Dipping Into The Salty Side
- Thread starter Boundava
- Start date
Got some new photos.
Lol, silly looking strawberry/tiger conch. Look at his eyeballs...
Jawbreaker, my red head goby
Lemonhead, my yellow clown goby
Sparkie, my possum wrasse (sorry bad photos, s/he is still shy)
Scooter, my Hawke fish (the invert eater). He gives no shits...
Gonzo, my Linear blenny, also gives no shits. These two are the bosses of the tank
Now the corals.
First the 3 new leather corals, sorry I don't know the names.
My anemone are, she is right next to the leather which started a shed. See the awful aptasia in the sand to the right? Yuck!
The older corals..
Green mushroom colony
Clove polyp colony (came with 2 Kenyan tree coral polyps)
Just for comparison, Sister's 13 gallon Fluval EVO with a Kenyan Tree she got as a 2" frag. Now it's making frags all over her tank.
Lol, silly looking strawberry/tiger conch. Look at his eyeballs...
Jawbreaker, my red head goby
Lemonhead, my yellow clown goby
Sparkie, my possum wrasse (sorry bad photos, s/he is still shy)
Scooter, my Hawke fish (the invert eater). He gives no shits...
Gonzo, my Linear blenny, also gives no shits. These two are the bosses of the tank
Now the corals.
First the 3 new leather corals, sorry I don't know the names.
My anemone are, she is right next to the leather which started a shed. See the awful aptasia in the sand to the right? Yuck!
The older corals..
Green mushroom colony
Clove polyp colony (came with 2 Kenyan tree coral polyps)
Just for comparison, Sister's 13 gallon Fluval EVO with a Kenyan Tree she got as a 2" frag. Now it's making frags all over her tank.
Here is a photo of the frags in here tank
More of my older corals.
This is a Duncan, it was in Sis's tank but the pistol shrimp kept overturning it. I added another frag, it has two heads but they are closed up.
My bubble coral and her awful aptasia hitchhikers.
They are so small...
My Kryptonite
My spaghetti leather, another leather and my toadstool...
Also have a bunch of snails as clean up crew. I know of 1 bristle worm (yuk) and when I pulled the lobo coral out of the tank I also killed a brittle sea star I had no clue was on the coral. I am hoping there are more as the also clean detritus.
I cannot have any shrimp or crabs as Scooter my Hawke fish will make short work of them by eating them.
So long as nothing happens, the fish numbers won't change. Can't promise about the coral, there is some room for frags on my rock if I see something I like.
I may place another purchase for some additional Berghia if I don't see some improvement (but with the aptasia being so hard to see, there may already be improvement).
More of my older corals.
This is a Duncan, it was in Sis's tank but the pistol shrimp kept overturning it. I added another frag, it has two heads but they are closed up.
My bubble coral and her awful aptasia hitchhikers.
They are so small...
My Kryptonite
My spaghetti leather, another leather and my toadstool...
Also have a bunch of snails as clean up crew. I know of 1 bristle worm (yuk) and when I pulled the lobo coral out of the tank I also killed a brittle sea star I had no clue was on the coral. I am hoping there are more as the also clean detritus.
I cannot have any shrimp or crabs as Scooter my Hawke fish will make short work of them by eating them.
So long as nothing happens, the fish numbers won't change. Can't promise about the coral, there is some room for frags on my rock if I see something I like.
I may place another purchase for some additional Berghia if I don't see some improvement (but with the aptasia being so hard to see, there may already be improvement).
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I lost 2 more fish, my possum wrasse Sparky and my yellow clown goby Lemonhead. Am 99% sure it's the aptasia paralyzing them as Sunday I shut my circulation pumps off to help Lemonhead who was coasting as he could barely breathe but not really swim or move otherwise.
My blenny, the Hawke and the other goby are OK but I feel it is only a matter of time before the aptasia I can't find does the same to them.
Sis has a 38gallpn she will be upgrading her Fluval EVO and I told her just to take my corals and live rock (after the aptasia is resolved, I can't afford to deal with more death financially and otherwise-it disheartening).
My blenny, the Hawke and the other goby are OK but I feel it is only a matter of time before the aptasia I can't find does the same to them.
Sis has a 38gallpn she will be upgrading her Fluval EVO and I told her just to take my corals and live rock (after the aptasia is resolved, I can't afford to deal with more death financially and otherwise-it disheartening).
So finally discovered the murderer in the tank...Animal- my spiny purple lobster. I though the prior hawkfish killed him, but I was wrong.
A little over 2" of death. Waiting for sleepy fish to consume overnight. He ate probably $500 worth of fish. They would be swimming alive and the just gone the next day. Lost 2 blenny, a hawkfish, 4 goby, a possum wrasse and an orange honey damselfish.
Dropped him off as a freebie to a not so local fish store. Added a digger goby, a jester goby and a male/female carpenter wrasse. Unfortunately it seems my new hawkfish didn't like the tiny jester goby as he was gone the next day, though I am hoping he is just so small he is hiding in the tank. The larger banded sleeper goby (labeled dragon goby) died overnight (???) but with the lobster gone we actually saw his body. I went out to explore Madison WI yesterday and picked up a striped fang blenny for the tank. The hawk, wrasse pair and blenny will move to the 38 gallon when we set it up. The clown fish and the N. depressifrons will move into the 20L hopefully with a smaller blenny and red capped goby. Would like to get 2 more N. depressifrons, but they are hard to find. May also add another clown to the 20L once the 38 is up.
A little over 2" of death. Waiting for sleepy fish to consume overnight. He ate probably $500 worth of fish. They would be swimming alive and the just gone the next day. Lost 2 blenny, a hawkfish, 4 goby, a possum wrasse and an orange honey damselfish.
Dropped him off as a freebie to a not so local fish store. Added a digger goby, a jester goby and a male/female carpenter wrasse. Unfortunately it seems my new hawkfish didn't like the tiny jester goby as he was gone the next day, though I am hoping he is just so small he is hiding in the tank. The larger banded sleeper goby (labeled dragon goby) died overnight (???) but with the lobster gone we actually saw his body. I went out to explore Madison WI yesterday and picked up a striped fang blenny for the tank. The hawk, wrasse pair and blenny will move to the 38 gallon when we set it up. The clown fish and the N. depressifrons will move into the 20L hopefully with a smaller blenny and red capped goby. Would like to get 2 more N. depressifrons, but they are hard to find. May also add another clown to the 20L once the 38 is up.
So I have been hinting at the fact that we were going to be merging some fish and corals from the 13 gallon in the 20 gallon into our new 38 gallon. Well I went ahead and started that yesterday. Now to preface this, I have had freshwater tanks for many many years, over 25 years just under 30 years. I have merged many of a freshwater tank into a larger freshwater tank with no problems to the plants to the inverts and to the fish. Saltwater is a whole other creature, species, world, Galaxy?
So mistakes were made, corals were harmed and at least one died; possibly more as two are in critical care.
There are a couple things that made this very difficult.
First, in the 13 gallon and in the 20 gallon we each had something that we wanted to remove and rehome so that meant catching them.
Second, catching those things meant pulling our live rock and some corals out of their tanks so we would be able to maneuver for the fish and dig out the pistol shrimp.
Third, we needed to put these live rocks and corals somewhere as a 38 gallon was not ready for them. As I had moved freshwater tanks many times I had a tub that I set up for the corals with a heater not thinking it through that they needed some type of water movement in their tub as well. So they were effectively sitting in heated stagnant water which is a huge no for corals. Hindsight is 20/20 right?
Fourth, we needed at least 20 gallons of salt water and I didn't have any salt at home and I didn't have any distilled water made so we decided to make a trip to our local fish store that offers saltwater by the gallon. This way we could rehome the fish and the shrimp and get the salt water at the same time. If would ever do this again, which I am not; I would have purchased the water ahead of this and not taking the time in the middle of the day to go run to the fish store for saltwater. Again hindsight is 20/20.
Fifth, six, seven, eight... Setting up the underground filter. Setting up the reverse filtration pumps. Setting up the new Fluval 307 and figuring out the tubing with the existing ultraviolet sterilization also from Fluval. The maneuvering of emptying the 20 gallon of water and going through the substrate to pull out as much bristle worms as we could (there were over 50 bristle worms of varying sizes from a quarter of an inch to almost 3", and some of them were extremely bristly. My sister said they were possibly fireworms which are supposed to be so painful that you are left in agony for a day or two) finding a heater for this tank as obviously the one from the 20 long wasn't strong enough, placing the substrate; both new and old, into the 38 and filling the tank with water a 3 gallon bucket at a time and realizing that you can't see anything right now plus it's after 8:00 at night and you are exhausted so there will be no finishing the tank tonight, no arranging the Coral in the tank, just the plop and drop so that the coral is in a tank with current and not sitting in the tub any longer. So you have to wait until the next day to arrange the tank and add the fish.
That brings us to today where we arranged the corals, got the clown fish, the blenny and the goblin fish in the tank and then had to clean up the huge mess that was made throughout this process.
For those not familiar with salt water. There is live bacteria that filters the water located within the live rocks and substrate in the tank. Now some people may argue that freshwater substrate contains a lot of bacteria more than the filter holds, but freshwater substrate is often non porous unless you are using something like Eco complete which is a volcanic rock and is porous so can house bacteria. So the substrate does not house the majority of your bacteria for freshwater tanks. Saltwater substrate can be sand but is usually crushed Coral which is porous and does hold beneficial bacteria. This is why we wanted to use as much of the substrate from the 20 long in the 38 gallon as we could. The filter for my tank is more for mechanical and chemical filtration than biological filtration. It also provides water movement in the tank, current that is much appreciated by all the life including the corals in the tank.
I am going to be adding another circulation pump to the tank for a little bit more water movement.
So mistakes were made, corals were harmed and at least one died; possibly more as two are in critical care.
There are a couple things that made this very difficult.
First, in the 13 gallon and in the 20 gallon we each had something that we wanted to remove and rehome so that meant catching them.
Second, catching those things meant pulling our live rock and some corals out of their tanks so we would be able to maneuver for the fish and dig out the pistol shrimp.
Third, we needed to put these live rocks and corals somewhere as a 38 gallon was not ready for them. As I had moved freshwater tanks many times I had a tub that I set up for the corals with a heater not thinking it through that they needed some type of water movement in their tub as well. So they were effectively sitting in heated stagnant water which is a huge no for corals. Hindsight is 20/20 right?
Fourth, we needed at least 20 gallons of salt water and I didn't have any salt at home and I didn't have any distilled water made so we decided to make a trip to our local fish store that offers saltwater by the gallon. This way we could rehome the fish and the shrimp and get the salt water at the same time. If would ever do this again, which I am not; I would have purchased the water ahead of this and not taking the time in the middle of the day to go run to the fish store for saltwater. Again hindsight is 20/20.
Fifth, six, seven, eight... Setting up the underground filter. Setting up the reverse filtration pumps. Setting up the new Fluval 307 and figuring out the tubing with the existing ultraviolet sterilization also from Fluval. The maneuvering of emptying the 20 gallon of water and going through the substrate to pull out as much bristle worms as we could (there were over 50 bristle worms of varying sizes from a quarter of an inch to almost 3", and some of them were extremely bristly. My sister said they were possibly fireworms which are supposed to be so painful that you are left in agony for a day or two) finding a heater for this tank as obviously the one from the 20 long wasn't strong enough, placing the substrate; both new and old, into the 38 and filling the tank with water a 3 gallon bucket at a time and realizing that you can't see anything right now plus it's after 8:00 at night and you are exhausted so there will be no finishing the tank tonight, no arranging the Coral in the tank, just the plop and drop so that the coral is in a tank with current and not sitting in the tub any longer. So you have to wait until the next day to arrange the tank and add the fish.
That brings us to today where we arranged the corals, got the clown fish, the blenny and the goblin fish in the tank and then had to clean up the huge mess that was made throughout this process.
For those not familiar with salt water. There is live bacteria that filters the water located within the live rocks and substrate in the tank. Now some people may argue that freshwater substrate contains a lot of bacteria more than the filter holds, but freshwater substrate is often non porous unless you are using something like Eco complete which is a volcanic rock and is porous so can house bacteria. So the substrate does not house the majority of your bacteria for freshwater tanks. Saltwater substrate can be sand but is usually crushed Coral which is porous and does hold beneficial bacteria. This is why we wanted to use as much of the substrate from the 20 long in the 38 gallon as we could. The filter for my tank is more for mechanical and chemical filtration than biological filtration. It also provides water movement in the tank, current that is much appreciated by all the life including the corals in the tank.
I am going to be adding another circulation pump to the tank for a little bit more water movement.
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So sis and I went to aquashella this past Saturday and picked up a couple corals. I got a bubble Coral, a mushroom coral, a ricordia, and an acans.
Unfortunately one of our clownfish is picking at the bubble Coral so I may be moving it into a different saltwater tank. I really don't want to set up another saltwater tank but I also don't want to lose a coral that was over $100 to a nibbling fish.
I also found a possum wrasse at Fish Planet for a great price. He has been in the tank for almost 2 weeks now. We have named him Sherbert.
Pics are a bit hard to see with the diatoms, sorry.
Unfortunately one of our clownfish is picking at the bubble Coral so I may be moving it into a different saltwater tank. I really don't want to set up another saltwater tank but I also don't want to lose a coral that was over $100 to a nibbling fish.
I also found a possum wrasse at Fish Planet for a great price. He has been in the tank for almost 2 weeks now. We have named him Sherbert.
Pics are a bit hard to see with the diatoms, sorry.
So I have most of the pieces in place for the new tank for the bubble coral. I am just waiting on the light as well as a surge outlet/strip.
I just pulled the baffle/sump area off the Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon as it wasn't working well for my sister, and I have read a lot of reviews from others about its poor design. Makes the tank bigger and I am using a Marineland Penguin 200, which has a 200 gph flow for current in the tank and some minor filtration. The filtration in the tank will be done mainly by the live rock I have in there and the bacteria that will grow in the substrate. I have the bubble coral from Aquashella and another I just got the other day. Along with the bubble coral the tank will house a scorpion leaf fish and an anemone. I will also add a snail clean up crew and hope the leaf fish will ignore the snails. The tank is currently foggy with the sand, I got the Carib-Sea fuji pink and it will take a few hours to clean up.
You can see the silicone on the tank and the black baffle I pulled off.
Cleaned up nicely. The silicone on the bottom will be covered with sand so I didn't bother to remove it.
The rock on the left is the live rock, the white one on the right will eventually become a host for bacteria, copepods and other fun critters. Not sure if this will be the final setup as the corals will be going in here too and they are about as wide as the white rock.
The green coral in the back is the one from Aquashella, The one in front is a cat's eye bubble that I have been looking at for almost 2 months at Fish Planet, The coral directly in front of the cat's eye is a lobo that I got for a steal. When the bubble move out tomorrow the lobo will go about where the green bubble is sitting. Apologies for the tank, its going through its ugly phase. The diatoms should go away eventually...
the lobo!
I just pulled the baffle/sump area off the Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon as it wasn't working well for my sister, and I have read a lot of reviews from others about its poor design. Makes the tank bigger and I am using a Marineland Penguin 200, which has a 200 gph flow for current in the tank and some minor filtration. The filtration in the tank will be done mainly by the live rock I have in there and the bacteria that will grow in the substrate. I have the bubble coral from Aquashella and another I just got the other day. Along with the bubble coral the tank will house a scorpion leaf fish and an anemone. I will also add a snail clean up crew and hope the leaf fish will ignore the snails. The tank is currently foggy with the sand, I got the Carib-Sea fuji pink and it will take a few hours to clean up.
You can see the silicone on the tank and the black baffle I pulled off.
Cleaned up nicely. The silicone on the bottom will be covered with sand so I didn't bother to remove it.
The rock on the left is the live rock, the white one on the right will eventually become a host for bacteria, copepods and other fun critters. Not sure if this will be the final setup as the corals will be going in here too and they are about as wide as the white rock.
The green coral in the back is the one from Aquashella, The one in front is a cat's eye bubble that I have been looking at for almost 2 months at Fish Planet, The coral directly in front of the cat's eye is a lobo that I got for a steal. When the bubble move out tomorrow the lobo will go about where the green bubble is sitting. Apologies for the tank, its going through its ugly phase. The diatoms should go away eventually...
the lobo!
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So the tank cleared up really nicely and I decided to move the bubble corals over. I'm going to be going and getting the leaf fish shortly.
There's a light that's going to be coming today sometime before 10:00 pm but the location has a lot of sun and my prior tank (the 20 L) really enjoyed the location with all the Sun from both sets of windows so it should be okay for today.
So the smaller bubble Coral is fighting a bit of algae. I have the leaf fish in the tank, his? name is Chestnut.
I just added 3 cherith snails to help with the diatoms and hopefully algae. I had some heaters in my spare parts bin but the two I tried were DOA. I ordered one through saltwater aquarium but it won't be here till Friday. I just can't believe it's taking them over a week to ship this UPS. So what I'm probably going to do is go to fish planet or I saw the heater for a bit more but the tank really needs a heater so I'm just going to deal with the extra cost.
There's Chestnut. He likes to look out the window. Sometimes I'll go to the other side of the tank and look at the 38.
There's my two bubble corals you can see the one in the front but the algae. I just fed them both some reef roids which is why there's mucus.
The 38 gallon has been dealing with a diatom explosion. I think I know why and I just recently did a cleaning and a 10 gallon water change as well as cleaning the filter out. I'm hoping that it's going to help lessen the diatoms. I also got some Cerith snails from saltwater aquarium. Their site said that they eat diatoms as well as other algae and are good sand sifters. So I got 10 of them and I added three to the 13 gallon and the remainder to the 38 since it recommends one snail per 5 gallons. They have yet to come out of their shells so I can't say that they're doing anything right now other than getting out of their shock of shipment.
I just added 3 cherith snails to help with the diatoms and hopefully algae. I had some heaters in my spare parts bin but the two I tried were DOA. I ordered one through saltwater aquarium but it won't be here till Friday. I just can't believe it's taking them over a week to ship this UPS. So what I'm probably going to do is go to fish planet or I saw the heater for a bit more but the tank really needs a heater so I'm just going to deal with the extra cost.
There's Chestnut. He likes to look out the window. Sometimes I'll go to the other side of the tank and look at the 38.
There's my two bubble corals you can see the one in the front but the algae. I just fed them both some reef roids which is why there's mucus.
The 38 gallon has been dealing with a diatom explosion. I think I know why and I just recently did a cleaning and a 10 gallon water change as well as cleaning the filter out. I'm hoping that it's going to help lessen the diatoms. I also got some Cerith snails from saltwater aquarium. Their site said that they eat diatoms as well as other algae and are good sand sifters. So I got 10 of them and I added three to the 13 gallon and the remainder to the 38 since it recommends one snail per 5 gallons. They have yet to come out of their shells so I can't say that they're doing anything right now other than getting out of their shock of shipment.
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