Starting a reef tank
 

Don, cool off, take a walk in a park or walk your dog
- you are too much fired up to continue this thread.

I can come back to your questions in a couple of days.
OK?

Cheers,
Pszemol.

Starting a reef tank
 

"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die. They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)
I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked
into pump intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed
and anemone survived. Literally only a stump was left on the rock.
In a matter of days the stump healed and guts stopped hanging
out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral disc was formed
with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed normally!

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!
Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body.
Even if you grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will
not cause a major outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.
The 8-10" rose bubble tip mentioned in the point #1 was damaged
in a 10 gallon tank with fish, crabs, two SPS corals, green button
polyps and red mushroom corals. All things survived with no issues.
There was no water qality issues, no ammonia outbreaks as well.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but
this is only an illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and
in most cases it will recover. These animals have EXTRAORDINARY
capabilities to regrow lost parts of their body and this property
is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the anemones.
Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones
in their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if
you scrape their stump/foot of the rock with a brush...
Ornamental anemones like bubble tips are not much different.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar
but anemone totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see
if it survive... And this is exactly what I was talking before.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't doing
that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. Or even
with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol
possible to help someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

Starting a reef tank
 

On Sep 28, 3:44 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Don Geddis" wrote in ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die. They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)
I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked
into pump intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed
and anemone survived. Literally only a stump was left on the rock.
In a matter of days the stump healed and guts stopped hanging
out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral disc was formed
with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed normally!

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!
Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body.
Even if you grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will
not cause a major outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.
The 8-10" rose bubble tip mentioned in the point #1 was damaged
in a 10 gallon tank with fish, crabs, two SPS corals, green button
polyps and red mushroom corals. All things survived with no issues.
There was no water qality issues, no ammonia outbreaks as well.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but
this is only an illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and
in most cases it will recover. These animals have EXTRAORDINARY
capabilities to regrow lost parts of their body and this property
is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the anemones.
Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones
in their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if
you scrape their stump/foot of the rock with a brush...
Ornamental anemones like bubble tips are not much different.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar
but anemone totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see
if it survive... And this is exactly what I was talking before.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't doing
that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. Or even
with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol
possible to help someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

I think he was just insinuating that it means I know a little bit
about monitoring water quality/conditions etc.

Mitch

Starting a reef tank
 

Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but...

They are (generally) not reefkeepers themselves, and only need to know
enough to keep their livestock until it is sold. It is rare to find
an expert LFS that is a reeftaker, and trusting their advise implicity
may lead to problems. The LFS may give you advice in good faith, but
that still doesn't mean that he is giving you truly knowledgeable or
good advice. Generally these gusy just don't know much and as they
say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:59:15 -0000, Big Habeeb
wrote:

Don,
Definitely appreciate the feedback...but I just want to clarify a
couple of things. I HAVE kept sal****er tanks before, just not reef,
so I'm aware of which clowns should and shouldn't be mixed. I also
have a reliable LFS whom I trust IMPLICITLY...no offense to the
posters here, but as I don't know any of you really, I would trust the
LFS over any advice that I receive here (again, I trust this shop and
don't think he'd try and screw me to make a buck...if he did, he'd
lose my freshwater business, the frys of cichs that I am now bringing
to him, and my business of buying supplies for my cats, dog, and
snake). I spoke with him last night when I stopped in to pick up the
r/o di unit, and he also recommended NOT bringing an anemone into the
picture, though his reasoning had more to do with not killing off
other corals, than it did for the sake of the anemone itself.

The truth is, I am in NO rush to get this up and running. This is a
long term project, not a quick 'up and attem' that I've done sometimes
setting up cichlid tanks for others. I know that cichs are far
'tougher' to environmental changes than most of the sal****er
creatures I'll be looking at...and I also know that there are animals
and plants considered "easy, medium, and hard" to keep successfully.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once kept a moorish idol,
certainly considered by most to be a fairly difficult fish to get to
thrive in captivity.

My plan right now is to start very, VERY slowly. This weekend's goal
is to accomplish a couple of things:
1. Get the tank set up, complete with filtration, skimmer, refugarium,
powerheads, heater, lights etc. Basically everything that I have so
far.
2. Get the substrate in...I plan on using standard non live sand, but
I will be buying from the LFS, not from home depot as recommended in
an earlier post. For the slight difference in price, I'm willing to
take my LFS's word for it that his sand will cause fewer issues than
sandbox type sand.
3. Get the water in, with the proper salt mix.
4. After allowing to run for a bit, use my test kit to see what the
water looks like in its 'stock' state with no livestock. That way
I'll know if my r/o unit is working correctly, and if there's anything
weird about my local water that I need to be aware of. At this point
I'm not fully 'reefed' yet, so if it turns out my water is funky, I
can still change over and just do a fish only tank (which would be
disappointing, but I'm not going to fight a losing battle of forcing
something to try to live in water it simply can't live in).

That's literally ALL I have planned for this weekend. Once I'm
confident that things are running as they're supposed to, I will be
visiting the LFS again (likely NEXT weekend) to pick up a combination
of uncured live rock and dried corals. I'll use the dry corals in the
bank to setup a base (since they won't be seen) and then stack the
live rock appropriately, remembering that I need to make sure the
rocks are touching the bottom of the tank, not sitting on top of my
substrate. Once THAT is done, I'm done for a couple of weeks. I'll
monitor the water quality daily, again using the test kid, and see how
well it starts cycling. I have no intention of rushing in to stocking
the tank with other corals or fish. As far as I'm concerned, it can
sit in this state for months, if needbe (and yes, from all I've read,
I know a couple weeks should be sufficient).

I really do plan on taking my time with this. I know from experience
that first time aquarium keepers biggest error is typically rushing
too much stuff into their tank. I've built small fish-only salt water
environments for other people, and watched them DESTROY hundreds of
dollars worth of livestock by not cycling properly, or by overstocking
a tank. The people who listen, and wait, and are patient typically
have far more success. I myself DID screw up my first freshwater
tank, overstocked, and watched as the fish died one by one. This is
not a mistake I will ever repeat.

As for the question of anemones, I would eventually like to add one,
but this is way, way, WAY down the line once I'm comfortable: with
both the process and my setup, keeping in mind this is my first time
using an overflow and refugium...a large departure from hanging
filtration or even the cannisters I'm used to.

I hope that sets everyone's mind at ease that, while not THE most
educated person on reef keeping, I am fortunately not an idiot
either...and in fact am reading "the new marine aquarium" as we speak.

Mitch

On Sep 27, 7:26 pm, Don Geddis wrote:
"Pszemol" wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007:

"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.

You're talking to a poster who has never had a sal****er tank before,
certainly never even raised corals.

You take a bunch of random guys off the street. Give them their very first
sal****er tank. For one group, give them only some clownfish in the tank.
For another group, give them clownfish and a host sea anemone.

You wanna have two guesses which group is going to wind up with more
livestock deaths?

Compared to sea anemones, fish (esp. clownfish) are FAR more resilient to
great variations in: temperate, water quality, salinity, lighting, getting
caught in filters/overflows, etc.

Yes, it's POSSIBLE to raise sea anemones (and I've done it too). But it's
irresponsible to recommend that to a brand-new reefkeeper. Especially if you
imply that it's just as "easy" keeping anemones as it is to keep clownfish.

That's just false.

It's possible, but it's not nearly as easy. If things start to go wrong in
your tank, it's the anemone that's going to die first, not the clownfish.

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!

Clownfish live in the ocean too. But are far, far easier to keep alive than
anemones are.

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.

I know how to keep a healthy sea anemone. I still wouldn't recommend it to
a brand new first-time reefkeeper. And you shouldn't either.

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").

Recall that we're talking to somebody who knows nothing. Getting "a
clownfish" will work just fine. Getting "a bunch of clownfish" may or may
not. Is he going to mix species, or can he tell them apart? Will he get all
juveniles? Put a pair of female maroons in the same small tank and they'll
kill each other. Put a maroon in with a different species, and the maroon
will probably kill the other clown. Etc.

Yes, all this is possible, if you learn the details. But why make things
difficult for a guy buying his very first fish?

Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I don't believe you. Proof?

Of course, any small fish will be stressed in a tank with bigger aggressive
fish. But I don't think there's anything special about clowns that requires
them in groups. Any more than any other fish which is usually found in
groups in nature.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _________________________*____
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
And so the Russian people made do on whatever ration of rice and suet the
stores were handing out to the people waiting in the interminable lines in
the dark and the snow that week; they went to sleep hungry and malnourished
but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making
obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken.

Starting a reef tank
 

On Sep 28, 4:12 pm, gaijin wrote:
Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but...

They are (generally) not reefkeepers themselves, and only need to know
enough to keep their livestock until it is sold. It is rare to find
an expert LFS that is a reeftaker, and trusting their advise implicity
may lead to problems. The LFS may give you advice in good faith, but
that still doesn't mean that he is giving you truly knowledgeable or
good advice. Generally these gusy just don't know much and as they
say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:59:15 -0000, Big Habeeb



wrote:
Don,
Definitely appreciate the feedback...but I just want to clarify a
couple of things. I HAVE kept sal****er tanks before, just not reef,
so I'm aware of which clowns should and shouldn't be mixed. I also
have a reliable LFS whom I trust IMPLICITLY...no offense to the
posters here, but as I don't know any of you really, I would trust the
LFS over any advice that I receive here (again, I trust this shop and
don't think he'd try and screw me to make a buck...if he did, he'd
lose my freshwater business, the frys of cichs that I am now bringing
to him, and my business of buying supplies for my cats, dog, and
snake). I spoke with him last night when I stopped in to pick up the
r/o di unit, and he also recommended NOT bringing an anemone into the
picture, though his reasoning had more to do with not killing off
other corals, than it did for the sake of the anemone itself.

The truth is, I am in NO rush to get this up and running. This is a
long term project, not a quick 'up and attem' that I've done sometimes
setting up cichlid tanks for others. I know that cichs are far
'tougher' to environmental changes than most of the sal****er
creatures I'll be looking at...and I also know that there are animals
and plants considered "easy, medium, and hard" to keep successfully.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once kept a moorish idol,
certainly considered by most to be a fairly difficult fish to get to
thrive in captivity.

My plan right now is to start very, VERY slowly. This weekend's goal
is to accomplish a couple of things:
1. Get the tank set up, complete with filtration, skimmer, refugarium,
powerheads, heater, lights etc. Basically everything that I have so
far.
2. Get the substrate in...I plan on using standard non live sand, but
I will be buying from the LFS, not from home depot as recommended in
an earlier post. For the slight difference in price, I'm willing to
take my LFS's word for it that his sand will cause fewer issues than
sandbox type sand.
3. Get the water in, with the proper salt mix.
4. After allowing to run for a bit, use my test kit to see what the
water looks like in its 'stock' state with no livestock. That way
I'll know if my r/o unit is working correctly, and if there's anything
weird about my local water that I need to be aware of. At this point
I'm not fully 'reefed' yet, so if it turns out my water is funky, I
can still change over and just do a fish only tank (which would be
disappointing, but I'm not going to fight a losing battle of forcing
something to try to live in water it simply can't live in).

That's literally ALL I have planned for this weekend. Once I'm
confident that things are running as they're supposed to, I will be
visiting the LFS again (likely NEXT weekend) to pick up a combination
of uncured live rock and dried corals. I'll use the dry corals in the
bank to setup a base (since they won't be seen) and then stack the
live rock appropriately, remembering that I need to make sure the
rocks are touching the bottom of the tank, not sitting on top of my
substrate. Once THAT is done, I'm done for a couple of weeks. I'll
monitor the water quality daily, again using the test kid, and see how
well it starts cycling. I have no intention of rushing in to stocking
the tank with other corals or fish. As far as I'm concerned, it can
sit in this state for months, if needbe (and yes, from all I've read,
I know a couple weeks should be sufficient).

I really do plan on taking my time with this. I know from experience
that first time aquarium keepers biggest error is typically rushing
too much stuff into their tank. I've built small fish-only salt water
environments for other people, and watched them DESTROY hundreds of
dollars worth of livestock by not cycling properly, or by overstocking
a tank. The people who listen, and wait, and are patient typically
have far more success. I myself DID screw up my first freshwater
tank, overstocked, and watched as the fish died one by one. This is
not a mistake I will ever repeat.

As for the question of anemones, I would eventually like to add one,
but this is way, way, WAY down the line once I'm comfortable: with
both the process and my setup, keeping in mind this is my first time
using an overflow and refugium...a large departure from hanging
filtration or even the cannisters I'm used to.

I hope that sets everyone's mind at ease that, while not THE most
educated person on reef keeping, I am fortunately not an idiot
either...and in fact am reading "the new marine aquarium" as we speak.

Mitch

On Sep 27, 7:26 pm, Don Geddis wrote:
"Pszemol" wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007:

"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.

You're talking to a poster who has never had a sal****er tank before,
certainly never even raised corals.

You take a bunch of random guys off the street. Give them their very first
sal****er tank. For one group, give them only some clownfish in the tank.
For another group, give them clownfish and a host sea anemone.

You wanna have two guesses which group is going to wind up with more
livestock deaths?

Compared to sea anemones, fish (esp. clownfish) are FAR more resilient to
great variations in: temperate, water quality, salinity, lighting, getting
caught in filters/overflows, etc.

Yes, it's POSSIBLE to raise sea anemones (and I've done it too). But it's
irresponsible to recommend that to a brand-new reefkeeper. Especially if you
imply that it's just as "easy" keeping anemones as it is to keep clownfish.

That's just false.

It's possible, but it's not nearly as easy. If things start to go wrong in
your tank, it's the anemone that's going to die first, not the clownfish.

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!

Clownfish live in the ocean too. But are far, far easier to keep alive than
anemones are.

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.

I know how to keep a healthy sea anemone. I still wouldn't recommend it to
a brand new first-time reefkeeper. And you shouldn't either.

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").

Recall that we're talking to somebody who knows nothing. Getting "a
clownfish" will work just fine. Getting "a bunch of clownfish" may or may
not. Is he going to mix species, or can he tell them apart? Will he get all
juveniles? Put a pair of female maroons in the same small tank and they'll
kill each other. Put a maroon in with a different species, and the maroon
will probably kill the other clown. Etc.

Yes, all this is possible, if you learn the details. But why make things
difficult for a guy buying his very first fish?

Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I don't believe you. Proof?

Of course, any small fish will be stressed in a tank with bigger aggressive
fish. But I don't think there's anything special about clowns that requires
them in groups. Any more than any other fish which is usually found in
groups in nature.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _________________________**____
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
And so the Russian people made do on whatever ration of rice and suet the
stores were handing out to the people waiting in the interminable lines in
the dark and the snow that week; they went to sleep hungry and malnourished
but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making
obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Gaijin,
I'm lucky - the LFS I do most of my business with (Pet Shanty in
Scotch Plains, NJ) has not one, but 3 guys who practice what they
preach. They're all knowledgable, and in fact have several tanks that
are of the 'not for sale' variety in the store, to show off their
abilities (they have a TREMENDOUS 30 year old coral named 'steve' in a
tank by the front of the store). There's another one a little ways up
the road who I trust somewhat, but honestly will not be going there
for livestock. I trust them enough to buy equipment, but beyond that
they seem somewhat shady...willing to tell you that just about
anything is OK to make a sale (they're the ones who originally had me
put a moorish idol in my tank). I've used them for most of the
equipment I purchased, owing to better prices, but any live rock,
fish, coral etc will be purchased from the first shop I mentioned.
The fact that they do have 'keeper' tanks helps set my mind at ease
that they do know what they are doing...and while it's unlikely I'll
have all the 'best' equipment as these tanks likely do, I still trust
that they won't send me in the wrong direction completely. As I
mentioned previously, I take care of all of my various pets from this
shop (cats, dog, snake, cichlids), and while they do well with the
other stuff, fish and sal****er in particular is where they really,
really shine.

Mitch

Starting a reef tank
 

Big Habeeb wrote:

The truth is, I am in NO rush to get this up and running. This is a
long term project, not a quick 'up and attem' that I've done sometimes
setting up cichlid tanks for others. I know that cichs are far
'tougher' to environmental changes than most of the sal****er
creatures I'll be looking at...and I also know that there are animals
and plants considered "easy, medium, and hard" to keep successfully.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once kept a moorish idol,
certainly considered by most to be a fairly difficult fish to get to
thrive in captivity.

I know exactly what you mean about not rushing into it.......I'm a
freshwater person and only started with marine/reef a year ago.....my
big tank has been up and running for 5 months now but is still nowhere
completed.....part of the pleasure for me is the research, the learning
curve and the slow gradual introduction of fish......I never really
rushed the freshwater stuff either the exception being my Mbuna tank
because of territorial issues if you don't add the fish quickly - but it
has now been over 3 years since I've needed to touch the tank other than
very frequent maintenance - actually I believe it is more work than
either of my sal****er tanks - but that is down to the Mbuna habit of
overstocking the tank by breeding and their dirty eating habits....




My plan right now is to start very, VERY slowly. This weekend's goal
is to accomplish a couple of things:
1. Get the tank set up, complete with filtration, skimmer, refugarium,
powerheads, heater, lights etc. Basically everything that I have so
far.
2. Get the substrate in...I plan on using standard non live sand, but
I will be buying from the LFS, not from home depot as recommended in
an earlier post. For the slight difference in price, I'm willing to
take my LFS's word for it that his sand will cause fewer issues than
sandbox type sand.
3. Get the water in, with the proper salt mix.
4. After allowing to run for a bit, use my test kit to see what the
water looks like in its 'stock' state with no livestock. That way
I'll know if my r/o unit is working correctly, and if there's anything
weird about my local water that I need to be aware of. At this point
I'm not fully 'reefed' yet, so if it turns out my water is funky, I
can still change over and just do a fish only tank (which would be
disappointing, but I'm not going to fight a losing battle of forcing
something to try to live in water it simply can't live in).

That's literally ALL I have planned for this weekend. Once I'm
confident that things are running as they're supposed to, I will be
visiting the LFS again (likely NEXT weekend) to pick up a combination
of uncured live rock and dried corals. I'll use the dry corals in the
bank to setup a base (since they won't be seen) and then stack the
live rock appropriately, remembering that I need to make sure the
rocks are touching the bottom of the tank, not sitting on top of my
substrate. Once THAT is done, I'm done for a couple of weeks. I'll
monitor the water quality daily, again using the test kid, and see how
well it starts cycling. I have no intention of rushing in to stocking
the tank with other corals or fish. As far as I'm concerned, it can
sit in this state for months, if needbe (and yes, from all I've read,
I know a couple weeks should be sufficient).


Your time scale is pretty much the same as I did.......I got comments
from visiting friends and relatives about how boring the thing looked
but I didn't care - I would prefer it to be successful rather than worry
about appearances. 5 months on I still don't have all the fish that I
want nor the corals or inverts.....money of course is a good brake on
expenditure with the expense of the stuff but it is not the only one....


I really do plan on taking my time with this. I know from experience
that first time aquarium keepers biggest error is typically rushing
too much stuff into their tank. I've built small fish-only salt water
environments for other people, and watched them DESTROY hundreds of
dollars worth of livestock by not cycling properly, or by overstocking
a tank. The people who listen, and wait, and are patient typically
have far more success. I myself DID screw up my first freshwater
tank, overstocked, and watched as the fish died one by one. This is
not a mistake I will ever repeat.

Having marine fish or corals/inverts die is way more expensive than
freshwater although emotionally just the same. I lost a £30 Bi-colour
angel by adding a Coral Beauty 2 days later - the Coral Beauty still
rules the roost but the female tomato clown comes a very close second....

I've found the discussion on the various temperaments of Clownfish in
this thread very interesting.....I have a pair of Percula clowns in my
little 15 gall tank - I bought them both as Juveniles and went for the
largest and the smallest in the tank at the LFS - they truly seem to be
a couple and have spawned but without success - I need to get on the
ball with this - maybe a project for the long winter months. The 15 gall
did not work very well as a nano reef so it is now a FOWLR with just
the clowns and some hermits......I never put an anenome in with them but
they adopted a feather duster - sad and sorry tale as they got rough
with him and decapitated him in the end......

Now, the tomato clowns I have in the bigger tank were sold to me as a
breeding pair and to be quite honest I rather think the female hates the
male as she chases him mercilessly.....and they do not have the close
relationship that my Percula clowns do........so it has been interesting
to read about the different agression levels with the same sub
species....again they don't have an anenome in the tank with them but do
have a rather vicious Hammer Head (stung me 3 days ago and I'm still
smarting - own fault of course as I didn't get it to retract before
working on some algae close to it).....


As for the question of anemones, I would eventually like to add one,
but this is way, way, WAY down the line once I'm comfortable: with
both the process and my setup, keeping in mind this is my first time
using an overflow and refugium...a large departure from hanging
filtration or even the cannisters I'm used to.


One of the big differences I found was the different concept with gravel
cleaning......with fw it is a gravel vac, gravel vac and keep everything
clean unless heavily planted....with the sw gravel vacs are a big no,
no......but I love the concept of the whole filtration system being done
by the LR.......

I hope that sets everyone's mind at ease that, while not THE most
educated person on reef keeping, I am fortunately not an idiot
either...and in fact am reading "the new marine aquarium" as we speak.

Mitch


Me, neither......but I am enjoying the challenge of my reef
adventure....a friend came over today who I haven't seen since setting
up the bigger tank and it was all wow.....whereas I'm standing there
saying it's still a work in progress and this needs doing and that needs
doing and making excuses for what I see as its failings......maybe it is
the difference in perception of a hobbyist and a layman.... :-)

Gill



On Sep 27, 7:26 pm, Don Geddis wrote:

"Pszemol" wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007:


"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.

You're talking to a poster who has never had a sal****er tank before,
certainly never even raised corals.

You take a bunch of random guys off the street. Give them their very first
sal****er tank. For one group, give them only some clownfish in the tank.
For another group, give them clownfish and a host sea anemone.

You wanna have two guesses which group is going to wind up with more
livestock deaths?

Compared to sea anemones, fish (esp. clownfish) are FAR more resilient to
great variations in: temperate, water quality, salinity, lighting, getting
caught in filters/overflows, etc.

Yes, it's POSSIBLE to raise sea anemones (and I've done it too). But it's
irresponsible to recommend that to a brand-new reefkeeper. Especially if you
imply that it's just as "easy" keeping anemones as it is to keep clownfish.

That's just false.

It's possible, but it's not nearly as easy. If things start to go wrong in
your tank, it's the anemone that's going to die first, not the clownfish.


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!

Clownfish live in the ocean too. But are far, far easier to keep alive than
anemones are.


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.

I know how to keep a healthy sea anemone. I still wouldn't recommend it to
a brand new first-time reefkeeper. And you shouldn't either.


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").

Recall that we're talking to somebody who knows nothing. Getting "a
clownfish" will work just fine. Getting "a bunch of clownfish" may or may
not. Is he going to mix species, or can he tell them apart? Will he get all
juveniles? Put a pair of female maroons in the same small tank and they'll
kill each other. Put a maroon in with a different species, and the maroon
will probably kill the other clown. Etc.

Yes, all this is possible, if you learn the details. But why make things
difficult for a guy buying his very first fish?


Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I don't believe you. Proof?

Of course, any small fish will be stressed in a tank with bigger aggressive
fish. But I don't think there's anything special about clowns that requires
them in groups. Any more than any other fish which is usually found in
groups in nature.

-- Don
________________________________________________ ___________________________*____
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
And so the Russian people made do on whatever ration of rice and suet the
stores were handing out to the people waiting in the interminable lines in
the dark and the snow that week; they went to sleep hungry and malnourished
but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making
obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken.

Starting a reef tank
 

gaijin wrote:
Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but...

They are (generally) not reefkeepers themselves, and only need to know
enough to keep their livestock until it is sold. It is rare to find
an expert LFS that is a reeftaker, and trusting their advise implicity
may lead to problems. The LFS may give you advice in good faith, but
that still doesn't mean that he is giving you truly knowledgeable or
good advice. Generally these gusy just don't know much and as they
say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I find this very sad and every time I read this on the groups it makes
me more and more thankful for the quality of expertise that I get in the
LFS's that I go to.......for example I went into one of them this week
when it was quiet and got the following different questions from 4
members of staff with genuine interest and good advice:

1. How's the reef going?

2. How's the pond developing?

3. How are the community fish doing?

4. How are the Mbunas?

And then when I was taking the RO water out to the car (and yes I'm
buying my own unit in the next couple of months) - OK the person I
coerced to take it to the car for me, started talking about Discus
(another project I'm embarking on) - he breeds them and gave me some
great tips all of which are backed up by my research....

They employ at least 4 staff who have their own reef tanks and all of
their staff keep fish themselves......and are employed for their
specialist knowledge - they are expected to cross train but you quickly
learn to find those that don't have a true passion for the set ups/fish
they are selling......

Gill

Starting a reef tank
 

How do the LFS's strings feel when he pulls them?
Are they tight around your arms?
Listen LFS's have only one thing in common, THEY WANT YOUR MONEY and they
will do whatever it takes to EARN YOURS BUSINESS...
iy
"Gill Passman" wrote in message
...
gaijin wrote:
Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but...

They are (generally) not reefkeepers themselves, and only need to know
enough to keep their livestock until it is sold. It is rare to find
an expert LFS that is a reeftaker, and trusting their advise implicity
may lead to problems. The LFS may give you advice in good faith, but
that still doesn't mean that he is giving you truly knowledgeable or
good advice. Generally these gusy just don't know much and as they
say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I find this very sad and every time I read this on the groups it makes me
more and more thankful for the quality of expertise that I get in the
LFS's that I go to.......for example I went into one of them this week
when it was quiet and got the following different questions from 4 members
of staff with genuine interest and good advice:

1. How's the reef going?

2. How's the pond developing?

3. How are the community fish doing?

4. How are the Mbunas?

And then when I was taking the RO water out to the car (and yes I'm buying
my own unit in the next couple of months) - OK the person I coerced to
take it to the car for me, started talking about Discus (another project
I'm embarking on) - he breeds them and gave me some great tips all of
which are backed up by my research....

They employ at least 4 staff who have their own reef tanks and all of
their staff keep fish themselves......and are employed for their
specialist knowledge - they are expected to cross train but you quickly
learn to find those that don't have a true passion for the set ups/fish
they are selling......

Gill

Starting a reef tank
 

"Pszemol" wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007:
"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to
accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake),
then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once.

I disagree totally!

Well, let's have a debate then!

1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not
guarantee it will die.

Of course it isn't a guarantee of death. But it's surely highly correlated
with near-term death. Happens often enough.

They are pretty hardy animals and can survive
quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-)

Not a chance.

I have a hard time killing Aiptasia anemones even deliberately. Cut them in
half, grind them up, stop feeding, little light. The damn things just show up
everywhere. Can't get rid of them.

If you asked me to kill a rose bubble tip, it wouldn't last a week.

I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked into pump
intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed and anemone survived. Literally
only a stump was left on the rock. In a matter of days the stump healed
and guts stopped hanging out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral
disc was formed with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed
normally!

That's a great story. But hardly a common one.

Anemones getting ripped apart by pumps, and then dying, is far more common.
Another difference with Aiptasias. You toss a single Aiptasia into a pump,
and your whole tank will be filled with Aiptasias within a month.

In constrast, you toss a rose bubble tip into a pump intake, and you'll
almost certainly not have any rose bubble tip left a month from now. Your
anecdote notwithstanding.

2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water!

Did I restrict my comment to the body of the anemone?

The tentacles are filled with toxins, which is how the anemones regularly kill
nearby corals. They're designed to be released in small amounts, on contact.
But if you grind up a whole bubble tip in a pump, all the toxins from all the
tentacles will be release into the water in a short time period, as the animal
disintegrates.

In the ocean, this isn't a problem. But in a tank with limited water volume,
you can wind up with great trouble for your other livestock.

Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body. Even if you
grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will not cause a major
outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank.

I wasn't talking about ammonia from the decomposition of the physical mass of
the anemone body. You're right that anemones have surprisingly little mass
given their fully-inflated volume.

I was talking about the toxins built up in the attacking tentacles.

3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but this is only an
illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and in most cases it will
recover.

I disagree completely with your "in most cases" phrase. Yes, it's possible.
But, unlike Aiptasia, you can't take bubble tips and regularly chop them up
into ten pieces with a knife, and expect to get ten healthy individuals in a
few months' time.

These animals have EXTRAORDINARY capabilities to regrow lost parts of their
body and this property is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the
anemones. Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones in
their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if you scrape
their stump/foot of the rock with a brush... Ornamental anemones like
bubble tips are not much different.

Bubble tips are hugely different in this respect, from Aiptasia and Majanos.
Bubble tips are far, far, far less robust from damage than those other
species.

This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar but anemone
totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see if it survive... And
this is exactly what I was talking before.

Sure, of course there are some properties that are different. Fish, cats,
and cows have eyes, for example, and anemones don't.

I still think it's crazy to believe that caring for fish is more similar to
caring for cats/cows than caring for sea anemones.

Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't
doing that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef.
Or even with an anemone.

How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol possible to help
someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone???

Obviously, the basics of keeping a stable ocean environment. Salinity,
temperature, water changes, feeding schedule, freshwater topoff, cleaning
the glass, etc. etc. etc.

For a Moorish Idol in particular, it includes a sensitivity to minor
environmental changes, as well as a specialized diet. Most fish you can just
toss anything barely edible into the tank, and they'll get by. You've got to
be a little more careful when taking care of a Moorish Idol. As you
similarly must be a little more careful when taking care of an anemone.

But the basics of care, in terms of 90% of what you spend your days and hours
doing, is the same with any tropical fish tank.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which
you would not take money.

Starting a reef tank
 

Inabón Yunes wrote:
How do the LFS's strings feel when he pulls them?
Are they tight around your arms?
Listen LFS's have only one thing in common, THEY WANT YOUR MONEY and they
will do whatever it takes to EARN YOURS BUSINESS...
iy

Hmmmmm.....well I would personally prefer to spend my money in a place
that shows an interest, gives good advice service and has healthy well
cared for stock looked after by hobbyists that work in the shop rather
than somewhere that might be cheaper but does not have that level of
customer service.....sure they want my money but I have a choice as to
where I can shop so places with bad, uncaring service from
unknowledgable staff won't get my business......not a matter of string
pulling more a matter of good commercial sense from the LFS

Gill