So you got a new fish tank Newbie - Page 7

hubris007 · #**151** 02/07/2004, 10:53 AM

Wait, wait, wait! That hammerhead comment...are you saying that this 10 gallon i have been cycling 3 days with a Damsel is going to be too small for my Nemo and Dori fish i plan to get?

WaterKeeper · #**152** 02/07/2004, 01:52 PM

I thnk a vet should be able to pull that off. I'd be inclined not to try to add Bruce to anything under a 29 (tall).

franning · #**153** 02/09/2004, 02:37 PM

I really like this topic. And I want all newbie to read it. so I am bumping this one up...

JohnM99 · #**154** 02/09/2004, 02:54 PM

Dear Professor WaterKeeper
Perhaps one topic to touch on would be "how much food" - it is a little hard to tell some times - and most of us clowns give way too much food. But I heard a LFS person say 1 flake of flake food every day or so is enough. Perhaps not. And with that advice, they will be unlikely to be able to retire on the fish food sales.

Just how much do these guys want to eat anyway?

Your fingers must be tired from all the typing.

200GsofSpecies · #**155** 02/09/2004, 05:18 PM

What a great thread, and though it is long, your sense of humor got me thru it! Amazing that someone is willing to take the time, and answer questions that have probably been asked 10,000 times before, and put them in one easy place for reference. Your patience and knowledge is an inspiration.

I have been planning a tank for a while now, and hoped to do it the correct way....by not jumping into it like I do most things, but by research, research, research.

While your thread has given me alot to sort thru, make sense of, and remember, it is leading me to believe I wil never have a tank set-up; rather I'll be researching until the end of time. Who knows, that may be a good thing.

In all seriousness, I want to personally(however "personal" you can over the internet) thank you for the time, energy(I know you old folks dont have much), and wisdom you have put into helping those in need. It does NOT go unappreciated!

I am certain that once I'm finally ready to start my tank, that I will put this thread to good use....and of course have 10,000,000 questions to monopolize your time with.

Again, Thankyou!
Brian

::::It baffles me why my blue whale doesnt enjoy his 2.5G nano::::

franning · #**156** 02/09/2004, 05:24 PM

How do you set-up a sump with refuge? and do I really need one for my 55 gallon tank? Sorry for this newbie is really confuse...

WaterKeeper · #**157** 02/09/2004, 05:33 PM

One Flake of Food per Day!!! Yikes, what does the guy at the LFS think your feeding--The Golden Child?

In the article on clowns I linked to earlier in this thread it says-

Quote:

From the Article "Time to Quit Clowning Around" by Henry C. Schultz III
Clownfish are omnivores, consuming small amounts of red filamentous or blue green algae, though for the most part they consume plankton from the water column. Although the largest portion of their diet is comprised of copepods, food items such as tunicate larvae, echiuroid worms, sipunculid worms, polychaetes, nematodes, barnacle cirri and nauplii, amphipods, isopods, ostracodes among other things (Michael, Coral Realm). In addition to the above mentioned food items, anemonefish will feed upon their hosts. Anemone tentacles have been found in the stomach contents of anemonefish (more on this later). Essentially, their feeding regimen is ideal for marine fish kept in captivity as it makes feeding them a rather easy chore. Any of the meat based prepared foods on the market today should suffice well. Plankton, mysids, and enriched brine shrimp are all good foods to feed in any of the formats they can be found in: freeze dried, live, or flash frozen. Flake or pellet foods geared for the marine carnivore will also be an excellent staple food. Offering a variety of foods is a good idea, so do not become stuck in the rut of feeding the same foods every day. Generally, clownfish will accept any of these foods without hesitation even after recently being added to the aquarium. For finicky fish that refuse to feed, try to obtain live foods. It is rather doubtful that a clownfish can resist live adult brine shrimp or any small mobile planktonic crustacean.

It is best to feed moderate amounts of any food several times each day rather than one big meal. If it is a new fish then watch it the first few times you feed it. When it becomes full it will tend to go about its business but may occasionally sneak in another bite. After awhile you'll get a feel for how much to give it each sitting. In a tank with other fish it is always wise to watch the new arrivals at feeding time. Many fish refuse to eat when first introduced into the tank. You want to make sure that they eat before they starve and that other fish are not bullying them away from the food.

I know that Henry can get a bit deep for the Newbie in his articles but how else are you going to learn what a protandric hermaphrodite is unless you read his stuff.

WaterKeeper · #**158** 02/09/2004, 05:51 PM

I see a few posts snuck in while I was writing the above reply.

Hi Brain,

To Reef Central

Glad you like the thread and thank you for your kind comments.

Hi Franning,

Everyone here is jumping the gun. I was going to stock those tanks before I fed them.

I'll be getting to refugiums as they are part of the solution in feeding your fish. In the thread I just posted Henry says, "pods' are a major part of a clown's diet. "Pods" are a major part of many fishes diets. The refugium is mainly come into use to provide a safe haven when these tiny little critters can reproduce without fear of being eaten. A refugium is any low flow, lighted, and protected area where conditions are favorable for the reproduction of small invertebrates. It usually has LR, LS and may be planted with macro algae. Turf type algae are also usually allowed to accumulate on the sides of the tank. All these things create a macro environment where these wee critters can flourish.

I direct you over to the DIY Forum where a search will show many types of in the sump refugiums.

WaterKeeper · #**159** 02/10/2004, 02:14 PM

Good old John as in M99 went over to the coral forum and asked about the wisdom of putting more difficult corals in the tank first. I've been telling you all to ask questions on other forums and John obtained a very good responce. I'll post it for all to see-

Quote:

Originally posted by EricHugo
Now...hold on....You guys all know me way too well to think I would say "SPS" corals should be added first. My rationale is to add pioneer species first, some of which might have small polyps. I do not equate ease-of- care or tolerance to polyp size, so that statement is celarly out of context.

However, if one allows a tank to truly become stable prior to adding any organisms, presumably it willbe at its lowest nutrient state since there is virtually no food input, no waste from large organisms like fish, and a burgeoning population of plankton and benthic fauna for prey since there are fewer mouth in the form of corals to eat them. These are ideal conditions for many corals, including some of the more sensitive species and pioneer species, including Acroporids, Pocilloporids, Xeniids, and others. Then, since these corals grow fast, and are also very efficient as DOM uptake, they become the "coral filters" as less productive organisms and net consumers are added (i.e. Tubastraea, fishes, shrimps, etc.). Basically, follow the way nature builds a reef.

Now, I'm very aware that a new aquarist is not going to have a skilled eye in terms of tank observation. I'm also aware of the fussing, intervention, and changing of equipment and other things that happens with new tanks. Also, I am aware of the frequently less than ideal selection of important equipment like lights and water flow devices in a "newbie tank."

Those are all aspects that are going to make animals suffer regardless of the stocking order, and the fact that sensitive species might die is a clear concern.

I make several assumptions and should clarify. First, that the stocking order is a general formula...set up with sand and rock, wait till its not toxic, add grazers, wait a really long time, then corals, then inverts, then fish.

The initial coral selection will have to be tailored to conditions of the tank and the experience of the person starting the system. If there is insufficient light or water flow for some species, those won;t be added anytime...not first, and not last. If the aquarist is new to the hobby, choosing really sensitive species is probably not a good idea. If the aquarist is an old hand and setting up a new system, it might work just fine.

The notion is to stock in a natural order and using a logical stocking order. Newcomers starting with really "easy" corals like Sarcophyton and Star Polyps just makes the tank more a toxic chemical soup less likely to support sensitive species further down the road, and will at that time have grow so much that the aquarist will be trying to be rid of them, as we all know what happens quickly to such tolerant species. Take Aiptasia, for example

I consider sensitive species to be things like some wild Acroporids, Euphyllia, wild Xeniids, Plerogyra,

I consider demanding species things like some species of Acropora (the humilis group for example), P. eydouxi, Tubastraea micranthus, Dendronephthya, Goniopora, Nemenzophyllia.

I consider tolerant but manageable corals things like Pavona, Hydnophora, some species of Turbinaria, some species of Montipora, some species of staghorn Acroporids, corallimorphs, Litophyton

I consider tolerant but unmanageable and potentially problematic corals things like zoanthids, star polyps, most Xeniids, colt coral, Millepora

Hope that clarifies. Note how each group has members of stony, and soft and all sizes of polyps.

Others fall somewhere inbetween

__________________
Eric Borneman

I'll talk more about this in the next day of two.

acidflea · #**160** 02/10/2004, 06:40 PM

bump

WaterKeeper · #**161** 02/11/2004, 10:44 AM

Gentle Readers,

One thing about this thread is I try to keep it as simple as possible. Often I use common terminology such as SPS corals that are frequently used on this board and others. While these are misnomers their use is so widely accepted that I use them in referring to this family of critters in this thread. Our Experts tend to write for the Expert. This is sometimes confusing for the beginner.

Henry S. will refer to Nemo, who is now calling her/himself Naomi after his change

, as a; "protandric hermaphrodite who exhibits sexual dimorphism but rarely dichromatic differences between the genders."

I, myself, get a deep, often sexual, thrill as I read such explanations. Most readers, who I guess are far less kinky, tend to be a bit confused when confronted with such writings. For that reason I try to put such things into laymanâ€™s terms while not shocking our younger readers.

I do urge the neophyte to consult our Expert Forum for detailed information before stocking a tank. The information I provide is cursory, at best, and is only intended as a general guide.

I notice there are some questions about feeding and refugiums on this thread and one of the other newbie threads I've got running. I guess I should touch on these subjects, which are related to maintaining the livestock in your tank before going any further with adding critters. I'll do that in the next day or so.

RJSorensen · #**162** 02/12/2004, 12:05 AM

Water Keeper where have you been all my life?

What a breath of fresh air in a polluted world . . .
I am looking for the proper sand and would not of had I not found you . . . I might be able to do it after all. Thank You! Can I give you ten just for fun?

WaterKeeper · #**163** 02/12/2004, 11:09 AM

Hi RJSorensin

To Reef Central

You related to SÃ¸ren SÃ¸rensen? He's the guy who invented pH for you non-chemist types.

Let's Chow Down!!!

As I said yesterday, this may be a good time to talk about feeding your critters as they may be starving after the long trip to your house.

Now all of you know there are meativores, that go with the Adkins diet of just meat and sushi; veggivores, that prefer bean sprouts and tofu, and, finally, snackivores that eat just about anything. The guys that speak Latin (lawyers?) sometimes call these groups carnivores, herbivores and omnivores but they have the same diets as my classification.

For the most part the fish and inverts you add to your tank will mainly be omnivores. There are surprising few dedicated (obligate) carnivores or herbivores, which is probably a good thing as it simplifies feeding the community tank.

Now if you get your livestock from the LFS, I'm sure you've been told to have the proprietor feed the fish before you purchase it. If the fish readily takes flake food your halfway home. On the other hand, if the owner of the LRS ducks into the back room and brings out some food for the fish and you ask him what it is? Get a little more experience in the hobby before selecting that fish if he tells you, "It only eats fresh caught Coelacanth."

Flake food sometime gets an undeserved bad rap. If you have a tank of fish that all enjoy flake food you are a lucky reefer. Picky fish spell problems unless you have a dedicated tank and can focus feed. Most dried foods have a mixture of dried vegetable matter along with fish and shrimp meals as a minimum. They also, because they don't contain much water, have high protein and fiber contents. Better brand foods often contain added vitamins and such things as Omega Fatty acids so you don't need (although it never hurts) to soak the food in supplement such as Zoe or Selcon.

There are a wide variety of blends out there. Some are high in algae like spirulina, while others are higher in meat type proteins. If you have Tangs a high vegetable food is desirable but if you have angels you want ones high in fish meal or even sponge if you can find one. Overall, there are so many types available you can create blends to suit your needs. Just beware of shady claims. If you've had FW experience you know what I mean. Claims such as "color" or "breeding" blend are usually misleading as they have dubious benefit in achieving either claim.

I think the majority of reefers will agree that feeding just flake food is probably not going to provide all the benefits of a more diverse diet. Adding frozen mysis, brine shrimp, silversides, or krill are all things that are easy to do. Another popular food supplement is the homemade smorgasbord. One gets out the old blender and chops up fresh fish, shrimp, clams, mussels, dried seaweed, spinach, and vitamins. The mix is fed either on the spot or frozen for future use. There is some concern that feeding saltwater fish their freshwater cousins can cause liver disease. I'm not 100% sure that is entirely true as I've had goldfish eating Lionfish that seemed to fare very well but with the large selection of saltwater fish available at the local market you may wish to make your homemade diet entirely of marine organisms. Nori, available at most oriental shops, is a very popular algae supplement used in these homemade concoctions. Remember to look at the ingredients on the package, it usually comes dried, so make sure it is not laced with seasonings. Do a search on RC or the web and you will find all sorts of recipes for homemade meals. The nice part about them is, when finely chopped in a blender, they can also be used to feed corals, anemones, tubeworms, clams, etc.

Another popular food is freshly hatched brine shrimp. It gets mixed reviews as a saltwater food. Tune in next time and we'll talk about this and how to make it more wholesome.

Take Care.

tigerwolf · #**164** 02/14/2004, 08:05 PM

Waterkeeper,

Very Informative Information!

But, you stated in a few posts above that you'd be talking about refugium's?

I'm still Very New to this hobby, and am trying to obtain as much information as I possibly can. Firstly, so that I have a firm grasp of basic knowledge, also so that I Know What I'm Doing.

After reading the posts back on page 1 or 2 of this forum in relations to Sumps, I have a firm understanding of what they are, and how they work.

I have a vauge notion of what a Refugium, but I'm still not quite certain how it differs from a Sump - other than you can put LR & LS & other critters in the Refugium.

I'm also aware that some folk combine their Sump into being a Refugium as well.

Could you perhaps put together a post that gives me (us newbies) a bit more information about what purposes that a refugium serves that's apart from a Sump?

Thanks again for all your time invested into answering questions you've likely answered 100 times before.

WaterKeeper · #**165** 02/16/2004, 10:24 AM

I'm going to talk about "fuges" tomorrow. In a nutshell they are places where a low flow, sheltered area is provided to allow for reproduction of the little critters that inhabit the rock and sand. A safe haven, so to speak, from the predators in the main tank.

WaterKeeper · #**166** 02/17/2004, 12:11 PM

Now I know some of you plan to start your tanks off big-time. That means that pizza delivery people, postal employees and the ever-popular paperboy will provide an ample supply of live food for your shark tank. For those of us with tanks smaller than two Olympic sized swimming pools we need to find other sources.

One of those live foods are the ever popular-

SeaMonkeys

Better known to reefers as brine shrimp or Artemia they are an easy to culture form of live food. About all one needs is a mason jar, some saltwater, dried brine shrimp eggs and an air pump with air stone.

The task is easy. Just take some water out of your tank add about Â½ tablespoon of the dried eggs per quart and aerate for about 36-48 hours. Presto-instant live brine shrimp!

These baby brine shrimp, known as nauplii, have some nutritional benefit but not a lot. That low nutritional content is why they get a bad rep as, "Saltwater Junk Food". Shortly after hatching they use up most of the food supplied by the egg sack and very often are offered as food for the tank. Not having much meat on their bones means you need to feed huge quantities to satisfy the charges in your tank.

Is there a solution? You bet. The trick is to not use them right away but to fatten them up for awhile. Often, brewer's yeast is used as a food. This is OK but it is not the best source of shrimp food. It also has a habit of getting into the main tank and establishing itself in the sandbed. While the yeast is not a threat to the tank is may get a major foothold in the DSB where its fermentation products may create some pungent odors.

A better solution is to feed it a mix of algae. Recently live suspensions of alga have become commercially available on the on-line fish stores. These can be used but it is not much harder to cultivate your own than it is to hatch brine shrimp. The requirements are about the same with only a broad spectrum light needed to promote photosynthesis. Standard NO fluorescent will do in the 5500-6500 K range. I'll get back to algae culture in a minute.

One of the things that also bugs people with using brine shrimp as food is the egg casing. They contend that the discarded egg is full of phosphate that then enters the main tank. Others feel the shells are not digestible by small fish. That doesn't seem like a great problem as a tool as simple as a flashlight allows separation of the shrimp from the shells. Just darken the room and shine a narrow beam flashlight about halfway up the hatching container. The tiny shrimp are light loving, photophillic, and will swarm around the light. Suck them up with a turkey baster and you have shrimp sans eggs.

Another way around the problem is to decapsulate the shells before hatching the shrimp. That is to remove the shell casing before the eggs are added to the hatching container. The good people of the University of Florida have a web page on the method albeit for 1 lb quantities of eggs so you'll probably want to scale it down some. Decapsulating Shrimp Brine Eggs

Brine shrimp of course are not the only form of live food that can be cultured. As I said, algae is just about as easy as brine shrimp. Rotifers and copepods both lend themselves to "Mason Jar" culture technique. Many people use discarded two liter pop bottles with the bottom removed as culture vessels. It just so happens that Doc Frank Marini has links a whole series of articles on the culture of plankton and zooplankton. To avoid further typing mistakes I direct your attention to those-Home Food Culture Series

One of the central themes in home culture is that one needs to have more than one culture going. This is in case of a "culture crash". Usually such "crashes" occur because another competing organism enters the culture and either eats or out competes the desired species. You want to make sure the culture remains as pure as possible by disinfecting all tools that come into contact with the culture. A wash with a 5% bleach solution will usually do. Rinse well and let dry completely before using. For microwave safe materials, a couple of minutes under full power will serve the same purpose.

Most cultures need to be aerated and that air can create contamination. Here is a link to a airline filter that is fine enough (0.3 micron) to remove bacteria- Submicron filter

I know they are not cheap but if you use a prefilter on the intake of the air pump they last a long time. You can also use HEPA vacuum cleaner bags to make covers for your culture containers to further preclude airborne contamination.

The only thing Frank does not discuss is mysis shrimp but from what I gather their culture is similar to copepods.
Mysis are a preferred diet for seahorses and other small marine fish.

Not ready to set up a culture lab? All is not lost. One of the popular ways to provide live food for the tank is to set up a refugium. Now there seems to be some confusion as to what is a sump and what is a refugium. By my definition a sump is a tank of some sorts that has high velocity water flows through it and may contain skimmers and other treatment devices. In most case flow velocities are too high to maintain biological filtration. Refugiums are illuminated, low flow tanks with LR, LS and possibly macroalgae. Turf type algae growth is encouraged and skimmers and other mechanical filtration devices are never used. They are in essence a hide out for copepods, amphipod, isopods, worms and countless other wee critters that live in the sand and rock. In the main tank or sump they would be eaten before they could get a chance ot breed and would be eliminated over time.

I will continue with a little more on refugiums next time but here is a nice design for a DIY HOB refugium.

Harmonic's DIY Fuge with Pics

WaterKeeper · #**167** 02/18/2004, 11:47 AM

Ok, there are all sorts of designs for refugia. You can take any basic sump design and use it for a refugium. The main difference is what goes into the refugium and the flow rate.

One of the nice things about a HOB design, like Harmonic's, is that flow out of the fuge is by gravity. Under-the-tank designs usually require that water be pumped from the fuge to the main tank. This exposes the "bugs" that develop in the fuge to the rigors of going through a pump. As you can imagine moving through a pump with an impeller moving at 3600 rpmâ€™s can be a challenging event. Even worse, if the fuge is located in someplace like the basement the pump needs to have a high pumping head. High head translates to high sheer forces in the pumps volute that can further damage sensitive organisms.

I like to limit flow in a fuge to 1-3 volumes per hour. Some people even use less and Iâ€™ve heard some with like a full day cycle. To me that is a bit too much. If standard powerheads are used to pump from the fuge to the tank it is often necessary to place a throttling valve on the discharge of the pump making sheer forces worse. Note to avoid damage to a centrifugal pump always throttle at the discharge not the intake. Using an electronic controlled, variable speed pump helps here but such pumps cost three to five time the price of a standard, fixed speed pump.

One of the drawbacks of a HOB fuge is lighting. It is often hard to get good lighting over such a small area. Power compacts are a good choice in such a case. Reverse photoperiods are often used on sumps. That is, the fuge is illuminated when the main tank is off. The theory here is that at night the algae in the main tank release carbon dioxide lowering pH and oxygen levels. By illuminating the fuge at night it is hoped that the algae in the fuge will absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen thereby limiting the pH swings. It is a nice theory but unless you have a very large fuge it probably doesn't work all that well. Most HOB designs are too small to make much difference. Rather than taking pains to isolate it from the tank lights I'd just illuminate both at the same time.

Another method of setting up a fuge is to have it placed above the main tank. In this fashion is can be fed from the main tank and an overflow box be used for return flow. This is a very good design if you can manage it.

Last we have the in-sump fuge. This is probably the worst method. Yes, baffles can slow the water flow but one of the ideas of the sump is to provide an area for mechanical and chemical filters. One of the main foods of the fuge's critters are small particulates and DOM (dissolve organic matter). It is really hard to design an in-sump fuge that allows these materials to accumulate. Also, we run into the problem of again needing to subject our "bugs" to high pump velocity and heads.

I have an appointment for lunch so I'll finish this part on refugia up tomorrow.

You all have a good day.

franning · #**168** 02/18/2004, 12:23 PM

thanks waterkeeper. By any chance do you know where I can get a nice ready sump and refugia? Anybody. Also I am planning on having my sump by basement any idea how I can accomplish these?

Good Article for newbie like me.... :-)

WaterKeeper · #**169** 02/19/2004, 02:23 PM

Well thanks franning,

Since so many reefers that follow my advice soon leave the hobby, you can try E-bay for a bargin.

Alot of the RC sponser have ready made sumps/fuges. Check those out as well as the Trading Forums on RC.

I am looking in to someone who provides airlift pumps that can handle those long lifts without overly stressing the organisms.

Bergtril · #**170** 02/24/2004, 03:34 PM

Thanks for the info Tom,

So far it's been very informative reading and is coming in handy as i go about cycling and setting up my new tank. Now it's a test of my patience not to rush things!

Thanks for the info. This is valuable stuff for a lot of people.

Barry

tigerwolf · #**171** 02/24/2004, 11:57 PM

Waterkeeper,

Something I was just thinking of that might be good to cover as well. I was going to post it in another forum, but I think this one would be best suited.

What are the necessary preperation steps to take in case of a power outage?

And if the power outage should occur, what's the best way to keep everything alive & well, if you don't have another tank you can transport the critters to?

As I'm making the preperations for my own tank, I figure this is some good information to get ahold of, and make ready for in the unlikely event this happens.

Better safe, than sorry.

bheron · #**172** 02/25/2004, 11:29 AM