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Woooo! I won customer of the month at my LFS here in Orlando, FL and got a free pink tipped Hammer corals (3 heads). Once it spends a day or so in QT and I dip it I'll take some pictures. 
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Mar 6, 2011 03:59
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My Rose Bubble Tip decided to go for a walkabout after happily living in the same spot for well over a month. Of course, she had to go investigate that swirly thing that made the water go wooooosh. Obviously, it wanted to be her friend and friends need hugs. Cleaning vaporized bubble tip out of the powerhead grill really loving sucks.
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Mar 7, 2011 14:50
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So it look like one of my blue-green chromis (about 2"long) died in between some rocks that are impossible for me to move about a week ago. I've been monitoring my ammonia, nitrite, nitrate this whole week and haven't seen a spike. I also have a really awesome cleanup crew. Will I see a spike? The tank has been up for about 3 months now and is pretty stable. pH:8.2 amm: 0.0 Ite:0.0 Ate: 0.0-5.0 Alk: 10.2 Calc: 430 Mg: 1420 RO/DI water @ 1.026 (still a tad high from bad mixing on my part and an uncalibrated refractometer)
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Mar 7, 2011 18:06
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How big is the tank? Most likely you won't see a spike as your CUC will devour the corpse before it gets to the whole messy decomposing stage.
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Mar 7, 2011 18:57
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1.026 is actually good. It's where I keep my tank.
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Mar 7, 2011 19:17
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Emancipator posted:How big is the tank? It's a 75gal 4' Long with a 30 gal sump. I have the skimmer running harder than normal to help compensate.
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Mar 7, 2011 19:22
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You're not going to notice a 2" fish dying in that.
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Mar 7, 2011 19:26
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arioch posted:You're not going to notice a 2" fish dying in that. cool beans. I mean I'm sad to see the fish die because I loved how he schooled with the rest, but I'm sure the bacteria in my tank will enjoy this.
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Mar 7, 2011 19:33
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Assuming a properly strong crew of scavengers, detritivores, and bacteria, you probably wouldn't notice anything dying in that tank that's not at least 6" long.
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Mar 7, 2011 21:03
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So I've been reading this thread for a while now, and I decided I want fish. I ended up getting a thirty gallon glass tank from my co-worker's mom. She had saltwater fish for a few years, but then couldn't really keep up with the maintenance, it crashed, she dumped everything, and it's been dry for a while. It smells kinda weird, like a not-good, but not rank aquarium odor. Anyway, it's obviously gonna need cleaned out and prepped before I get live rock/sand and begin a cycle, and I was wondering if anyone had a link or a guide for the best practices of getting it ready. Do I need to test the silicone somehow? It seems kinda pliable and very slightly tacky still, but at some points it is a bit discolored. Best ways to clean it? The bottom is scratched to gently caress, is this gonna be an issue? The substrate that was in there is just small rocks, I can't really think of a use for it and was thinking that I should just pitch it. I suppose I should just fill it with water and see if it leaks first, what's the point of cleaning it if it's boned anyway? I'm pretty sure someone asked this exact question about prep before, but I can't seem to find it.
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Mar 9, 2011 02:20
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If you're going to start a tank you might find yourself happier buying a new tank when your local petco has a dollar-a-gallon sale. It's not worth having something go wrong when you've already started.
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Mar 9, 2011 02:42
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SniperWoreConverse posted:So I've been reading this thread for a while now, and I decided I want fish. I ended up getting a thirty gallon glass tank from my co-worker's mom. She had saltwater fish for a few years, but then couldn't really keep up with the maintenance, it crashed, she dumped everything, and it's been dry for a while. It smells kinda weird, like a not-good, but not rank aquarium odor. Fill it with water, test for leaks, fill with hot water as you'd like to kill any algae/bacteria, then just scrub with a clean (brand new) sponge pad thingy. No soap or bleach necessary really. You could also get a scraper to get any stubborn gunk off of the glass. And yeah, dollar a gallon sale is good as well.
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Mar 9, 2011 02:44
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Yep, pretty much the only way to check for leaks is to fill the tank up. When it comes to cleaning, I usually do 1:10 bleach:water, scrub it down pretty good, then fill it up and overdose it with dechlorinator (like, 5x the amount the bottle says to use for X gallons), run a powerhead/small filter/whatever to move the water around for a bit and leave it sit for a couple hours, then empty it again. Hard water stains and whatnot succumb quickly to vinegar and water if necessary. If you're really worried about contamination after all that, fill it up and run a bunch of carbon through it. Scratches on the bottom are no big deal as long as it's just surface stuff...obviously a huge gouge out of the bottom of the tank would be a Bad Thing. And yeah, go ahead and toss the old gravel. Aragonite sand is probably a better choice than whatever is in there now.
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Mar 9, 2011 02:49
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fanaglethebagle posted:If you're going to start a tank you might find yourself happier buying a new tank when your local petco has a dollar-a-gallon sale. It's not worth having something go wrong when you've already started. Whaaat. Man for some reason I never thought to buy a new one, I just figured it'd be too much. I actually never looked into it. Well, I bought this one, so why not ride it out? She gave a bunch of other stuff with it too, what I think I'm gonna do is post pictures of stuff, and then we can kind of figure out what's worthwhile. My guess: everyone vetos everything.
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Mar 9, 2011 03:29
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Don't use bleach to clean it, just use like 5:1: water:vinegar. Let it sit for a few hours with everything running, barely any elbow grease needed. Take the rocks out and fill it up with just tap water and see if it leaks. My honest suggestion, if you are going to do it, do it right and use that as a sump and get a larger tank for the main tank at one of those dollar per gallon sales. Brace yourself for the fact that most of that stuff is probably useless.
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Mar 9, 2011 04:39
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Post it. Sometimes dated technology holds up alright.
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Mar 9, 2011 05:00
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Welp, looks like this was a bonejob. The inventory: Theres a pair of Second Nature Whisper™ PowerFilters with a poo poo ton of carts,  The filters themselves are disassembled/broke.  A (yes, one) lovely light,  What appears to have been an airator, before I stepped on it,  lovely and gross hang on back heater,     some ph tests,  algae wafers,  A LOT of Ick Clear, like another full box,  Blurry pic of "Clear Water (for established aquariums),"  Ammonia clhloramine eliminator,  and hilariously, "Stress Coat" with the healing power of Aloe Vera. Features include:
Treats 360 Gallons of Fresh or Salt Water
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Mar 9, 2011 05:54
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Well you can go ahead and throw all of that out.
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Mar 9, 2011 06:01
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ludnix posted:Well you can go ahead and throw all of that out. ^^^ What do you plan to keep in this tank? Goals for it. READ ALL OF THIS: - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031074 - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/blog.php?b=299 You will thank me. Dono fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Mar 9, 2011 |
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Mar 9, 2011 06:12
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I want to start off fish only with live rock and sand. I'd like to try and completely use biological filters if I could, just because it seems cooler and a bit more natural than skimmers, etc. Maybe if I can keep it running well for a while I'd put in a little easy to care for coral. E: yep, I read a lot of these. As far as establishing the sand bed, is it really fine to get no live sand at all? I thought it would be like with rock, mostly dry but with a scoop of live in there too. I plan on going slow with this. I have no desire to dump in some moray or something and have it die. SniperWoreConverse fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Mar 9, 2011 |
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Mar 9, 2011 06:18
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SniperWoreConverse posted:I want to start off fish only with live rock and sand. I'd like to try and completely use biological filters if I could, just because it seems cooler and a bit more natural than skimmers, etc. Maybe if I can keep it running well for a while I'd put in a little easy to care for coral. While it may be do-able, without a skimmer I dont think you will enjoy the hobby (this is a personal opinion). Forget the lighter bio-load your tank will have you will be doing so many water changes to keep the nitrates down (this is not). If you don't want to go the whole sump route (which I highly recommend you do), there are hob skimmers you can buy that will help you out a lot. In my opinion, a sump, if you diy is really REALLY cheap and will save you a lot of hassles and on top of that you can add extra rock filtration in the sump or even grow macro algae to keep the nitrates down and give a breeding area for pods that some of your fish eat and need to survive.
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Mar 9, 2011 06:24
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Yeah, I was planning on setting up a sump as well. The main thing is taking the proper amount of time to weigh all the options. I think I should actually just make up a list of every possible thing I'll need, then I can start getting it in stages. Plan everything out.
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Mar 9, 2011 06:37
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Well, at least you've already got your sump And seriously, as someone who kept heavily-loaded African cichlid tanks for years, a skimmer and less water changes is infinitely better than weekly 20% WCs :x
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Mar 9, 2011 06:59
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 Picked this little guy up. Couldn't pass up the high contrast primary colors there. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Mar 9, 2011 |
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Mar 9, 2011 16:40
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When does Petco have their dollar a gallon sale? Looking for a 40 breeder on the cheap.
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Mar 9, 2011 18:41
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Mar 10, 2011 19:02
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What the hell is that in the first picture? It looks like a loving seacucumber wearing a harlequin shrimp's skin.
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Mar 10, 2011 19:59
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Internet Explorer posted:What the hell is that in the first picture? It looks like a loving seacucumber wearing a harlequin shrimp's skin. It's a harlequin shrimp eating a starfish leg. Also it lost its left big claw and that's growing back.
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Mar 10, 2011 22:56
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arioch posted:It's a harlequin shrimp eating a starfish leg. Also it lost its left big claw and that's growing back. What happened to the starfish  Also what is in the bottom picture, are those mangroves in your sump?
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Mar 10, 2011 23:57
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MrFurious posted:What happened to the starfish Well that whole starfish is gone as of today, I have 3 harlequins that I feed about once a week and a half (one pair and one solitary). Two more stars I had to throw in the freezer when I noticed them chowing down on macroalgae I put in their tank that I'm trying to culture. They're chocolate chips, they're basically disasters in the average reef tank. Bottom picture is 7 mangroves, 3 of which I've had for a while and are growing nicely, 4 are newly purchased propagules. That's the middle chamber of my sump, ball of chaeto and rubble on the left, a 2.5gal tank with a thick layer of mud/sand/substrate for planting mangroves in on the right. I buy the mangroves in batches of 5 from reefcleaners.org, 2 from the last batch went to a friend, 1 from this current batch went in the back chamber of my new little pico. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Mar 11, 2011 |
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Mar 11, 2011 00:00
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 A. carolinana, encrusting very well and showing polyp extension (uncommon sight in A. caroliana in most tanks).  Blue Hornet zoos, got 5 polyps, now growing 8th and 9th.
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Mar 14, 2011 21:19
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Hey guys, I am going to be starting the set up of my saltwater tank over the next few days, I've got a stand, with space underneath, I'm going to go get a 55 gallon rectangular tank as well tomorrow. My real question is this, is a sump pump considered a neccesity? And more importantly do I need to have the tank drilled etc. This is the one issue in the whole set up that is confusing me. Any info would be greatly appreciated. I read up on the benefits of having one, but as far as actual installation I'm a little concerned, I haven't really been able to find a whole lot of clear info on it. I'm starting to learn that there isn't a ton of newbie friendly info that I can find, this is one of those hobbies with a ton of shop talk. Probably should say that my plan is to do a FOWLR tank The Astro Zombie fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Mar 21, 2011 |
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Mar 21, 2011 02:50
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The Astro Zombie posted:Hey guys, I am going to be starting the set up of my saltwater tank over the next few days, I've got a stand, with space underneath, I'm going to go get a 55 gallon rectangular tank as well tomorrow. My real question is this, is a sump pump considered a neccesity? And more importantly do I need to have the tank drilled etc. This is the one issue in the whole set up that is confusing me. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Hi! And welcome to the hobby! No, you dont need a sump. It all really depends on what you would want to keep. Fish only? Fish and live rock? Inverts? Soft Corals? LPS corals? or the harder to keep SPS corals? A sump will add volume to your tank and make water parameters easier to maintain. Technically you could get a 200gal sump for your 55g, and make it the coolest looking 55gal ever, but that would be ridiculous. Secondly, you DO NOT need a drilled tank to have a sump. There are plenty of DIY hang-on-back (HOB) overflows you can make then run your plumbing down to your sump. I do recommend a sump for most tanks becuase of the ability to run a nicer in-sump skimmer and to add a refugium so you can grow macro algae to lower nitrates and host pods/mysis shrimp so fish like mandarins and wrasse dont immediately decimate their food populations and die! Edit: Not to mention that you can buy a 20-30gal glass aquarium from petsmart for next to nothing and install acrylic baffles yourself for dirt cheap. A quality sump MIGHT cost you 75$ to make instead of paying several hundred for a premade one. If you havent already then read: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031074 Read every article no matter how tedious or how much you think it wont pertain to you. YOU WILL run into problems and that reading will answer a lot of your questions or give you the ability to know where to go when you can't answer it yourself. edit: Make sure you go to the ReefCentral forums and look up your local reef club forums. You can usually get involved with your local club and find great deals with people selling used equipment or almost new equipment from a tank theyre breaking down and save you thousands of dollars. Dono fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Mar 21, 2011 |
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Mar 21, 2011 03:19
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ludnix posted:Well you can go ahead and throw all of that out. What's wrong with Stress Coat?
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Mar 21, 2011 15:53
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Anuv- posted:What's wrong with Stress Coat? I dont think there is anything wrong with it, but I would never use it to treat a sick fish. I have yet to put any chemicals in my DT right now and if I have to treat I will use the proper medication and not substitute in my QT.
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Mar 21, 2011 16:05
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Anuv- posted:What's wrong with Stress Coat? Snot in a bottle. Absolutely, completely useless. All that poo poo really does is pollute your water.
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Mar 22, 2011 00:48
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I am not sure if I should start a new thread or not so I'll just go ahead and ask in here and move to my own thread if recommended. I am at my wits end here and I really don't want to shut my tank down. I recently got a new stand and filter for my 30 gallon saltwater tank. I switched from an aquaclear 70 to a canister filter. The filter I got ended up leaking so I had to return it and get another one but in the process I lost the three fish I had in there from the stress, I assume. My new filter is a fluval 405 (rated for a 70 gallon) so plenty of filtration. I moved my biomax from the old filter so I wouldn't lose all my beneficial bacteria in the process. I added 4 new fish and 2 of them died. I tested the water, nitrates, nitrites, and pH all good. Salinity good. Got 2 more fish from a new store I decided to try out and got ich. I know, bad me for not quarantining but I treated it and it cleared up. Then a few days later those two fish died. I thought it was from the stress so I tested everything again to make sure. Again, everything is good. I went to my old store (its an hour and a half away, which is why I was trying to find a new one) and got 4 new fish. Two days later and three are dead and I don't know where the last one is. I am going broke and getting very frustrated. This tank was running for 3 years, through two moves with no problems and my fish living for 3 years until the last month. I don't know what to do! I have 40lbs of live rock, a cheapish light and sand in there. I do water changes with distilled water because we have hard as crap water here. Let me know if there is any other info you need. Thanks in advance.
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Mar 22, 2011 02:25
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supercheesy posted:I am not sure if I should start a new thread or not so I'll just go ahead and ask in here and move to my own thread if recommended. -What are 'good' water parameters to you? Post your test results for your tank please. -How do you acclimate your fish to your aquarium? Do you use a refractometer to test for salinity differences? Do you just float and dump the fish in your tank?
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Mar 22, 2011 03:18
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Hey guys! It's been a while since my last update. There's been quite a bit going on with the tank, thought I should share: Last I had mentioned, I believe the tank looked something like this:  Well, things have changed quite a bit:  Additions to the tank since last post: Duncan Coral: Started off with two heads (purchased for $20), now counting 8 sprouting heads a month and a half later.  Hammer Coral:  Assorted Zoanthid Rock (very colorful!)  Fox Coral:  A few red mushrooms:  A Green Star Polyp colony attached to some sort of toadstool (someone ID please?)  And (I believe) a birds nest coral:  Thoughts?
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Mar 22, 2011 13:52
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Dono posted:-What are 'good' water parameters to you? Post your test results for your tank please. Nitrates and nitrites were both 0. pH was around 8.0. For acclimating I float the bags for 10 minutes to get temperature the same. Add water from tank to bag and let that sit for another 10, then add more and sit for another 10 then net the fish out and add them to the tank. I know it's not as good as drip acclimating but it's how I've done it for 5 years with fresh and salt and no issues. supercheesy fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 22, 2011 |
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Mar 22, 2011 16:24
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