TimSchmidt
New Member
sigh.... :sad: I live no where near a beach like that any more... :cry:
Finally put my tank together...
- Thread starter KoNP
- Start date
KoNP
New Member
Didn't get the chance to go down the coast today by low tide, sadly. Maybe next weekend as it's going be like a 7cm tide, nice and low to find stuff. Did pop into Neilsen's to grab some crabs, they didn't have any but I got a snail - guy said it was a Stromb snail but it looks precisely like a Fighting conch, even the behaviour (burying itself in sand and jumping) is spot-on. Either way it's a sand-sifter which should take care of the algae patches on the sand.
Went to Pet City and picked up 6 mini-hermits, they took to the tank nicely, started working on the algae tufts and generally picking about. Also, just ran a test of my parameters, and I must say I'm pleased as hell with the results:
pH was higher than 8.4 but not as high as 8.8, so I'm gonna say maybe 8.5, 8.6. Everything else was great, reading 0 on all the nasties, calcium nice and high and dKH right where it needs to be. I'm hoping this means any major fluctuations are a thing of the past. It would also appear the RO unit is paying for itself as the tank seems to be improving a bit every day. The algae battle is a little back-and-forth but even so, it's better than it was 3 weeks ago.
-EDIT-
Thought I'd do you guys a favour too and take a pic of my pride and joy fishtank off the side of the loungeroom. It's a 100-liter beast of a thing, picked it up for $60 from ebay.
Had it for a little while, most of the fish in there have been in there since I got it and set it up. It's benefitted from the RO unit also and the fish seem to love the "cleaner" water.
Went to Pet City and picked up 6 mini-hermits, they took to the tank nicely, started working on the algae tufts and generally picking about. Also, just ran a test of my parameters, and I must say I'm pleased as hell with the results:
pH was higher than 8.4 but not as high as 8.8, so I'm gonna say maybe 8.5, 8.6. Everything else was great, reading 0 on all the nasties, calcium nice and high and dKH right where it needs to be. I'm hoping this means any major fluctuations are a thing of the past. It would also appear the RO unit is paying for itself as the tank seems to be improving a bit every day. The algae battle is a little back-and-forth but even so, it's better than it was 3 weeks ago.
-EDIT-
Thought I'd do you guys a favour too and take a pic of my pride and joy fishtank off the side of the loungeroom. It's a 100-liter beast of a thing, picked it up for $60 from ebay.
Had it for a little while, most of the fish in there have been in there since I got it and set it up. It's benefitted from the RO unit also and the fish seem to love the "cleaner" water.
TimSchmidt
New Member
Very nice!
KoNP
New Member
Tonights parameters:
pH - 8.6 (holding steady)
Ammonia - 0ppm (holding steady)
Nitrite - 0ppm (holding steady)
Nitrate - 0ppm (holding steady)
Phosphate - 0.5ppm (+0.5ppm)
dKH - 11 (196.9) (-1dKH)
Calcium - 500ppm (holding steady)
So some phosphates turned up, my guess is from the fact that I fed the tank a little frozen food last night. No problem, did a 10 liter water change and replaced the Phosguard to take care of it. Everything else with the exception of the dKH was exactly where it was last night, and th dKH had only dropped by 1 degree.
It looks like the tank has finally reached some kind of stability. There was a big patch of turf on the sand again, and there was some algae on the glass photosynthesizing, so I prodded the stromb-conch-whatever over to the turf and took care of the algae on the glass manually. Crabs are still crawling around munching on tufts randomly, which is good. Fish are fine, happy as usual.
pH - 8.6 (holding steady)
Ammonia - 0ppm (holding steady)
Nitrite - 0ppm (holding steady)
Nitrate - 0ppm (holding steady)
Phosphate - 0.5ppm (+0.5ppm)
dKH - 11 (196.9) (-1dKH)
Calcium - 500ppm (holding steady)
So some phosphates turned up, my guess is from the fact that I fed the tank a little frozen food last night. No problem, did a 10 liter water change and replaced the Phosguard to take care of it. Everything else with the exception of the dKH was exactly where it was last night, and th dKH had only dropped by 1 degree.
It looks like the tank has finally reached some kind of stability. There was a big patch of turf on the sand again, and there was some algae on the glass photosynthesizing, so I prodded the stromb-conch-whatever over to the turf and took care of the algae on the glass manually. Crabs are still crawling around munching on tufts randomly, which is good. Fish are fine, happy as usual.
KoNP
New Member
Small photo update. Note the turf at the front. Regardless of how much siphoning I do it always comes back in almost the precise same pattern. Oh well. The crabs were om-nom-nomming on it and the hair algae so hopefully with some careful lighting and keeping phosphates down it'll choke and die. Otherwise, tank is great, I'm still amazed at how clean the water looks (and I thought it looked good with treated tap water), and the colours of the red and pink rock algae are really starting to come through.
TimSchmidt
New Member
Once the tank matures that little bit of algae on the glass will go down quite a bit (gone all together in a mature stable tank).
KoNP
New Member
It's more the turf on the sand that is irritating me. Less than 3 hours of light is enough to resurrect it to a bright-green rapidly growing mess but it seems to want to grow in the exact same pattern every time, which is odd. There's nothing under the sand that could account for this.TimSchmidt said:
I guess I just need to wait for the phosphates and nitrates to totally vanish. The clowns will eat food from my fingers so I don't run as high a risk of over-feeding, and I'm avoiding dosing it with microplankton while it settles. Once every 3 days is enough for the clowns, right? I'm worried I'm starving them :anxious
KoNP
New Member
Quick update: Inadvertantly did a 50% water change tonight. Was aiming for less but got distracted sucking all the crap off the sand (dead blue/purple ricordea surfaced near the back-right corner, among other things) and before I knew it I'd pulled out half the water.
Put in some new water, let it settle for a few hours, did a phosphate test just now and returned a value of 0ppm for that. I hope it stays that low.
-EDIT-
Phosphates still at 0. Hope this holds as I'd like to start putting some livestock back into the tank.
Just two photos. Got creative with my camera and some gladwrap and took an underwater shot of the ric - it's a little blurry but it was hard to take the shot and not lose the camera to the tank. I'll try get a sharper shot with my older (expendable) camera later.
Here's a shot of the blenny posing. He saw me with the camera and came and sat on the rock until I took his photo.
Put in some new water, let it settle for a few hours, did a phosphate test just now and returned a value of 0ppm for that. I hope it stays that low.
-EDIT-
Phosphates still at 0. Hope this holds as I'd like to start putting some livestock back into the tank.
Just two photos. Got creative with my camera and some gladwrap and took an underwater shot of the ric - it's a little blurry but it was hard to take the shot and not lose the camera to the tank. I'll try get a sharper shot with my older (expendable) camera later.
Here's a shot of the blenny posing. He saw me with the camera and came and sat on the rock until I took his photo.
KoNP
New Member
Went to the seaway today to get some cleanup critters. Didn't find any more hermits, but found a whole ton of snails. None too large, they're all more or less the same - black and white stripy round shells, relatively nondescript. They seem to be keeping themselves happy with the algae tufts in the tank, at any rate.
Got one surprise hitchhiker on a clamshell:
He looks exactly like a Beadlet anemone (Actinia equina), he even has the blue dots around the top of his column right below where his tentacles are. I didn't think they were in this part of the world.
Anyway, I've popped him in a secondary tank that's been cycling for about a month and a half as I don't want him breeding out of control in my main tank (understandably enough). I'd like him to take to it, anyway.
-EDIT-
He's an Actinia tenebrosa (Waratah anemone). Same genus, different species. Guess he's the Pacific version of the Beadlet as they seem to be exclusively NE Atlantic.
Got one surprise hitchhiker on a clamshell:
He looks exactly like a Beadlet anemone (Actinia equina), he even has the blue dots around the top of his column right below where his tentacles are. I didn't think they were in this part of the world.
Anyway, I've popped him in a secondary tank that's been cycling for about a month and a half as I don't want him breeding out of control in my main tank (understandably enough). I'd like him to take to it, anyway.
-EDIT-
He's an Actinia tenebrosa (Waratah anemone). Same genus, different species. Guess he's the Pacific version of the Beadlet as they seem to be exclusively NE Atlantic.
funkngroovy
New Member
That is a waratah anemone. Very common in rock pools ect.
They go sort of ok in reef tanks. If you collected it below the waterline at LOW tide, it should be ok, If it was high and dry when you collected it, it will need to be out of the water for some time during the day, like low tide and will probably not survive long term in your tank.
These anemones are usually an inter-tidal species, meaning that they are not suitable for a reef tank. However, not all of them are. They are very mobile, so watch out for them getting stuck in your filter intake.
Keep an eye on it. The first sign of stress, get it out. They are extremely common. They need low light ie under a rock and need to be fed daily.
If you go there again, pick up a tube anemone. They are similar in size and shape but with white tentacles and a green or maroon mouth. They are always below the low tide mark and are usually next to, or under a rock. That species are more robust and will happily live in the darker spots of your tank.
They go sort of ok in reef tanks. If you collected it below the waterline at LOW tide, it should be ok, If it was high and dry when you collected it, it will need to be out of the water for some time during the day, like low tide and will probably not survive long term in your tank.
These anemones are usually an inter-tidal species, meaning that they are not suitable for a reef tank. However, not all of them are. They are very mobile, so watch out for them getting stuck in your filter intake.
Keep an eye on it. The first sign of stress, get it out. They are extremely common. They need low light ie under a rock and need to be fed daily.
If you go there again, pick up a tube anemone. They are similar in size and shape but with white tentacles and a green or maroon mouth. They are always below the low tide mark and are usually next to, or under a rock. That species are more robust and will happily live in the darker spots of your tank.
KoNP
New Member
I saw those ones, kinda mean-lookinfunkngroovy said:
I've got the waratah in a totally separate tank to the main one. If it bails and melts I don't want it posing a threat to the rest of the tank - figured the easiest way to achieve that was to keep it separate heh. There's naught but some live rock and sand in the other tank. I put some dead trochus snails in there looooong ago to get it cycled and then just let it run for a bit.
Onto other things: I am of the opinion that the beadlet and the waratah are actually one and the same, and only have different names/species due to their geographical location. Behaviour, physical characteristics and temperature preferences all seem to be identical. Does anyone know if there's actually any real difference between the two or if it's just a matter of location?
TimSchmidt
New Member
:?: I don't know.
KoNP
New Member
Here are the snails we picked up. As yet I haven't been able to positively identify them. There WERE a whole heap of them there were no other snails that I could see. They seem to be herbivorous as they're having a nice time with the algae.
These two would seem to be either banded trochus or turbo snails - they've got the right stripes for trochus but the right shape for turbo? Google isn't helping much here, neither are the usual things like WWM or reefpedia.
No idea what this is.
-EDIT-
Narrowed it down a great deal with a stroke-of-luck search. They would appear to be Austrocochlea concamerata and Austrocochlea porcata - "zebra top snails". They're intertidal which means they might try and leave the tank or at least get to the waterline, but they're great algae-munchers.
And now I know where to get them
These two would seem to be either banded trochus or turbo snails - they've got the right stripes for trochus but the right shape for turbo? Google isn't helping much here, neither are the usual things like WWM or reefpedia.
No idea what this is.
-EDIT-
Narrowed it down a great deal with a stroke-of-luck search. They would appear to be Austrocochlea concamerata and Austrocochlea porcata - "zebra top snails". They're intertidal which means they might try and leave the tank or at least get to the waterline, but they're great algae-munchers.
And now I know where to get them
TimSchmidt
New Member
Nice! How is the main tank coming along with parameters?
KoNP
New Member
Good. Everything is holding where it should be, but I'm going to leave it for another week or so before I start putting livestock back into it. I'm thinking of getting a small heliofungia to put in the middle of the tank there, in addition to the zoa/mushie frags I'll be getting from Trent. I really can't think of anything else that could go wrong with it, to be perfectly honest. I've eliminated every single possible problem that I can think of - I'm going to continue running purigen, cuprisorb and phosguard just to be on the safe side though.TimSchmidt said: