live rock, this is correct. If you buy
uncured live rock, it will cycle the tank to a certain extent (the extent
depends on the ratio of rock to water). Let's say you put 100 pounds or more of
uncured rock in that 72 gallon tank. Don't add any fish until the tank cycles -
you will get an ammonia spike, followed by a nitrite spike, and adding fish will
make this worse. Many times the fish will simply die.

On the other hand, let's say you buy a shipment of, say, 35 pounds of uncured
rock. You'll still get a cycle, but it probably won't be bad enough to kill
fish, as long as you don't add too many fish.

Adding live rock in stages like this is just like adding fish in stages. Done
right, you'll never see an extreme cycle.

In my 125, I bought 140-160 pounds of rock in four stages and didn't see a
dangerous cycle at any time. Nitrites never got above 1.6.

George Patterson
If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess
to anything.

Starting a reef tank
 

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message ...
Pszemol wrote on 9/26/2007 2:06 PM:
"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get
the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones.

Or... get the books I recomended, educate yourself
and then it will be easy to not only keep clowns in
a healthy anemone but with no problems have them mate
and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do.

Yea but a pair of maroon clowns laying egg are
usually not good tank mates for other fish :-)

In the same tank I keep hepatus tang and royal gramma.
Several sea urchins, sea cucumbers, two skunk shrimps
and tons of hermit crabs of many variety. No issues.
Large anemone gives clowns a proper retreat and secure
place to nest - since other fish or shrimps have fear of
anemone clowns feel safe and are not that aggressive.
Yes, when I put my hand in the tank to do some cleaning
or rock rearranging I get bitten by the female, but I see
no aggression towards other tankmates. I guess they
are well trained by clowns to not mess with "The Mother" :-)

Yep, two clownfish do the best. I recomend
ossolaris, or percula, as they are the least aggressive.

I don't like anemones in the reef tank because they
are bad about moving around and stinging the corals.
mushrooms don't move around like anemones do. That's
not to say that I would never put an anemone in a
reef tank, but I don't normally recommend it, as
most people get real tired of loosing their corals
from the anemone.

Host anemones are very big animals.
Usually, if you want to keep a host anemone it will
soon be big enough to not leave any room for corals.
There are many compatible combinations or animals
for a sal****er tank and it is impossible to keep
everything in one tank (that is why I have 4 - lol!).

If you want to have a garden of acroporas than clown
hosting sea anemone probably will not be a good choice.

It is like mixing tangs or triggers with sea horses.
It simply does not work this way.

That is why you need to make up your mind what you
want to keep to properly design the tank from the begining:
rockwork, water flow, filtration, lighting etc... There is no
universal setup and most of these things will depend on
what animals you want to keep most likely. Very little
experience is needed to know that a fish tank for
soft corals will be quite different than an acro's garden
or clowns hosting in a large, tank dominating sea anemone.

Starting a reef tank
 

"Big Habeeb" wrote in message ups.com...
I love the comment on keeping anemones as opposed to keeping
cows or cats - makes a lot of sense to me now looking at it in that way.

It is true, unfortunatelly there is a lot of misunderstanding on what
they need to survive and how to make them thrive in the tank.
The biggest mistake people do is they do not feed their anemone.
It needs to eat reagularly to build their tissues out of proteins.
Many people think they just need strong light and they will be fine.
Algae in their tissue can provide only sugars to give them energy
but they need to eat to have good source of proteins.

The concept of having fish breeding in my tank, I admit, somewhat
frightens me...bad experience with some convict cichlids aways
back...where they just wouldnt STOP breeding!!!

Clowns and anemone tank is just a different type of a reef tank.
Acroporas garden is also different type.
A tank with an octopus will be also totally different.
Tank with soft corals will also be totally different.
If you try mixing animals from different ecology niches of the
ocean you will have small chance for success.
Some animals will like lots of light, others lots of alternating
water currents. Yet others will prefer almost stagnant water
with a steady laminar flow and not too much light...
Some will be very dirty, like an octopus, and will require tons of
good filtration - others will be almost self sufficient with no filters
required (live rock alone will be enough).

In terms of fish breeding in a reef tank you will have slightly
better situation than in freshwater: almost always no fry
survives in the reef tank, so you would not have ever problems with
the overpopularion of your fish, compared to a tank with guppies.
To successfuly breed fish and rise fry you need to setup
separate tanks and take eggs/fry out, giving special food etc.
Lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Not everybody will be happy
to do this work. My clowns have eggs every two weeks or
even more often. Now, that I already had my fun breeding
them I just leave eggs in the tank, pair is tending for them,
fry hatches and gets eaten by other fish or end up in filters.
Tough luck :-(

I will definitely be
getting the books that you recommend long before I'm ready to add
either an anemone, or any clown fish to the tank. Like I said, I plan
on drawing out this process as long as necessary to make sure it's a
successful launch. Whether or not I'll be able to successfully keep
corals, fish, live rock etc remains to be seen...but at this point I'm
fairly certain I know enough to successfully run a sal****er tank with
non-live sand and not kill anything lol ;)

I am sure you do :-)