Bad info: some topics collect it

[Sk8r]

Topics those of us who advise the new-to-hobby forum try to keep up with---but sometimes the misinformation proliferates faster than we can move.

1. cycling with a fish: no. Cruel. If you have to do something proactive, drop 4-5 flakes of fish food in daily until 5 days after you first see an ammonia spike, then see it go away.

2. filters. If you are FISH-ONLY, and have the patience to clean filters often, yes: they're fine; wet-drys can work perfectly well with a fish-only. Fish tolerate a little nitrate (but not ammonia.) You can even run a nearly rockless tank, if you just maniacally keep cleaning those filters. REEFS are fussy about phosphate, nitrate, AND ammonia, and in general, to succeed as a reef, you need live rock and a sump, a skimmer (a so-so one for softies and lps, a really good one for sps), and lights (sps and crocea clams take a really intense light). In this sense, reefs are much less work than fish-onlies, because there's no filter to change.
Personally I recommend even a fish-only keep a small common mushroom or button coral rock (most fish won't eat those) and watch its behavior. If you can keep it happy and widely expanded, your fish are going to do fine. (These species of coral are pretty forgiving.) It's an early warning of water quality problems if these close up.

3. quarantine. 1. Is to protect your tank from getting a parasite loose in the rock and sand. 2. Is NOT cruel to the fish. Cruelty is putting in a new roomie carrying the Black Death. Your fish does NOT want to be plunged from a dark bag into blinding light in a strange landscape full of other fish who don't like him. He would much prefer to catch his breath in a dimly lighted, bare, total visibility place that does not have anything else moving in it. In his fishy mind, he's found a safe place. If food happens by, he's good with it. Not-eating is a problem with new fish. A safe and relaxed fish is going to feed better, recover his health, and---if he should have a parasite, it will usually show up within 2-4 weeks, giving you a chance to cure him and save his life. Yes, you'll always have somebody pop up and say, "I never quarantine and I'm fine!" This only means he's generally bought from 'clean sources' and he's been very, very lucky, sometimes for a year or so. Sooner or later he will get Typhoid Mary in a bag, and he will be very unhappy.

4. hazards: lots of things hitchhike. Worms that don't have tentacles are good. Worms that have bristles are fine. 99.99% of all worms are good. Hairy crabs are bad. Most crabs are bad---and personally, I include any crab except the mini-hermits, the decorators, the boxing crabs, and the little crabs that live their whole life in corals---most all crabs that have claws grow up to eat fish. Most all sponges are good. Even the little spionids and hordes of bristleworms are good: they're cleaning up your overfeeding and your fish poo, and if you didn't have too much food, you wouldn't have too many worms. Clicking in your rock is not good: this is a mantis or pistol. Coral Banded Shrimp eat fish. Cleaner shrimp can pick at fish in too small a tank. Peppermints are useful because they'll eat baby aiptasia, but they will nip a coral polyp or two, experimentally.

5. equipment hazards: never trust a heater: get the best. Check your temperature often, be it just touching the glass of the tank. Heaters go bad, and when they do, they can take out your tank. Pumps: many tanks cannot live more than 8 hours without the pump going. Have a reserve pump, or if that's too pricey, own a meaningful airpump, some airhose, and a diffuser, in case. DO NOT EXPOSE FISH to the bubbles of a diffuser. It can cause problems for the fish. Screen the bubbles off with egg crate if you have to use one. ATO: an autotopoff is a Very Good Idea, and they don't have to cost a mint. Use a ro/di reservoir, small pump and float switch to keep your salinity rock steady. Your critters will be so much happier. DOSING: if you don't have a test for it, don't dose it.

6. blooms: as your tank ages, you will get 'blooms' of various algaes and creatures. These are temporary. Do not get some creature to eat whatever it is, just examine your feeding methods, test your water, and ask. Algae is from an excess of phosphate; worms are from an excess of spare food; cyano is from an excess of wrong-spectrum light, either sunlight reaching your tank, or a bulb reaching the end of its useful life. [marine bulbs don't burn out, they just go bad].

That's what I think of offhand. HTH.

[sponger0]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

5. equipment hazards: never trust a heater: get the best. Check your temperature often, be it just touching the glass of the tank. Heaters go bad, and when they do, they can take out your tank. Pumps: many tanks cannot live more than 8 hours without the pump going. Have a reserve pump, or if that's too pricey, own a meaningful airpump, some airhose, and a diffuser, in case. DO NOT EXPOSE FISH to the bubbles of a diffuser. It can cause problems for the fish. Screen the bubbles off with egg crate if you have to use one. ATO: an autotopoff is a Very Good Idea, and they don't have to cost a mint. Use a ro/di reservoir, small pump and float switch to keep your salinity rock steady. Your critters will be so much happier. DOSING: if you don't have a test for it, don't dose it.

That's what I think of offhand. HTH.

I wanted to add to this section cause of the comment made about a tank not being able to survive 8 hours without a pump going. Sorry Sk9r but this saved my tank. I live on the east coast and we were suppose to get hit pretty hard by hurricane Irene. Fortunately it wasnt much more than a long heavy rainstorm. But my power did go out and I did make sure I was prepared for my tank. If you need an alternate source to have a pump running and you can be home, you can do what I did. I used a dc to ac converter for my car and ran my pumps and heater off of it. It was a pain cause I had to restart my car alot. But after a day and a half without power, I had no casualties and lost no live stock. I am thankful I was able to get my hands on one. I was even able to run 2 actinic bulbs off of it to make sure my corals werent completely left in the dark.

[Annetje]

Dear Mister Sk8r!

What a fantastic thread.

I sincerely hope that your information proliferates faster than anyone can think.

[thebkramer]

Originally Posted by Annetje

Dear Mister Sk8r!

What a fantastic thread.

I sincerely hope that your information proliferates faster than anyone can think.

Mr Sk8r is acutally a Mrs (Miss?)

but I totally agree!!! She always posts amazing info!!!
if you get the chance (and I recommend to all) go to her profile page and click statistics and read all threads started by her
also take a look at her blogs!! lots of great info in there too!!!!

[rayn]

Useful and informative as always!

[aleonn]

Originally Posted by thebkramer

Mr Sk8r is acutally a Mrs (Miss?)

but I totally agree!!! She always posts amazing info!!!
if you get the chance (and I recommend to all) go to her profile page and click statistics and read all threads started by her
also take a look at her blogs!! lots of great info in there too!!!!

All this time, I didn't know either

Great info as always. The recent storms on the East Coast, as well as the black out in Southern CA have inspired me to get a battery backup for my Vortech pumps. I already had the battery-operated air pumps that automatically turned on during a blackout, but wanted more peace of mind.

[cloak]

#1. Cycling a tank with a fish might be cruel, but what about all the other life on/within those "live rocks" we use? Don't they count? If stones are cast, make sure to cover all the bases first.

[sporto0]

#2 Filtration. Quite a bit of generalization & personal opinion. There are plenty of successful SPS frag tanks that are maintained without Live Rock as the main filtration method & very little effort invovled with upkeep.

[Annetje]

Originally Posted by thebkramer

Mr Sk8r is acutally a Mrs (Miss?)

but I totally agree!!! She always posts amazing info!!!
if you get the chance (and I recommend to all) go to her profile page and click statistics and read all threads started by her
also take a look at her blogs!! lots of great info in there too!!!!

Dear Mrs (Miss?) Sk8r,

I sincerely apologize for assuming that you are a Mr.

It's nice to know that it isn't a complete men's world.

[Annetje]

Originally Posted by cloak

#1. Cycling a tank with a fish might be cruel, but what about all the other life on/within those "live rocks" we use? Don't they count? If stones are cast, make sure to cover all the bases first.

I completely agree with you. In my humble opinion you should treat live rock with the utmost care. Indeed, surround them with as much care as if they are corals or fish. Frequent water changes when ammonia and nitrite etc are measurable. KH, Ca and Mag should be appropriate etc etc.
And "live rock" should get enough time to develop to its potential.
Patience is the best ingredient in your tank.

[A_Z]

hello thanks for this informative thread.

I have one question about diffusers, you mean airstones connected to an air pump correct?

we can't have them in the tank itself?

[cloak]

Originally Posted by A_Z

hello thanks for this informative thread.

I have one question about diffusers, you mean airstones connected to an air pump correct?

we can't have them in the tank itself?

You can, but there more trouble than there worth IMO. (salt creep) What they do provide can be accomplised with powerheads alone. Here's a good article.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/4/beginner

[thebkramer]

I'm wondering if A_Z is referring to while the power is out???

[cloak]

A battery operated air stone is a "life saver" if the power is out. No doubt...

[snorvich]

For power outages: a full house generator, a partial house generator for circulation, a battery operated powerhead, a battery operated airstone. In order of expense and also in decreasing order of cost.

[Sk8r]

Lol---thanks all; I am female; the skating is 'figure', [yes, I still can] and I've had a tank [with small interludes] since 1946, starting with zebra danios and an aeneas catfish, so if there's been a method or type of tank, I've seen a lot of it come and go.

and thanks, too, for the addenda. The ultimate is a generator. The fallback is a converter, a bubble-stone (diffuser) ---and in a pinch, every 30 minutes, take a pitcher, climb on a chair, dip up water and pour it into your tank for 5-10 minutes. It can keep fish alive, hard as it is on the owner; and I've done it. Of course---one REAL good defense is not stocking the tank to the limit. Leave some wiggle-room and it will help you if the power goes out. You can also, in a major pinch, bucket your fish and corals and drive to an area that has power, live in a motel, and plug in a bubbler. I have done that on a crosscountry move, with a fish load including a piranha---(cadging raw meat from the restaurant was an interesting explanation.)

Re the point about live rock, Cloak, well taken: it's why I recommend, unless you can buy someone's live rock/tank setup, get as little live rock as possible, and do the rest of your structure with dry holey limestone: it's kinder to the world's reefs. This will, within 12 weeks of cycle, become a nicely live rock structure. You put your 'good' rock atop the pile. And all the critters on it will spread. It's why I like the 'fishfood' method of cycling. I was fortunate enough to buy rock from a breakdown , ie, someone upgraded and got new rock---I found out why, later: the caulerpa roots in the live rock, my bane to this day: but it also brought in 50 identifiable species that survived the cycle, which included even a bit of bubble coral, a stony. You do not have to create a toxic soup to cycle. Just bring everything live but your skimmer, and warm it up, treat it gently, get its day/night schedule going, and expect life to spread.

[A_Z]

Originally Posted by cloak

You can, but there more trouble than there worth IMO. (salt creep) What they do provide can be accomplised with powerheads alone. Here's a good article.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/4/beginner

Thanks, coming from freshwater I am used to having an airstone in the tank making bubbles.

My main concern in oxygen, my tank will have an open sump and return pumps and two powerheads on each side of the tank with a mesh top and canopy.

sufficient to oxygenate the water? I like redundancy of airstones though.

Originally Posted by thebkramer

I'm wondering if A_Z is referring to while the power is out???

Sorry I meant all the time an air stone in the tank. But yes I also plan to have a battery backup just in case.

[Lynnmw1208]

great thread once again sk8r! I just want to add one thing to the peppermint comment... They CAN and WILL eat LPS coral! Not experimentally always. I had mine eat half my pink hammer over night. Needless to say, they are in the sump dungeon now. They did take care of my aiptasia nicely as I haven't seen one in 3 months!! BUT watch them like a hawk!!! you can feed them all day and they're still hungry. and yes I am certain they are not camels

[AquaReeferMan]

Originally Posted by cloak

#1. Cycling a tank with a fish might be cruel, but what about all the other life on/within those "live rocks" we use? Don't they count? If stones are cast, make sure to cover all the bases first.

Once you get live rock from a store most of the die off has already taken place. So there isnt much you can do about that. Putting a fish in an ammonia pit strickly falls on the hobbyist. You very rarely see any "good quality" live rock anymore.

[Sk8r]

Some lfs's also just add limestone to a bin and leave it for a few months: by then it's live rock, though it's not been in an ocean for, oh, 25 million years.

[cloak]

Originally Posted by AquaReeferMan

Once you get live rock from a store most of the die off has already taken place. So there isnt much you can do about that. Putting a fish in an ammonia pit strickly falls on the hobbyist. You very rarely see any "good quality" live rock anymore.

It's not necessarily what you see, it's what you don't see that qualifies "live rock" from rock IMO. (this can be bad sometimes) I have no idea where my bristleworms go...

[schatzi]

Thanks for the great info!

[Sk8r]

Let me add one thing easily overlooked: when you add a specimen rock, you're adding really high quality live rock. You'll also be adding life from whatever region of the ocean that rock came from. I've had a lot of post-setup arrivals: limpets are one. I have not a clue where-from. I hadn't added a specimen in a year. And all of a sudden I'm hip deep in limpets. So your tank will grow more diverse as time passes: there are things arriving that you can't see; and a really old reef will get larger, both from old skeleton (my hammer coral is on it's mteenth 'layer', though I've fragged out some 5-6" pieces) that is now enlivened, though abandoned by the coral which is now working on a new level---and it will grow from pieces of rock, even tiny ones, which came in carrying more life. Old tanks are interesting to watch with a flashlight.

[peppie]

Again Sk8r,

You should write a book in your easy to read/understand manner.
I would buy it

Thanks, always a good read


Peppie