Tank Journal Archive

[michaelstank]

Introduction:

Reefing Since: 26.06.2012

System Objectives: Beautiful and natural aquascape

Type of reef: Mixed

Display System: Aquaone AR510

Initial Fill Date: Unknown

Display Tank Dimensions: 75Ltrs

Display Lighting:I beleive it to be T5 Compac x 2 blue/white

Stand: Yes

Hood or Rimless: Hood with attached trickle filter

Sump Design: none

Filtration: Trickle filter built into hood, an extra aquaone subm filter

Support systems:

NSW or ASW:

Display Water circulation:

Return Pump:

Skimmer: Resun SK-05

Evaporation Top Up: RO/DI

Chemical additions:

Calcium Addition:

Alkilinity Addition:

Magnesium Addition:

Prodibiotics Addition:

Coral Food Addition:​

 

[michaelstank]

Firstly I think I may have added this thread to the wrong area :( sorry guys

So about me, my tank and where it all starts!

I have been a FW tropical keeper for around 8 years now, my tank is a 2500Ltr tank, 250 ltr sum ect ect. This tank I found at my local salvos store out the front on a pallet for only $50!
$50 thats right!
This tank has 20mm think glass and takes aprox 5-6 ppl to move/lift it! so now I embark on the journey of finding out why this tank MY TANK has a hole in the bottom of it (the sum outlet) and having a stand and hood designed and created to fit by my brother in law. I wish I went more into reefing back then cause this tank is made for a reef! I beleive it would have come from a resturant with seafood of some kind, the tank is much deeper then most I have seen prehaps a lobster display tank...

Anyway moving forward I mastered it over time and now have a flourising tank with near perfect water chemistry and very healthy happy fish and plants - I will post pics soon.

So I am looking around on ebay late one night and I come across a reef tank that is selling really cheaply, includes nearly everything I need to get a start in marine. To be honest I wasnt even looking at anything related to fish, aquariums, reef ect ect, I was simply searching my local area and it came up. IT MUST BE A SIGN! ha ha ha
This time I decided to start small rather then 8 years ago starting on a monster scale. this tank is an AQUAONE AR510 75ltrs, includes prob 30-40 kg of live rock, crushed coral substrate, test kits, filters, food, 2 good sized paired clown fish everything I need. ALL FOR ONLY $150 :) Bargain right!

So the tank had been set up for over 2 years, since then the gentleman owner had twin boys and could no longer look after the requirements the tank needed so its my turn to take over.
I pack the live rock into drenched paper and pack into a foam box, fishys into a fish bag, take out the water into a water container to be reused, left the CC on the bed and moved the lot over to my place 5 mins away. As soon As I get back to my place I reassemble the tank and test it over the next week with some water changes ect ect. It seems this tank had a great bio load as the tank didn't go thru any type of mini cycle (well from what I know) all tests Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite all came back with 0.

2-3 weeks on -
This is where I decide I need to change the crushed coral to a DSB and aquascape again as the first time I literally knew not much and was just trying not to loose the liverocks bacteria or have too much die off, also needed to get the clowns back into the water with a heater!

I removed all my liverock and stroed it in some of the tanks water, removed the fish into a bag.
I remove the Crushed Coral and placed it into a mesh bag from my LFS, washed and added 2-3 inch of sand bed and aquascaped the live rock, btw it looks beautiful! I managed to get a really dynamic aquascape with ledges, caves and layers for different lighting needs for corals. looks in my opinion the BOMB! Pics soon!

I am going to test all the water again this afternoon and I will give acurate upto date reading on the water parameters soon.

Now for the barage of questions :))

I went to one of my LFS that was closing down that very day, some of you may know of it (kims in ashfield) they had literally nothing left in store only one small tank with some very bad and unhealthy looking corals :( so silly me I see a bargain and a chance to try and help these corals and I purchase 2 x lobo and 1 x duncan coral (15 heads) knowing nothing about there requirements, novice I guess! I also purchased some water for water changes.

These 2 Lobo from everything I read (and soon you will see when pics are posed) are very very unhappy and look to be on their way out! there bones are showing, they look well very sad
I have placed them where I understand is good for them on the sand bed under a ledge for low lighting, low flow.

The duncan however loves it! he opens, he eats, he is happy go lucky!

Question 1) any advice on these lobo feeder tenticles? no idea what they look like and I have searched after dark, 5am, 1 hour after lights out to no avail. I dont think these guys are sending them out being that they are so unhappy. Do i still feed them mysis, brine shrimp with a baster anyway? or ANY advice on how to save them from an iminate death.

Question 2) alittle off topic but something ive always wondered :)
Activated carbon.... if for instance I had carbon in a bag in the tank for 3 months, took it out washed it dried it out over a year is it still able to be used later down the track or is it not :activated any longer?

Question 3) similar question
Crushed Coral... should I keep some of my used crushed coral wash it really well, dry it out, and prehaps later in my tanks life use it as a buffering agent or is it useless?

Ok for now ill leave it at that but I have plenty more where that came from :)

Thansk in advance guys and gals

Michaels tank

 

[NiCd]

1) it sometimes takes a bit of coaxing to get the feeder tenticles out, lobos are one of the easier ones, wait until lights out like you have been, then thaw some BS or mysid out in the tank water, get a turkey baster full of the thaw water and gently blow it infront of the coral, repeat evey 5 mins until its come out, you have run out of water or have got sleepy and given up for the night.

The feeders will look like short, thick white hairs connected to a white fleshy looking part, the coral really will look quite different. It is no point trying to feed a coral unless its feeders are out as the food will bounce right off it

[Broken External Image]:http://i56.tinypic.com/acyip4.jpg

2) your activated carbon is no longer active, as soon as its exposed to air or water it starts filtering it and will be nuff in 2-4 weeks

3) keep it handy always comes in handy for frags etc

 

[Sarg]

Don't say you tank looks like "the bomb" without pics!!! ;)

Sounds cool and :welcome

Oh there is a freshwater section begging for more tank journals :)

 

[michaelstank]

 

[michaelstank]

 

[michaelstank]

ok before I post these next pics ill post a warning cause even I get alittle sad looking at these poor guys in poor health :(

WARNING

 

[michaelstank]

 

[michaelstank]

 

[NiCd]

Nar they are actually pretty good, I have brought a lot worse than that, they are just stressed and had a rough trip through everything.

I think you will find it better removing two thirds of the live rock from you tank slowly, read 1 peice every month, you just do need that much and aesthetically less is more. When they say lobos are low light they will still need a lot more light than what they are getting there. I would look at how old the tubes are, they need to be replaced every six months and also putting the corals in direct light

 

[michaelstank]

Wow well thats good news :) I thought they where in pretty bad shape!

I have actually arranged the rock in a way that the three medium peices of live rock sitting at the very top can be removed to allow for more corals. I left them in the tank in the aid of helping seed the DSB :) I also used a peice of live/dead rock that has been dried out for about 2 years (its at the very very bottom), I has it soaking in a some saltwater with heater/ph for around 2-3 weeks to hopefully help its growth.
so I do intend to take those small peices of rock out over the next couple of months :)

The tubes are brand new :) I replaced both tubes with aquaone blue/white tubes when I purchased the quarium :)

I will move the lobos into some more light :) thnks

 

[chimaera]

First of all, we all have probably made those same mistakes:
1) Buying something before researching it (after all, those pesky LFS make things so tempting to buy there and then ... and then don't give you the full story/warning)
2) Buying something looking a bit ill either because it is a bargain, or to 'save it'.

Both usually work out okay, I've bought a few things like a gorgonian that is not a good beginner coral and it thrived, and a half dead brain coral that did indeed die.

Agree with NiCd that you should remove some rock, and if your tank is cycled you don't need that much really for seeing purposes.

Glad the duncans are going well, those are picky little sods sometimes!

 

[michaelstank]

Hey guys,

Thanks heaps for all the feedback thus far :D and here goes a few more questions!

Just curious if anyone could tell me the species of clown fish I have from my pictures, also if they are of different species which I assume they are as the male has way more black in its colouring then the big orange female (I assume) are they still a mated pair?

I have an orange starfish - pics coming - that doesnt move very much... I beleive he or she is still alive as his or her "tubes" still move and as seen in the pic he or she bends his or her legs as if to have some kind of tension in them? he or she just doesnt move around the tank alot? Any ideas on what kind of star I have?

And finally I would like others advice on the LFS of Sydney and surrounds.
I have been to quite a few different stores in Sydney over the past month or so and I have what I would consider some great LFS.
I have found newtown to be one of the best in terms of coral supply, the pet supplies place in Aurburn is also really good with loads of corals and fish good prices 2.
a few that I went to I wouldnt go to again as the range and stock was very limited to say the least :)

 

[chimaera]

Can't tell from those pics if the clowns are both percula (wild caught) or ocellaris (tank bred), but assume the same. Clowns just have different colour combos depending on breeding.

The star was probably your first majorly poor purchase ... these are much harder to keep than they appear, and most LFS tell you (as leo found out). Did you drip acclimate it? Even without knowing what kind it is, they really need an established tank to do well or even survive. So if you have the opportunity I would take it back to the LFS to exchange ...

 

[michaelstank]

 

[michaelstank]

Hey,

Yeah I did drip acclimate the star, From what i can see he isnt doing to bad he just doesnt move around heaps.... am I wrong and hes not doing well?

 

[NiCd]

An occy has 11 dorsal fins and no black banding between the white bars and a perc has 10 dorsal fins and black edging of the white bars.

It is a bit of a misconception that all percs are wild caught and occys are tank bred. They are both available in either form and the wild caught nearly always show brighter colouring than their tank raised brothers and sisters.

Where the misconceptions seems to originate is the difficulty in pairing and breeding percs due to them maturing much slower, It generally takes them 3-4 years to reach sexual maturity and a little while after that to get a sucessful batch out of them. I have had a pair for 6 years now and its only recently they have started spawning. Where as the occys are generally sexually mature and spawning within 8-12 months.

But anways from the photos it looks like they are percs

 

[Agent M]

Hi Michael,

:welcome The starfish you have is a Fromia Starfish. They should be very active, travelling all over the tank and the glass during the day. Starfish are nearly impossible to keep - they are sensitive to handling and acclimation, which means that even if you did everything right, you don't know that they were handled correctly before you bought it - and they take months to starve to death, so it looks like they are doing ok when they are not. I have been unable to find reliable information on their normal lifespan, but we do know for sure that they have an impossibly short lifespan in captivity. If you are lucky the starfish will last a year, but this is not very common. Over time your starfish will start to go floppy instead of having a firm body, then it will disintegrate.

I would be taking it back to the LFS like NiCd suggested for two reasons: you will get your money back to spend on something else you will enjoy and it will communicate to the LFS that their customers don't want to buy animals that can't survive in captivity (consumer demand is a powerful thing). They are just going to sell it to someone else though, so it is up to you whether you want to keep it and see what happens for yourself.

Have a read of this, some experiences from other people who tried Fromia and Linckia starfish:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/red-sea-max-owners-club/58020-success-fromia-starfish.html

If you do want to keep the starfish, these particular ones can eat meat. So if you put a block of semi-defrosted food or a piece of mussel (give it a wack to crush it a bit) underneath him, he will show a feeding response if he is strong enough to eat.

Other than trying to feed him regularly, be careful not to expose him to air or handle him with your hands and keep your parameters stable as they are very sensitive to changes in salinity and pH swings.

 

[michaelstank]

Thanks heaps guys, think I may end up taking the star back sounds to me like it will only end in one way :(

So now I would like to talk clean up crews :)
Currently I have a sleeping goby and 2 hermit crabs, what else would I add to this cleaning crew?

Also with fish that will work great with my current stock of the 2 x clowns, 1 x goby, 2 x hermit crabs? 1 x duncan, 2 x lobo, 1 x very small xenia, I will be adding this fish further down the line but I would like to know for research purposed before then :) I need to add some colour into my tank until I grow myself a beautiful coral garden so colourful fish that work great in a community and with corals would be great :) Sorry if this is a very broad question im just wanting to know from your personal experience on fish that work well.

 

[michaelstank]

OH one more thing I thought of that I would like your advice and experience with.

Water temp stability and heaters!

The best temp for a reef idealy would be?

Currently I have a 100W heater in the 75ltr tank, the temp stays at a steady 27 deg maybe a slight swing overnight of 1deg.
The thing is my heater is set on the 29-30 deg mark.... anyway to bring the water temp up I changed the heater to a 300w heater set to 28 deg but instead the water temp fell to 23 deg...?

I have heaps and heaps of heaters from my years as im sure most of you do, does anyone know what would be the best wattage heater to get a steady stable temp in my 75ltr tank or is the 100w with a pretty stable 27 deg suitable?