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Starting a reef tank
Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop
recommended to me... I've been dealing with them for awhile, and have run several tanks, just never gone with reef (and not sal****er in ages): 72 galloon oceaning reef ready bow tank with stand, top etc plumbing kit oceaning sump pum protein skimmer esu power compact light versatop heater/thermometer Salt/hydrometer/testkit Anything I'm forgetting? Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
"Big Habeeb" wrote in message oups.com...
Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop recommended to me... I've been dealing with them for awhile, and have run several tanks, just never gone with reef (and not sal****er in ages): 72 galloon oceaning reef ready bow tank with stand, top etc plumbing kit oceaning sump pum protein skimmer esu power compact light versatop heater/thermometer Salt/hydrometer/testkit Anything I'm forgetting? What are your plans to this tank? Will you have soft corals? SPS? LPS? How do you plan to deal with nutrient export? Have you familiarized yourself with the most often used systems? HAve you got in your hands any book on the subject? |
Starting a reef tank
I'm not a big fan of bow fronts. They distort the
view, and make cleaning with an algae magnet quite difficult. You need to add up the total watts of lighting that you will be going with. You want 3 to 6 watts of light per gallon. 3 being only good for low light stuff like soft corals and mushrooms, 5 being good, and 6 being great. I assume this has a built in overflow, and not a hang-on-the-back overflow??? "ocening sump"? Probably "Oceanic sump", and probably an Oceanic tank. Oceanic reef ready tanks have the built in overflow. Yes you want the built in overflow, but you might want to opt for the flat front instead of the bow front. Also lighting is easier to work with over standard shaped tanks. Go with a fine calcium sand, not calcium gravel. I'm to lazy to look it up, but I think that the oceanic sump comes with a wet dry filter. You would be better off with a plain style sump/aquarium, and make a refugium style filtration with protein skimmer. Also, some more advice is to window shop, window shop, window shop. Not for the point of getting the cheapest price, but so that you will be familiar with what's out there and you will have a better aptitude to make the right purchasing decision. Wayne Sallee Big Habeeb wrote on 9/24/2007 6:07 PM: Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop recommended to me... I've been dealing with them for awhile, and have run several tanks, just never gone with reef (and not sal****er in ages): 72 galloon oceaning reef ready bow tank with stand, top etc plumbing kit oceaning sump pum protein skimmer esu power compact light versatop heater/thermometer Salt/hydrometer/testkit Anything I'm forgetting? Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
Yes, purchase some books on reefkeeping before you
buy any aquarium stuff. Many people don't take this advice, but it's advice that is much worth taking. Wayne Sallee Pszemol wrote on 9/24/2007 7:26 PM: "Big Habeeb" wrote in message oups.com... Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop recommended to me... I've been dealing with them for awhile, and have run several tanks, just never gone with reef (and not sal****er in ages): 72 galloon oceaning reef ready bow tank with stand, top etc plumbing kit oceaning sump pum protein skimmer esu power compact light versatop heater/thermometer Salt/hydrometer/testkit Anything I'm forgetting? What are your plans to this tank? Will you have soft corals? SPS? LPS? How do you plan to deal with nutrient export? Have you familiarized yourself with the most often used systems? HAve you got in your hands any book on the subject? |
Starting a reef tank
Big Habeeb wrote:
Anything I'm forgetting? Sounds good for a start. Need live rock, salt water, and eventually various test kits, but the hardware you have lined up is ok. You might need better lighting if you want to keep hard corals. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. |
Starting a reef tank
On Sep 24, 11:10 pm, George Patterson wrote:
Big Habeeb wrote: Anything I'm forgetting? Sounds good for a start. Need live rock, salt water, and eventually various test kits, but the hardware you have lined up is ok. You might need better lighting if you want to keep hard corals. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. Allow me to rephrase slightly: I've done a ton of reading on it, and in concept understand how to go about setting it up. I guess at this point its more the order of operations I'm confused by...lets fast forward to tomorrow: my tank is built, filter setup, no water in it, no substrate, no rock, but it's ready to get started. What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? Can it survive in fresh water for awhile? By awhile I mean, while I add the water, then add the salt mix...or do I need to mix the salt water and add it in smaller quantities (i.e. from a bucket)? How does one attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live rock...also, I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've heard this referred to as "live sand"...same questions apply there, meaning can it survive out of water, in fresh water etc Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm sure the guy at the shop will be happy to answer all of this for me when I go to pick up my setup...but I'd like to go in educated. Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
On Sep 25, 10:12 am, Big Habeeb wrote:
On Sep 24, 11:10 pm, George Patterson wrote: Big Habeeb wrote: Anything I'm forgetting? Sounds good for a start. Need live rock, salt water, and eventually various test kits, but the hardware you have lined up is ok. You might need better lighting if you want to keep hard corals. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. Allow me to rephrase slightly: I've done a ton of reading on it, and in concept understand how to go about setting it up. I guess at this point its more the order of operations I'm confused by...lets fast forward to tomorrow: my tank is built, filter setup, no water in it, no substrate, no rock, but it's ready to get started. What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? Can it survive in fresh water for awhile? By awhile I mean, while I add the water, then add the salt mix...or do I need to mix the salt water and add it in smaller quantities (i.e. from a bucket)? How does one attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live rock...also, I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've heard this referred to as "live sand"...same questions apply there, meaning can it survive out of water, in fresh water etc Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm sure the guy at the shop will be happy to answer all of this for me when I go to pick up my setup...but I'd like to go in educated. Mitch I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the thing up and running with sal****er first. So can the sand handle having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same kind of scenario? Also, can the live rock be glued/drilled as the dead corals I used in cichlid keeping were? Thanks again all, Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
Sounds like you have LOTS more reading to do.
The questions you have posed are very basic and you need to have a better understanding of what you are doing before you proceed further! On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:32:48 -0700, Big Habeeb wrote: On Sep 25, 10:12 am, Big Habeeb wrote: On Sep 24, 11:10 pm, George Patterson wrote: Big Habeeb wrote: Anything I'm forgetting? Sounds good for a start. Need live rock, salt water, and eventually various test kits, but the hardware you have lined up is ok. You might need better lighting if you want to keep hard corals. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. Allow me to rephrase slightly: I've done a ton of reading on it, and in concept understand how to go about setting it up. I guess at this point its more the order of operations I'm confused by...lets fast forward to tomorrow: my tank is built, filter setup, no water in it, no substrate, no rock, but it's ready to get started. What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? Can it survive in fresh water for awhile? By awhile I mean, while I add the water, then add the salt mix...or do I need to mix the salt water and add it in smaller quantities (i.e. from a bucket)? How does one attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live rock...also, I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've heard this referred to as "live sand"...same questions apply there, meaning can it survive out of water, in fresh water etc Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm sure the guy at the shop will be happy to answer all of this for me when I go to pick up my setup...but I'd like to go in educated. Mitch I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the thing up and running with sal****er first. So can the sand handle having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same kind of scenario? Also, can the live rock be glued/drilled as the dead corals I used in cichlid keeping were? Thanks again all, Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
"Big Habeeb" wrote in message ps.com...
I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the thing up and running with sal****er first. So can the sand handle having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same kind of scenario? All living critters in a reef tank will die in freshwater pretty quickly. They will also die without water pretty quickly, but some of them can survive in moist environment in some rock crevices, so live rock is shipped without water, and what dies, it dies... What survives the trip starts growing in your tank. The sand bottom of the tank is done in couple different ways. Also, what people call "live sand" could be quite different depending who do you talk... Some LFS sell "live sand" in plastic bag in moist state... This is not what I would call live sand - this is rather wet sand. It will have some bacteria left on the sand, but no living creatures which could be beneficial in the reef tank: mini stars, crustaceans, micro snails, etc.. For such animals to be present in the live sand you need to fly it from the reef on the airplane. Exactly like live rock is shipped. Day or two out of the ocean. Not longer... How is the "live sand" in the plastic bag made? It is dead sand, sterilized to not stink, then a bacteria starter is added and the bag is sealed. You pay big bugs for a wet sand which you can make yourself at home buing some dry playsand in Home Depot and a small bottle of bacteria starter. So the order would be this way: You make up sal****er in a clean, plastic bucket or two. Let it stand until everything is mixed well and not cloudy (overnight). You make enough water to cover the sand... lets say 10 gallons. You put a layer of dry sand on the bottom of the tank... Using known technique from freshwater tanks you place a dinner plate or a foil bag on the surface of the sand and pour water in the tank to not disturb sand too much... If you are going with REAL live sand layer on top of the dry sand as a seeding method, now you would put a layer of live sand. Also try to disturb the sand as little as possible. Then you prepare more water and add untill the tank is maybe 70% full... You need room for the live rock volume. Before you add live rock you keep the tank with just sand and water for couple of days to make sand settle a bit. If your dry sand was not clean and have a lots of organic debris you will observe quite a big ammonia spike now... Wait for adding rock until ammonia be not detectable. Then you can add live rock, do landscaping and top off the rest of the sal****er to make the tank full. At this moment you should have no fish, no invertebrates, espiecially corals in the tank... You are expecting huge ammonia spikes before the tank will complete nitrogen cycle. Depending of the quality of the rock, the tank will cycle sooner or later. If you have rock shipped to your home dirrectly you will expect more dead animals on the rocks, so you will have to wait longer for the tank to cycle. If you buy already cured rock in the local store, bring it quickly to your tank the die-off will be minimal and in most cases you will not see ammonia spike at all... Tank at this level, with bare-bone live rock, no fish, should be your first goal. This will keep you busy for weeks... In the meantime, buy a good book and read it cover to cover before you buy your tank, lights and equipment... What you buy STRONGLY depends on what you want to keep in your tank... what type of corals, what types of fish. |
Starting a reef tank
On Sep 25, 3:02 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Big Habeeb" wrote in glegroups.com... I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the thing up and running with sal****er first. So can the sand handle having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same kind of scenario? All living critters in a reef tank will die in freshwater pretty quickly. They will also die without water pretty quickly, but some of them can survive in moist environment in some rock crevices, so live rock is shipped without water, and what dies, it dies... What survives the trip starts growing in your tank. The sand bottom of the tank is done in couple different ways. Also, what people call "live sand" could be quite different depending who do you talk... Some LFS sell "live sand" in plastic bag in moist state... This is not what I would call live sand - this is rather wet sand. It will have some bacteria left on the sand, but no living creatures which could be beneficial in the reef tank: mini stars, crustaceans, micro snails, etc.. For such animals to be present in the live sand you need to fly it from the reef on the airplane. Exactly like live rock is shipped. Day or two out of the ocean. Not longer... How is the "live sand" in the plastic bag made? It is dead sand, sterilized to not stink, then a bacteria starter is added and the bag is sealed. You pay big bugs for a wet sand which you can make yourself at home buing some dry playsand in Home Depot and a small bottle of bacteria starter. So the order would be this way: You make up sal****er in a clean, plastic bucket or two. Let it stand until everything is mixed well and not cloudy (overnight). You make enough water to cover the sand... lets say 10 gallons. You put a layer of dry sand on the bottom of the tank... Using known technique from freshwater tanks you place a dinner plate or a foil bag on the surface of the sand and pour water in the tank to not disturb sand too much... If you are going with REAL live sand layer on top of the dry sand as a seeding method, now you would put a layer of live sand. Also try to disturb the sand as little as possible. Then you prepare more water and add untill the tank is maybe 70% full... You need room for the live rock volume. Before you add live rock you keep the tank with just sand and water for couple of days to make sand settle a bit. If your dry sand was not clean and have a lots of organic debris you will observe quite a big ammonia spike now... Wait for adding rock until ammonia be not detectable. Then you can add live rock, do landscaping and top off the rest of the sal****er to make the tank full. At this moment you should have no fish, no invertebrates, espiecially corals in the tank... You are expecting huge ammonia spikes before the tank will complete nitrogen cycle. Depending of the quality of the rock, the tank will cycle sooner or later. If you have rock shipped to your home dirrectly you will expect more dead animals on the rocks, so you will have to wait longer for the tank to cycle. If you buy already cured rock in the local store, bring it quickly to your tank the die-off will be minimal and in most cases you will not see ammonia spike at all... Tank at this level, with bare-bone live rock, no fish, should be your first goal. This will keep you busy for weeks... In the meantime, buy a good book and read it cover to cover before you buy your tank, lights and equipment... What you buy STRONGLY depends on what you want to keep in your tank... what type of corals, what types of fish. Thank you SO much for the response here. I have, in fact, read a couple of books but they seem to mostly focus on the chemistry of the tank...which is important, no doubt, but doesn't really help me figure out how to START, which you have just helped me out here with. I know it takes time and the first goal you set is exactly what I anticipated. As someone who has mostly done freshwater with very few jumps into salt I guess I just didnt know how to go about getting rolling in terms of the salt water itself. I know I can mix it myself, I was just hoping there was an easier way to go about filling a tank...i.e. in a 72 gallon tank, pump in 50 gallons of water from a hose and then adjust salt content as needed...but I'm guessing that would cause a major problem in terms of getting the sand substrate to settle down to the bottom. And yes, I know the "bowl in the bottom" method very well. the first, and still probably the best, trick I ever learned from my time doing freshwater stuffs. About the only question you DIDNT answer was in terms of being able to stack live rock - can you actually epoxy the stuff together, or will that murder everything in there? I've read a lot about people gluing organisms TO the rock, but not actually connecting the rock at all...any thoughts? Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
"Big Habeeb" wrote in message ups.com...
Thank you SO much for the response here. I have, in fact, read a couple of books but they seem to mostly focus on the chemistry of the tank...which is important, no doubt, but doesn't really help me figure out how to START, which you have just helped me out here with. Could you please provide titles/authors of books you read? myself, I was just hoping there was an easier way to go about filling a tank...i.e. in a 72 gallon tank, pump in 50 gallons of water from a hose and then adjust salt content as needed...but I'm guessing that would cause a major problem in terms of getting the sand substrate to settle down to the bottom. First, you do not use tap water. You want reverse osmosis filtered water. 70 gallons tank is not that hard to fill with buckets as you might think. Get a couple of empty Instant Ocean salt buckets - they are about 5-6 gallons each. Fill them with RO water and mix salt. Use proper tools to make it salty enough - you will find details in any book. About the only question you DIDNT answer was in terms of being able to stack live rock - can you actually epoxy the stuff together, or will that murder everything in there? I've read a lot about people gluing organisms TO the rock, but not actually connecting the rock at all...any thoughts? You can stack them, you can glue them, you can drill them and then use long cable tie wraps to to stich them together... Anything suits your landscaping needs. Make sure you will be able to REMOVE rock pieces if needed, so do not make pieces large enough to get stuck somewhere under the center brace of the tank, etc. Make sure you do not use any metal parts which will leak toxins to water, also do not use glues you are not sure are not toxix - best way is to use aquarium glues made for sal****er. I am personally against permanent structures in the tank so I do not glue anything together, rather interlock them to stack rock formation in place and avoid its colapse... The reason is I like to rearrange rocks in the tank and also I do not like human-made glue visible in my tank. |
Starting a reef tank
On Sep 25, 4:13 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Big Habeeb" wrote in oglegroups.com... Thank you SO much for the response here. I have, in fact, read a couple of books but they seem to mostly focus on the chemistry of the tank...which is important, no doubt, but doesn't really help me figure out how to START, which you have just helped me out here with. Could you please provide titles/authors of books you read? myself, I was just hoping there was an easier way to go about filling a tank...i.e. in a 72 gallon tank, pump in 50 gallons of water from a hose and then adjust salt content as needed...but I'm guessing that would cause a major problem in terms of getting the sand substrate to settle down to the bottom. First, you do not use tap water. You want reverse osmosis filtered water. 70 gallons tank is not that hard to fill with buckets as you might think. Get a couple of empty Instant Ocean salt buckets - they are about 5-6 gallons each. Fill them with RO water and mix salt. Use proper tools to make it salty enough - you will find details in any book. About the only question you DIDNT answer was in terms of being able to stack live rock - can you actually epoxy the stuff together, or will that murder everything in there? I've read a lot about people gluing organisms TO the rock, but not actually connecting the rock at all...any thoughts? You can stack them, you can glue them, you can drill them and then use long cable tie wraps to to stich them together... Anything suits your landscaping needs. Make sure you will be able to REMOVE rock pieces if needed, so do not make pieces large enough to get stuck somewhere under the center brace of the tank, etc. Make sure you do not use any metal parts which will leak toxins to water, also do not use glues you are not sure are not toxix - best way is to use aquarium glues made for sal****er. I am personally against permanent structures in the tank so I do not glue anything together, rather interlock them to stack rock formation in place and avoid its colapse... The reason is I like to rearrange rocks in the tank and also I do not like human-made glue visible in my tank. Books I read included (over the last few months) Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) And no, I dont know the authors off top of my head, I happen to have the barnes and noble online order receipt saved to my PC ;) |
Starting a reef tank
"Big Habeeb" wrote in message oups.com...
Books I read included (over the last few months) Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) Not bad... I could also recomend you read this one: "Natural Reef Aquarium" by John H. Tullock Here is cheaper than B&N http://www.petstore.com/ps_ViewItem-...uct-BKNRA.html Full of great ideas for a many different kind of aquariums. And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory BEFORE YOU BUY THESE ANIMALS: "Clownfishes" by Joyce D. Wilkerson "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek |
Starting a reef tank
On Sep 25, 5:35 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Big Habeeb" wrote in ooglegroups.com... Books I read included (over the last few months) Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) Not bad... I could also recomend you read this one: "Natural Reef Aquarium" by John H. Tullock Here is cheaper than B&Nhttp://www.petstore.com/ps_ViewItem-idproduct-BKNRA.html Full of great ideas for a many different kind of aquariums. And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory BEFORE YOU BUY THESE ANIMALS: "Clownfishes" by Joyce D. Wilkerson "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek I will pick them both up as I did anticipate adding a clown once the tank was up and running. I've kept a clown before in a previous tank but again, no reef involved so less to worry about I would guess. I really, REALLY appreciate all the advice and will post more once I pick up the stuff and get it setup. Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
Big Habeeb wrote:
On Sep 25, 5:35 pm, "Pszemol" wrote: "Big Habeeb" wrote in ooglegroups.com... Books I read included (over the last few months) Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) Not bad... I could also recomend you read this one: "Natural Reef Aquarium" by John H. Tullock Here is cheaper than B&Nhttp://www.petstore.com/ps_ViewItem-idproduct-BKNRA.html Full of great ideas for a many different kind of aquariums. And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory BEFORE YOU BUY THESE ANIMALS: "Clownfishes" by Joyce D. Wilkerson "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek I will pick them both up as I did anticipate adding a clown once the tank was up and running. I've kept a clown before in a previous tank but again, no reef involved so less to worry about I would guess. I really, REALLY appreciate all the advice and will post more once I pick up the stuff and get it setup. Mitch Both the Tullock and the Wilkerson books are excellent.....I read the Tullock before I even ventured into my still early experience in keeping a reef tank.... With respect to mixing the water - only use RO water or RO/DI if you can get it.....when I set up my tank(s) I used plain coral sand substrate and mixed the salt, minerals, buffer etc within the tank - taking advantage of there being no living creature and the heater and the pumps etc to provide the circulation to get the stuff mixed.....I ran the tank empty for a week to ensure everything had dissolved (including hand stirrings as there was nothing to pollute in the tank).....Once I was happy that the salt mix, pH, buffer and calcium content was OK I then added live rock......forget live sand as your live rock will populate your sand itself.......this then had to be left to ensure that there was no further residual die off from it being imported.......you will often find LR described as cured but give it a good sniff - if it smells of anything other than clean sea water you will need to cure it further yourself (not a great issue unless you are impatient).....leave the LR in the tank for 1-2 weeks and test for ammonia and nitrites - if there is any die off then you will get a spike.....the LR will act as in the same way as a freshwater filter system bacteria and will deal with this but you have to give it time - it is still cycling.....Personally, once I got zero readings on nitrites I then went for some clean up crew - snails, hermits etc.....in my little Nano tank I had to provide additional food for them for the first week or so......then I started with some of the easier corals.....mushrooms, buttons etc.......eventually after 3 months I started to add the fish..... Now, I am very new to all of this (only set up my first tank a year ago), and like you am from a freshwater background so had to unlearn certain things (like cleaning substrate)......I chose to initially try a 15 gall Nano tank as an experiment - it was a hotch potch tank and I moved all but the hermits and the clowns and live rock out once heat became an issue but by that time I was addicted and had a tank to move them to.....but it was a great way to learn....the FOWLR Nano tank is still very cute but hard to maintain.... Gill |
Starting a reef tank
If you are going to do a reef tank, I would
recommend frilly mushrooms over anemones, as they can take the abuse of the fish better, and they don't move around like anemones do. Also for your question about pumping water, mag-drive pumps work great for this. Wayne Sallee Big Habeeb wrote on 9/25/2007 5:41 PM: On Sep 25, 5:35 pm, "Pszemol" wrote: "Big Habeeb" wrote in ooglegroups.com... Books I read included (over the last few months) Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) Not bad... I could also recomend you read this one: "Natural Reef Aquarium" by John H. Tullock Here is cheaper than B&Nhttp://www.petstore.com/ps_ViewItem-idproduct-BKNRA.html Full of great ideas for a many different kind of aquariums. And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory BEFORE YOU BUY THESE ANIMALS: "Clownfishes" by Joyce D. Wilkerson "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek I will pick them both up as I did anticipate adding a clown once the tank was up and running. I've kept a clown before in a previous tank but again, no reef involved so less to worry about I would guess. I really, REALLY appreciate all the advice and will post more once I pick up the stuff and get it setup. Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
Big Habeeb wrote:
What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? For a short while, yes. Live rock is typically shipped damp, frequently wrapped in wet newspaper. You can certainly set it up in the tank and then fill the tank with salt water. The best results would be to use seasoned salt water, so the way I would go is to fill the tank about 3/4 or 2/3 full, allow the water to circulate in the tank for a few days, and then add the rock, removing water if necessary. Can it survive in fresh water for awhile? No. How does one attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live rock... I've read of people gluing pieces of live rock together with marine epoxy, but I just stacked mine. Some of the smaller pieces will shift when I'm cleaning the tank, but most of my stuff is large enough to stay put. I deliberately bought large chunks of rock, but I have a 125 gallon. Smaller tanks generally take smaller rock. I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've heard this referred to as "live sand"... You probably don't need live sand if you have plenty of live rock. Regular agronite sand will do in that case. Other types of sand work well also. It's usually best to get the rock situated in the tank first, and then add the sand. Do it the other way 'round, and some of your fish may cause rockslides by digging in the sand. About an inch will do, unless you intend to buy medium to large wrasses. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. |
Starting a reef tank
On Sep 25, 8:22 pm, George Patterson wrote:
Big Habeeb wrote: What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? For a short while, yes. Live rock is typically shipped damp, frequently wrapped in wet newspaper. You can certainly set it up in the tank and then fill the tank with salt water. The best results would be to use seasoned salt water, so the way I would go is to fill the tank about 3/4 or 2/3 full, allow the water to circulate in the tank for a few days, and then add the rock, removing water if necessary. Can it survive in fresh water for awhile? No. How does one attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live rock... I've read of people gluing pieces of live rock together with marine epoxy, but I just stacked mine. Some of the smaller pieces will shift when I'm cleaning the tank, but most of my stuff is large enough to stay put. I deliberately bought large chunks of rock, but I have a 125 gallon. Smaller tanks generally take smaller rock. I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've heard this referred to as "live sand"... You probably don't need live sand if you have plenty of live rock. Regular agronite sand will do in that case. Other types of sand work well also. It's usually best to get the rock situated in the tank first, and then add the sand. Do it the other way 'round, and some of your fish may cause rockslides by digging in the sand. About an inch will do, unless you intend to buy medium to large wrasses. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. 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? Mitch |
Starting a reef tank
Big Habeeb wrote on Tue, 25 Sep 2007:
On Sep 25, 5:35 pm, "Pszemol" wrote: And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory BEFORE YOU BUY THESE ANIMALS: "Clownfishes" by Joyce D. Wilkerson "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek I will pick them both up as I did anticipate adding a clown once the tank was up and running. I've kept a clown before in a previous tank but again, no reef involved so less to worry about I would guess. Clowns are some of the easiest sal****er fish to keep. Swim out in the open water, friendly, come up to the surface to feed. The main thing you have to worry about with clowns is the number and species interaction; if you're going to get more than one clown, you should read up on them to understand what combinations work together and what don't. But if you only get a single clown, it's hard for much to go wrong. The problem is that a lot of people have heard about the clownfish-sea anemone symbiosis. And it's true that, in the wild, you never find clowns without a host sea anemone (or vis versa, actually). So some people assume that if they want clowns, they have to get a sea anemone too. And that's when the problems start. While clowns may be one of the easiest fish for a novice aquarist to keep, sea anemones can be one of the most challenging. A novice should never start with a sea anemone as one of his first living sea creatures to care for. Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones. -- Don __________________________________________________ _____________________________ Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/ --------- if you cut here, you'll probably destroy your monitor ---------- |
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 :-) |
Starting a reef tank
Hey Pszemol what's the secret to getting them to breed?? (Bottle wine and
night at the movies ;-)) Seriously though I have 2 tomatoe clowns I purchased as little ones together about a year plus ago. Each have their own bubble anemone but the male is constantly setting in the females anemone with her and they roll around in it together. I keep waiting to see eggs or something else going on as I was hoping they would breed. Still haven't had any luck. What's the trick for getting them to breed? Hey, I've even tried to give them privacy ;-) Susan :) "Pszemol" wrote in message ... "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
"Pszemol" wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007:
"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. 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
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
Sounds great!
Wayne Sallee Big Habeeb wrote on 9/28/2007 8:59 AM: 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
"Susan" wrote in message news:YxSKi.6681$TH2.652@trndny06...
Hey Pszemol what's the secret to getting them to breed?? (Bottle wine and night at the movies ;-)) Seriously though I have 2 tomatoe clowns I purchased as little ones together about a year plus ago. Each have their own bubble anemone but the male is constantly setting in the females anemone with her and they roll around in it together. I keep waiting to see eggs or something else going on as I was hoping they would breed. Still haven't had any luck. What's the trick for getting them to breed? Hey, I've even tried to give them privacy ;-) They need to be feed very, very well. I am talking about high frequency, high quantity and high quality foods. Every time I try to limit their rich diet due to some algae problems they stop breeding. I guess eggs production requires a lot of energy intake. |
Starting a reef tank
"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
"Pszemol" wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007: "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. 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. I think I have explained already why anemones are CONSIDERED difficult and fish easy. Fish are simply similar to cats and cows, anemones are not. I think you are wrong in an assumption that a person who never had a marine fish tank is a kind of moron who cannot read and learn. This is just false. I am sure that any intelligent person will have no issues with sea anemones after reading a good book about them. A book will give you good understaning about their biology, their needs in life and you will be ready to keep anemone with no experience. 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. But clownfish are vertebrate animals, very similar in their needs to other vertebrates we see in our lives (see: cows and cats example). 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. You seem to be very confused, my friend... You are not in the position to tell me what I should or should not do. 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? Reading a book about animals you intend to keep is THE EASIEST and THE CHEAPEST way to avoid problems in the future you described above. That is why I have stressed to buy book first and THEN, after reading it and understanding start making decisions when to buy what kind of 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. Well... maybe you need to educate yourself a little more about clownfish :-) |
Starting a reef tank
Thanks Pszemol. I currently feed Prime Reef flakes and Formula Two (It's
higher in algae) to the fish everyday. And every several days or so feed them frozen brine or other type frozen meaty products. Is there a food you recommend? Thanks-Susan :) "Pszemol" wrote in message ... "Susan" wrote in message news:YxSKi.6681$TH2.652@trndny06... Hey Pszemol what's the secret to getting them to breed?? (Bottle wine and night at the movies ;-)) Seriously though I have 2 tomatoe clowns I purchased as little ones together about a year plus ago. Each have their own bubble anemone but the male is constantly setting in the females anemone with her and they roll around in it together. I keep waiting to see eggs or something else going on as I was hoping they would breed. Still haven't had any luck. What's the trick for getting them to breed? Hey, I've even tried to give them privacy ;-) They need to be feed very, very well. I am talking about high frequency, high quantity and high quality foods. Every time I try to limit their rich diet due to some algae problems they stop breeding. I guess eggs production requires a lot of energy intake. |
Starting a reef tank
Big Habeeb wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007:
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. Yeah, I saw that after I posted before. A reef is a little more delicate than just a sal****er fish tank. But it isn't that different. If you've already kept a tropical tank, then the change to a reef is relatively minor. Mostly: the corals need higher quality water, and excess fish load fouls the water too quickly. So as long as you keep your fish bioload much smaller, you should have a reef no problem. Oh, and extra lighting, of course. Fish don't care, but most corals use photosynthesis for at least some energy needs. 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. There are lots of reasons for not starting with an anemone. Killing off corals is a fine one. 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. Just makes the tank more unstable, if you aren't good at caring for a tropical tank. I also know that there are animals and plants considered "easy, medium, and hard" to keep successfully. Sure. 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. 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. I had thought you were a novice. But actually Pszemol is right on at least this point. With the experience you already have, you could probably succeed just by reading a book about the care of sea anemones, and following the suggestions. I still wouldn't recommend starting with one, but it isn't particularly harder than keeping a Moorish Idol, for example. Both are sensitive creatures, who need stable conditions and specialized care to thrive. My plan right now is to start very, VERY slowly. This weekend's goal is to accomplish a couple of things: All sounds great. I'm sure you'll do fine. Have fun! -- Don __________________________________________________ _____________________________ Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/ To me, there's no better symbol for the world than a grasshopper lying dead on a gravel road, and maybe there's a globe lying next to him. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey |
Starting a reef tank
"Susan" wrote in message news:rMaLi.7$Ju2.3@trndny01...
Thanks Pszemol. I currently feed Prime Reef flakes and Formula Two (It's higher in algae) to the fish everyday. And every several days or so feed them frozen brine or other type frozen meaty products. Is there a food you recommend? Flakes are very good for small fish because they are quickly soft in water and easy to swallow. They do not provide enough food quantity to fill the fish up. They quickly disperse in reef tank and get lost in the rockwork or filters so it is easy to overfeed the tank and make the water dirty... For larger fish you need to switch to pellet foods. Pick the pellet size based on your fish's mouth size and drop 3-4 pellets at the time to allow fish to catch them all (they sink pretty fast). I have a lots of hermit crabs grazing on the rocks and sandy bottom of the tank, so pellets not caught by the fish are not a big problem :-) Currently, my maroon female, royal gramma and hepatus tang have mouths big enough to swallow "medium" sized pellets. Male maroon is still too small, and he gets "small" sized pellets + flakes. Tang is so big, that he has no problems swallowing large shrimp pellets. I feed flakes, but more as disperse food for the res of the animals in the tank (shrimps, crabs, etc) and if fish get them - good for them. The main food for fish is pellets. I feed almost the same foods as you, additionally for fish, shrimps, crabs: - Hikari Tropical "Marine A", this is the best stuff! - KENT Platinum Reef Herbivore, medium sinking pellets. - Wardley Shrimp Pellets Formula (mostly for crabs/shrimps) - Hikari Tropical "Crab Cuisine" (mostly for crabs/shrimps) - San Francisco Bay "Ocean Plankton" (the best frozen food!) - San Francisco Bay "Marine Cuisine" (makes water dirty...) for anemone mostly: - San Francisco Bay "Frozen Krill" (3-4 shrimps per feeding) - San Francisco Bay "Silversides" (two fish per feeding) and other smaller frozen foods like brine shrimp or "ocean plankton" squirted with turkey baster directly to its tentacles on the oral disk. Of course hepatus tang is always hungry :-) and steals food from anemone whenever he can, so he also gets some krill or pieces of silversides. The same story repeats when I try to target feed mushroom corals and button polyps with a turkey baster: tang is eating from the baster directly or eats food directly from the closing mouths of the button polips :-) |
Starting a reef tank
"Pszemol" wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007:
I think I have explained already why anemones are CONSIDERED difficult and fish easy. Fish are simply similar to cats and cows, anemones are not. I didn't get that from what you wrote. I thought you said that anemones are difficult because they live in such a different "non-terrestrial" environment. So they are very unlike cats and cows, because you have to care about things like salinty, lighting, etc. that don't matter for cats and cows. And my comment was that clownfish are much easier than anemones, but at the same time also live in the ocean. Are you seriously trying to tell me that if you had three folks keeping three different kinds of pets: 1. cat and/or cow 2. clownfish 3. sea anemone That you think #1 and #2 would have more in common with their pet care than #2 and #3 would? That's just bizarre. If you only have experience taking care of a cow, how much do you have to learn to also take care of a clownfish? You think it's close? Meanwhile, if you've successfully raised clownfish before, how much extra do you need to know in order to add a sea anemone? You somehow think that's a huge step? I can see what you wrote, but it doesn't make any sense. I think you are wrong in an assumption that a person who never had a marine fish tank is a kind of moron who cannot read and learn. Not at all. I think it's helpful to proceed with easier, more robust steps first, instead of jumping right to the most difficult cases. I am sure that any intelligent person will have no issues with sea anemones after reading a good book about them. A book will give you good understaning about their biology, their needs in life and you will be ready to keep anemone with no experience. Really? With zero experience, you don't expect a first-time sal****er keeper to ever make a mistake? Say, with acclimation of new livestock? Or having a battery backup in case of power failure? Or putting a drip loop on every piece of electrical equipment to avoid an accidential short in case of water spillage? How often you must (vs. can) do water changes? How much water to change? You somehow think that all this bitter experience just comes as second nature to anyone who can bother to read a book? You're really underestimating the value of practice, and of starting with some easy tasks before jumping into the expensive and delicate ones. Anemones are just very different animals than these we are used to in our terrestial lives. But clownfish are not very different from those we are used to in our terrestrial lives? Do you know what the word "terrestrial" means? Why did you write that word? But clownfish are vertebrate animals, very similar in their needs to other vertebrates we see in our lives (see: cows and cats example). That's just bizarre. I would challenge you to find anybody else on this newsgroup who thinks that keeping a clownfish is more similar to taking care of a cow, than taking care of a sea anemone. 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. You seem to be very confused, my friend... You are not in the position to tell me what I should or should not do. Well of course you can keep posting your bad advice. I can't stop you. Perhaps I should have written it like this: recommending that a brand-new first-time reefkeeper start with an expensive, delicate sea anemone as one of his first livestock purchases, is bad advice. It is bad advice whether I give the advice, or whether Pszemol does. And it would be a bad idea for any such new reefkeeper to follow such advice, regardless of who gives it. Does that help? Obviously I'm not in a "position" to tell you what to do. But recommending that a new aquarist start with a sea anemone is still bad advice. 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. Well... maybe you need to educate yourself a little more about clownfish :-) I know a lot about clownfish. Don't make the mistake to believe that you're talking to someone uneducated. I challenge you again: please back up your assertion that having a single clownfish in a tank will cause that clownfish to be stressed. Can you offer ANY evidence that this is true? Meanwhile, I've seen lots and lots of tanks (e.g. nano tanks) that have single clownfish, who appear to thrive just fine. -- Don __________________________________________________ _____________________________ Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/ Today I accidentally stepped on a snail on the sidewalk in front of our house. And I thought, I too am like that snail. I build a defensive wall around myself, a "shell" if you will. But my shell isn't made out of a hard, protective substance. Mine is made out of tinfoil and paper bags. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey |
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