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Good luck with the transfer, those captive bred mandarins are really something. If you plan on getting more than one you should for a male and female pair. You can identify sex by the length of the dorsal fin. Males have a really long dorsal fin that's close to an inch long, the females are only a centimeter or so.
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Apr 13, 2010 10:27
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My LFS should be able to order by sex, if not I might just go for bluezooaquatics, (unfortunately WC, but at least I won't have to worry about ich/etc. with Mandarins) but DO sell by sex. Alternatively, order one from ORA through LFS, it'll be feeding off frozen and pellets, then have it train the opposite sex that I then get from BZA. That should be fairly foolproof. Not decided if I want to get a 5th fish yet. Probably not.
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Apr 13, 2010 13:38
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I kept a 90-gallon reef tank for about four years; I moved across town and, although I had a 30-gallon tank set up for keeping the coral, fish and inverts alive while I re-set the 90 up at the new place, I ended up losing almost everything. I finally resold a lot of the livestock back to the store and tore the tank down. That was maybe 8 years ago. I'm ready to set it up again, but had a couple concerns I hope you guys can help me with. I previously used metal halide lighting, but the room in my new house where I'd like to set the tank up has like 20' ceilings. I can't suspend the lights from there, and don't want to rig up the canopy with the halides like I did in my old place -- it looked like crap, and even after raising it up off the tank, it kept the water too warm and constantly evaporating. Do you know of a good solution to this? Someone at an aquarium store I stopped at showed me some actinic flourescents, but I'm not sure about the quality of those as far as keeping corals healthy. Their fish and coral all looked like hell, too, so not only wouldn't I buy any livestock from them, but I'm not confident about trusting their advice either. I definitely prefer the clean look of a lighting system contained inside the hood/canopy, but don't want to skimp out and do things on the cheap this time around.
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Apr 22, 2010 18:50
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You can get a T5 fixture that mounts over the tank. They can keep corals just as well as MH, but you would be using more than just actinics, it's the white daylight bulbs which provide the best growth. http://www.marinedepot.com/lighting_fluorescent__subindex-ap.html It is vital that the fixture you get use individual reflectors for each T5 bulb, otherwise they will not be powerful enough to compare to MH. If these pre-built fixtures are too expensive you can also build a canopy and get a retrofit kit for them. How good it looks will just depend on how nicely you build the canopy.
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Apr 22, 2010 21:57
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Just don't expect the same as your halides, you'll miss them
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Apr 23, 2010 06:49
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fanaglethebagle posted:Just don't expect the same as your halides, you'll miss them Some will. I didn't.
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Apr 23, 2010 10:03
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Halving the wattage, quartering the heat transfer, more customizable light color seems like a decent trade-off for losing the shimmer to me. Or you could go LED. DIYing a fixture together would save you money over MH in energy and bulb costs, result in no heat transfer, and still give you lots of that fancy shimmer.
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Apr 23, 2010 12:23
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Thanks, everyone. I'll definitely look into these (thanks for the link!). I will probably go with something like this -- the only other option I could think of for the MH would be to make a fixture that screws into the wall and comes out over top of the tank, but I don't trust my carpentry skills anywhere near enough to make something that looks nice. I particularly like "D" on this page. Does anyone have experience with these lunar lights? I like the concept, but don't know if it's worth another $200.
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Apr 23, 2010 13:17
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I like the Sunlight Tek and Tek Elites myself. You could always buy a couple of metal tube things from a HD/Lowes/etc and have them bend them there for you, then you'd just attach them to your stand and voila, hang a pendant. Go open-top in that case.
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Apr 23, 2010 13:24
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I have a 6x54w Current USA Nova Extreme Pro (individual reflectors) sitting collecting dust, because I replaced it with a super cheap (but actually nicely made) 2x250 HQI from aquatraders. If you were in socal, I'd sell you my NEP cheap. However, the lunar lights are pretty handy (my 2x250 has them, but the NEP doesn't). Its nice being able to see what's going on in there without having to turn on the room light and disturbing everything.
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Apr 23, 2010 15:57
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optikalus posted:I have a 6x54w Current USA Nova Extreme Pro (individual reflectors) sitting collecting dust, because I replaced it with a super cheap (but actually nicely made) 2x250 HQI from aquatraders. If you were in socal, I'd sell you my NEP cheap. Sadly, I'm clear across the country from SoCal. I'm going to look at several options, but it will definitely be a pre-built fixture. There are several marine aquarium stores in my general area, so now that I have an idea of what I'm looking for from this thread, I'll go visit a few of them and talk about my options. I may still end up buying something online, but at least I'll know what I'm looking at and can possibly see some in use before making a decision. Thank you, everyone, for the info! 
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Apr 23, 2010 17:01
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The $200 dollar difference for that fixture isn't the lunar lights,, it's that it has 8 bulbs instead of 4. The other fixtures don't have the moonlights, but the moonlights aren't raising the price significantly. There are a lot of moonlight options out there, so I wouldn't let that be a deciding factor on your fixture. Whether you want 4 or 8 bulbs on your fixture will be though. I don't know if you mentioned what your tank size is, but if it's a 120g, you'd want the 8 bulb for SPS, whereas on a 75g you can probably use the 4 bulb.
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Apr 23, 2010 19:22
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Actually, I'm right in between with a 90 gallon. I think I saw a fixture on that site with 6 bulbs. That might be a good way to split the difference.
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Apr 24, 2010 02:46
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Cross-posting from the show and tell thread (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2892365&pagenumber=47#post375804865): Hey Goons, I received a 25 gallon saltwater aquarium for my birthday this year. So far it only has 10 lbs of live rock (planning to add another 10-15 lbs), 40-50 lbs of live sand, and two green chromis. We have a 2C Italian Glass 55 watt power compact fluorescent, 10/k/460nm light above the tank, and it's on 12 hours a day. The tank has been up and running for about a week, and I just started to have this orange/rust colored stuff growing on the sand/rocks the past few days. I just got a water test kit (yes I know should have had it since day one), and these are my readings: pH - 8.2 Ammonia - between 0 and 0.25 ppm Nitrites - 0.25 ppm Nitrates - Between 5 and 10 ppm Any thoughts on where I am in the cycle? What I should do from here? Also, here is the obligatory "bad cellphone pic" of the orange stuff:  porksmash says it looks like my cycle is almost done, but is that possible after only 8 days? I thought it took three to four weeks. I'll be testing again tomorrow to see if anything has changed.
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Apr 24, 2010 03:31
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It is entirely possible to be cycled in a week. Depends on what you started the tank off with. Did you use pre-cured live rock and decent quality live sand from another reef system? (LFS, or another hobbyist) Did you seed with live bacteria samples? Did you jump-start cycling with a source of ammonia?
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Apr 24, 2010 04:52
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It's very hard to know where you're at in the cycle without seeing a test over time, when it's complete the ammonia and nitrites should be undetectable though. Assuming those are going down then you should be on the tail end of the cycle. What's growing on your sand is diatoms. They are a mostly harmless photosynthetic protist and you almost always get them in the beginning of setting up an aquarium. They usually go away within a month or two of the cycle ending. It is also normal to get cyanobacteria (looks similar only darker, thicker) and Green Hair Algae on the rocks and sand. If you keep the nutrients low by not overfeeding, not overstocking, and having adequate filtration or water changes those algae will not be so encouraged to grow as the tank matures. As for what you should do now, a lot of people like to add their clean up crew after the cycle is complete. This could be several snails or hermits. I personally don't use as many snails and hermits as most websites recommend (they usually suggest 10 of each per gallon) because there are a lot of naturally occurring herbivores that will breed in tank (collinista snails, stomatellas, chitons, limpets) and are better suited for tank life in my opinion. Very few store bought snails will reproduce in tank and often have to replaced every 6 months to a year. Once the ammonia and nitrite are down, try to keep the nitrates under 20ppm for fish, and 5ppm for corals or invertebrates. Regular water changes can help remove nitrates from the water if you have trouble with them. Here's something more to read if you get anxious waiting for your cycle to end: http://www.reefsome.com/articles/Understanding-the-nitrogen-cycle-in-a-saltwater-aquarium
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Apr 24, 2010 08:04
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Also keep in mind a slight, low level of nitrates is better than none, if you're keeping any corals. Fortunately, your chromis and such will keep that going. Too high and your inverts will die though your fish can stick it through, too low and your photosynthesizing corals will suffer. Keep phosphates as close to 0 as you can, that will: 1) reduce unsightly algae in your tank 2) not prevent calcium uptake and deposit by your corals To keep phosphates down, you can use: 1) skimming 2) phosban/rowaphos/etc (preferably in a decent "media reactor") 3) macroalgae in a refugium, such as chaetomorpha or ulva As far as the clean-up crew goes, the most common one that typically hitches around in LFS rock is the stomatella. Very good snail to have, will reproduce, but you will need to supplement. I do not recommend most crabs, except the scarlet leg reef hermit (bright red legs, yellow eyes, do not get the red leg hermit--check the eyes, it's easy to tell once you know the difference) and SMALL emerald crabs. Snails I can easily and categorically recommend: 1) the banded trochus snail (not regular astraeas) 2) the "strombus grazer" as sold by ipsf, but properly named probably Euplica or some such, will easily breed in tank, and also available from other sources (fragglereef is one) for cheaper and without the expensive package 3) fuzzy chitons (reefcleaners.org, among others) Cerith snails and nerites also readily reproduce, you can get them from pretty much anywhere as well. You need some detritivores. If you got good live sand from a reefer or your store it might already have little 1" across white sea stars with thin long legs already. Those are good, you should also add sphaghetti worms and nassarius snails (I recommend the "Tonga" variety because they're a LOT faster and funner to watch than Atlantic ones). Not sure what the PAR output on that light fixture is, but I don't expect that you will be able to keep anything that really wants intense light, so don't expect to keep most SPSes (except maybe some montipora) or clams. Most everything else should be fine, judging by that picture. Final advice, don't go around ordering these online until you exhaust local sources such as local reefkeeping clubs and high quality LFSes. You're going to waste a LOT of money on shipping. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 24, 2010 |
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Apr 24, 2010 15:16
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Thanks for all of the feedback! I was told that with this light we can have some soft corals, but that it wouldn't really be enough for hard corals or clams. I'll definitely be getting the clean up crew ready to move in within the next few days. Would it be too soon to add a cleaner shrimp?
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Apr 24, 2010 19:15
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I'd wait on the shrimp as they are fairly sensitive and not all that helpful as a clean up crew member. They are a fine addition otherwise, but one I'd usually wait on.
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Apr 24, 2010 21:09
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"cleaner shrimps" don't clean your aquarium so much as prefer to eat parasites off of fish. They are fun and interactive otherwise, but I wouldn't get one unless you were set on it.
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Apr 24, 2010 21:14
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I received a pair of green mandarin dragonets today, along with a tomini tang. The dragonets are already at work picking pods off the viewing glass in the tank, and the tang went and hid under some rockwork. I'll have some pics of them later. The dragonets are really cool, I bought a regular male and a "red variety" female so they'd pair up.
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Apr 27, 2010 20:19
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 This is actually my gf's tank but I do most of the work on it. Right now I'm trying to get the Nitrates down. They were 40-50ppm the other day so I've been catching up on maintenance and doing water changes to try and get the level down. It's at 20ppm or so now. Other than Nitrates nothing else is detectable, including phosphate and nitrite. We've got mostly soft corals right now; a leather, hammer coral, GSP, green buttons (palythoa?), kenya tree, some zoanthids. For fish we have a mated pair of clowns, a red spotted goby (forget the proper name), a yellowtailed damsel who has survived from the very beginning, a flame angel. Also have a striped cleaner shrimp (who is awesome), a couple peppermint shrimps, and tons of snails and hermits. Oh and Ludnix, I still want some of that montipora at some point. We had a tank crash a while back that killed almost everything, so that's why I never got back in touch w/ you.
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Apr 27, 2010 21:23
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Be careful with what corals you put in the tank with the flame angel. I've come to find out that they're not worth their awesome looks. They are known coral and (some) invert eaters. They'll pick at whatever they feel like, and can even be aggressive towards other fish. Mine just finished killing off my ORA green birdsnest >  I had to build another tank to rescue a aussie acan that it wouldn't stop picking at. It also won't leave my wellsophyllia brain alone (hasn't expanded in a few days). It also bullied a mystery wrasse to death.I've exhausted all my options on removing him without disturbing the tank, so I'm going to have to tear it down to get him out. While I'm at it, I'm probably going to replace the sandbed and restructure my rock work. I think I'll give it a few tall columns under the halides, with a rock wall on the left side (where the return is). I hope it doesn't crash, but I just can't stand that fucker anymore.
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Apr 27, 2010 22:11
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Well he's never nipped at anything and we've had him for a while now. I guess if it ever became a problem we'd trade him in.
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Apr 27, 2010 22:37
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I was similarly warned about Dwarf Flame Angels so I've stayed strictly clear. I've heard horror stories about them and clams as well, and I'm keeping a crocea and intend to also add an ORA maxima. As an aside, a peppermint shrimp decided to take a chunk out of the crocea, and took out the exhalent siphon, leaving a jagged hole, so I've had to move the crocea because gently caress hunting down the peppermint. Eventually when I move all the stuff (that I want to move, not everything) from the 14 and the 5.5 to the new 35, I will put a mantis shrimp back in the 5.5, sayonara peppermints! VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Apr 27, 2010 |
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Apr 27, 2010 23:08
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I turned off my return pump to feed my sun coral the other night and forgot to turn it back on. I lost a flame hawk, royal gramma and coral beauty when I woke up in the morning. The rest of the fish looked pretty bad, but after an hour or two of having the pump back on they all looked normal again. I guess this is just a PSA to remind everyone to use a kitchen timer or something when your turn your pumps off so you don't forget!
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Apr 27, 2010 23:36
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^ that sucks. I actually went looking for a device that will turn OFF something for a set number of minutes at a push of a button, but couldn't find one through cursory searching. Anyone know of anything like that? I'd like to put that on my new return pump (along with the UPS) to avoid any similar mishaps. (Ideally I wouldn't have to spend as much as it would take to get like an AC Jr) VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Apr 28, 2010 |
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Apr 28, 2010 00:19
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I'm actually nearing the end of building my own controller using arduino, if only I had finished a bit sooner huh? You might be able to get one of light switches that you turn to have it turn on for a set number of minutes and wire it in reverse. I'm not aware of any cheap products that turn things off for a set amount of time though, aside from the $100 for the reef keeper lite.
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Apr 28, 2010 00:38
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Just leave the cable dangling out the door of your cabinet so that you are forced to plug it back in before you finish up.
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Apr 28, 2010 01:01
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arioch posted:I actually went looking for a device that will turn OFF something for a set number of minutes at a push of a button, but couldn't find one through cursory searching. Anyone know of anything like that? Red sea wavemaker has a fish feeding timer mode for that. It's like $100 but you get the wavemaker aspect of it too.
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Apr 28, 2010 01:13
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Psimitry posted:Red sea wavemaker has a fish feeding timer mode for that. It's like $100 but you get the wavemaker aspect of it too. I will be using a Vortech MP40W ES for water movement in the display, it has a feed mode. I'm basically looking for something to hook up between the UPS and the return pump.
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Apr 28, 2010 01:41
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arioch posted:I will be using a Vortech MP40W ES for water movement in the display, it has a feed mode. I'm basically looking for something to hook up between the UPS and the return pump. You can probably whip up something with an on-delay relay (like this guy (don't forget the socket)) and a momentary push button. I just glanced through the specs but I believe it'll be like so: Wire the button's normally closed contacts to the relay coil. When you press the button, the relay contacts open. Once you release the button, the timer will start timing, then close again once the set amount of time has passed. Edit: Actually you can use a NO button and put the pump on the NC contacts. Much safer. If the button breaks then you just won't be able to do your feeding time. porksmash fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Apr 28, 2010 |
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Apr 28, 2010 04:28
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revmoo posted:Just leave the cable dangling out the door of your cabinet so that you are forced to plug it back in before you finish up. It wouldn't have helped in my situation. I left so the corals could have time to eat the food before it gets blasted out of their tentacles, so I just would have awoken to the cord dangling out of the door in the morning. I really just needed something to tell me it was time to go back and turn the flow on since the corals were likely done eating. A simple egg timer would have worked or my cellphone alarm.
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Apr 28, 2010 10:24
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I fear this has been covered before but here it goes. I've got a fish only 20g with a clown and a blue damsel. The tank has been up for 2 years now. Since I set it up I have been fighting a never ending battle with cyanobacteria. Sunlight isn't the cause, I put a thick thermal curtain up in that room so it's dark unless the light is on. I have been adding a phosphate sponge to my filter. I added a powerhead to increase water movement. This is the second time I've had a saltwater tank and the first time I ever had this problem. This has lead me to believe the problem is my tap water which I use to make saltwater. I thought this was okay for fish only setups provided you use dechlorinator and don't add freshly mixed saltwater directly to the tank. My plan is to try using distilled water to mix up the saltwater. In the mean time I would like to try to use one of the commercial red slime killer products out there. Can anyone recommend one? Any other theories as to what is causing this cyano epidemic?
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Apr 30, 2010 17:02
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Dantu posted:I fear this has been covered before but here it goes. I've got a fish only 20g with a clown and a blue damsel. The tank has been up for 2 years now. Since I set it up I have been fighting a never ending battle with cyanobacteria. Sunlight isn't the cause, I put a thick thermal curtain up in that room so it's dark unless the light is on. I have been adding a phosphate sponge to my filter. I added a powerhead to increase water movement. This is the second time I've had a saltwater tank and the first time I ever had this problem. Cyano is a bitch and can be caused by a whole bunch of reasons. It is most likely caused by something in your water mix. What salt mix are you using? Also, I wouldn't use distilled water, but rather RO/DI. It will probably be cheaper to buy a 5 gallon bucket from lowes/home depot and go to the RO dispenser outside your supermarket (typically $1.25 - $1.50 for 5 gallons). They maintain them regularly (at least around here). Also, use a quality salt mix. I've never had issues with Tropic Marin Reef or Instant Ocean (Reef Crystals). Also, manual removal will eventually take care of it as well.
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Apr 30, 2010 18:16
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Alright, thanks for the advice. I'll look for a source for RO/DI. I'm using Instant Ocean for salt mix. Cyano certainly is a bitch, if only there was something that ate it.
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Apr 30, 2010 18:41
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Some CUC members will eat cyano. I've heard of good results with blue leg and scarlet leg hermits, and nerite snails. I wouldn't count on them for a full tank solution, however. Another thing that may matter is what you're feeding the fish with. If you feed any frozen food (that's not cyclopeeze) you may want to thaw and strain before serving.
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Apr 30, 2010 18:45
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Dantu posted:This has lead me to believe the problem is my tap water which I use to make saltwater. Bingo. There's your problem right there. quote:My plan is to try using distilled water to mix up the saltwater. Though this would solve the problem, it is a horrible idea. Distilled water is too damned expensive to use in aquarium situations. Worse yet, it very likely has trace amounts of copper in it (from the copper equipment used in modern distilling processes) which aren't a big deal for fish only tanks, but are a very VERY big deal for any inverts or corals you want to try putting in there. A better idea, is to use run of the mill RO water. DI is better as there can still be a fair amount of organics in the water before a DI stage, but for the most part, regular drinking water will solve the problem just fine. If you have a drinking water store near you (you likely do if you live in a city), they usually run it for about 25 cents a gallon and should do the job just fine. Look into an RO/DI system though - they'll change your life if you plan on continuing with an aquarium. The only other device that had that level of impact on me as far as convenience was my auto water topoff system. quote:In the mean time I would like to try to use one of the commercial red slime killer products out there. Can anyone recommend one? Any other theories as to what is causing this cyano epidemic? Chemiclean is the one you want. And in truth, sometimes a cyno outbreak requires going nuclear with this stuff. In my 14G biocube I had a bear of a time with Cyno even though I knew I was using good water, water changes and not overfeeding, the stuff just wouldn't go away. Finally I said "screw it" and nuked the stuff with a chemi-clean dose. Did the job right. Just make sure to turn off your skimmer when you put it in.
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Apr 30, 2010 19:47
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I've got a 29 biocube reef I'm lucky to live near the best fish store I've ever seen (Gerber's in Dayton, OH) and picked up a ricordia frag there yesterday. One of the stowaways on the frag is something that looks like an SPS or maybe a weird tube worm. It's translucent blue, apparently hollow, slightly wider at the tip than the base, and it has yellow ridges at its tips. It looks like it is growing another part, so I don't think it's a worm. I've been trying to figure out what it is. If this sounds familiar to anyone, please let me know what it might be. I'll try to post a decent photo of the thing tomorrow afternoon. e: if you go to http://www.saltwaterwarehouse.com/Gerbers_Saltwater_Warehouse/Home.html there's a pretty cool video embedded. They have a gigantic stars & stripes puffer that acts like a dog (around 5:30). It will look you in the eye, approaches anyone near its tank, and seems to enjoy being petted. I feel really lucky to have this place nearby. Every time I visit, I see stuff I never knew existed. theres a will theres moe fucked around with this message at 04:24 on May 17, 2010 |
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May 17, 2010 03:52
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I'm on the fence still, but I think for my 30th birthday, about a year away, I want to get pygmy seahorses. Everything I've read says they need a small tank (I have a 3 gallon Eclipse I was thinking of using a sponge filter with) and live food (not a problem, hatching baby brine is cool). But I've never done seahorses before; reef tanks at the zoo, yes, eels and sharks at the zoo, yes. Seahorses no. What else need I really study before I dive in?
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May 17, 2010 05:09
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