New Nano Reef Start-up

[mj32]

One phone call to our very understanding LFS and the single t5 starter was exchanged for (with more ££):

1 x twin 55w t5 starter
1 x 55w 50/50 day/actinic bulb
1 x 55w daylight bulb

So ripped all the old stock lighting and ballasts out the hood and installed that lot in its place - giving a total of 110w of t5 lighting 8)

Christ that is bright.... I presume this will be enought light for some softie corals in the future, and will see how our hitchiker sacrophytons (identified by ski ) will like them.

This little tank is turning into a money pit

 

[SkiFletch]

Hah, money pit indeed

You should be able to keep just about anything in your tank with that much PC lighting

 

[mj32]

Hermit challenges the urchin. The race is on!

"Last one to the highest point in the tank get the 1st round of drinks in!"

Hermit gets to the highest point first and takes a victorious rest!

Urchin, not to be outdone reaches new heights!

They came down a hell of a lot faster than they went up

 

[demonmagus]

lol thats awesome, are urchins hard to keep? cos they look awesome

 

[sukie]

Man! I wanted a urchin - but I heard they can eat softies. . . so I opted out since I was going to keep more of a reef tank - but I the pink!!! That's hot!! B)

 

[mj32]

Man! I wanted a urchin - but I heard they can eat softies. . . so I opted out since I was going to keep more of a reef tank - but I the pink!!! That's hot!! B)

Ours has been in the tank for about 10 days - no sign of it doing anything other than eating algae from the rocks, its even been right up to the edge of the softies and gone around them leaving a little trail of clean rock!

TBH it seems to do more noticable cleaning than the 6 turbo snails...

Keeping it has been no problem so far - the only thing I was told about when buying it was to acclimatise it very very slowly and make sure it never comes in contact with the air when putting it into the tank!

 

[JJ1234567]

how do you not allow it to contact the air when putting it into the tank? did you mix their water in with yours, I thought that was a no no?

 

[bunjiweb]

only with fish, with inverts there should be no reason to mix water!

Ben

 

[JJ1234567]

you lost me bunji

 

[mj32]

how do you not allow it to contact the air when putting it into the tank? did you mix their water in with yours, I thought that was a no no?

Well, just floated the bag in the tank for 15mins - opened the top - over the course of about an hour added small amount of tank water to the bag.

then submerged the whole bag when it was full and lifted the urchin out while totaly underwater and put him/her on the substrate. maybe a very small amount of the lfs water got into the tank while doing the release - but as the tank was empty of any other livestock and we trust the shop i thought the risk was minor to ensure no air hit the urchin.

though, i'm sure someone will disagree with that

 

[demonmagus]

how come they can't get in contact with the air?

 

[mj32]

how come they can't get in contact with the air?

Don't know the why's and why nots of it - but just did as I was told, by someone with more experience than me Maybe they were over cautious - but i wasn't taking the chance of not doing it.

I think with several marine creatures the no air rule is true - i think sponges and some others.
B)

some info from liveaquaria.com

All sponges, including the Tree Sponge, require some very special care in order to survive in the home aquarium. The most critical concern is that it never be exposed to the air. If it is, the air would become trapped in the matrix of channels that line the inside of its body, blocking the path for planktonic food to reach its cells. This will result in death of the sponge.

 

[bunjiweb]

you lost me bunji

In regards to mixing water. Mixing the shop's water with your own would only be a no-no for fish if they are using copper in their fish system. If you transferred this into your tank then it could potentially kill your inverts. Most shops have a seperate invert system and fish system, so this problem would not happen if you are just reffering to corals and inverts, mixing water is only a problem with regards to fish-system water.


As for Echinoderms, starfish, urchins etc, It is generally considered that quickly exposing them to air can be bad for their health as they have a porous structure that can quickly let in air if brought out of water too quick, causing embolisms in their blood veins etc.

As for sponges it is for a completely different reason. Exposing sponges to air means that the air gets into their very pourous structure, meaning no water can get to these areas once submerged again, causing that area to die off. If exposed for too long, the entire outer of the sponge can die off, and the only way to save it is to trim the sponge of the top 5-10mm, so that water can get back to the (hopefully) still living parts of the sponge.

Ben

 

[mj32]

So we added our first fish - a pair of true perc. clowns yesterday. Just wondered on peoples thoughts on the amount and time of feeding the fish.

Last night we tried them on some of the 'Teta fresh delicia brine shrimp' - which is a sachet of brine shrimp in a nutritious vitamine rich jelly - so they say

We had this for the FW fish anyway, and both clowns ate it straight away.

Any advice on diet/feeding in a 22gal nano appreciated - don't want to nuke the tank with over feeding!

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Sounds good Look forward to pics

With feeding, i just add small amounts at a time and make sure everything is being eaten. When they stop chasing it around i add one or 2 extra pieces for nass's/hermits.