Any tips?

[lbagnall]

Hi, I’ve just joined this site as I’ve found forums useful on google searches for my fish and would like to learn more to keep them happy!
Would love if anyone can give tips as my family are new to the hobby, we’ve had our saltwater tank for about 7 months now and have faced some challenges already

 

[Crustaceon]

Invest in quality source water, whether it comes from your local fish store or reverse osmosis system. Test your water parameters and do a 5-10% volume water change weekly. It helps to siphon sand and clean filter foam/replace filter socks while you’re at it. Feed responsibly. For reference, I have eight active fish and they get a single cube of frozen mysis shrimp
per day. They’ll always act hungry, ignore it because fish are just greedy. I also have a snowflake moray eel that get half of a frozen cocktail shrimp every three days. Keep your tank, stand and equipment clean. A dirty tank is less fun to maintain and doing a little bit each day to keep things tidy will keep you interested.

 

[fishguy242]

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here!!
lots of fun/info/fun/help/fun....
ask away that's why we are here
oh yeah..pics too we all love pic's

 

[X-37B]

Biggest tip I can give is pick the type of system you want to run along with the parameters you want to be at and strive to keep them in range.
This will produce long term results and happy reefing.

What are the challenges you have faced?

Almost forgot lol, and....

 

[lbagnall]

We get our water from the same place which we buy our fish from and use RO.
We get through maybe 2 cubes each day of shrimp with three bigger fish (blue tang, yellow tang and magnificent foxface), 7 medium sized fish, (2 different wrasses, 2 different blennies, a maroon clownfish, and two I can’t remember the species of) and 6 small chromis as well as a few shrimp and hermits)
Unfortunately we’ve already had a few fish die for different reasons though

 

[lbagnall]

Biggest tip I can give is pick the type of system you want to run along with the parameters you want to be at and strive to keep them in range.
This will produce lomg term results and happy reefing.

What are the challenges you have faced?

We’ve lost a few fish so far, a few from challenges with the net we have, and a couple within the tank, I’ve just posted another reply on this thread with the fish we have

 

[lbagnall]

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here!!
lots of fun/info/fun/help/fun....
ask away that's why we are here
oh yeah..pics too we all love pic's

Thank you! Where are the best places to post pics?

 

[X-37B]

Thank you! Where are the best places to post pics?

Right here!

 

[X-37B]

We get our water from the same place which we buy our fish from and use RO.
We get through maybe 2 cubes each day of shrimp with three bigger fish (blue tang, yellow tang and magnificent foxface), 4 medium sized fish, (2 different wrasses, 2 different blennies and two I can’t remember the species of) and 6 small chromis as well as a few shrimp)
Unfortunately we’ve already had a few fish die for different reasons though

Thats alot of fish.
I have 11 in my 120 and feed 2 cubes 3-4 times a day.

 

[lbagnall]

I’ll post a picture in the morning as a bit of a reference, as I can’t remember the size of the tank, my parents dealt with the buying of the tank, as it’s a bit of a family project

 

[Crustaceon]

I think a key thing here is most of us know exactly what are water parameters are at a given moment by regularly testing. Most fish health issues will come down to a single parameter being off. Some fish are more sensitive than others. This is a game of noticing trends and making as many small but impactful changes as possible. Keep in mind, we’re not keeping fish and corals. We’re keeping water. Get that down and everything else comes naturally.

 

[fishguy242]

Thank you! Where are the best places to post pics?

here and recommend starting a build thread for your records and others to read and jump in and help or just make friends,you get a cool badge too

 

[lbagnall]

I think a key thing here is most of us know exactly what are water parameters are at a given moment by regularly testing. Most fish health issues will come down to a single parameter being off. Some fish are more sensitive than others. This is a game of noticing trends and making as many small but impactful changes as possible. Keep in mind, we’re not keeping fish and corals. We’re keeping water. Get that down and everything else comes naturally.

That’s a great way of putting it, thanks! Anytime we’ve had issues we’ve done water tests and are working on doing them more regularly as we’ve not paid enough attention to it

 

[lbagnall]

Not great pictures because of reflections but here are some of our tank

 

[lbagnall]

I think a key thing here is most of us know exactly what are water parameters are at a given moment by regularly testing. Most fish health issues will come down to a single parameter being off. Some fish are more sensitive than others. This is a game of noticing trends and making as many small but impactful changes as possible. Keep in mind, we’re not keeping fish and corals. We’re keeping water. Get that down and everything else comes naturally.

Are there any tests which are more important than others? Could you give a list of ones we should be doing to make sure we’re doing them all?

 

[Crustaceon]

Are there any tests which are more important than others? Could you give a list of ones we should be doing to make sure we’re doing them all?

You’ll want to mainly focus on nitrates and phosphates right now, mainly for algae control purposes. If you start stocking up on stony corals, then you’ll want to add alkalinity, calcium and magnesium testing to that list as water changes alone may not maintain those levels. I think good numbers to shoot for are 10ppm nitrates and .04-.1ppm phosphates (get a hanna checker for this).

 

[Hugh Mann]

Ammonia, as it will rapidly kill fish. Looks like you have a pretty well established tank, so shouldn't be a big deal.

Nitrate, as that is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, and high nitrates can lead to water quality issues, and is a factor in Lateral Line Disease, which hippo tangs are susceptible.

Those are the only two I test for, but I run a fish only system, if you have corals, I'm sure the reef guys will add things like calcium, kalk, magnesium, all sorts of things.

I don't know if you quarantined your current fish or not, but this is my advice. Quarantine the heck out of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING wet that goes into your tank.
I lost all but 3 of my fish to Velvet, which came aboard a snail. You can set up a quarantine for very little money and takes up relatively little space and will save you so much in the future.

 

[lbagnall]

You’ll want to mainly focus on nitrates and phosphates right now, mainly for algae control purposes. If you start stocking up on stony corals, then you’ll want to add alkalinity, calcium and magnesium testing to that list as water changes alone may not maintain those levels. I think good numbers to shoot for are 10ppm nitrates and .04-.1ppm phosphates (get a hanna checker for this).

At the moment we have a test set for NO2, NO3, NH4+/NH3, PO4 and pH and kH as well as salt levels. We’ve been told nitrates, phosphate and ammonia should be as close to 0 as possible. We plan on getting calcium and magnesium testing kits as we don’t have those yet

 

[lbagnall]

Ammonia, as it will rapidly kill fish. Looks like you have a pretty well established tank, so shouldn't be a big deal.

Nitrate, as that is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, and high nitrates can lead to water quality issues, and is a factor in Lateral Line Disease, which hippo tangs are susceptible.

Those are the only two I test for, but I run a fish only system, if you have corals, I'm sure the reef guys will add things like calcium, kalk, magnesium, all sorts of things.

I don't know if you quarantined your current fish or not, but this is my advice. Quarantine the heck out of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING wet that goes into your tank.
I lost all but 3 of my fish to Velvet, which came aboard a snail. You can set up a quarantine for very little money and takes up relatively little space and will save you so much in the future.

Thanks for suggesting this, we haven’t quarantined any of our fish so far, just acclimatised then for an hour or so before going in the tank. We’ll have a chat to the guy at our fish store

 

[Crustaceon]

At the moment we have a test set for NO2, NO3, NH4+/NH3, PO4 and pH and kH as well as salt levels. We’ve been told nitrates, phosphate and ammonia should be as close to 0 as possible. We plan on getting calcium and magnesium testing kits as we don’t have those yet

Zero nitrates and phosphates is the old way of thinking and a relic from when knowledge, testing and nutrient-removal equipment wasn’t that great. In reality, once you get under 2ppm nitrates and .02ppm phosphates, you’ll start encountering issues like cyanobacteria or dinoflagellates, not to mention coral starvation.