Vitaminz

I personally have never been a big fan of using glue of any sorts in a reef tank. All of my rock isn't glued, but when I aquascaped, I made sure that the rock could not move very easily. Its kind of like playing Tetris. Also when choosing my life rock, made sure it had lots of holes to place frags in. Jeff

In the wild firefish live in shoals of hundreds of fish and like to hover a few inches away from their bolt holes. However each firefish requires its own bolthole and a certain amount of space. I therefore think it would be possible to setup a tank for large groups of firefish as long as you where willing to build the rockwork to suit them, you would also need to provide more space for them than there body size would suggest. It has long been a dream of mine to have a shoal of 6-8 firefish in a tank as there shoaling/signalling behavior ( there dorsal fin is for comunication) is absolutely facsinating. I would suggest building a rock wall of small fist size boulders with as many 1-2 cm wide holes as you can fit in it might even be worth buying bigger pieces and drilling holes in them if you where serious enough about it. basically the hole should be just big enough for the firefish to fit in but to small for any other fish ( except a blenny) for the firefish to consider it a bolt hole. Jeff

What are you using as a filter system, a sump? Also are you using a protein skimmer? Also what are your level's at? LFS usually leaves the "live rock" in a bin with very little light, so technically it is live rock, but not the same if it came from somebodies tank. There will be some die off in the process. Also do you have a clean up crew? they should be all over this. Jeff

Nano tanks are one of the hardest to maintain, Very little room for error. So if you keep it going, then a big tank will be no issue. I myself started out with a nano tank, might as well jump in head first, instead of wadding into the water. Good on ya!

So I decided instead of suspending my lights above the tank, That I would create a shelf for the units to sit on. Also added 2 Ecoray 60D to the Unbranded China LED Fixtures. Still have to do some cable management, so excuse the messy cords. Did this last night, so it was pretty late, when I was done.

Puffy was still only alive while the Hermit was killing him. He is no longer alive. But since then, the Hermit wandered out of his shell and got trapped in my Anemone and died. Jeff

Try changing the flow.. Too much or two little can cause them to close. also watych closely algae does not start to cover them. Most cases they can shed the algae but need enough flow to do that. Jeff

Inject them with lemon juice! This procedure requires only 2 items and a few minutes of your time. Items Needed: 1 Bottle or squeeze dispenser of Lemon Juice From Concentrate. One 3ml Latex Free Syringe with a 0.5mm x 16mm needle. Your local pharmacist can provide you with the syringe and needle for about a half a dollar. Don't be surprised if your pharmacist asks you a few questions as to what you plan to use the syringe/needle for. Procedure: Fill the syringe with 3ml lemon juice by inserting the needle into the lemon juice and pulling back on the syringe plunger. Insert the needle into (not through) the base (not the top) of the anemone. Inject about .5ml of the lemon juice into the anemone. Withdraw the needle and proceed to the next one.

Most clown fish that you buy in the stores are usually captive breed, usually the $24 mark and don't need a anemone to host it. You can also get Hybrid clowns that may require something to host, in order to keep their aggression down. But if you buy true clown fish from the ocean, then I would highly recommend an anemone, or usually the store selling it, will sell it with it's host anemone. Over the years, mine have hosted everything from mushrooms to frog-spawns, to hammers to Feather dusters.

Puff was still alive...and he was healthy as a horse...

The Hermit is Huge...and the puffer was just a wee wittle one! lol

Last night I was out at the movies, and got a call from my daughter crying. Apparently the Hermit Crab has been picking on the puffer fish and took a chunk out of his head, causing him to puff up. After the movie, I came home to this:

Second this!! lol IMO I would start off with Frags, and not colonies, so see what does well in your tank. After a few weeks, see what has come out and thrived. Then buy those colonies. Jeff

Tank Update 6/27/2012- Just pictures, nothing really has changed...

One way to tell the difference between a Leather and Anemone, is does it have a mouth in the centre? It is does, then it is an anemone. It looks like it isn't extended all the way yet...may have to wait till it fully extends to get and ID.

I use to be only a FW guy...always avoiding the salt water side of fish stores....Then I had somebody give me a 10g nano, and been hooked ever since....I won't ever go back! But be warned, your pocket book / wife / girl friend, might not appreciate the switch...you have been warned...lol Jeff

Torch Corals don't like alot of flow, so I would find a spot that has low current. Also the deeper you can place them in the tank the better, as their sweepers come out at night. Careful of placement around other corals as they can sting them.

The problem with buying live rock in a brand new setup, is why spend all the money, when it is just going to die off?? I see you have a 36g tank, so you need a pound of live rock per gallon is the general rule of thumb. Also will need a pound of live sand per gallon. I am a thrifty reefer, so my suggestion is to get regular aragonite and seed it. Or you could go the route I did, and say screw it to live sand and just go with crushed coral sea bed. Check out my latest build thread to see the difference. Again the choice is yours. As for the live rock, I would purchase 20-25 pounds of nice base rock, and after seed it with a nice piece of live rock from somebodies tank, not from the store, that what you get the nice coraline along with it. As for your filter, take out all the chambers and throw out all the media. In here I would place some smaller pieces of live rock from the store in here, to start off your bacteria cultures. Hope I answered all your questions, or if you want me to expand on any of the points, just let me know. Just as a side note, the skimmer you got is a hang on back one right? Before you get started over in your conversion, you may want to think about drilling and a sump, those hang on back skimmers have a high rate of "super skimming" and flooding. Just as an FYI. Had one in my office, and it did that over night....came in the next day to not a pleasant surprise... Jeff

The Bacteria is totally different my friend. You will have to re-cycle the tank. You have never used a coper based treatment in the tank yes? You can add sand in, just make sure you use a bowl when pouring in the water to reduce the cloudiness. To cut down on the cycle time, get a bottle of live sand off a fellow reefer and seed yours. Or you can skip the sand all together and just add in crushed coral bed, that is what I did. Hate the look of live sand over time. If it was me, and I was starting out fresh, I would add in base rock (aka dead live rock) and sand. Get your salinity where you want it to be, Ditch all the media in your Fluval and add in live rock or rubble. Wait about a week, test all your levels, then get a bottle of established live sand and seed your bed. Then at the same time, add some nice live rock and start seeding the rock too. Throw in a piece of clam or salt water shrimp from the local grocery store and add in a few snails and hermits. If after a week, nothing dies and your levels are good, add in a cheap damsel fish. If that is still alive after a few days, you should be good to go. Jeff

Well like everything else with the salt side, you learn by doing...maybe time to rip off the band-aid...lol Heat the fresh water tank up to the same temperature as your main tank. and let it sit for an hour or so to oxygenate it, make sure you have movement. The problem with leaving it is, of course it could spread to your other fish. It has been my experience, leaving a problem in a reef tank, is no solution at all, ends up making it worse. But again that is my 2 cents worth. As for a hospital tank, if you aren't going to keep it active all the time, I would fill it up with water from your main display, so that you don't have to cycle it. If you wanted to keep it active and grow it out, I would put pumps on both sides of the tank, one intake, and one out take, so that it can cycle the mini tank faster. Jeff

Option #1: Fresh Water Dip To prepare a proper freshwater dip, take either dechlorinated tap water or demineralized water (RO or DI), aerate for an hour to maximize dissolved oxygen, heat to match the temperature of the dip water to that of the tank water, and then add buffering compounds to match the freshwater pH to your saltwater pH. The aeration should continue throughout the dip. It is crucial to match temperature and pH and to maximize dissolved oxygen. Most people that experience problems with freshwater dipping have made an error in these critical parameters. Generally speaking, any dip less than two minutes is useless. Many fish will easily tolerate five, ten, even fifteen minutes or more. The least tolerant fish are wrasses, lionfish, pufferfish, drumfish, hi-hats, jackknives, firefish and many of the scaleless fish as a rule (Calfo, pers. comm.). I also choose not to dip lionfish, foxfaces, or any other venomous fishes because I don't want a flying torpedo of spines to come shooting out of a dip bucket at me. Option #2: UV Sterilization Ultraviolet sterilizers work by damaging most anything in the water column that passes through them. Their effectiveness is dependent on the wattage of the unit, the flow rate through the unit, the age of the lamp, and the volume of the water being treated. Just add the fish to a smaller tank, and add in the UV sterilizer until completely gone. Option #3: Garlic At the very least, garlic does have some proven anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-parasitic, and antiviral properties. Just soak your food in Garlic (usually buy a bottle made for Reefs) about 10 min before feeding. I am a firm believer in soaking all my food in it before feeding as a daily routine. In the end, I will try what ever solutions that don't involve Chemical solutions. If in the end you decide to treat with a bottle solution, make sure you take the fish out of the main tank. Hope this helps. Jeff

That really blows chunks. sorry buddy.

Awwww....pookie!

Are you done yet.....*poke* :drunk:

You sump size depends on what you want to do with it. The biggest plus to a sump is you get to hide all your equipment, so you plan around that. Also how many chambers is another factor. Technically you want atleast 3, one for your feed line from the tank, then one for your skimmer, then the last one for you return line. Have to also allow room for baffles, to take the extra air bubbles out thru each chamber. Also depends on wether you want a fuge or not, but on a tank that small, I don't see any reason to. I have designed quite a few sumps for people using google sketchup. The sump size also depends on how much room you have under the tank. I would recommend going as large as the space you have, allows you room to grow, if you want to change things up. If you are looking for a new tank, make sure it is either RR (reef ready, aka already drilled), or make sure the glass isn't tempered. Most tanks you by now of days are tempered on the bottom, which means you have to drill on the back or side walls, a good diamond bit will help you out there. The next thing to consider is your plumbing, but that is a whole nother topic...K I have ranted enough, don't want to bore you with all the details. Jeff