New to the hobbie

[Paulie069]

New to this forum but not completely new to aquariums. I have had 100, 110, 150 and now my biggest, 180. I’ve never had anemones or corals but jumped in with both feet. To be honest, I collected my water from a super churned up ocean thinking because it was so ruff, all the “bad stuff” would be flushed out do to a week straight of 4’-6’ waves. I grabbed some small puffers and crabs from a clean intracoastal. Let them go in the tank for a day and then went and bought a few live rocks, 2 bubble tips, 1 condy, 3 fire fish, 1 wild clown,(sucked into overflow and died), 1 flame angel,1 foxface, 1 royal gramma, 3 Banggai cardinals. Looking for constructive advice/criticism. Anemones are not completely happy. 1 bubble tip has moved a few times and seems to want to stay low. The condy has inverted a couple times at night but seems fine during light.

Glad to see u in R2R you will surely get all info u need from the good people in this site. Good luck

 

[SPR1968]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Wolters_88]

Welcome to r2r

 

[Donzidan28]

Welcome to R2R!

Anemones usually like a bit more light than corals, but IMHO that's not a big deal. Some anemones do like to move around until they find their 'happy place'. And they can be slow to change. I've seen a condy that turned inside out for several days and then went back to being perfectly normal.

What might be helpful for us to help you would be a run down of your water parameters, salinity, temp, nitrate, phosphate, calcium, alk and magnesium.

I'm going to say I think your conclusion about the stirred up ocean water is probably not well based in facts. But it also depends on where you were when you were collecting the water. Near shore water tends to have a lot more 'stuff' in it than water collected some distance off shore (like a mile or more). And around reefs it will even be a bit more different (probably better).

I do some collecting in the Florida Keys and in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of SW Florida. I try not to take any water from the surface. I'll push the container down underwater and cap it before I bring it back up. But then that's just for use in transporting things home. Once I get them home they get acclimated to my water and I try to get as little 'wild' water as possible in my system. But that's just me. There are a fair number of people who use natural sea water as well.

Welcome aboard and good luck.

Thanks for the feed back. I went yesterday to a new place that was recommended to me and I’m really glad I went. The guy did a water test and said everything looked good. he Said although it was good, because it was new he said to hold off adding anything more for at least a month do to the likelihood of seeing a spike in ammonia? I know it goes ammonia, nitrates, then nitrites right? Anyway, I will purchase a test kit so I can monitor it myself.

As far as collecting from the ocean, I knew going in it was not a smart idea. My reasoning again was because of the week long ruff waters we’ve had. I live near the st. Lucie inlet and it seems after my water test, I got lucky. I will purchase my RO water or collect it when we are deep offshore.

my Condy seems to be a little happier now that I’ve fed her back to back days. No more hiding. The 1 bubble tip settled low on a rock and the other has been on the move. Today, 3 am. She’s resting high on a new rock. I need to add more rock, but I’m holding off per the advice of my new store guy. i Appreciate the feed back and will continue to listen to any and all suggestions.

 

[reef lover]

Welcome to r2r!

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

Thanks for the feed back. I went yesterday to a new place that was recommended to me and I’m really glad I went. The guy did a water test and said everything looked good. he Said although it was good, because it was new he said to hold off adding anything more for at least a month do to the likelihood of seeing a spike in ammonia? I know it goes ammonia, nitrates, then nitrites right? Anyway, I will purchase a test kit so I can monitor it myself.

As far as collecting from the ocean, I knew going in it was not a smart idea. My reasoning again was because of the week long ruff waters we’ve had. I live near the st. Lucie inlet and it seems after my water test, I got lucky. I will purchase my RO water or collect it when we are deep offshore.

my Condy seems to be a little happier now that I’ve fed her back to back days. No more hiding. The 1 bubble tip settled low on a rock and the other has been on the move. Today, 3 am. She’s resting high on a new rock. I need to add more rock, but I’m holding off per the advice of my new store guy. i Appreciate the feed back and will continue to listen to any and all suggestions.

The nitrogen cycle actually goes ammonia, then nitrites, then nitrates. Ammonia and nitrites are both super harmful, but nitrates are more easily handled by fish. I assume that the guy’s advice about not adding rock was for live rock. If you add live rock directly to a tank, you get an ammonia spike. Adding dry rock should not cause any problems. I’m still curious about what light you are using.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Thanks for the feed back. I went yesterday to a new place that was recommended to me and I’m really glad I went. The guy did a water test and said everything looked good. he Said although it was good, because it was new he said to hold off adding anything more for at least a month do to the likelihood of seeing a spike in ammonia? I know it goes ammonia, nitrates, then nitrites right? Anyway, I will purchase a test kit so I can monitor it myself.

As far as collecting from the ocean, I knew going in it was not a smart idea. My reasoning again was because of the week long ruff waters we’ve had. I live near the st. Lucie inlet and it seems after my water test, I got lucky. I will purchase my RO water or collect it when we are deep offshore.

my Condy seems to be a little happier now that I’ve fed her back to back days. No more hiding. The 1 bubble tip settled low on a rock and the other has been on the move. Today, 3 am. She’s resting high on a new rock. I need to add more rock, but I’m holding off per the advice of my new store guy. i Appreciate the feed back and will continue to listen to any and all suggestions.

Always happy to offer advise. I struggled a lot when I was starting nearly 20 years ago and now I'm able to offer reasonable opinions to help people get started.

Doing your own testing is really the smart thing to do. At this point you should test for ammonia and nitrate. Ammonia tells you there is something wrong like something died, you're feeding too much or the bacteria on the live rock can't keep up with new ammonia. Nitrite is an intermediate issue and I wouldn't worry about it. If the bacteria could make nitrite from ammonia, then it's very likely it will make nitrite into nitrate fairly quickly. Nitrate is the back end of the process and needs to be removed. Water changes are usually the first line of defense. And there are reactors and refugiums that will also remove nitrate.

Natural sea water isn't a bad thing, you just need to be careful about when and where you collect. Places like Mote Marine and other aquariums that can pull water from the ocean heavily filter the water and test it before it goes into their systems.

Glad to read that the anemones appear to be doing better. I love anemones and have about 40 Rock Flower Anemones (RFA) in my tank.

And if you ever have a question that needs quick attention or that nobody replies to, just type in #reefsquad and a host of helpers here will get notified that you are looking for help. We all have a light blue banner under our avatar that says "Reef Squad".

 

[rodney]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[CasaReefer]

Sorry I am Late... Was finishing up some paper work... Hey DONZI Dan... Welcome to R2R.. Does that mean you have a Donzi.. If Yes... The can we see pics of the boat first and then Pics of your tanks.... No Really.... Boat First...