Looking for advice
- Thread starter purkey
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+1. That info @KJ posted is a must read in my opinion. It is slap full of info.
Reeflogic
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Hey! Welcome to the best hobby in the world and even better, welcome to a group of fantastic hobbyists here in East Tennessee! I'm jumping in kind of late and looks like everyone covered all the basics for you and you seem to be on the right track for a successful reef! I read through all the posts and the one question I don't think I saw asked was, have you had a diatom bloom? The brown ugly crap on everything? Testing water is super important, but your eyes can tell you quite a bit about a tank, cycle, etc. Sterile rock, sand, glass, etc. added to an existing system or a new system will be the first to show diatoms, once the diatoms stop forming, there is active bacteria growth on those surfaces. So if you had a diatom bloom, then you have bacteria growth. It's safe to add fish slowly as the bacteria matures, or even a coral or two, as long as you keep up with water changes. Reef systems take as long as a year or more to fully mature, but after that initial diatom bloom, you are ready to start adding things...Slowly!
Like Jeff said, Bio-balls are fairly outdated. I purchased my first "wet-dry" sump in the mid-80's and I had a successful reef for years using Bio-balls, but they are not the best anymore, at the time, it was pretty much the only option available. They work, but it is something you should consider upgrading at some point. Lights are a VERY important decision. You need to consider what you want in the tank, your budget, etc. It's a very expensive hobby and there are many shortcuts you can take to save money, but in the end, you get what you pay for in this hobby. If you have money to burn, then do as much research on EVERY piece of equipment and make a decision you can live with.
Research EVERYTHING, equipment, tank inhabitants, water chemistry, pests, EVERYTHING!! If you do your homework upfront, it will save you money, heartache and time. The best advice I can add is to stick with inexpensive reef safe fish for a bit, watch as the tank ages, add some starter corals and as you learn more about the hobby, then you switch to more delicate corals / fish. You can always trade off / sell the starter corals / fish when you feel confident enough to take the next step. Also, it was mentioned in that awesome post earlier, "QT" or quarantine.... I'm a huge advocate for QT'ing fish and corals. If you start out QT'ing fish and corals you will likely always QT them, if you don't start out QT'ing them, at some point you WILL and that I can promise you. It requires patience, a little extra cost and yes, occasionally the loss of a fish or coral, but in the long run, it will keep your system healthier, with less headaches. I cannot tell you how many times I have purchased frags that had a nasty on it.... Especially bryopsis and aiptasia. It goes to show that there are MANY people who fail at QTing corals. It is so much easier dealing with a pest in a separate system, because once it's introduced into your main system, good luck.
Sorry for the book man, the hobby can seem overwhelming to new people, which is why it so important to read as much as you can. Also, not everything you read is going to be accurate, but here on these forums, I find that most data is top notch and the people here are always willing to help. Just use your best judgement when researching a particular subject and you will be fine. Am I still babbling? Haha, sorry! Keep us posted, maybe start a build thread and share your adventures with us! It seriously is the most rewarding hobby I have ever had. Been addicted to marine life for 30+ years.
Like Jeff said, Bio-balls are fairly outdated. I purchased my first "wet-dry" sump in the mid-80's and I had a successful reef for years using Bio-balls, but they are not the best anymore, at the time, it was pretty much the only option available. They work, but it is something you should consider upgrading at some point. Lights are a VERY important decision. You need to consider what you want in the tank, your budget, etc. It's a very expensive hobby and there are many shortcuts you can take to save money, but in the end, you get what you pay for in this hobby. If you have money to burn, then do as much research on EVERY piece of equipment and make a decision you can live with.
Research EVERYTHING, equipment, tank inhabitants, water chemistry, pests, EVERYTHING!! If you do your homework upfront, it will save you money, heartache and time. The best advice I can add is to stick with inexpensive reef safe fish for a bit, watch as the tank ages, add some starter corals and as you learn more about the hobby, then you switch to more delicate corals / fish. You can always trade off / sell the starter corals / fish when you feel confident enough to take the next step. Also, it was mentioned in that awesome post earlier, "QT" or quarantine.... I'm a huge advocate for QT'ing fish and corals. If you start out QT'ing fish and corals you will likely always QT them, if you don't start out QT'ing them, at some point you WILL and that I can promise you. It requires patience, a little extra cost and yes, occasionally the loss of a fish or coral, but in the long run, it will keep your system healthier, with less headaches. I cannot tell you how many times I have purchased frags that had a nasty on it.... Especially bryopsis and aiptasia. It goes to show that there are MANY people who fail at QTing corals. It is so much easier dealing with a pest in a separate system, because once it's introduced into your main system, good luck.
Sorry for the book man, the hobby can seem overwhelming to new people, which is why it so important to read as much as you can. Also, not everything you read is going to be accurate, but here on these forums, I find that most data is top notch and the people here are always willing to help. Just use your best judgement when researching a particular subject and you will be fine. Am I still babbling? Haha, sorry! Keep us posted, maybe start a build thread and share your adventures with us! It seriously is the most rewarding hobby I have ever had. Been addicted to marine life for 30+ years.
Reeflogic
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Yeah, that is quite a bit of water, if you didn't seed it heavy enough, you may not have noticed any diatoms. Have you been running the lights every day during the initial month it's been up and running? I would expect you would have seen a little diatom action if the lights have been on and you have been feeding the tank. Well, just trust in your water parameters. If you saw an ammonia spike, then a nitrite spike, followed by your nitrates, you have bacteria, just maybe not a lot. It will take a very long time for both bacterias to grow on all the surfaces, so just take it slow like everyone said and you will be fine. If the tank has been up a month and you have been feeding it, you are in good shape. You said you added quite a few hermits. You might feed a little more for them, maybe a chunk of nori too, without any signs of algae in the tank, they may be hungry little fellas. You can just sink a piece of nori for them, they will find it, or pellets.
BlueDevil
Valuable Member
You don't necessarily have to add another fish to accomplish that goal. Basically what you are trying to do is create an ammonia source correct? You can easily accomplish that with a piece of shrimp from the grocery store. Put it in some panty hose so you don't get all the decaying pieces scattered all over your tank.
What I'm going to say next is a point of contention/debate within the reefing community. But I side with the fishless cycling school of thought. While I haven't done research into it personally, I can only imagine the damage the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate spikes will do to a fish's gills, and overall immunity and health. You already have one fish in there right now. You could just as easily do the shrimp method or even overfeed to create the nutrient source (don't need another fish for that). That way you'll save the pain for another fish. I cycled my tank using the shrimp in pantyhose method and it worked like a charm!
Please don't take offense to my take on this process - its just my 2¢ opinion
Steve Dillon
Valuable Member
I also use fishless cycle. But since you have a fish in the tank I would go with slightly overfeeder (maybe twice a week) the shrimp in the pantyhose could cause to much of an ammonia spike. Imo
Pantyhose?
(So many jokes, so little time)
Just a side note Lawton. It can be very educational to keep a log of your test results. It can show trends and patterns you might not notice otherwise. I just leave a stack of 3x5 recipe cards by my tank, and jot it all down with a date. I can get a week on each side of a single card.
(So many jokes, so little time)
Just a side note Lawton. It can be very educational to keep a log of your test results. It can show trends and patterns you might not notice otherwise. I just leave a stack of 3x5 recipe cards by my tank, and jot it all down with a date. I can get a week on each side of a single card.
Reeflogic
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I have never used Seachem Stability before, but, I just read about it and if it works as it states it will, then you should be fine. 150 gallons will not spike much with the addition of 2 clown fish and minimal feeding, and from the sound of it, you already witnessed these spikes. Maybe something in their formula eliminated the usual diatom "ugly tank" syndrome, who knows. Maybe someone with more experience using this product will chime in. But this is directly from Seachem's website:
Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 40 L (10 gallons*) on the first day with a new aquarium. Then use 1 capful for each 80 L (20 gallons*) daily for 7 days. Fish and other aquatic species may be introduced at any time as long as dosage is maintained for 7 days. For optimum biofilter performance use 1 capful for each 40 L (10 gallons*) once a month or with each water change and whenever introducing new fish or whenever medicating an aquarium
I usually seed a system with livesand, cured rock or a dose of microbacter and can usually expect to add fish almost immediately, so I assume Seachem's stuff is no different. The only real threat you have in saltwater nitrogen cycle is the ammonia and higher nitrates. Nitrites are basically not harmful to marine fish.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php
I'd just keep an eye on the ammonia level and follow those directions, adding additional Stability if you add more fish, just don't go crazy and buy 10 fish or even 3 large fish, at once! Also, was nice talking to you Lawton, sounds like you did everything right over the last month, good luck man!
Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 40 L (10 gallons*) on the first day with a new aquarium. Then use 1 capful for each 80 L (20 gallons*) daily for 7 days. Fish and other aquatic species may be introduced at any time as long as dosage is maintained for 7 days. For optimum biofilter performance use 1 capful for each 40 L (10 gallons*) once a month or with each water change and whenever introducing new fish or whenever medicating an aquarium
I usually seed a system with livesand, cured rock or a dose of microbacter and can usually expect to add fish almost immediately, so I assume Seachem's stuff is no different. The only real threat you have in saltwater nitrogen cycle is the ammonia and higher nitrates. Nitrites are basically not harmful to marine fish.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php
I'd just keep an eye on the ammonia level and follow those directions, adding additional Stability if you add more fish, just don't go crazy and buy 10 fish or even 3 large fish, at once! Also, was nice talking to you Lawton, sounds like you did everything right over the last month, good luck man!
Oceansize
Active Member
TL: DR= get better lighting and more fish (slowly) before adding coral. Plus an explanation of some other basics that have come up in this thread following the original post.
First a little primer on coral nutrition: coral get their required nutrition in a variety of ways. One way is through what we think of as traditional "eating": as in bringing food into an oral cavity/"stomach" via manual means (a coral polyp's tentacle grabs food and inserts it into the polyp's "mouth"). Another way is they consume the by-products of algae which live and grow inside their tissue (and often give them the beautiful colors we're after), and yet another way is osmosis (their tissue simply absorbs nutrients via contact with the water column). These are the three primary ways that coral get their required nutrition.
The first method, while logical and easy to grasp, can be problematic because this requires adding even more food to the tank, much of which goes uneaten, thereby contributing to excess nutrients in the tank and the resulting ugliness/algae bloom issues. I think manual feeding is a great way to augment what the coral eats, but at this point your objective should be to keep things simple and stable, and overfeeding is only going to confuse your efforts to achieve stable tank parameters. Manually feeding your coral can certainly be done with success, but at your stage I think it helps to understand and concentrate on the other two ways first.
The second method mentioned above that coral get their nutrition is through the algae that grows within their tissues. Algae is photosynthetic so algae requires light. That is why lighting is important for coral. They can live without it, but their most consistent form of nutrition cannot. When lighting is not sufficient, the coral will eject the algae it cannot support nutritionally, at which point the coral becomes highly sensitive to light and could die, so then you must begin a several week process of keeping the lights dimmed, overfeeding the coral enough to restore it's algal populations, then gradually bringing the light back up to required levels. It's all a major PITA which could turn you off the hobby altogether, so the best advice is to get the lighting right BEFORE adding coral.
The third method mentioned above is through osmosis, the transfer of nutrients through tissue simply via contact with water. This is why fish bio-load is important for keeping coral. With a relatively new tank like yours with so few fish, there simply isn't much bio-load being created for there to be a nice rich soup for your coral to bathe in and feast on.
THEREFORE considering everything mentioned in the previous 4 paragraphs, IMO, you should spend money on appropriate lighting before you spend money on coral, and I would also have a few more fish in the tank creating more bioload before adding coral too, otherwise you may have issues keeping the coral properly fed, which leads to bleaching, which can take a long time to correct and force you to overfeed which may cause algae blooms etc etc and all sorts of other headaches. Bottom line is your rocks & sand look way too new/clean to be supporting the necessary bacterial/algal life cycle for healthy coral, so I would wait on coral.
Yes it is true that people successfully keep coral without keeping fish, but that takes experience & knowledge that you just don't have yet. Using the fish bio-load and proper lighting to feed your coral will be the simplest, least-problematic way to begin keeping coral. Manual feeding can also be very helpful, but long-term this is not the primary source of nutrition for your coral so you've got to get the other two ways figured out first. Better lighting, more fish.
Moving on to other issues raised after your original post: Alkalinity is a concept you will need to get familiar with regardless of whether you ever graduate to coral, and refers to the "hardness" of water which implies the presence of certain minerals such as calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is a critical component of coral skeletons, but proper alkalinity is important for fish as well. The good news is that alkalinity only starts depleting once you add coral, so although the proper level is important for your fish, you won't need to worry about supplementing your tank with alkalinity until you start adding coral. Alkalinity is most often expressed in dKh, with 7-11 dKh being considered the appropriate level for saltwater fish and coral. Don't bother testing for it until you've added coral, IMO.
Another parameter that is important for saltwater regardless of whether you're keeping coral is salinity, which is simply the amount of salt in the water. This can be expressed in a number of ways: salinity, specific gravity, and conductivity, therefore there are many ways to test it. IMO, the best compromise between accuracy and cost would be to use a refractometer. It's basically a magnifier attached to a prism; you add a few drops of your water onto the prism then look through the magnifier and there are gradations that tell you what your salinity is. It is very important that you monitor and test your salinity!!! The water in your tank is constantly evaporating, but the salt does not evaporate, therefore over time your tank's salinity will rise above acceptable levels. Depending on your rate of evaporation, this could happen faster than you can imagine. Evaporation has already affected the salinity of your tank water, best to get a test for it ASAP. Adding freshwater to return your water to it's previous salt concentration is how you bring the salinity back to where it should be.
First a little primer on coral nutrition: coral get their required nutrition in a variety of ways. One way is through what we think of as traditional "eating": as in bringing food into an oral cavity/"stomach" via manual means (a coral polyp's tentacle grabs food and inserts it into the polyp's "mouth"). Another way is they consume the by-products of algae which live and grow inside their tissue (and often give them the beautiful colors we're after), and yet another way is osmosis (their tissue simply absorbs nutrients via contact with the water column). These are the three primary ways that coral get their required nutrition.
The first method, while logical and easy to grasp, can be problematic because this requires adding even more food to the tank, much of which goes uneaten, thereby contributing to excess nutrients in the tank and the resulting ugliness/algae bloom issues. I think manual feeding is a great way to augment what the coral eats, but at this point your objective should be to keep things simple and stable, and overfeeding is only going to confuse your efforts to achieve stable tank parameters. Manually feeding your coral can certainly be done with success, but at your stage I think it helps to understand and concentrate on the other two ways first.
The second method mentioned above that coral get their nutrition is through the algae that grows within their tissues. Algae is photosynthetic so algae requires light. That is why lighting is important for coral. They can live without it, but their most consistent form of nutrition cannot. When lighting is not sufficient, the coral will eject the algae it cannot support nutritionally, at which point the coral becomes highly sensitive to light and could die, so then you must begin a several week process of keeping the lights dimmed, overfeeding the coral enough to restore it's algal populations, then gradually bringing the light back up to required levels. It's all a major PITA which could turn you off the hobby altogether, so the best advice is to get the lighting right BEFORE adding coral.
The third method mentioned above is through osmosis, the transfer of nutrients through tissue simply via contact with water. This is why fish bio-load is important for keeping coral. With a relatively new tank like yours with so few fish, there simply isn't much bio-load being created for there to be a nice rich soup for your coral to bathe in and feast on.
THEREFORE considering everything mentioned in the previous 4 paragraphs, IMO, you should spend money on appropriate lighting before you spend money on coral, and I would also have a few more fish in the tank creating more bioload before adding coral too, otherwise you may have issues keeping the coral properly fed, which leads to bleaching, which can take a long time to correct and force you to overfeed which may cause algae blooms etc etc and all sorts of other headaches. Bottom line is your rocks & sand look way too new/clean to be supporting the necessary bacterial/algal life cycle for healthy coral, so I would wait on coral.
Yes it is true that people successfully keep coral without keeping fish, but that takes experience & knowledge that you just don't have yet. Using the fish bio-load and proper lighting to feed your coral will be the simplest, least-problematic way to begin keeping coral. Manual feeding can also be very helpful, but long-term this is not the primary source of nutrition for your coral so you've got to get the other two ways figured out first. Better lighting, more fish.
Moving on to other issues raised after your original post: Alkalinity is a concept you will need to get familiar with regardless of whether you ever graduate to coral, and refers to the "hardness" of water which implies the presence of certain minerals such as calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is a critical component of coral skeletons, but proper alkalinity is important for fish as well. The good news is that alkalinity only starts depleting once you add coral, so although the proper level is important for your fish, you won't need to worry about supplementing your tank with alkalinity until you start adding coral. Alkalinity is most often expressed in dKh, with 7-11 dKh being considered the appropriate level for saltwater fish and coral. Don't bother testing for it until you've added coral, IMO.
Another parameter that is important for saltwater regardless of whether you're keeping coral is salinity, which is simply the amount of salt in the water. This can be expressed in a number of ways: salinity, specific gravity, and conductivity, therefore there are many ways to test it. IMO, the best compromise between accuracy and cost would be to use a refractometer. It's basically a magnifier attached to a prism; you add a few drops of your water onto the prism then look through the magnifier and there are gradations that tell you what your salinity is. It is very important that you monitor and test your salinity!!! The water in your tank is constantly evaporating, but the salt does not evaporate, therefore over time your tank's salinity will rise above acceptable levels. Depending on your rate of evaporation, this could happen faster than you can imagine. Evaporation has already affected the salinity of your tank water, best to get a test for it ASAP. Adding freshwater to return your water to it's previous salt concentration is how you bring the salinity back to where it should be.
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BlueDevil
Valuable Member
Top notch advise there from @Ocensize! I think you have a wealth of information in this thread @purkey. Sift through ... read, read, and then read some more. And most importantly digest everything as there is a ton of information here. And most importantly, have patience and you will be well on your way to a beautiful tank! Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
BlueDevil
Valuable Member
Mind out of the gutter Jeff! [emoji14]
Another option is to dump everything into Excel and let it chart the data for you. I do that and it's a great way to see up and down trends in your parameters. Then again I'm a numbers junkie and do that for a living so it's only natural that I go with that option.
BlueDevil
Valuable Member
Anytime! Just send me the sheet and let me know what you want done and I'm on it!
