My Nano Reef Set-up/diary (upgraded 45g) Step-by-step

I checked my water params for nitrates yesterday and both my QT and my display tank shoed a nitrate reading of 5.0ppm which I beleive to be good.

Anyways I went out and bought myself another clownfish approx same size as the one I have already but rather than put it straight into my main tank, Ive added it to my QT tank so check for any signs of illness and stress etc.

Ive been watching it today, it seems to have no probs with thegreen chromis and so seem to be ok with each other, howver when I put a few flakes in there, the chromis started eating straight way whereas the Clownfish didnt even bother to look at them, instead it continues to circle over around the top of the tank often with its top fin out of the water, just keeps going round and round in circles. There is no rapis gill movement or any other physical sign of disease etc.

Does anybody know what this might me... just initial stress from being put in the tank??

I just finshed carrying out a 20% water change in my QT tank and a 10% water change in my main tank.

But the clownfish in my QT tank is still circling around the top of the tank non-stop???

Im no expert in marine, but i keep lots of freshwater fish and this is a common behaviour amongst new additions. It's probably the same thing. I would recommend killing the lights for a few hours after adding new fish. He's probably just trying to get his bearings!

yea think he should be fine , just give him time. also try some brine to see if he will have ago at that. i must say though when ever a new fish get droped into my tanks i dont feed any of them that day, or the next morning. then by the night time i will give them some food. most of the time the new fish will pop up and take some then.

rob

Yea thanks for that guys, I thought as much as I have had similar situations in my FW tanks in the past but thought I'd double check if it is the same in the marine world!

Juts hope the new Clown gets on with my other when I finally add it to my main display tank!

Clowns can be hard work to get eating, Ive had issues with all of mine when first introduced. Best way to go is live food, get some brine shrimp to hatch and add them twice a day, it wil get his digestion moving again and chasing them will also give him something else to think about too BIG C on here used to sell the eggs. Also he will stop eating again when you moving him to the main tank, mine did
Personaly I never quarantined anything and had no problems what so ever. I think the main risk is when you add the larger fish such as tangs that are prone to Ich and some wrasse can also be a bit tricky, but for the common hardy fish as long as tank conditions are good and all other inhabitants are well I dont bother. As for the filter in your QT tank, I would ditch the sponge and use some live rock with some disposable filter wool wrapped round it. Nitrates can build over time on sponge and cause issues. You can throw the filter wool away everytime you clean it out and the rock rubble will hold the bacteria. Just a thought

I added 2 black and white occelaris clowns yesterday and they ate the flakes i gave them straight away and they even tried brine and mysis.

Will

Quite wound up today, I went to my LFS to get a some RO water (still aint got and RO unit yet!) after work and they had had a blumin flood and run out! So the guy reccommended another garden centre about 10miles away so I drove all the water down and got stuck in rush hour traffic for about 45mins and they shut the gates on me just as I went to pull up outside!!!!

So SG has gone up to 1.025 in my main tank and I aint got no RO water to top up! Will be even higher by the time I do get some RO water after work tommorow evening! Not happy... Hope my little nemo and my corals dont get too stressed out by this rise in SG!

littleme1969 said:

Clowns can be hard work to get eating, Ive had issues with all of mine when first introduced. Best way to go is live food, get some brine shrimp to hatch and add them twice a day, it wil get his digestion moving again and chasing them will also give him something else to think about too BIG C on here used to sell the eggs. Also he will stop eating again when you moving him to the main tank, mine did
Personaly I never quarantined anything and had no problems what so ever. I think the main risk is when you add the larger fish such as tangs that are prone to Ich and some wrasse can also be a bit tricky, but for the common hardy fish as long as tank conditions are good and all other inhabitants are well I dont bother. As for the filter in your QT tank, I would ditch the sponge and use some live rock with some disposable filter wool wrapped round it. Nitrates can build over time on sponge and cause issues. You can throw the filter wool away everytime you clean it out and the rock rubble will hold the bacteria. Just a thought

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By the way thanks for your reply Littleme, at least I know I aint the only one who has had trouble with getting my clownfish to eat! Gona try to feed some frozen marine mix in a minute to see is it eats! Hope so

Well I didnt really want to risk having an ich outbreak or other so thought it would be wise to moniter all my new fish for a few weeks to make sure they are ok before adding to my main display tank! Will get some LR for my QT tank some time soon when I get the chance!

Still no luck, I just tried feeding the clownfish in my QT tank, but it just wernt having it. The green chromis however is quite a greedy eater and so is the clownfish in my reef tank. Both will actually come to the top of the water and feed directly from the pipette I use to feed them with!

I'm sure the new clownfish had a few of the tiniest pieces of food to eat however as its mouth was moving as if eating when the food was added to the tank but I did not see it eat any of the large® pieces of food! Really hope it starts to eat soon as im starting to get a bit concerned!

On a positive note however I saw my Serpant Star earlier, its the first time Ive seen it entirely since adding it to the tank (occassionaly I will see an odd striped tentacle/leg from behind one of the rocks but today it actaully came out in the open and decided to take a "walk" across the front of the tank to the opposite end!

I manged to get a pic in time, I was surprised at how fast it can actually move as I always thought of it as being like a sloth of the marine world!

Tried feeding clownfish again today and it still aint accepting no food. Instead it still keeps swimming around at quite a fast pace in the upper layer of the tank in circles all around the internal parimmeter! Its swimming in more of a diaganel angle (approx 45degrees) with its mouth occassionally out of the water?!!

Lighting for tank is very varied as haven't got a timer for the lights yet so I turn them on when I get home from work att approx 5 and turn off about 10. Through out the day however the tank does receive a lot of natural daylight through the windown along with light from my illuminaire on my main tank which is situated near the QT tank.

Params for QT tank are:

• 
  [*]Temp: 27 Degrees C
  
  [*]SG: 1.023
  
  [*]pH: 7.8
  
  [*]Ammonia: 0ppm
  
  [*]Nitrite: 0ppm
  
  [*]Nitrate: Between 5-10ppm

Everything seems normal, not sure if the nitrates might be too high which might be causing the clownfish to not eat??!!

PS. Managed to get 5gallon RO water today so finally topped up my display tank.

By the way Ive been noticing quite abit of salt creep on the bottom plastic trim on the outside base of my fish tank in the last couple of days. This is quite thick salt matter around the top of the base trim on both the front and the right hand side, but nowhere else on the tank?

I find this quite unusual as there are no water marks on anywhere on the front/sides of the glass from where the water may have overspilled/trickled down?!!! Also I wipe it off everytime it builds up but then by morning/evening it always re-appears?!

Is is just me or is this unusual or am I just being paranoid? Has anybody else ever noticed this problem on their tanks?

Thick Salt Creep on top of trim on front of tank:



Salt Creep on top of trim of right hand side of tank:

I get it all the time in the gaps between the hood of the juwel tank and the flap which you can lift up.

Will

fiskkeeperpro said:

I get it all the time in the gaps between the hood of the juwel tank and the flap which you can lift up.

Will

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Yea but thats understandable as it is caused by tiny air bubbles in the water popping and tiny drops of salt water being "spat" upwards. So when the water evaporates, the salt is left behind causing salt creep on whatever the water hit! I often get the same on my overhead illuminaire!

My situation however is diffrent and as there is no way for the water to get to the bottom of the trims without leaving "drip lines/marks" on the walls! Im quite sure I have got a small leak or unseen crack somewhere!

I really hope I'm wrong but I have a bad feeling about this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ive ordered myself some octozin treatment as its been suggested that my clownfish in th QT tank may have an internal parasite infection and this may be the reason its acting odd and not eating!

Hopefully I'll see some +ve results!