A Salty Update
It's been a good while since my last update, and a lot has transpired. I'll try to keep this as organized as I can.
My 96 watt Coralife light came in, and it's ultra sleek and looks amazing. At night, the 50% blue "actinic" spectrum fills the whole room with nice blue light. I have it suspended over the tank two inches with mounting legs. It's a bit of a pain to remove the light for maintenance, but the extra light is well worth it.
How about some pics?
This is my largest piece of rock, a cured chunk of Fiji dead coral. Live rock is actually the dead remains of a reef, colonized by micro and macrorganisms. They provide biological filtration as well as food for inverts and other varieties of marine life.
Only "hitchhiker" I've seen so far has been a tube worm. This morning I caught the worm extending its fan as I turned on the light. Cool, huh?
Small seashells add decor at the bottom atop the sand.
Check out the astrea snail in the middle. I currently have two of them. The rocks on the right is a piece of tonga branch, leaning against a nice, white, porous piece of Fiji again.
I'd like to talk a little about my other tanks before I continue with the saltwater.
Ich is still present in the planted tank. The fish are all alive, as are the plants, and I continue the tired old regime of Quick Cure. I'm amazed this toxic stuff hasn't killed anything yet. Good news is all the previous fish that were afflicted seem to be immune, at least on the surface. I only saw one spot today, so hopefully, in four days I can stop this nasty blue malachite green shit forever.
My banana plant sent out a leaf that is literally stretching across the tank. I could almost watch this thing grow. The plant is doing swimmingly, and it appears my 5700 k 10 watt light is more than adequate.
Ok, onto the big tank. The discus's HITH has finally been cured, thanks to frequent nitrate lowering through water changes and garlic juice rich bloodworms. The surving clown loach is tearing apart my angelfish's dorsal fin, so seeing him succumb to IP which killed my other two loaches wouldn't be such a bad thing at the time being. I believe I may not be feeding the loach enough with sinking pellets so I'm sure to drop some in every day now.
I changed 40% of the water today in the guppy tank and added some instant ocean to truly make it brackish, as well as changed the carbon. Tank looks sparkling and a few of the new guppies are exhibiting amazing colors... almost saltwater bright in the cobalt blues and pinks... I've been feeding the duller ones to the frogs and ghost knife, but I noticed today there is only one female in the first batch of fry, now juvenile guppies. Having all males would not be good especially in that small tank, when they come of age.
I also changed out half the water in my planted vase. Removed the old stalks of elodea, and everything is sparkling and bright green now. Looks great.
Ok, now back to saltwater:
I began this tank Easter sunday by adding the live rock. Several days ago I added invertebrates, which include:
5 blue legged hermit crabs
2 astrea snails
1 burrowing conical snail
1 emerald crab
Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates all appear stable. Amm. and ni. are 0, while nitrates are under 5. So far the Biowheel does not seem to be contributing to Nitrates, but we'll see as time wears on.
Here's a shot of the whole tank:
I was at one of my favorite LFS's today, a store called "Everything Fishy." I purchased the live rock there and got a good deal on my pieces. I was actually looking for orange or red fromia starfish, but the hardier, more appropriate brittle and serpent stars caught my eye (probably because they were the only starfishes available).
When I know that the tank is fully stable, I'll get a serpent star, and hell, maybe I'll get a brittle too.
Since I have so many other fish, and the options one has for nano tanks are limited, I'll most likely go with a small non-Nemo perc or a goby, hopefully with a bonded shrimp partner. I want to keep the bioload low for this tank for the future soft corals, as well as to keep things simple. Right now a colorful goby or tomato clown are looking good, but fish are at least two more weeks away until I know the system is ready.
I saw an amazing fish called a green mandarin today, and what was even more amazing was it was only $25! If you saw this thing, you would think it would go for $79.99, minimal. I did some reading and I learned these guys eat only pods, the small translucent critters that live in the live rock, and they need a mature aquarium, large, and preferably with a refugium (a separate tank with live rock just for critters and shit). That guy would have been awesome in my nano, but it never would have worked. Oh well, I still think the serpent and brittle starfish are cooler...
- J
http://joshday.com
My 96 watt Coralife light came in, and it's ultra sleek and looks amazing. At night, the 50% blue "actinic" spectrum fills the whole room with nice blue light. I have it suspended over the tank two inches with mounting legs. It's a bit of a pain to remove the light for maintenance, but the extra light is well worth it.
How about some pics?
This is my largest piece of rock, a cured chunk of Fiji dead coral. Live rock is actually the dead remains of a reef, colonized by micro and macrorganisms. They provide biological filtration as well as food for inverts and other varieties of marine life.Only "hitchhiker" I've seen so far has been a tube worm. This morning I caught the worm extending its fan as I turned on the light. Cool, huh?
Small seashells add decor at the bottom atop the sand.
Check out the astrea snail in the middle. I currently have two of them. The rocks on the right is a piece of tonga branch, leaning against a nice, white, porous piece of Fiji again.
I'd like to talk a little about my other tanks before I continue with the saltwater.
Ich is still present in the planted tank. The fish are all alive, as are the plants, and I continue the tired old regime of Quick Cure. I'm amazed this toxic stuff hasn't killed anything yet. Good news is all the previous fish that were afflicted seem to be immune, at least on the surface. I only saw one spot today, so hopefully, in four days I can stop this nasty blue malachite green shit forever.
My banana plant sent out a leaf that is literally stretching across the tank. I could almost watch this thing grow. The plant is doing swimmingly, and it appears my 5700 k 10 watt light is more than adequate.
Ok, onto the big tank. The discus's HITH has finally been cured, thanks to frequent nitrate lowering through water changes and garlic juice rich bloodworms. The surving clown loach is tearing apart my angelfish's dorsal fin, so seeing him succumb to IP which killed my other two loaches wouldn't be such a bad thing at the time being. I believe I may not be feeding the loach enough with sinking pellets so I'm sure to drop some in every day now.
I changed 40% of the water today in the guppy tank and added some instant ocean to truly make it brackish, as well as changed the carbon. Tank looks sparkling and a few of the new guppies are exhibiting amazing colors... almost saltwater bright in the cobalt blues and pinks... I've been feeding the duller ones to the frogs and ghost knife, but I noticed today there is only one female in the first batch of fry, now juvenile guppies. Having all males would not be good especially in that small tank, when they come of age.
I also changed out half the water in my planted vase. Removed the old stalks of elodea, and everything is sparkling and bright green now. Looks great.
Ok, now back to saltwater:
I began this tank Easter sunday by adding the live rock. Several days ago I added invertebrates, which include:
5 blue legged hermit crabs
2 astrea snails
1 burrowing conical snail
1 emerald crab
Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates all appear stable. Amm. and ni. are 0, while nitrates are under 5. So far the Biowheel does not seem to be contributing to Nitrates, but we'll see as time wears on.
Here's a shot of the whole tank:
I was at one of my favorite LFS's today, a store called "Everything Fishy." I purchased the live rock there and got a good deal on my pieces. I was actually looking for orange or red fromia starfish, but the hardier, more appropriate brittle and serpent stars caught my eye (probably because they were the only starfishes available).
When I know that the tank is fully stable, I'll get a serpent star, and hell, maybe I'll get a brittle too.
Since I have so many other fish, and the options one has for nano tanks are limited, I'll most likely go with a small non-Nemo perc or a goby, hopefully with a bonded shrimp partner. I want to keep the bioload low for this tank for the future soft corals, as well as to keep things simple. Right now a colorful goby or tomato clown are looking good, but fish are at least two more weeks away until I know the system is ready.
I saw an amazing fish called a green mandarin today, and what was even more amazing was it was only $25! If you saw this thing, you would think it would go for $79.99, minimal. I did some reading and I learned these guys eat only pods, the small translucent critters that live in the live rock, and they need a mature aquarium, large, and preferably with a refugium (a separate tank with live rock just for critters and shit). That guy would have been awesome in my nano, but it never would have worked. Oh well, I still think the serpent and brittle starfish are cooler...
- J
http://joshday.com
posted by Josh Day at 4:58 PM
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