fishcrazee said:
Thx I gotta look into oceanic. What are some trace elements ands stuff that you need to add to nanotanks? Right now I'm thinking of getting strontium, magnesium ,iodine, calcium, reef dip, and essential elements. I'm gonna get an aquaclear 20 for a powerhead, if it's any good, any suggestions on good powerheads if aquaclear 20 isn't good enough for a 10 gal? What is eggcrate??? I see it a lot here and it's a suggestion for a cover to keep firefish from jumping would it let light through, will it stay down, is it reef safe? Also what do moonlights do? Are they required or are they an accessory to see into the night life? Also what are good tools for coral fragging and brands of underwater expoxy that I can get from like home depot or something? Lastly what are good foods for marine fish and good invert foodsbesides DT's)? Is kent marine's Phytoplex phytoplankton and ChromaPlex Phytoplankton any good or is only the live stuff good? Thx
P.S. sorry for all the questions.... I kept thinking of them and thinking.... I don't want my future nano to be ruined....
No offense, but you might want to start using the search function, both here and on nano-reef.com and RC. Most, if not all of your questions would be answered that way. In fact every question you have could be answered by looking around a bit. I love helping people out, but folks need to search for answers before asking a string of questions that's been answered a dozen times before. Ok, I'll get off the soapbox and type up an answer.
fishcrazee said:
Thx I gotta look into oceanic.
If you go with oceanic, or instant ocean salt, don't switch to another one. There are some huge threads on RC that basically started with people having their tanks completely crash after changing to the new oceanic salt.
Meanwhile some people have had similar reactions when changing to crystal seas bioassay salt. Many of these folks were changing from instant ocean salt. There's some conjecture now that there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these salts, but for some reason switching between them seems to have a negative impact on the system. I started my original setup with crystal seas. I never had an issue with it. However the LFS I bought it from had a problem with a couple batches of it, so they stopped carrying it. I ran out and couldn't get the crystal seas locally so I switched over to Kent salt. I immediately had issues with algae that I fought off and on until I ordered some more crystal seas. I now just plan on sticking with this salt and ordering online whenever I get close to running out. I've heard good and bad comments about pretty much every salt brand out there. Right now I'm of the opinion that crystal seas is the closest to natural seawater. There is a saltwater study that's being discussed on MARSH now. I'm going to contribute to it, and I can't wait to see the results in a year or so.
fishcrazee said:
What are some trace elements ands stuff that you need to add to nanotanks? Right now I'm thinking of getting strontium, magnesium ,iodine, calcium, reef dip, and essential elements.
Calcium and buffer are going to be your two biggest additives. Strontium, magnesium ,iodine are all good to add in smaller ammounts, but they're trace elements and shouldn't be needed nearly as often. Reef dip is NOT an additive. It's a preventative disinfectant dip to use on corals, (mostly SPS), to help keep new corals from bringing anything into your display. I haven't read about anyone using this on their main system. It's basicaly something you use in a quarantene tank on your corals before adding them to your main system. I wouldn't bother with the essential elements, because between your salt and your other additives you're already putting these same trace elements into your system. Here are the ingredients for essential elements: "Inorganic mineral salts of aluminum, boron, bromine, calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, lithium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, potassium, selenium, sulfur, strontium, tin, vanadium, and zinc in a base containing deionized water and EDTA". Most of the mineral salts are covered an any major brand salt mix.
fishcrazee said:
I'm gonna get an aquaclear 20 for a powerhead, if it's any good, any suggestions on good powerheads if aquaclear 20 isn't good enough for a 10 gal?
I don't have any experience with AC powerheads so I'll skip it.
Eggcrate is the white, (usually), plastic grid material that's used with fluorescent lighting in many acoustical tile ceilings. It's available at any Home Depot, or Lowes, and many neigborhood hardware stores. It'll be in the lighting department, near the frosted plastic panes that cover fluorescent light bulbs in most installations. Eggcrate is a good way to help keep jumpers in the tank, but firefish and many jawfish are small enough to still make it through the holes. By using it you're reducing the chances that they'd make it out, because they'd need to make a nearly straight vertical jump to go through one of the holes, but the possibility that they could still make it out exists. You can lay a sheet of plastic window screening over the top of the eggcrate for added protection. It's plastic, and reefsafe.
fishcrazee said:
Also what do moonlights do? Are they required or are they an accessory to see into the night life?
There's no proof that moonlights DO anything but allow us to look at our critters at night. Many corals and possibly some fish seem to spawn in response to the cycles of the moon. There is some conjecture that the blue moonlights help to trigger this response, but nothing has been proven. They're not necessary at all. Nice, but not required.
fishcrazee said:
Also what are good tools for coral fragging and brands of underwater expoxy that I can get from like home depot or something?
Pliers, a dremel, a chisel, needle and thread, tule, (it's a net-like material used in wedding gowns), piercing hypodermic needles, superglue gel. Fragging techniques differ from coral to coral. These are all things that I've seen used for different applications. I don't know of anyone using epoxy from HD. If you want to use the underwater putty epoxy you should buy it from your LFS, unless you can compare the ingredients to a more industrial product and determine they're the same thing.
fishcrazee said:
Lastly what are good foods for marine fish and good invert foodsbesides DT's)? Is kent marine's Phytoplex phytoplankton and ChromaPlex Phytoplankton any good or is only the live stuff good?
Cyclopeze, bornemans mix, name brand flake. This depends largely on what fish you're talking about. Some are herbivores and need vegtable-based flake, some won't touch the stuff. Research on your animals is what's going to determine what types of food you need. DT's phytoplankton, and Liquid Life Bioplankton, are the two most respected products. I've used all the standard Kent products. I think that the two above products are much better. I'm trying out Kent's Phytomax, and Chromamax now, but at this point I still think that DTs or Bioplankton are better.
Hope this helps,
B
so I'm hoping to get lucky on a nano cause it's more colorful and my parents like "seeable" fish with colors and stuff... I gotta listen to them too cause I'm only 15 and can't get stuff online or make my own money yet... I think maybe I'll make a 6 gallon sump for the dwarves with low current and no hydroids or apista... so I gotta wait like a year or two to make sure that any that came with the live rock/sand will die. Thx for all the help and also I don't think I'll go with a clam then... (is it possible for the corals to be growing on the living clam??? I think I saw that before and want to know if it'll harm it even if I'm not going to get one) 
