How I would start a new tank

[Anemone_Fanatic]

You hit the nail on the head here! Have you noticed that everyone who loves dry rock is trying to sell it? All the hobbyists on the forum defending dry rock as the only rock in the tank are probably growing hair algae long enough to compete at the state fair and have gone through 20 corals in the last 3 months. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but I've yet to see a really nice tank started with only dry.

They also love to talk about how you just need to be patient and wait a year for your tank to stop looking like the surface of the moon. That may be true, but I don't see a single reason to wait that long. Patience is a virtue, but if there's a shorter route without many side effects, I'm taking it.

I don't always agree with you on everything @Paul B ,(I'm a fan of at least a short observation period before adding fish to a tank), but your experience is absolutely a huge boon for the hobby. Your tank has been running 54 years, yes? I'm pretty sure that that's the oldest of any tank in the hobby. You must be doing something right

 

[7of9]

@Paul B - This study was recently published and might back up what you’re saying about trying to manage algae and Dinos being counterproductive in the least:

Symbiotic relationships between corals and algae and dinoflagellates

 

[Doctorgori]

I think it goes beyond bacteria. I think fauna is just as important.

I also think people tend to add fish and inverts that prey on fauna and slow down the process.

I think the “bugs” between 1mm and 1cm are equally important and overlooked ….
Also in the world of parasites , diseases and infections there is a less observed food chain amongst infectious “nasties” …..
….and “bug on bug” crime just as likely contributes to disease control as much as fish immunity

 

[soreefed]

Out of curiosity where do people buy real live rock from?

 

[7of9]

Out of curiosity where do people buy real live rock from?

There are a few companies, Tampa Bay Saltwater being one of them. Most LFS’s also sell live rock of varying quality.

 

[7of9]

I think the “bugs” between 1mm and 1cm are equally important and overlooked ….
Also in the world of parasites , diseases and infections there is a less observed food chain amongst infectious “nasties” …..
….and “bug on bug” crime just as likely contributes to disease control as much as fish immunity

I think it all adds up to what we’d do to help build a healthy garden or any ecosystem…trying to foster as much biodiversity as possible so that the system finds a natural balance.

 

[soreefed]

There are a few companies, Tampa Bay Saltwater being one of them. Most LFS’s also sell live rock of varying quality.

The lfs near me in socal sell wet rock. But that’s just dry rock that’s been soaked in an empty tank. Can’t imagine that provides anywhere close to the diversity of live rock pulled from the ocean.

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Dry rock is fine as long as you understand and accept that you will be operating a small scale live rock mariculture facility for 6 - 12 months, rather than a thriving reef tank. It’s a bitter pill for new, impatient reefers but one that must be swallowed.

If you don’t have the patience or are not interested in the minutiae of that process, start with traditional live rock.

 

[00W]

Anyone who has read any of my posts (all 3 of you) know I've started all my tanks with mature seasoned rock.
There's always someone getting out of the hobby and you just have to be patient and sometimes persistent and just go and get that rock.
Those who ask me for help yell at me all the time like "Joel there's going to be hitchhikers on there or algae or something I can't do that. I don't want to inherit someone else's problems. "
I shrug and go about my day. I can't make them do it but these are the things I WANT in my tank so I do it and I'm ready to go right away. While later they're struggling and going nowhere fast.
I also have never quarantined but tell no one just to avoid the subject. I also like the fish no one else wants. They seem to live forever and they're very grateful and show you that.
My tank now is 7 or 8 with 20 year old or older rock. It's not fancy, expensive or plastic for that matter.
I still try and do things like Albert Theil or Martin Moe might or now like Paul B would-thanks for the book by the way just got it and never knew so thanks.
Mostly thanks for just putting it all out there with no fear. Thanks for bringing all you have to the hobby.

 

[Paul B]

Your tank has been running 54 years, yes? I'm pretty sure that that's the oldest of any tank in the hobby

Actually, it's only 52. It's pretty colorful also, but that last picture looks like I took it through wax paper.

I have been arguing about this stuff since the hobby started, but after a few years all we had were one or two paper magazines (paper is made from trees, those green things outside your door),

Most of us fail to see the real important inhabitants in our tanks the ones we get for free and cover every centimeter of all the surfaces and are constantly at war and whoever is winning determines how our tank looks and how healthy it is.

All diseases, cyano, hair algae, and those little divers standing near treasure chest that open and close with bubbles are the result of how the microscope creatures are interacting with each other.

(When those little divers first came out in the 50s they were awesome)

It would be scary to see those tiny creatures but many of them are our friend and when we try to kill them, their nastier looking friends move in and are worse than graffiti artists.

Even if we put a pink ribbon on one of these I would be embarrassed to walk it down the street. But there are way more of them, than us.

 

[Nano_Man]

Started keeping salt water in the early nineties I did take a break for a bit . But I have never had a tank fail with live rock in it . Too me live rock is the foundation of the reef you can bulk up with some dry rock to make your scape look bigger but I have never used dry rock . Think of the Berlin method live rock skimmer power heads that’s it

 

[LiverockRocks Verified Sponsor]

Can’t beat Real Live Rock for seeding new tanks, providing stability for mature tanks and increasing the quality of life for fish.
Healthy Live Rocks really are the building blocks for successful long term systems like Paul’s.

That would certainly help but I feel the most important thing is real live rock. You can even hold off on the skimmer, doser, ATO, controller and all that expensive not really needed stuff if you get live rock that has everything the sea has including the important bacteria in the correct proportions.

I have never bought a pod or a bottle of bacteria in my life. That is akin to buying bottled air, something that is free.
(sorry people who sell pods, bacteria and air)

Live rock comes with thousands of pods and bacteria all for free. (once you buy the expensive rock)

And the rock is practically free, it's like fish, they are also practically free. It's the shipping that is the cost. Once in the Caribbean I saw a guy on the beach selling tangs, wrasses and all sorts of fish for 50 cents a pound. A Naso tang was probably 25 cents because the natives there eat those things.

The shipper has plenty of expense because of air freight, handling, boxes, bags, electricity and of course that has to be paid for by the consumer. The people in the fish business are not rich people and most of them I assume are just getting by. There is also an enormous loss in that business.

But if we want to be in this hobby, we should first make sure we can feed our family and keep them healthy before we buy fish tank stuff. This hobby is not that expensive, we make it that way.

Live rock will eliminate much problems and costs later on with all the problems dry rock causes.

I have been in this hobby for about 65 years and I couldn't and wouldn't start a tank with dry rock.


Antibiotics are needed for "Humans" sometimes because of our modern life. I myself am going in for a new shoulder in a week and I have to use an antibiotic soap for a few days and take an antibiotic for a while. But that is because of surgery, something most of our fish don't experience. Especially if their insurance doesn't cover it.

I can't think of one instance where I would use an antibiotic on a fish. If we keep them immune like many of our older members do, antibiotics and all medications will never have to be used. I haven't used any medication in decades and none of my fish ever die from a pathogen because I know about bacteria and how it relates to health


Red Waspfish. Cool isn't he? I have two of them.

You are right about starting with Live Rock, then adding expensive equipment.
Our 4,000 gal holding system contains only live rock and live sand; it has looked spectacular from day 1. No hair algae, no dinos, no cyano, no dosing, no skimmer, no uv sterilizer, no filters, no expensive lighting; just natural microorganisms doing what they do keeps the system clear, clean and healthy.

Right again about the tremendous costs to ship live products. That is one of our biggest hurdles.

Appreciate reading words of wisdom from your experiences.

 

[Paul B]

@Paul B - This study was recently published and might back up what you’re saying about trying to manage algae and Dinos being counterproductive in the least:

Quote from your link:
"We are only now beginning to understand how the complex interaction between host and algae works and was able to develop over a million years of co-evolution," Guse says. un quote

Unfortunately, we never think of these interactions and instead look for spots. Everyone feels "spots" are the most important criteria in this hobby. Ooh, what kind of spot is this? When we go to a doctor (I went to 4 this week for a silly Pre-Op) but the doctor never looks at our skin looking for spots. Spots are what we call parasites because we feel that is an appropriate word for an organism that we don't fully understand but we know that we hate them.

Spots, or parasites have been here much longer than us and if parasites were that dangerous, there would be no fish in the ocean because no one dumps copper in the sea to kill them. Fish have no problem living in harmony with parasites just as we have no problem living with ours.

Yes, we all have parasites. Some live in our noses and some in our eyebrows and ears. They don't hurt us but are dancing the macarana all over us.

All fish have parasites and many of them also have worms. Some fish are filled with them as my family was in the sea food business since the Roman Empire right up until the lead pipes killed all of them or turned their minds to mush.

I feel we should not kill the parasites as they are the only thing keeping our fish from being killed by parasites.
Those few parasites we see on the sides of the fish are just there hitching a ride because they can't get through fish scales and a healthy, non medicated fish will have plenty of anti parasitic substances being produced in their slime that they constantly exuding.

The tiny amount of blood parasites suck out of fish gills don't hurt the fish. It's the existence of so many parasites on the gills that limit the amount of oxygen the fish can extract from the water that kills the fish.

It's like if we filled our noses with earthworms. The worms won't kill us but we wouldn't be able to breathe and we would also be walking around going EEww all the time

Healthy fish even have slime in their gills and down their throat which excludes parasites but only if the fish is healthy and living in a natural habitat. A quarantined tank or a tank filled with medication or copper will suppress this process almost forcing the parasites to kill the fish so medication, especially copper is counterproductive.

Also fish are not like most of us. We get stressed if we only have 10% battery life in our Smart phones and we are in a group text with 7 people discussing how horrified we are because our "Clearasil" didn't arrive yet from Amazon
and we are all going to the Barbie movie.

We don't get it that it is not bacteria, parasites or Broklenena that is killing our fish, it's stress.
Stress is caused by captivity but not if the fish is in a place which they feel is the ocean. As soon as they see a PVC elbow from Home Depot they panic. If they "smell" copper, they go nuts as it is a poison and I am sure very irritating.

When they are in a new tank with nice clean and white rocks with no life on them, they get the horrors.

But if the rocks have some natural growth on them and a few "Natural" hiding places which are "tight" and a little dark where the fish can't see us, they are happy. They don't know that we know where they are as long as they can't see us, or our cat. They also don't care if they have to lay on their side to get into these hiding places, they rather prefer it.

I have a couple of Gecko Gobies, I think that have been in my tank for a few years. They are very healthy, I think, because I never see them unless I shoot some worms near where I think they are in the back of my tank and I may see a glimpse of a tail occasionally. Of course I don't want all my fish to hide constantly, but if we want to keep certain types of fish, thats what we have to expect if we want to keep those fish. I had a cusk eel for 18 years and saw the thing maybe 4 times and only at night by using a flash light and that fish was 6" long.

I killed it by accident when I removed a rock and didn't know he was in it. I didn't even realize I had him.

OK, thats long enough for now as it is about 7:00 am and people are going to start to get up so I have to make breakfast.

 

[Paul B]

Our 4,000 gal holding system contains only live rock and live sand; it has looked spectacular from day 1. No hair algae, no dinos, no cyano, no dosing, no skimmer, no uv sterilizer, no filters, no expensive lighting; just natural microorganisms doing what they do keeps the system clear, clean and healthy.

This is very important and if we all used live rock instead of medications, there would be no reason for disease threads.

Thanks for selling the stuff.

 

[Paul B]

Right again about the tremendous costs to ship live products. That is one of our biggest hurdles.

Fill the boxes with Helium, it floats so the boxes won't weigh anything.

 

[BaliReefBox]

I started my 3' tank with real straight from the ocean live rock and lots of it. The stuff that came, and keeps coming out of it is truely amazing. that said I kinda get sick of trying to catch crabs, now I just let them run. What is really bad about it it has bought in a red algae that people on here cant seem to identify and it is slowly but surely taking over the tank... I vac into a filter sock every other day, did 18 days of fluconazole and it still perseveres. I ask my local reefer friends and they dont use live rock even though its basically free here. they dont want the "pests and issues " it brings
Next month I am starting a new 4 or 5' tank and now I am debating what to use. I have toyed with the idea of live rock to fill the sump and dead in the DT..
more research needed

 

[Nano_Man]

I started my 3' tank with real straight from the ocean live rock and lots of it. The stuff that came, and keeps coming out of it is truely amazing. that said I kinda get sick of trying to catch crabs, now I just let them run. What is really bad about it it has bought in a red algae that people on here cant seem to identify and it is slowly but surely taking over the tank... I vac into a filter sock every other day, did 18 days of fluconazole and it still perseveres. I ask my local reefer friends and they dont use live rock even though its basically free here. they dont want the "pests and issues " it brings
Next month I am starting a new 4 or 5' tank and now I am debating what to use. I have toyed with the idea of live rock to fill the sump and dead in the DT..
more research needed

That would work as long as there plenty of live rock in the sump and dry rock in the display tank . Years ago I smashed live rock into my canisters and fish only worked great but both canisters had filter wool bottom and top. Just my experience

 

[7of9]

Quote from your link:
"We are only now beginning to understand how the complex interaction between host and algae works and was able to develop over a million years of co-evolution," Guse says. un quote

Unfortunately, we never think of these interactions and instead look for spots. Everyone feels "spots" are the most important criteria in this hobby. Ooh, what kind of spot is this? When we go to a doctor (I went to 4 this week for a silly Pre-Op) but the doctor never looks at our skin looking for spots. Spots are what we call parasites because we feel that is an appropriate word for an organism that we don't fully understand but we know that we hate them.

Spots, or parasites have been here much longer than us and if parasites were that dangerous, there would be no fish in the ocean because no one dumps copper in the sea to kill them. Fish have no problem living in harmony with parasites just as we have no problem living with ours.

Yes, we all have parasites. Some live in our noses and some in our eyebrows and ears. They don't hurt us but are dancing the macarana all over us.

All fish have parasites and many of them also have worms. Some fish are filled with them as my family was in the sea food business since the Roman Empire right up until the lead pipes killed all of them or turned their minds to mush.

I feel we should not kill the parasites as they are the only thing keeping our fish from being killed by parasites.
Those few parasites we see on the sides of the fish are just there hitching a ride because they can't get through fish scales and a healthy, non medicated fish will have plenty of anti parasitic substances being produced in their slime that they constantly exuding.

The tiny amount of blood parasites suck out of fish gills don't hurt the fish. It's the existence of so many parasites on the gills that limit the amount of oxygen the fish can extract from the water that kills the fish.

It's like if we filled our noses with earthworms. The worms won't kill us but we wouldn't be able to breathe and we would also be walking around going EEww all the time

Healthy fish even have slime in their gills and down their throat which excludes parasites but only if the fish is healthy and living in a natural habitat. A quarantined tank or a tank filled with medication or copper will suppress this process almost forcing the parasites to kill the fish so medication, especially copper is counterproductive.

Also fish are not like most of us. We get stressed if we only have 10% battery life in our Smart phones and we are in a group text with 7 people discussing how horrified we are because our "Clearasil" didn't arrive yet from Amazon
and we are all going to the Barbie movie.

We don't get it that it is not bacteria, parasites or Broklenena that is killing our fish, it's stress.
Stress is caused by captivity but not if the fish is in a place which they feel is the ocean. As soon as they see a PVC elbow from Home Depot they panic. If they "smell" copper, they go nuts as it is a poison and I am sure very irritating.

When they are in a new tank with nice clean and white rocks with no life on them, they get the horrors.

But if the rocks have some natural growth on them and a few "Natural" hiding places which are "tight" and a little dark where the fish can't see us, they are happy. They don't know that we know where they are as long as they can't see us, or our cat. They also don't care if they have to lay on their side to get into these hiding places, they rather prefer it.

I have a couple of Gecko Gobies, I think that have been in my tank for a few years. They are very healthy, I think, because I never see them unless I shoot some worms near where I think they are in the back of my tank and I may see a glimpse of a tail occasionally. Of course I don't want all my fish to hide constantly, but if we want to keep certain types of fish, thats what we have to expect if we want to keep those fish. I had a cusk eel for 18 years and saw the thing maybe 4 times and only at night by using a flash light and that fish was 6" long.

I killed it by accident when I removed a rock and didn't know he was in it. I didn't even realize I had him.

OK, thats long enough for now as it is about 7:00 am and people are going to start to get up so I have to make breakfast.

I think we often obsess over "perfection" in that we're trying to create what we think the ocean should look like versus what it actually does look like. In our idealized version, everything is maximized for our pleasure and hopefully the fish survive that. We don't like the way many things look in the natural ocean so we try to curate an environment that only has the things we like to look at. We don't want to spend lots of money on a fish only to have it hide from us.

Now, I don't think I want my tank overrun by uglies, but I think there could be a balance found here, more like a garden where I do some weeding, but I also plant native plants that will thrive in a more natural way, if that makes sense. I used to garden a lot and I didn't use pesticides or herbicides, so my garden was always a little wild and messy, but it also was home to more different kinds of insects and plants and healthier overall. I wasn't trying to sterilize it, but rather I wanted a relationship with nature around my home. I allowed moles to dig and even if I cussed out the squirrels who would eat just one bite of a prized tomato and then leave the rest, I let them live in my garden and enjoyed watching their babies emerge from the nest.

I had to leave my garden behind due to an injury that had me in a wheelchair for a year, so now that I'm back walking, I see this little tank of glass as my new garden to tend, not as some sterile display case.

I want a relationship with a new natural environment and in any relationship, there is give and take and compromise and balance.

 

[Paul B]

7of9 great post. (I also like 7 of 9) Our tanks don't have to resemble the sea exactly but close is better.

This is what the sea looks like from the Florida Keys to the Caribbean, Bahamas, and the South Pacific.













See that last picture. I think that was the Caribbean, but notice all the fish fry. Those tiny fish are loaded with oil and living gut bacteria and it's like an all you can eat buffet. Almost every fish eat those all day long and one reason fish don't have to put themselves on disease threads asking for help.

Notice the hiding places all over the place? Fish go in all of them. Notice any Home Depot PVC elbows?
I don't either.

In the 5th picture see all the "mulm" or dying algae on the mangrove roots? Healthy stuff. In the last picture we also see hair algae. Maybe we should dose Hydrogen Peroxide.

This following picture I took off one of the outermost and small Hawaiian Islands. More hair algae. OMG. Horrible.

 

[Paul B]

We also never talk about the fishes Lateral Line which is the most important organs the fish have. I wish I had one.

You can clearly see it here on my Red Waspfish. It's that line of white dots on his side going all the way back to his really cool tail.



You can also see it on this copperband



And it's very pronounced on this fluke



That allows fish to "feel" it's surrounds and the reason they never crash into the glass, even at night or if they are blind.

With that they can sense the water surface and bottom. That is one reason fish are stressed as they don't like swimming in 14" of water and they know it. It is also why "I" feel tangs and some other flat fish get HLLE.

(only my theory) See the line on those fish? It is longer on flat fish as the line goes up then down and I feel fish were designed to be flat to have a longer lateral line which makes them much more sensitive. "Ich Magnet" tangs normally live in a school and swim right next to each other, but they can't turn their head to see how close they are to the next tang. Maybe thats why they don't need a neck that they can turn.

Their line is more sensitive and in captivity they constantly get input from the tank walls, the surface and substrait so it gets irritated and infected. It always happens on the lateral line. Look at this severely infected yellow tang.