kindasleepy

That's what I was thinking but you know how it is, you hear so many things. I have to brag about the most awesome emerald crab we picked up the other day. He's got some serious attitude. We named him Claus. :P

I know the sand bed isn't specifically for the pods, but doesn't the pod and snail activity stir it up a bit? I'm not sure how deep all those critters go. The sand isn't being disturbed nearly as much now that my goby is out of there.

The tank's only 35 gal so I'm thinking that the snails, crabs, and all the assorted bugs living in there it would be enough, but if I can do something like sand stirring to prevent it I'll be all over it. :P Don't want to kill all my coral!

Are there ways to prevent H2S from forming? I bought a few more sand snails today but are they enough to prevent gas pockets? Would stirring the sand help or be detrimental? Would removing some sand be risky in that I could release this gas? I'd be horrified if something happened to my tank, I love it so much.

Whenever I've had this issue it's food related. Surface agitation makes a huge difference.

Hi! I haven't been here in a while!

So I set up the 35 gallon saltie in May and it's doing very well. Had a few hiccups with random ammonia spikes but that seems to be under control now.

One of the first fish I added was a so-called dragon goby/brown barred goby and I hate him! All he does is spit sand on my coral and knock over any frags not cemented down. He's trying to push my firefish out of her territory so I'm taking him in to Aquarium Illusions tonight for trade in. So now I'm looking for somebody else to cruise around the bottom of the tank. Preferably someone who isn't a giant jerk. I've got a few hermits, and 2 emerald crabs (I think- they were hitchhikers and I've only caught glimpses of them briefly) and a butt load of assorted snails (I had a huge amount of hitch hikers). I'm not necessarily looking for someone to clean up detritus since the hermies are doing a decent job of it. I've got a fair amount of pod activity finally (yay!) but I know the tank can't support anything like a mandarin goby (which makes me sad). Do you guys have any suggestions?

Current stock:

1 firefish

4 blue-green chromis

4 scarlet hermits

2 mysterious emerald-looking crabs

2 enormous turbo snails

2 sand snails

several astrea snails that hitchhiked in

a bazillion cap snails that also hitched

Coral-

Green star polyp

branching xenia

golden hammer

frogspawn

pipe organ

several mushrooms

a couple zoanthids

a couple flower pots

one struggling favia frag that I can't seem to make happy

blue sympodium polyp

The other question I've got is about the sand bed in particular. When I set it up I was hearing lots of different things about sand thickness so I decided to make my bed fairly thick. I figured that a thick bed would make a better environment for pod activity etc. So one of the LFS told me that my bed is too thick and that if I (or a fish) disturbs it too much I'm likely to release gasses that will kill the tank. This is why I had the big goby of doom in the first place. The guy that told me this is not into saltwater and I'm not entirely sure he wasn't full of crap. I've never heard this from anyone else so I'm not entirely sure if there's truth to it. Thoughts? My bed is about 3-4 inches deep.

Thanks!

I've only glued one frag and that's because I want my GSP to grow up my glass and needed him to stay secure. I've got the rock sitting fairly securely but I worry. The last think I want is the sound of a rock tipping into the glass at night. I don't want to have rocks absolutely permanently stuck together either though. Have you ever noticed your fish/inverts getting super annoyed when you move stuff around? I don't want to stress them too much.

Opinion time! I bought a GSP coral frag from Aquarium Illusions the other day. It looks very healthy, is always completely open and grabs on to food well. Well yesterday, The Boy texts me a picture of two tiny white starfish that were on the glass moving away from the frag. They're tiny, not quite a centimetre from tip of arm to other arm, have 5 arms, are stuck on the glass and appear to be mostly white. They have very slightly darker spots on them but it's really too small to really get a view of a pattern. They look like they're cruising around grazing on the algae on the glass. I'd take a picture but lack the skills necessary :P

From reading online they are most likely part of the asterina family of stars but there's a lot of debate about whether they are beneficial or detrimental in a reef system. I'm finding a lot of arguments for both and am having a hard time finding any sort of consensus. So here's where I ask you guys if you've seen these little guys and if they've eaten any of your coral.

My tank currently is home to the following:

dragon goby

firefish

2 mollies (which I cycled my tank with, anyone who wants them can have them, btw.)

a frogspawn coral

a zoanthid

the brand new GSP

snails (sand sifting and turbo)

a hermit crab

peppermint shrimp

I rearranged the rock so that there are more small gaps between the pieces. Hopefully she settles on a spot, I didn't realize they could be that small (1-2cm). Now my issue is that I'm getting some shifting in the rocks but am a bit wary of gluing them together. Can I break them apart again if I use corafix?

I've got a lid so I'm not super worried about that unless she figures out the hole by the heater. So here's hoping she doesn't figure that out. :P I rearranged my rock to make it a little more accessible for her.

Hi Guys, haven't been on in a while. I have my reef started and it has been going very smoothly other than losing a gorgeous golden hammer coral to brown slime. :cry:

Anyway, here's the question. I picked up a firefish today, she's beautiful. I have a dragon goby that has been in there for a while (first actual saltwater fish I bought, I cycled the tank with mollies) and he has pretty well dominated the one side of the tank. He's not really bullying the firefish, but there aren't as many hiding spots on the opposite side of the tank. Do firefish build their own holes or do they have to have natural structures already in place? I can't seem to find any info about how they make/what they like for bolt holes.

Thanks! :thumbs:

Thanks for the info about the canister. I'm still very confused as to why the lack of mechanical filtration. Nitrates still develop no matter whether it's in the filter media or the substrate, why not use media to easily remove it? People mention the cost of water changes in SW but wouldn't collecting and removing wastes via a filter (as long as you maintain it ofcourse) be better than not? Sorry guys, I just really need a good explanation of the science behind it.

Do you mean that the canister won't be powerful enough to return to the top of the water level? Also, do nitrates build up faster in SW because of larger bio-loads than FW?

What's the difference between using the bio rings/bio max vs live rock rubble? They serve the same purpose do they not?

Hey guys,

I'm getting my tank for my reef system today and am still working out how best to do a small sump in the stand. I had an idea last night and want to run it by you guys for troubleshooting I suppose.

So the tank is a 35 gallon fluval studio. It's plumbed on the bottom and comes with a fluval 305, heater, T5s and other bits and bobs. The holes in the bottom are in the left back corner right next to each other. I was thinking of finding appropriate piping to increase the height of both of the fittings since they are both designed to filter and return at the bottom of the tank. If I increase the height to the water surface I can make one tube the down-pipe into the sump and the other a return which would double as a powerhead and adjust it so it moves water around the tank not just in the corner (because the two pipes are right next to each other). I'm still working on the actual plumbing plan (I am not a plumber), how to reduce noise from the water flowing down etc. I had an idea last night though. Can I use the fluval 305 as the return pump? The water would flow into the sump, pass through the various baffles (still deciding what I want to do there as well) then be pumped through the filter then up to the tank.

What do you guys think? Now, one thing I'm still debating in my head is the need for mechanical filtration. I know a lot of you guys suggest not using foam/poly because nitrates build up too rapidly. A) would the nitrates really build up THAT quickly that it merits not having mechanical filtration? B ) would I be able to use poly or something similar early in the sump, then none in the filter? It would be easier to change (no taking apart the filter). I guess I've just been doing fresh tanks too long, I'm having a really hard time of wrapping my head around the concept of no mechanical filtration, just lots of bio and some chemical.

Ok, couple more questions. How would I best establish and maintain a large copepod population? Everyone keeps telling me there's no way I could do a mandarin dragonet in such a small tank because of the lack of this type of critter. Any of you guys have success? Would mechanical filtration negatively affect this population?

Any suggestions or ideas?

Sorry, what's GFO?

A lot of people use a sump to hide all of the equipment, and have filter socks where the water comes into the sump from the tank - get at least 2 socks, so you can just swap. I don't use mechanical filtration on my FW canisters (just give them a good shake and back flush on WC day - really easy on Ehiems!), so you could get away with it on SW, too.

As for skimming, I'm not certain that it'd take out nutrients needed by corals or other inverts - I just don't see how that'd happen. I've heard anecdotal evidence that a diatom filter will take out nutrients, but unless the needed nutrients are bound to the proteins and other waste that are foaming out, there's no need to worry. I would get the biggest skimmer you can fit/afford.

IME, using Edmonton tap water w/o carbon and/or a phosphate resin, fighting algae is a constant battle. You can get RO units online for about $100 and will last you for a really long time before needing to replace the membrane. Keep an eye on Kijiji and CanReef, as they sometimes come available for a really good price.

Mandrins aren't commercially raised, so they're pretty much all wild caught and are very hard to train onto prepared foods. They love to munch on the different pods (cope, anthro, etc.) that live in the LR, which is why most people say to wait until the tank is at least a year old and has a very large colony of pods b/c that's going to be the only thing your Mandarin will eat. However, I did read one article by a man who's actually bred and raised Mandarins that said that he trained his onto prepared foods by placing pellets into a jar that sat on the bottom of the tank. I can't remember off hand if it was just the fish that he raised, or if he managed to train his original wild stock as well; but, it's worth a try (on an older system that already has pods, so they don't starve to death).

HTH

Thanks.

That's exactly part of the problem. I keep hearing conflicting info EVERYWHERE including Canreef. I've taken care of salt tanks in the past and know the chemistry etc but I've never built one from the ground up. I'm reminded of how people come in to the store and tell me that they've been told by a friend of a friend of a friend that the only way to cycle a freshwater tank is to put a chopped off goldfish head in the tank as it's first source of ammonia (the idea of putting a prawn in there sounds a lot like this).

The purpose of this post is to get an average of how people are starting and maintaining their successful systems. I'm seeing a lot of instructions but with little information as to WHY people are doing things in certain ways. Advice is welcome but I want to know why people are doing something not just get told to do it, you know?

Hi guys. So I'm finally getting my saltie up (35 gal) and running in a few weeks but like in fresh water, everyone seems to be doing it differently. I've got some questions (a lot).

Mechanical Filtration:

Most of my books about salt say to use mechanical filtration in the filters (like foam or poly) and change it regularly to keep it from becoming nitrate heavy. Here on the forum I hear a lot of you say that you gut your filters and fill them with rubble, or rubble and carbon. Why is that? Why is using rubble any different than the ceramic biomax as a biological filter? Wouldn't you still want biological, chemical AND mechanical filtration? I realize that the bioload and types of bacteria etc in a salt tank differs from a freshwater tank but the basic filtration principals should be the same right?

Protein Skimmers

Again, lots of conflicting info about whether or not you should skim in the first place (removing too many nutrients etc), how big the skimmer should be etc. What do you guys recommend for a 35gal?

Water

A 35 gallon wouldn't be impossible for me to fill with purchased RO water but would be a huge pain in the butt to have to continually have to get it to do maintenance. Tap water is certainly the easier way to go. So do I have to remove the phosphates? If yes, how do you guys do this? Any easy ways to make RO at home on a small scale?

And lastly...for now anyway. I keep hearing conflicting info on mandarin gobies. I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to have one but I'm told (and have read in at least one book) that they need significantly larger tanks because of their eating habits. True? Not true?

I'm open to any suggestions on how to get this baby going.

Thanks

So what does everyone use if not tap water? Bottled water?

Hi Guys,

So I had a customer today that has a problem that I've seen at the store every so often too. With our Blues (the stores) it usually shows up in a new shipment after they've been with us for about 3-4 days. My customer has had his for years and has had no new additions to his tank and he's a "fish guy" so he's pretty knowledgable during our discussion about water quality etc. So the symptoms are bloating, brown spots and then they develop a c shape curve to their bodies like they're trying to look at their own tails. Then they die. I'm intrigued because none of my customers have ever mentioned this happening in their fish until now. I assumed it was shipping stress or something of the like. I've done some reading online and some people call it Velvet, some people say it's a parasite, some say fungal, some say bacterial. Some say it's too small of a gene pool. My customer was saying the same thing about the research, there appears to be no definitive cause. What's your take on it?

LOL, this will most likely be a summer project. I have too much homework right now! *daydreams about fish tanks*

More research for me!

So sump question. Does it matter how big your sump is? Thinking maybe 20gal tank, 10 gal sump? Pros/cons?

Yeah I saw yours actually! Looks nice. I don't have the space to deal with a sump though I'd love to do it that way. I live in a tiny condo with too many pets hence why I only have a ten gallon to start with. I know you can stack them but I just don't think I can rig that in here. Only have a stand for one 10g.