Starting A Tank

[EDGRAY]

Eddie,

Try the hypersalinity dip as mentioned in another recent post...this should get them out of the rock so they can be manually removed.

Jesse

i dont remember how you do that how high should i put the salinity and for how long ... the other one i was thinking was idion dip but i think that one is only for color not sure....... what do you think.

eddy :cool1:

 

[Aquai]

Yuh i was considering getting a glass one inside the tank, as i heard that these stick-ons can be too innacurate...

I think there already is enough light for mushrooms etc actually because theres already 4W/gal and the polyp shown in the picture 4 was open when i got up (20 mins ago) so i'm not too concerned about quantity of lighting...

The filter lid is already double vented for the other bulb and also for water so i will probably try drilling about 15 holes along the length of the light?

You know the algae/weed thing (pic 4), i presume that' s a good thing to have in the tank?

 

[EDGRAY]

I think the plant in pic 4 is a Caulerpa Prolifera so thats a good plant for your tank or refugium and the thermometer that i really like and recommend is the Coralife Digital. it's really accurate...and like you said the sticky ones dont give you an accurate reading.

eddy :cool1:

 

[EDGRAY]

Caulerpa is the most common algae found in aquariums.


* Marine aquariums almost demand a variety of marine algae.
* Algae offers favorable surroundings for, not only fish, but also microfauna, which helps metabolize food particles. This enhances the food chain: for example, the mandarin fishes will live off these microfauna.
* Caulerpa represents an important food source for many fish.
* Caulerpa releases organic acids and necessary substances such as vitamins and amino acids.
* Perhaps the most important role of Caulerpa in the aquarium is to assimilate nitrogenous compounds and phosphates. Ammonia and nitrate are the most common sources of nitrogen for plants. This is the basis of the algae scrubber. The algae uses these nutrients from the water to anobolize proteins, and the result is cleaner water.
* In many large modern public aquariums Caulerpa is raised because of it's healing qualities. Sick fish often recover quickly when Caulerpa is in the aquarium.

HTH

EDDY

 

[reefman23]

Eddie, for a hypersalinity dip, you would probably want the SG to be twice what a normal SG would be...I would say 1.040, which would be off most hydrometers/refractometers scale.

Jesse

 

[Aquai]

Ok, so the plant/algae caulerpa is kind of like cabomba or elodea in my old tropical tank, useful

Ok, i'll see what i can find in the way of digital thermometers...

And last thing for now, i left home this morning and last night i'd noticed a fossil like looking lasrger woodlouse like mark on the rock. Got home this afternoon and it's moved, it looked like part of the rock but it's moving around :S This i wasn't expecting, what is it?

 

[EDGRAY]

pic. please....

thx :cool1:

 

[Aquai]

Purple blob in the middle of the picture below, hard to photograph atm, as it's moved again...

Other picture is just me trying to find good angles to shoot the tank at...

 

[OBRIMAT]

Back to the tank cleaner subject...my thinking now is: the smaller the better. I have a seven gallon nano. My cleanup crew consists of 5 very small blue leg hermits, 7 very small nassarius snails and 3 small astera snails.

I started my nano reef in mid-March of 2005. After my tank cycled, I dispatched a cleanup crew of small to medium sized snails and crabs. This served me well in controlling algae but, when I began to add coral, I had trouble. The larger specimens knocked over everything that I added. I traded them in for a smaller sized crew and my problems were solved.

Good Luck Aquai :!:

 

[EDGRAY]

Purple blob in the middle of the picture below, hard to photograph atm, as it's moved again...

Other picture is just me trying to find good angles to shoot the tank at...

dont worry is just a kind of snail and is not common to see them on the tank i used to have one but brown and was doing well until i had a spike on amonia and died is more sensitive than normal snails if not wrong their name is chitonbut here is another example of them and info if you needed some and also there is one pic that looks almost the same color as yours:

http://web.archive.org/web/200208150200 ... efault.asp

eddy :cool1:

 

[Aquai]

Okok, so today i did a water test... And it was all going so well until i got to nitrates...Anyhow here are the results:

Ammonia - 0.1mg/litre (lowest reading)
Nitrite - 0.1mg/litre (2nd lowest reading)
Nitrate - 75mg/litre (2nd highest reading)

Well at least it shows that in a few days my tank will be cycled in theorym can't wait...

Oh and a photo update of my £1 (about $1.5) polyp open below

 

[EDGRAY]

wow :shock: your nitrate is alittle bit high :shock: anyways thats cycle.... is amazing that the polyp is not affected and wait until he reproduce you will have some nice zoos that little thing has some color in him

eddy.

 

[Aquai]

Nitrate is very high, i think it must be because there's such a large amount of live rock, yet a new filter, alot of the denitrification as far as i'm aware happens in the filter? And thus this may take abit longer. But at least there's like no ammonia and nitrite present

And there's actually two of them, the other is alot smaller and hasn't fully opened yet, but is doing so slowly... How often do these polyp's split? And idea? He is mainly brown but with a nice little tint of orange...

While i'm still here, does anyone think i should try a water change? Or just sit it out till nitrates drop?

 

[Aquai]

Well, 3 days on and nitrates are at 75, and dropping, going to check tomorrow and if it's below 50 i am going to add a hermit or two i think....

I also intend to do a 5L water change tomorrow (which is almost 20%) so that should help to lower the nitrates abit...

 

[sadielynn]

I would recommend waiting till all read 0 as the hermits can be adversly affected by the cycle hang tight your are almost there :mrgreen:

 

[skipm]

Do the water change and test again, those nitrates are pretty high and some inverts don't like high nitrates. Start out by adding a couple of cleaners before you try anything more delicate (fish and corals) and more expensive.

 

[Aquai]

Yuh the nitrates are high and i think my tap water is high in nitrates unfortunately (i'll check tomorrow) but i didn't intend to put anything like fish/corals in there yet as it's so high. Just maybe the start of my cleaner crew...

How hardy are sexy shrimps/cleaner shrimps/hermits/snails?

 

[sadielynn]

You may wish to try for some distilled bottled water . That is what we use in our tanks . As for the shrimps and snails they are even more sensitive than the crabs in my experience ......you may wish to also try using some chemi pure in your filter. But at this point you seem to be rushing a bit to get your live stock :mrgreen:

 

[Aquai]

Heh, not rushing as such, just this weekend is convenient for me to browse around some places as i'm off work which is unusual for me so i was going to see if i could find anything...

Hmm, you know water filters, such as this Brita Water Filter, would they be effective at removing nitrates? I know they're good for topup water etc...

 

[sadielynn]

I know that I have read that some people use them but there are no long term success rates documented that I know of ....bottled water is cheap at 60 cents a gallon for distilled :mrgreen: