The Journal Of A Marine Beginner

[mark7616]

Best time to go hitchhiker hunting is at night when you turnt he lights off give it 1hr and then look around the tank with a torch all kinds of life will be running around.

 

[sophos9]

my goes up and down alot, 25-28 usually but if i remeber correctly AK has ssaid in a previous post that hishas gone to 30, hard to control temps in the summer! so 27-31 i think should be okay since theres no fish n what not in there anyways.

Thats good, what about when I do have fish in there?

Best time to go hitchhiker hunting is at night when you turnt he lights off give it 1hr and then look around the tank with a torch all kinds of life will be running around.

I've had a poke around and have seen no hitch-hikers at all... Does this mean anything?

 

[shibby]

with fish in there i suppose it still dosent make to much of a dif as long as its not high enough to fry them! mines up and down like a yoyo with the freak wether weve been having lately! fish seem fine with it though!


and if youve not seen any hitchhikers just means there good at hide n seek your probably start to noticing fast movements out of the corner of ur eye soon enough!

 

[JoeDaPro]

Looks good

 

[sophos9]

with fish in there i suppose it still dosent make to much of a dif as long as its not high enough to fry them! mines up and down like a yoyo with the freak wether weve been having lately! fish seem fine with it though!

Been monitoring the temp, it seems to hang around 29 going up to 31 near the end of the lighting period. Cannot afford a chiller so will setup some evaporative cooling.

and if youve not seen any hitchhikers just means there good at hide n seek your probably start to noticing fast movements out of the corner of ur eye soon enough!

Lol - I hope so, keep looking and dont see anything!!

Looks good

Hi mate, thanks! Been reading your journal with interest!

 

[shibby]

your see sumin soon all i got on mine was a few mini snails, varity of feather dusters and a damn aiptastia, i didnt spot any for a first few dayss! i can for ages without seeing my big turbos and CB sometimes though, for big things they sure are good at hiding !

 

[sophos9]

Latest update....

Ok, nitrites have dropped heavily after the first day, currently at a generous 0.1ppm. Will do the first 10% water change tomorrow...

Have noticed that the expected brown diatoms algae has started to form on the rock, this is good and best of all, I've noticed on a couple of the rocks green shoots starting to appear, any idea on what these are?

I fully expect nitrites to be at 0ppm today, when I test on Sunday and if the result is 0ppm, should be good to get some snails/crabs in there?

 

[mark7616]

Latest update....

Ok, nitrites have dropped heavily after the first day, currently at a generous 0.1ppm. Will do the first 10% water change tomorrow...

Have noticed that the expected brown diatoms algae has started to form on the rock, this is good and best of all, I've noticed on a couple of the rocks green shoots starting to appear, any idea on what these are?

I fully expect nitrites to be at 0ppm today, when I test on Sunday and if the result is 0ppm, should be good to get some snails/crabs in there?

I would say that the green shoots are hair algea. Not calling you stupid but are you reading your test kit properly I only ask as my nitrites were on 0.01 for ages then I realised I was looking through the side of the beaker and I was meant to be looking from above. I would say add your CUC but dont add shrimp as these are very sensitive mayber a pair of clowns if your keeping them thats what I did.

 

[sophos9]

Hi mate

Without a doubt I'm reading them right, I've had the unfortunate experience of daily testing of my highlite tropical whilst I was running some experiments on macro/micros nutrient dosing

Hair algae, before diatoms...? I was expecting to see the diatom cycle complete before hair algae was coming? Also, these look like little shoots rather than hair algae

Cool, is keeping clowns without an anemone OK then?

 

[SkiFletch]

Cool, is keeping clowns without an anemone OK then?

Been doing it for over a year now and I've seen 10 year old pairs without one...

The shoots are likely macroalgaes.

 

[sophos9]

Been doing it for over a year now and I've seen 10 year old pairs without one...

The shoots are likely macroalgaes.

Excellent! Will see how the nitrites go...

 

[sophos9]

So over 4 days, the nitrites remained at 0, which is great! I think the 5kg additional LR made a fair bit of difference.... Nitrates test at 0 too which is excellent but sure they will rise when I start adding!

So I went to the LFS and bought 4 hermit crabs and a largish soft coral, rationale behind corals first fish later is that corals will give good indications of water quality change, first time you notice with fish is when they white spot or get ill

Brown diatoms are really kicking it which is as expected. Was a bit concerned with the temperature so today I fitted an extraction fan to assist with evaporative cooling, temp normally at this time is about 30C, today however with the new fan its sitting at 28.4C and its only been running a few hours!

Enjoy the pix...

Side view, rocks played with a little


The leather mushroom coral 2hrs after being fed Marine Snow, it opened up massivly


The daddy hermit crab...


New fan, its simple cheap but great

 

[shibby]

no more hitchhiker spotting for you then u have stuff to stare out now


liking the mushy, certainly looks a big un.

 

[sophos9]

Haha... the water params are right so why stall!!

Really good news on the temperature... each night at this time the temp has been approx 30.5C, tonight is 28C and still falling which is great, the extract is working better than expected

 

[sophos9]

This morning was 27C, I have never seen it this cool!

Anyway whilst randomly thinking about the tank I got onto thinking about dwarf hermit crabs and was unable to find an answer to this...

What happens if the crab gets its shell stuck between bits of rock and cannot get out, does it ditch its shell and go find a new one?