Well a lot has happened since my last post.
We lost the cleaner shrimp a week or so ago. Just one day wasnt' there any more. I ketp doing water changes and my parameters didn't get better. So checked with a local reef store and they suggested we stop feeding "so much" and we dropped to a once a week schedule. No more. My critters were so hungry the peppermits killed and ate a snail (orange one too). Rainbow (the cleaner) disasppeared and if I had ot wager I'd bet she rain afoul of the bristle star. Either that or a mold didn't go well and same result.
We bought a pair of clownfish a while ago and had one get behind the foam wall and die. In trying to get it out I stirred up the tank. Well the second one passed a few days later and I had to stir the tank up something awful to get it out. Ended up taking the tank apart and draining all the water. Put in another small bag of live sand and rearranged the rocks (dumped the elkhorn coral crud from SWF.com) and put everything back together. The good news was that a headcount showed that I had nearly everythign that had been put in the tank. Even if I hadn't seen them all in some time.
So anyway, we let the tank settle down some more but the parameters were still not great. Broke down and bought my skimmer and it is now in place. Pulling yellow/brown gunk out of the tank. Goting to test the water agin in a little bit.
Oh yea. We replaced the two clownfish and these are alive and swimming around after a week. So I'm thinking the first pair was ill to start with.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
End of the CUC
Ok so the tank is running well. Water parameters are not perfect but they are well within tolerance and they are flat - not cycling. So I decided to close the gap in my cleanup crew. So off to Smitty's to get the end of the crew. I walked out with 3 Mex Turbos, 4 Ninja Star snails, 3 Orange Chesnut snails. I also picked up three Peppermint Shrimp to round out my crew to four. Well lost a Ninja Star but all the rest acclimated and are wandering around the tank.
Well that wasn't everything I wanted so next day I went to Reef Fanatics and bought my last three critters. Walked out with a Fire Shrimp, Skunk Cleaner Shrimp and a brittle star the size of my hand. I have wanted one of these ever since I first saw one.
So my CUC is complete and in the tank. Here is a picture of my skunk cleaner shrimp.
Well that wasn't everything I wanted so next day I went to Reef Fanatics and bought my last three critters. Walked out with a Fire Shrimp, Skunk Cleaner Shrimp and a brittle star the size of my hand. I have wanted one of these ever since I first saw one.
So my CUC is complete and in the tank. Here is a picture of my skunk cleaner shrimp.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
A Reef!
I am convinced that my cycle is done. Now the battle is to get my Nitrates down to a much more acceptable level. For the last several tests the Nitrates have been testing as 50 (verified by the LFS). This is too high so the battle is on. I read at About.com for saltwater aquaria that a rapid water change program can rapidly lower Nitrates. Well I don't currently have the capability to mix a large volume of saltwater at once (or the funds to go buy it premixed) so I will do this over the course of a week.
The first water change (and maintenance day) was yesterday and based on testing my Nitrates are down by nearly half. Today's test read 20 (well literally somewhere between 20 and 50 but I am going low since its not as dark as it normally is). So this may actually work. My next water change should drop them to 10 then to 5 by midweek.
My Ammonia and Nitrate are also running steady on so I don't think I have enough of a bioload to kick the bacteria upward from where I have it. Even with feeding the tank. So the current plan is (presuming Nitrates follow plan) to get my shrimp, some scarlet and blue leg hermits and at least one more emerald crab in place with 5 Turbo snails to help with algae. That will bring my stock list to:
1 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Fire Shrimp
4 Peppermint Shrimp
2 Emerald Crabs
9 Hermit crabs (non specific)
2 Scarlet Hermits (for color)
2 Blue Leg Hermits (for color)
5 Nassarius snails
5 Astra Snails
5 Turbo Snails
Then I'll let this run for a couple of weeks to see how the parameters go. I'm anticipating that by the end of September I'll be ready to begin the slow introduction of fish into the tank.
Hopefully by early fall the tank stocking will be complete and I can sit back and just veg out even more than I do now watching my mini Reef (and plan for the bigger one to come).
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
My cycle is done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Or so I'm figuring. Getting water check at LFS today to be sure, the parameters I'm seeing are what it actually is. My diatoms are gone and I have green stuff showing up. Only issue is a large Nitrate value. I'm going to work out the logistics to get that down over the course of a week by doing a 40% water change every 3 days for a week to get it gone.
If that works out, the the rest of the CUC goes in and in a couple weeks a Nemo. Then we are on track for life and activity in the tank.
WHY of why are the shrimp I want so bloody expensive :)
If that works out, the the rest of the CUC goes in and in a couple weeks a Nemo. Then we are on track for life and activity in the tank.
WHY of why are the shrimp I want so bloody expensive :)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Sunday update
Its been awhile since I posted in here but its been sort of "calm" around the tank. Obviously its still alive and kicking - an how! Well for me its "and how" for others I'm sure this is routine and boring.
The largest news is the diatom bloom is here. There is brown stuff everywhere and its been increasing. I'm torn through. While its "normal" I read that it comes from high Nitrates (maybe they'll help lower em) and possibly dead spots in the water flow. I'm going to have to look into that.
I've taken to having some late nights as I sit up looking at the tank. I actually spent Thursday night sitting in the dark with a magnifying glass and flashlight peering into holes in the rock :) And it paid off. I found my "lost" baby brittle star. It's HUGE. It was so tiny before that you could hardly see it on the sand. Now it has found itself a nice little hole in one of my base rocks and its legs stick out into the flow. Each of those legs must be a bit over 1/4" apiece. So having found it we went out and got some shrimp pellets and I fed it Friday. Took my long feeding tongs (from the scorps) and put that shrimp pellet in the hole. It was neat watching the legs wrap up the pellet and pull food off of it.
So while finding my brittle star I also found a Nassarius snail "stuck" in the Mushroom rock. This has a frag plug jammed in such a way that the snail couldn't escape. So reading about diatoms referred me to the fact that these snails do well eating them in the sand bed. So Saturday I bought 5 of em and added them to the tank. I also freed the one from the Mushroom rock by pulling the frag plug out.
Once on the floor the snails buried themselves and I presume went to work eating the diatoms in the sand bed.
Going back to Friday night (when I fed my brittle star) I found THREE MORE. All about the same size and scatted in various holes. I have two in the same rock! While I haven't found anymore this is encouraging.
The rest of my critters are doing well. The Emerald Crab has the run of the tank. She is the fastest crab in the world I'm betting. I can see her on a rock to the right and then it seems likes minutes later she is all the way on the other side of the tank. The hermits are good hiders and I haven't seen them much in the last few days but every once in awhile I'll see one or more of them bumbling around.
I am convinced (well mostly) that I lost one of my Peppermits. Either that or they truly are playing games with my head on purpose. As the daylight lights go off the Peppermint comes out to play. And that is the ONLY way I can describe it is playtime. Now there is some contention on whether we are seeing the "same" shrimp day after day but we only see one at a time. It seems the favorite past time is surfing the currents. It starts on the left side and rides the current along the front of the tank to a rock - walks around and surfs around to the other side. Come back behind all the rockwork and repeat. Its like the tank is an amusment ride. Here is a quick video of it surfing. Last night this must have happened about 10-15 times before it got tired of it.
Lastly I am trying to arrange my rockwork to get currents/flow right and lighting for the Mushroom as well as plan where to put the elkhorn coral rock that is curing as I type. Hopefully this will be in the tank mid-week and I can just let it ride and sit back and wait for my parameters to stablilize.
The largest news is the diatom bloom is here. There is brown stuff everywhere and its been increasing. I'm torn through. While its "normal" I read that it comes from high Nitrates (maybe they'll help lower em) and possibly dead spots in the water flow. I'm going to have to look into that.
I've taken to having some late nights as I sit up looking at the tank. I actually spent Thursday night sitting in the dark with a magnifying glass and flashlight peering into holes in the rock :) And it paid off. I found my "lost" baby brittle star. It's HUGE. It was so tiny before that you could hardly see it on the sand. Now it has found itself a nice little hole in one of my base rocks and its legs stick out into the flow. Each of those legs must be a bit over 1/4" apiece. So having found it we went out and got some shrimp pellets and I fed it Friday. Took my long feeding tongs (from the scorps) and put that shrimp pellet in the hole. It was neat watching the legs wrap up the pellet and pull food off of it.
So while finding my brittle star I also found a Nassarius snail "stuck" in the Mushroom rock. This has a frag plug jammed in such a way that the snail couldn't escape. So reading about diatoms referred me to the fact that these snails do well eating them in the sand bed. So Saturday I bought 5 of em and added them to the tank. I also freed the one from the Mushroom rock by pulling the frag plug out.
Once on the floor the snails buried themselves and I presume went to work eating the diatoms in the sand bed.
Going back to Friday night (when I fed my brittle star) I found THREE MORE. All about the same size and scatted in various holes. I have two in the same rock! While I haven't found anymore this is encouraging.
The rest of my critters are doing well. The Emerald Crab has the run of the tank. She is the fastest crab in the world I'm betting. I can see her on a rock to the right and then it seems likes minutes later she is all the way on the other side of the tank. The hermits are good hiders and I haven't seen them much in the last few days but every once in awhile I'll see one or more of them bumbling around.
I am convinced (well mostly) that I lost one of my Peppermits. Either that or they truly are playing games with my head on purpose. As the daylight lights go off the Peppermint comes out to play. And that is the ONLY way I can describe it is playtime. Now there is some contention on whether we are seeing the "same" shrimp day after day but we only see one at a time. It seems the favorite past time is surfing the currents. It starts on the left side and rides the current along the front of the tank to a rock - walks around and surfs around to the other side. Come back behind all the rockwork and repeat. Its like the tank is an amusment ride. Here is a quick video of it surfing. Last night this must have happened about 10-15 times before it got tired of it.
Lastly I am trying to arrange my rockwork to get currents/flow right and lighting for the Mushroom as well as plan where to put the elkhorn coral rock that is curing as I type. Hopefully this will be in the tank mid-week and I can just let it ride and sit back and wait for my parameters to stablilize.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
So how come this tank is "working"
I've been trying to figure out why this tank seems to be violating every "rule" that has been put forward on starting new tanks. Have to get fresh water, live rock, start the cycle and watch it for 4-6 weeks watching for the values to go down and make the tank safe. The books and the online forums all reiterated the same thing. Over and over. Do not rush. Take your time, it takes time to make it work for the long run.
Well with all of that, it was my intent all along to go slow. Get this salt water, add LR from Smitty's and add even more LR from SWF and then start the cycle and let her rip per the pundits. However, once I figured out I had polyps in there and the live sand "hatched" critters I began to have second thoughts. Then I read a post in an online forum that essentially said if you have critters hatching from the LS and on the LR then you have sufficient bacteria to handle your bio load. It was at that point (coupled with two successive days readings of decreasing values for Ammonia and Nitrite) that I decided to work to keep the tank alive. I didn't want to lose what I had. So my intent was to cycle for life. I had read about this and it essentially said test constantly and when ammonia goes up - do a water change to help keep it in check and let the cycle run. Essentially manual intervention in the soup to keep it sustainable for whatever may be alive.
So that was my intent. And then I did the one bad impulse thing. I bought my inverts. It was impulsive and I was of a mind that if the corals were alive the inverts would do well to help keep the "feedings" under control. So here I was with a tank "full of life" and unable to do water changes. And yet, three days later the tank seems to be doing well. How?
I don't know about saltwater chemistry but I have a sense of hmmm, this makes sense. And to me this is the same thing as taking a tank down to move it across the room and then put it back together.
First: I used water change water. While the parameters were higher than fresh salt water; they were not off the scale.
Second: I used live rock with a well sustained bacterial load and life on it too boot. The rocks were never not moist and were only out of the water on the order of 2 hours tops.
Third: The bioload I added was very minimal. And is serving to keep the detritus under some level of control. Thus reducing the "rot" and "decomposition" that adds ammonia to the water.
So all in all I think I took a "mature" system and made a juvenile system. No way do I consider my tank nearly mature. Way too much work still waiting. But I do think I knocked off the largest part of the 4-6 week cycle period.
My updated plan is 20% water changes weekly for the next week (tomorrow and one more). By that time I should have the SWF live rock cured and in the tank and be looking to add a member or three to the CUC and see how it goes. After the third water change - depending on how the tank is functioning it may be time to go to biweekly changes and consider adding some more.
As Smitty told me - you can read and listen but when its all over "it's your tank that matters." So I'm learning as I go and trying very, VERY hard to be patient. Besides sometimes it pays to be ignorant. Then you don't know you can't do that.
Well with all of that, it was my intent all along to go slow. Get this salt water, add LR from Smitty's and add even more LR from SWF and then start the cycle and let her rip per the pundits. However, once I figured out I had polyps in there and the live sand "hatched" critters I began to have second thoughts. Then I read a post in an online forum that essentially said if you have critters hatching from the LS and on the LR then you have sufficient bacteria to handle your bio load. It was at that point (coupled with two successive days readings of decreasing values for Ammonia and Nitrite) that I decided to work to keep the tank alive. I didn't want to lose what I had. So my intent was to cycle for life. I had read about this and it essentially said test constantly and when ammonia goes up - do a water change to help keep it in check and let the cycle run. Essentially manual intervention in the soup to keep it sustainable for whatever may be alive.
So that was my intent. And then I did the one bad impulse thing. I bought my inverts. It was impulsive and I was of a mind that if the corals were alive the inverts would do well to help keep the "feedings" under control. So here I was with a tank "full of life" and unable to do water changes. And yet, three days later the tank seems to be doing well. How?
I don't know about saltwater chemistry but I have a sense of hmmm, this makes sense. And to me this is the same thing as taking a tank down to move it across the room and then put it back together.
First: I used water change water. While the parameters were higher than fresh salt water; they were not off the scale.
Second: I used live rock with a well sustained bacterial load and life on it too boot. The rocks were never not moist and were only out of the water on the order of 2 hours tops.
Third: The bioload I added was very minimal. And is serving to keep the detritus under some level of control. Thus reducing the "rot" and "decomposition" that adds ammonia to the water.
So all in all I think I took a "mature" system and made a juvenile system. No way do I consider my tank nearly mature. Way too much work still waiting. But I do think I knocked off the largest part of the 4-6 week cycle period.
My updated plan is 20% water changes weekly for the next week (tomorrow and one more). By that time I should have the SWF live rock cured and in the tank and be looking to add a member or three to the CUC and see how it goes. After the third water change - depending on how the tank is functioning it may be time to go to biweekly changes and consider adding some more.
As Smitty told me - you can read and listen but when its all over "it's your tank that matters." So I'm learning as I go and trying very, VERY hard to be patient. Besides sometimes it pays to be ignorant. Then you don't know you can't do that.
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