Diazreeflife
Active Member
Now that I'm getting my Dream Tank together I wanted to hear what everyones biggest lesson or lessons learned since they started this amazing hobby.
David
David
Your Biggest Lesson?
- Thread starter Diazreeflife
- Start date
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TJ's Reef
Valuable Member
Lessons learned from fellow Reefers...... Even though I've been a Reefkeeper for over 30 years I'm still always eager to see someone elses take on anything reef related. For setting up a 'Dream Tank' I would spend as much time as possible visiting other Reefkeepers and with notepad in hand ask "What would you have done differently if given the chance ?" Things like access for cleaning and W/C's, plumbing unions and valve placement for maintenance and/or replacement of pumps, aquascaping to allow for Coral growth beyond frags. All these and many more and will be a huge benefit to finalize your new Dream Tank.
Cheers, Todd
Cheers, Todd
TruRacr314x
Well-Known Member
My biggest lesson: Don't try to go against the guidelines set forth by experienced keepers...in an attempt to beat the odds. I've done it a couple of times...the biggest lesson came with purchasing a Powder Blue Tang. My tank is 80g and the tang was about 4". It was never comfortable and ended up getting a bad case of ich and taking out my favorite fish with it...my Goldflake Angel. Along with losing them, it wreaked havoc on other and my tank...and took several weeks to fix. I know there are exceptions to the rule...but if the general consensus is one thing, don't go against it until you are experienced enough to know the consequences.
FishLipz
Cheap and Easy Reefer
Cover your tank! I don't care if you use mesh, glass, plexi, or the force (if you happen to be a jedi). I've lost some gorgeous and expensive fish to carpet surfing mishaps. Shouldn't have happened and were completely my fault for not having a cover.
Also, research what you are buying. Don't just buy the latest fad or cool coral without knowing the impact it will make. Will it grow and overshadow and kill other corals (monti caps)? Does it have long deadly sweepers that will keep you from placing anything within a foot of it (space invader pectina)? Try to envision what it will look like grown out, not as a one inch nub.
Same goes for fish. If you can't support it, don't buy it. There are so many gorgeous fish that the achilles tang you want for your 55 gallon tank will be best left in the ocean. Choose wisely, not selfishly.
Also, research what you are buying. Don't just buy the latest fad or cool coral without knowing the impact it will make. Will it grow and overshadow and kill other corals (monti caps)? Does it have long deadly sweepers that will keep you from placing anything within a foot of it (space invader pectina)? Try to envision what it will look like grown out, not as a one inch nub.
Same goes for fish. If you can't support it, don't buy it. There are so many gorgeous fish that the achilles tang you want for your 55 gallon tank will be best left in the ocean. Choose wisely, not selfishly.
HumanMachine
Community Member
Cover your tank. Make a cover, make it work. I have had every kind of fish go carpet surfing, and there's no pain like waking up in the morning to seeing your prized designer clown laying, stiff as a board, on your living room floor.
PaulKreider
Valuable Member
Plan out corals and coral placement, with expectation of growth... Sucks having to move things because an lps piece or anemone got too big. And never put a monti cap at the top of tank, unless you want to shadow out everything else below lol
OP
OP
Diazreeflife
Active Member
So true Drag I'm running out of ways to hide my spending from the wife lol luckily she is extremely excited about the tank!!
Great replies everyone I'm copying everything down keep them coming please!
David
TarHeelReefer22
Active Member
I just got shocked really bad in my tank make sure tank and sump are grounded and also adding a red coris wrasse to my reef (gone now) well unless u like flipping every rock, coral, orfrag plug back over everytime u walk by!
EastMtnReef
Community Member
Quarantine! Don't take the risk of adding a pest to your tank.
justgotwet
Well-Known Member
Get a ATO for your tank. Use 2 smaller heaters instead of one large one. Don't put more than 1 firefish to a tank.
Gazog2
Community Member
Take your time, Read everything you possibly can, troll every bulletin board like this one you can find. Take your time.
Take you time, Advice from reefers can be like the old excuse's adage, Advice from reefers is like A$$h%les, everyone has some and most of them stink, meaning don't believe everything that is said, not everyone knows what they are talking about. But not all of it is bad, you just have decide what will work for you. Take your time.
Take your time, 2 heaters is a good Idea, but better one is one heater and a heater controller set a couple of degrees above the heater but not hot enough to do damage. More heaters get suck on than burn out and a tank can drop pretty low (62) before doing any major damage. But a stuck on heater will make your whole house stink for weeks, trust me I know...Take your time.
Take your time, first thing you buy is a 10 gallon tank, an emperor power filter w/extra filter pads, a small heater and 2-5 gallon buckets of fresh salt water, 1 clay or plastic pot. this is all for a quarantine tank... Never, never, never put a new fish into an established tank. Take your time.
Take your time, do you notice an running theme here? Take your time please, you cannot rush a reef tank, if you do you will have nothing but problems.
Take you time, Advice from reefers can be like the old excuse's adage, Advice from reefers is like A$$h%les, everyone has some and most of them stink, meaning don't believe everything that is said, not everyone knows what they are talking about. But not all of it is bad, you just have decide what will work for you. Take your time.
Take your time, 2 heaters is a good Idea, but better one is one heater and a heater controller set a couple of degrees above the heater but not hot enough to do damage. More heaters get suck on than burn out and a tank can drop pretty low (62) before doing any major damage. But a stuck on heater will make your whole house stink for weeks, trust me I know...Take your time.
Take your time, first thing you buy is a 10 gallon tank, an emperor power filter w/extra filter pads, a small heater and 2-5 gallon buckets of fresh salt water, 1 clay or plastic pot. this is all for a quarantine tank... Never, never, never put a new fish into an established tank. Take your time.
Take your time, do you notice an running theme here? Take your time please, you cannot rush a reef tank, if you do you will have nothing but problems.
Squishie89
Glub Glub
Quarantining everything. Plants, corals, fish, inverts. You may not be able to medicate most of those, but you can watch them for parasites or hitchhikers.
Plan out everything. Every little thing you can think of. And research.
I would possibly suggest using dry rock. But this kind of goes with the first one about hitch hikers. Some are cool and awesome, some not so much.
Make this an investment. Don't try and skimp on things. Not saying you need to use starfire glass for all 5 panels, but you get it.
Plan out your fish. Talk with the family/wife and see what they might be interested in. Finding out after you have the tank up and running that your wife wants a sohal tang, and you have a 100g tank will suck.
Record everything. I keep both an on-line journal and a physical journal.
Make things easy on you. If it takes an hour and moving 3 different pieces of equipment to change some media, unlikely you will do it when it needs doing.
Plan out everything. Every little thing you can think of. And research.
I would possibly suggest using dry rock. But this kind of goes with the first one about hitch hikers. Some are cool and awesome, some not so much.
Make this an investment. Don't try and skimp on things. Not saying you need to use starfire glass for all 5 panels, but you get it.
Plan out your fish. Talk with the family/wife and see what they might be interested in. Finding out after you have the tank up and running that your wife wants a sohal tang, and you have a 100g tank will suck.
Record everything. I keep both an on-line journal and a physical journal.
Make things easy on you. If it takes an hour and moving 3 different pieces of equipment to change some media, unlikely you will do it when it needs doing.
Gazog2
Community Member
Fish Quarantine made easy
I have been keeping fish since I was 10 years old and my grandmother gave me my first stainless steel tank. In about 1983 I got interested in saltwater (OOPS) and started with Fish only in a 90 gallon tank. I have used the same methods of quarantine for fish since shortly after beginning with fresh water fish. I go by the KISS method or the "KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID" method. So hope you not sorry you asked Diazreeflife but here goes.
Quarantining is a very simple thing, first I gather up everything I need. Find a good quiet location, somewhere off the beaten path, I usually keep mine in a nice quiet location away from my display tank so as not to bother the new fish to much with noise and movement for the first few days.
1 - I use either a 10 or 15 or 20 gallon tank, pretty much depending on the fish I plan on buying, you don't want to put that 4" Blond Naso Tang in a 10 gallon but it will do fine in a 20 for a few weeks. And I don't want to hear anything from the Tang Police, I have been doing it this way for 30 some odd years now and "NEVER LOST A SINGLE TANG" to small tank syndrome.
2 - Small heater 50 watt or 75 should be plenty. I like to use a heater controller like this Aquarium Heating & Temperature Control: Azoo Micro Temp Controller becasue as I said more heaters get stuck on then go out and a fish will do just fine at normal house temperatures but tend to not do well being par-boiled by a stuck on heater.
3 - A good high flow HOB filter, preferably one with dual filters so I can hang a small bag of carbon on one side and use filter pads. Also several fresh filter pads. Don't like canster filters cause they are a PITA to clean. With a HOB you pull the old pad out and slip a new one in.
4 - A red clay pot or Rubber pot (not plastic as they tend to float) with one edge chipped away or tipped on its side so the fish has somewhere to hide. If you chip away one side make sure you make it as smooth as possible, clay pots tend to leave very sharp edges and you don't want your nice new tank to cut itself. Clay or Rubber will not absorb any medicines you might have to use also.
5 - Extremely important is a lid, Glass or Screen either way to keep the new inhabitant in the tank. This is especially important with Wrasses, Anthias some clowns and Blennies. If I am using glass I make sure to leave the top or cover off the filter, this allows for plenty of gas exchange that everyone is always so worried about, although I have used completely sealed tanks before with out an issue too.
6 - A small light low wattage light, I use a good old goose neck desk lamp with a low cost 15 watt florescent bulb. Not necessary if the tank is in a room that gets natural sunlight.
Notice, no sand, no rocks, no goofy little shipwrecks or bubbling moss monsters. Mostly this is because I always tear everything down, give everything a really good cleaning after I transfer the fish to the display tank.
But if you use rocks or gravel and you happen to have to treat the fish with something like Copper its much easier to get a precise dosage. If you have a 10 gallon tank and filter with no sand and rocks you most likely have 10 gallons of water. If you use sand and 2 med rocks you have to use best guess dosing which I do not like to do.
Also using sand and rock the medicine can be absorbed into the rock lowering the strength of the dose, once again causing best guess dosing. Plus when quarantining the next fish it may leach out and cause problems. So no rocks or sand.
I usually try to make my trips to the fish store a day or two after I do a water change on my main display tank and I use about 3/4's off that water to 1/4 new to fill the QT tank, that way the water parameters in the QT tank is pretty close to the display tanks so there is even less stress on the fish when it gets dumped in.
The only thing I ever monitor is the Ammonia levels and if I see them creeping up I will do small water change but rarely is this needed as most fish will do just fine with elevated levels unlike corals. I set up the filter and turn it on and set the heater a the same temperature that the tank the fish is going into and let the tank run.
One the Fish has been through the normal acclimation process and is in the tank I leave it alone for at least an evening, peeking around the corner if I really want to see it allowing it time to be able to check out its new tank and settle down. The next day I will try and feed it a very small amount, turning off the filter and backing off far enough so as not to spook the fish but I watch and see if its eating. Over the span of several days I will try several types of food if it does not eat until I come across one it does.
I try and keep a fish in quarantine for 4 to 6 weeks which is basically life cycle of Marine Ich, once this time has past I will put it in the tank and tear down and clean the tank. And I put everything inside the tank and store it till the next trip to the fish store.
I do not quarantine Coral and never have, but I do dip every piece using Coral Rx Coral Dip: Aquarium Acclimation & Quarantine religiously! It only take on bout of Flat worms or having 1/2 of your high end Zoa's wiped out by Zoa eating Nudibranchs and you remember to do every piece.
I have been keeping fish since I was 10 years old and my grandmother gave me my first stainless steel tank. In about 1983 I got interested in saltwater (OOPS) and started with Fish only in a 90 gallon tank. I have used the same methods of quarantine for fish since shortly after beginning with fresh water fish. I go by the KISS method or the "KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID" method. So hope you not sorry you asked Diazreeflife but here goes.
Quarantining is a very simple thing, first I gather up everything I need. Find a good quiet location, somewhere off the beaten path, I usually keep mine in a nice quiet location away from my display tank so as not to bother the new fish to much with noise and movement for the first few days.
1 - I use either a 10 or 15 or 20 gallon tank, pretty much depending on the fish I plan on buying, you don't want to put that 4" Blond Naso Tang in a 10 gallon but it will do fine in a 20 for a few weeks. And I don't want to hear anything from the Tang Police, I have been doing it this way for 30 some odd years now and "NEVER LOST A SINGLE TANG" to small tank syndrome.
2 - Small heater 50 watt or 75 should be plenty. I like to use a heater controller like this Aquarium Heating & Temperature Control: Azoo Micro Temp Controller becasue as I said more heaters get stuck on then go out and a fish will do just fine at normal house temperatures but tend to not do well being par-boiled by a stuck on heater.
3 - A good high flow HOB filter, preferably one with dual filters so I can hang a small bag of carbon on one side and use filter pads. Also several fresh filter pads. Don't like canster filters cause they are a PITA to clean. With a HOB you pull the old pad out and slip a new one in.
4 - A red clay pot or Rubber pot (not plastic as they tend to float) with one edge chipped away or tipped on its side so the fish has somewhere to hide. If you chip away one side make sure you make it as smooth as possible, clay pots tend to leave very sharp edges and you don't want your nice new tank to cut itself. Clay or Rubber will not absorb any medicines you might have to use also.
5 - Extremely important is a lid, Glass or Screen either way to keep the new inhabitant in the tank. This is especially important with Wrasses, Anthias some clowns and Blennies. If I am using glass I make sure to leave the top or cover off the filter, this allows for plenty of gas exchange that everyone is always so worried about, although I have used completely sealed tanks before with out an issue too.
6 - A small light low wattage light, I use a good old goose neck desk lamp with a low cost 15 watt florescent bulb. Not necessary if the tank is in a room that gets natural sunlight.
Notice, no sand, no rocks, no goofy little shipwrecks or bubbling moss monsters. Mostly this is because I always tear everything down, give everything a really good cleaning after I transfer the fish to the display tank.
But if you use rocks or gravel and you happen to have to treat the fish with something like Copper its much easier to get a precise dosage. If you have a 10 gallon tank and filter with no sand and rocks you most likely have 10 gallons of water. If you use sand and 2 med rocks you have to use best guess dosing which I do not like to do.
Also using sand and rock the medicine can be absorbed into the rock lowering the strength of the dose, once again causing best guess dosing. Plus when quarantining the next fish it may leach out and cause problems. So no rocks or sand.
I usually try to make my trips to the fish store a day or two after I do a water change on my main display tank and I use about 3/4's off that water to 1/4 new to fill the QT tank, that way the water parameters in the QT tank is pretty close to the display tanks so there is even less stress on the fish when it gets dumped in.
The only thing I ever monitor is the Ammonia levels and if I see them creeping up I will do small water change but rarely is this needed as most fish will do just fine with elevated levels unlike corals. I set up the filter and turn it on and set the heater a the same temperature that the tank the fish is going into and let the tank run.
One the Fish has been through the normal acclimation process and is in the tank I leave it alone for at least an evening, peeking around the corner if I really want to see it allowing it time to be able to check out its new tank and settle down. The next day I will try and feed it a very small amount, turning off the filter and backing off far enough so as not to spook the fish but I watch and see if its eating. Over the span of several days I will try several types of food if it does not eat until I come across one it does.
I try and keep a fish in quarantine for 4 to 6 weeks which is basically life cycle of Marine Ich, once this time has past I will put it in the tank and tear down and clean the tank. And I put everything inside the tank and store it till the next trip to the fish store.
I do not quarantine Coral and never have, but I do dip every piece using Coral Rx Coral Dip: Aquarium Acclimation & Quarantine religiously! It only take on bout of Flat worms or having 1/2 of your high end Zoa's wiped out by Zoa eating Nudibranchs and you remember to do every piece.
