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Pet Forum / Aquaria / Marine Reef / October 2007Starting a reef tank
Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop recommended to me... I've been dealing with them for awhile, and have run several tanks, just never gone with reef (and not saltwater in ages): 72 galloon oceaning reef ready bow tank with stand, top etc plumbing kit oceaning sump pum protein skimmer esu power compact light versatop heater/thermometer Salt/hydrometer/testkit Anything I'm forgetting? Mitch > Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop > recommended to me... [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Anything I'm forgetting? What are your plans to this tank? Will you have soft corals? SPS? LPS? How do you plan to deal with nutrient export? Have you familiarized yourself with the most often used systems? HAve you got in your hands any book on the subject? Yes, purchase some books on reefkeeping before you buy any aquarium stuff. Many people don't take this advice, but it's advice that is much worth taking. Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com Pszemol wrote on 9/24/2007 7:26 PM: >> Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop >> recommended to me... [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > HAve you got in your hands any book on the subject? I'm not a big fan of bow fronts. They distort the view, and make cleaning with an algae magnet quite difficult. You need to add up the total watts of lighting that you will be going with. You want 3 to 6 watts of light per gallon. 3 being only good for low light stuff like soft corals and mushrooms, 5 being good, and 6 being great. I assume this has a built in overflow, and not a hang-on-the-back overflow??? "ocening sump"? Probably "Oceanic sump", and probably an Oceanic tank. Oceanic reef ready tanks have the built in overflow. Yes you want the built in overflow, but you might want to opt for the flat front instead of the bow front. Also lighting is easier to work with over standard shaped tanks. Go with a fine calcium sand, not calcium gravel. I'm to lazy to look it up, but I think that the oceanic sump comes with a wet dry filter. You would be better off with a plain style sump/aquarium, and make a refugium style filtration with protein skimmer. Also, some more advice is to window shop, window shop, window shop. Not for the point of getting the cheapest price, but so that you will be familiar with what's out there and you will have a better aptitude to make the right purchasing decision. Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com Big Habeeb wrote on 9/24/2007 6:07 PM: > Hey gang, just wanted to get some opinions...here's the setup my shop > recommended to me... [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Mitch > Anything I'm forgetting? Sounds good for a start. Need live rock, salt water, and eventually various test kits, but the hardware you have lined up is ok. You might need better lighting if you want to keep hard corals. George Patterson If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess to anything. > > Anything I'm forgetting? > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess > to anything. Allow me to rephrase slightly: I've done a ton of reading on it, and in concept understand how to go about setting it up. I guess at this point its more the order of operations I'm confused by...lets fast forward to tomorrow: my tank is built, filter setup, no water in it, no substrate, no rock, but it's ready to get started. What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? Can it survive in fresh water for awhile? By awhile I mean, while I add the water, then add the salt mix...or do I need to mix the salt water and add it in smaller quantities (i.e. from a bucket)? How does one attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live rock...also, I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've heard this referred to as "live sand"...same questions apply there, meaning can it survive out of water, in fresh water etc Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm sure the guy at the shop will be happy to answer all of this for me when I go to pick up my setup...but I'd like to go in educated. Mitch > > > Anything I'm forgetting? > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > pick up my setup...but I'd like to go in educated. > Mitch I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the thing up and running with saltwater first. So can the sand handle having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same kind of scenario? Also, can the live rock be glued/drilled as the dead corals I used in cichlid keeping were? Thanks again all, Mitch Sounds like you have LOTS more reading to do. The questions you have posed are very basic and you need to have a better understanding of what you are doing before you proceed further! >> > > Anything I'm forgetting? >> [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >Thanks again all, >Mitch > I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the > thing up and running with saltwater first. So can the sand handle > having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same > kind of scenario? All living critters in a reef tank will die in freshwater pretty quickly. They will also die without water pretty quickly, but some of them can survive in moist environment in some rock crevices, so live rock is shipped without water, and what dies, it dies... What survives the trip starts growing in your tank. The sand bottom of the tank is done in couple different ways. Also, what people call "live sand" could be quite different depending who do you talk... Some LFS sell "live sand" in plastic bag in moist state... This is not what I would call live sand - this is rather wet sand. It will have some bacteria left on the sand, but no living creatures which could be beneficial in the reef tank: mini stars, crustaceans, micro snails, etc.. For such animals to be present in the live sand you need to fly it from the reef on the airplane. Exactly like live rock is shipped. Day or two out of the ocean. Not longer... How is the "live sand" in the plastic bag made? It is dead sand, sterilized to not stink, then a bacteria starter is added and the bag is sealed. You pay big bugs for a wet sand which you can make yourself at home buing some dry playsand in Home Depot and a small bottle of bacteria starter. So the order would be this way: You make up saltwater in a clean, plastic bucket or two. Let it stand until everything is mixed well and not cloudy (overnight). You make enough water to cover the sand... lets say 10 gallons. You put a layer of dry sand on the bottom of the tank... Using known technique from freshwater tanks you place a dinner plate or a foil bag on the surface of the sand and pour water in the tank to not disturb sand too much... If you are going with REAL live sand layer on top of the dry sand as a seeding method, now you would put a layer of live sand. Also try to disturb the sand as little as possible. Then you prepare more water and add untill the tank is maybe 70% full... You need room for the live rock volume. Before you add live rock you keep the tank with just sand and water for couple of days to make sand settle a bit. If your dry sand was not clean and have a lots of organic debris you will observe quite a big ammonia spike now... Wait for adding rock until ammonia be not detectable. Then you can add live rock, do landscaping and top off the rest of the saltwater to make the tank full. At this moment you should have no fish, no invertebrates, espiecially corals in the tank... You are expecting huge ammonia spikes before the tank will complete nitrogen cycle. Depending of the quality of the rock, the tank will cycle sooner or later. If you have rock shipped to your home dirrectly you will expect more dead animals on the rocks, so you will have to wait longer for the tank to cycle. If you buy already cured rock in the local store, bring it quickly to your tank the die-off will be minimal and in most cases you will not see ammonia spike at all... Tank at this level, with bare-bone live rock, no fish, should be your first goal. This will keep you busy for weeks... In the meantime, buy a good book and read it cover to cover before you buy your tank, lights and equipment... What you buy STRONGLY depends on what you want to keep in your tank... what type of corals, what types of fish. > > I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the > > thing up and running with saltwater first. So can the sand handle [quoted text clipped - 70 lines] > What you buy STRONGLY depends on what you want to > keep in your tank... what type of corals, what types of fish. Thank you SO much for the response here. I have, in fact, read a couple of books but they seem to mostly focus on the chemistry of the tank...which is important, no doubt, but doesn't really help me figure out how to START, which you have just helped me out here with. I know it takes time and the first goal you set is exactly what I anticipated. As someone who has mostly done freshwater with very few jumps into salt I guess I just didnt know how to go about getting rolling in terms of the salt water itself. I know I can mix it myself, I was just hoping there was an easier way to go about filling a tank...i.e. in a 72 gallon tank, pump in 50 gallons of water from a hose and then adjust salt content as needed...but I'm guessing that would cause a major problem in terms of getting the sand substrate to settle down to the bottom. And yes, I know the "bowl in the bottom" method very well. the first, and still probably the best, trick I ever learned from my time doing freshwater stuffs. About the only question you DIDNT answer was in terms of being able to stack live rock - can you actually epoxy the stuff together, or will that murder everything in there? I've read a lot about people gluing organisms TO the rock, but not actually connecting the rock at all...any thoughts? Mitch > Thank you SO much for the response here. I have, in fact, read a > couple of books but they seem to mostly focus on the chemistry of the > tank...which is important, no doubt, but doesn't really help me figure > out how to START, which you have just helped me out here with. Could you please provide titles/authors of books you read? > myself, I was just hoping there was an easier way to go about filling > a tank...i.e. in a 72 gallon tank, pump in 50 gallons of water from a > hose and then adjust salt content as needed...but I'm guessing that > would cause a major problem in terms of getting the sand substrate to > settle down to the bottom. First, you do not use tap water. You want reverse osmosis filtered water. 70 gallons tank is not that hard to fill with buckets as you might think. Get a couple of empty Instant Ocean salt buckets - they are about 5-6 gallons each. Fill them with RO water and mix salt. Use proper tools to make it salty enough - you will find details in any book. > About the only question you DIDNT answer was in terms of being able to > stack live rock - can you actually epoxy the stuff together, or will > that murder everything in there? I've read a lot about people gluing > organisms TO the rock, but not actually connecting the rock at > all...any thoughts? You can stack them, you can glue them, you can drill them and then use long cable tie wraps to to stich them together... Anything suits your landscaping needs. Make sure you will be able to REMOVE rock pieces if needed, so do not make pieces large enough to get stuck somewhere under the center brace of the tank, etc. Make sure you do not use any metal parts which will leak toxins to water, also do not use glues you are not sure are not toxix - best way is to use aquarium glues made for saltwater. I am personally against permanent structures in the tank so I do not glue anything together, rather interlock them to stack rock formation in place and avoid its colapse... The reason is I like to rearrange rocks in the tank and also I do not like human-made glue visible in my tank. > > Thank you SO much for the response here. I have, in fact, read a > > couple of books but they seem to mostly focus on the chemistry of the [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > The reason is I like to rearrange rocks in the tank and > also I do not like human-made glue visible in my tank. Books I read included (over the last few months) Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) And no, I dont know the authors off top of my head, I happen to have the barnes and noble online order receipt saved to my PC ;) > Books I read included (over the last few months) > Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) > Simplified Reef Keeping (Metelsky) > Modern Coral reef aquairum (nilsen) Not bad... I could also recomend you read this one: "Natural Reef Aquarium" by John H. Tullock Here is cheaper than B&N http://www.petstore.com/ps_ViewItem-idproduct-BKNRA.html Full of great ideas for a many different kind of aquariums. And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory BEFORE YOU BUY THESE ANIMALS: "Clownfishes" by Joyce D. Wilkerson "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek > > Books I read included (over the last few months) > > Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > "Host Sea Anemone Secrets" by Dr. Ron Shimek I will pick them both up as I did anticipate adding a clown once the tank was up and running. I've kept a clown before in a previous tank but again, no reef involved so less to worry about I would guess. I really, REALLY appreciate all the advice and will post more once I pick up the stuff and get it setup. Mitch >>>Books I read included (over the last few months) >>>Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > pick up the stuff and get it setup. > Mitch Both the Tullock and the Wilkerson books are excellent.....I read the Tullock before I even ventured into my still early experience in keeping a reef tank.... With respect to mixing the water - only use RO water or RO/DI if you can get it.....when I set up my tank(s) I used plain coral sand substrate and mixed the salt, minerals, buffer etc within the tank - taking advantage of there being no living creature and the heater and the pumps etc to provide the circulation to get the stuff mixed.....I ran the tank empty for a week to ensure everything had dissolved (including hand stirrings as there was nothing to pollute in the tank).....Once I was happy that the salt mix, pH, buffer and calcium content was OK I then added live rock......forget live sand as your live rock will populate your sand itself.......this then had to be left to ensure that there was no further residual die off from it being imported.......you will often find LR described as cured but give it a good sniff - if it smells of anything other than clean sea water you will need to cure it further yourself (not a great issue unless you are impatient).....leave the LR in the tank for 1-2 weeks and test for ammonia and nitrites - if there is any die off then you will get a spike.....the LR will act as in the same way as a freshwater filter system bacteria and will deal with this but you have to give it time - it is still cycling.....Personally, once I got zero readings on nitrites I then went for some clean up crew - snails, hermits etc.....in my little Nano tank I had to provide additional food for them for the first week or so......then I started with some of the easier corals.....mushrooms, buttons etc.......eventually after 3 months I started to add the fish..... Now, I am very new to all of this (only set up my first tank a year ago), and like you am from a freshwater background so had to unlearn certain things (like cleaning substrate)......I chose to initially try a 15 gall Nano tank as an experiment - it was a hotch potch tank and I moved all but the hermits and the clowns and live rock out once heat became an issue but by that time I was addicted and had a tank to move them to.....but it was a great way to learn....the FOWLR Nano tank is still very cute but hard to maintain.... Gill If you are going to do a reef tank, I would recommend frilly mushrooms over anemones, as they can take the abuse of the fish better, and they don't move around like anemones do. Also for your question about pumping water, mag-drive pumps work great for this. Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com Big Habeeb wrote on 9/25/2007 5:41 PM: >>> Books I read included (over the last few months) >>> Keeping a Reef Aquarium (Friese and Friese) [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > pick up the stuff and get it setup. > Mitch Big Habeeb <mitch.brenner@gmail.com> wrote on Tue, 25 Sep 2007: >> And if you ever think of getting clownfish and, more importantly sea >> anemones, I would consider reading following two positions mandatory [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > tank was up and running. I've kept a clown before in a previous tank > but again, no reef involved so less to worry about I would guess. Clowns are some of the easiest saltwater fish to keep. Swim out in the open water, friendly, come up to the surface to feed. The main thing you have to worry about with clowns is the number and species interaction; if you're going to get more than one clown, you should read up on them to understand what combinations work together and what don't. But if you only get a single clown, it's hard for much to go wrong. The problem is that a lot of people have heard about the clownfish-sea anemone symbiosis. And it's true that, in the wild, you never find clowns without a host sea anemone (or vis versa, actually). So some people assume that if they want clowns, they have to get a sea anemone too. And that's when the problems start. While clowns may be one of the easiest fish for a novice aquarist to keep, sea anemones can be one of the most challenging. A novice should never start with a sea anemone as one of his first living sea creatures to care for. Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones. -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis don@geddis.org http://reef.geddis.org/ --------- if you cut here, you'll probably destroy your monitor ---------- > Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. > So get the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones. Or... get the books I recomended, educate yourself and then it will be easy to not only keep clowns in a healthy anemone but with no problems have them mate and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do. I setup my tank in 2002, started with two young clowns (maroon ones) later got a helthy specimen of bubble tip anemone and few years ago had them breed in my tank and rise fry to maturity. Sold off all the babies for about $10 a pop and kept two pairs of babies for future in a different tanks (I have total of 4 marine tanks now). My ultimate goal is to close the cycle, what I mean by this is to get the young babies I got from breeding at home to mature and mate and have babies on their own. Currently one of the two pairs I have left died, cought some disease came with live brine shrimp feeding. My last pair is mating, the difference between male and female is obvious (coloration and size) but they did not lay eggs yet. I am waiting in patience. Summinig up - keeping sea anemones is difficult in the same way as keeping cats or cows when you do not know what cats or cows need to survive... :-) Anemones are just very different animals than these we are used to in our terrestial lives. So unless you read about their needs, understand how their body functions - yes, you will kill anemones easily... But this is not a reason to not keep them - different does not mean they are difficult! They are different and this is a perfect reason to educate yourself, do some reading from trusted sources about host anemones and than you will have all the tools you need to keep a helthy one. BTW - the anemone I have in my tank now is the first anemone I got, never killed one myself. Got it when is was small, maybe 2-3" across oral disk, now it barelly fits in my 58 gallons oceanic tank... it occupies center of the tank, glued itself to the center column for the overflow and reaches from the bottom of the tank to the 1-2" from the top of the water column. Clowns love it, they bath in its tentacles, nest in it, lay eggs at its base (on the overflow column) and they are like very happy family. Outstanding show! Keeping a single clownfish in a tank with other fish is kind of cruel in my view - these are social fish and are best kept in pairs (Maroons) or small groups (any other types, including your well known "Nemo"). Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed. I am not sure if this argument is valid for you guys or not, but as you pointed out yourself, clownfish are not found in nature alone so keeping them this way in the tank is not quite natural either :-) I love the comment on keeping anemones as opposed to keeping cows or cats - makes a lot of sense to me now looking at it in that way. The concept of having fish breeding in my tank, I admit, somewhat frightens me...bad experience with some convict cichlids aways back...where they just wouldnt STOP breeding!!! I will definitely be getting the books that you recommend long before I'm ready to add either an anemone, or any clown fish to the tank. Like I said, I plan on drawing out this process as long as necessary to make sure it's a successful launch. Whether or not I'll be able to successfully keep corals, fish, live rock etc remains to be seen...but at this point I'm fairly certain I know enough to successfully run a saltwater tank with non-live sand and not kill anything lol ;) Mitch > > Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. > > So get the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones. [quoted text clipped - 57 lines] > in nature alone so keeping them this way in the tank > is not quite natural either :-) > I love the comment on keeping anemones as opposed to keeping > cows or cats - makes a lot of sense to me now looking at it in that way. It is true, unfortunatelly there is a lot of misunderstanding on what they need to survive and how to make them thrive in the tank. The biggest mistake people do is they do not feed their anemone. It needs to eat reagularly to build their tissues out of proteins. Many people think they just need strong light and they will be fine. Algae in their tissue can provide only sugars to give them energy but they need to eat to have good source of proteins. > The concept of having fish breeding in my tank, I admit, somewhat > frightens me...bad experience with some convict cichlids aways > back...where they just wouldnt STOP breeding!!! Clowns and anemone tank is just a different type of a reef tank. Acroporas garden is also different type. A tank with an octopus will be also totally different. Tank with soft corals will also be totally different. If you try mixing animals from different ecology niches of the ocean you will have small chance for success. Some animals will like lots of light, others lots of alternating water currents. Yet others will prefer almost stagnant water with a steady laminar flow and not too much light... Some will be very dirty, like an octopus, and will require tons of good filtration - others will be almost self sufficient with no filters required (live rock alone will be enough). In terms of fish breeding in a reef tank you will have slightly better situation than in freshwater: almost always no fry survives in the reef tank, so you would not have ever problems with the overpopularion of your fish, compared to a tank with guppies. To successfuly breed fish and rise fry you need to setup separate tanks and take eggs/fry out, giving special food etc. Lot of fun, but also a lot of work. Not everybody will be happy to do this work. My clowns have eggs every two weeks or even more often. Now, that I already had my fun breeding them I just leave eggs in the tank, pair is tending for them, fry hatches and gets eaten by other fish or end up in filters. Tough luck :-( > I will definitely be > getting the books that you recommend long before I'm ready to add [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > fairly certain I know enough to successfully run a saltwater tank with > non-live sand and not kill anything lol ;) I am sure you do :-) Pszemol wrote on 9/26/2007 2:06 PM: >> Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get >> the clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > a healthy anemone but with no problems have them mate > and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do. Yea but a pair of maroon clowns laying egg are usually not good tank mates for other fish :-) > I setup my tank in 2002, started with two young clowns > (maroon ones) later got a helthy specimen of bubble tip [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] > in nature alone so keeping them this way in the tank > is not quite natural either :-) Yep, two clownfish do the best. I recomend ossolaris, or percula, as they are the least aggressive. I don't like anemones in the reef tank because they are bad about moving around and stinging the corals. mushrooms don't move around like anemones do. That's not to say that I would never put an anemone in a reef tank, but I don't normally recommend it, as most people get real tired of loosing their corals from the anemone. Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com > Pszemol wrote on 9/26/2007 2:06 PM: >>> Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Yea but a pair of maroon clowns laying egg are > usually not good tank mates for other fish :-) In the same tank I keep hepatus tang and royal gramma. Several sea urchins, sea cucumbers, two skunk shrimps and tons of hermit crabs of many variety. No issues. Large anemone gives clowns a proper retreat and secure place to nest - since other fish or shrimps have fear of anemone clowns feel safe and are not that aggressive. Yes, when I put my hand in the tank to do some cleaning or rock rearranging I get bitten by the female, but I see no aggression towards other tankmates. I guess they are well trained by clowns to not mess with "The Mother" :-) > Yep, two clownfish do the best. I recomend > ossolaris, or percula, as they are the least aggressive. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > most people get real tired of loosing their corals > from the anemone. Host anemones are very big animals. Usually, if you want to keep a host anemone it will soon be big enough to not leave any room for corals. There are many compatible combinations or animals for a saltwater tank and it is impossible to keep everything in one tank (that is why I have 4 - lol!). If you want to have a garden of acroporas than clown hosting sea anemone probably will not be a good choice. It is like mixing tangs or triggers with sea horses. It simply does not work this way. That is why you need to make up your mind what you want to keep to properly design the tank from the begining: rockwork, water flow, filtration, lighting etc... There is no universal setup and most of these things will depend on what animals you want to keep most likely. Very little experience is needed to know that a fish tank for soft corals will be quite different than an acro's garden or clowns hosting in a large, tank dominating sea anemone. Hey Pszemol what's the secret to getting them to breed?? (Bottle wine and night at the movies ;-)) Seriously though I have 2 tomatoe clowns I purchased as little ones together about a year plus ago. Each have their own bubble anemone but the male is constantly setting in the females anemone with her and they roll around in it together. I keep waiting to see eggs or something else going on as I was hoping they would breed. Still haven't had any luck. What's the trick for getting them to breed? Hey, I've even tried to give them privacy ;-) Susan :) >> Pszemol wrote on 9/26/2007 2:06 PM: >>>> Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > soft corals will be quite different than an acro's garden > or clowns hosting in a large, tank dominating sea anemone. > Hey Pszemol what's the secret to getting them to breed?? (Bottle wine and > night at the movies ;-)) Seriously though I have 2 tomatoe clowns I [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > any luck. What's the trick for getting them to breed? Hey, I've even tried > to give them privacy ;-) They need to be feed very, very well. I am talking about high frequency, high quantity and high quality foods. Every time I try to limit their rich diet due to some algae problems they stop breeding. I guess eggs production requires a lot of energy intake. Thanks Pszemol. I currently feed Prime Reef flakes and Formula Two (It's higher in algae) to the fish everyday. And every several days or so feed them frozen brine or other type frozen meaty products. Is there a food you recommend? Thanks-Susan :) >> Hey Pszemol what's the secret to getting them to breed?? (Bottle wine and >> night at the movies ;-)) Seriously though I have 2 tomatoe clowns I [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > algae problems they stop breeding. > I guess eggs production requires a lot of energy intake. > Thanks Pszemol. I currently feed Prime Reef flakes and Formula Two (It's > higher in algae) to the fish everyday. And every several days or so feed > them frozen brine or other type frozen meaty products. Is there a food you > recommend? Flakes are very good for small fish because they are quickly soft in water and easy to swallow. They do not provide enough food quantity to fill the fish up. They quickly disperse in reef tank and get lost in the rockwork or filters so it is easy to overfeed the tank and make the water dirty... For larger fish you need to switch to pellet foods. Pick the pellet size based on your fish's mouth size and drop 3-4 pellets at the time to allow fish to catch them all (they sink pretty fast). I have a lots of hermit crabs grazing on the rocks and sandy bottom of the tank, so pellets not caught by the fish are not a big problem :-) Currently, my maroon female, royal gramma and hepatus tang have mouths big enough to swallow "medium" sized pellets. Male maroon is still too small, and he gets "small" sized pellets + flakes. Tang is so big, that he has no problems swallowing large shrimp pellets. I feed flakes, but more as disperse food for the res of the animals in the tank (shrimps, crabs, etc) and if fish get them - good for them. The main food for fish is pellets. I feed almost the same foods as you, additionally for fish, shrimps, crabs: - Hikari Tropical "Marine A", this is the best stuff! - KENT Platinum Reef Herbivore, medium sinking pellets. - Wardley Shrimp Pellets Formula (mostly for crabs/shrimps) - Hikari Tropical "Crab Cuisine" (mostly for crabs/shrimps) - San Francisco Bay "Ocean Plankton" (the best frozen food!) - San Francisco Bay "Marine Cuisine" (makes water dirty...) for anemone mostly: - San Francisco Bay "Frozen Krill" (3-4 shrimps per feeding) - San Francisco Bay "Silversides" (two fish per feeding) and other smaller frozen foods like brine shrimp or "ocean plankton" squirted with turkey baster directly to its tentacles on the oral disk. Of course hepatus tang is always hungry :-) and steals food from anemone whenever he can, so he also gets some krill or pieces of silversides. The same story repeats when I try to target feed mushroom corals and button polyps with a turkey baster: tang is eating from the baster directly or eats food directly from the closing mouths of the button polips :-) "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007: >> Fortunately, clowns do just fine in tanks with no sea anemones. So get the >> clowns -- but hold off on the sea anemones. > > Or... get the books I recomended, educate yourself and then it will be easy > to not only keep clowns in a healthy anemone but with no problems have them > mate and lay eggs every two weeks like mine maroons do. You're talking to a poster who has never had a saltwater tank before, certainly never even raised corals. You take a bunch of random guys off the street. Give them their very first saltwater tank. For one group, give them only some clownfish in the tank. For another group, give them clownfish and a host sea anemone. You wanna have two guesses which group is going to wind up with more livestock deaths? Compared to sea anemones, fish (esp. clownfish) are FAR more resilient to great variations in: temperate, water quality, salinity, lighting, getting caught in filters/overflows, etc. Yes, it's POSSIBLE to raise sea anemones (and I've done it too). But it's irresponsible to recommend that to a brand-new reefkeeper. Especially if you imply that it's just as "easy" keeping anemones as it is to keep clownfish. That's just false. It's possible, but it's not nearly as easy. If things start to go wrong in your tank, it's the anemone that's going to die first, not the clownfish. > Anemones are just very different animals than these we are used to in our > terrestial lives. So unless you read about their needs, understand how > their body functions - yes, you will kill anemones easily... But this is > not a reason to not keep them - different does not mean they are difficult! Clownfish live in the ocean too. But are far, far easier to keep alive than anemones are. > They are different and this is a perfect reason to educate yourself, do > some reading from trusted sources about host anemones and than you will > have all the tools you need to keep a helthy one. I know how to keep a healthy sea anemone. I still wouldn't recommend it to a brand new first-time reefkeeper. And you shouldn't either. > Keeping a single clownfish in a tank with other fish is kind of cruel in my > view - these are social fish and are best kept in pairs (Maroons) or small > groups (any other types, including your well known "Nemo"). Recall that we're talking to somebody who knows nothing. Getting "a clownfish" will work just fine. Getting "a bunch of clownfish" may or may not. Is he going to mix species, or can he tell them apart? Will he get all juveniles? Put a pair of female maroons in the same small tank and they'll kill each other. Put a maroon in with a different species, and the maroon will probably kill the other clown. Etc. Yes, all this is possible, if you learn the details. But why make things difficult for a guy buying his very first fish? > Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed. I don't believe you. Proof? Of course, any small fish will be stressed in a tank with bigger aggressive fish. But I don't think there's anything special about clowns that requires them in groups. Any more than any other fish which is usually found in groups in nature. -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis don@geddis.org http://reef.geddis.org/ And so the Russian people made do on whatever ration of rice and suet the stores were handing out to the people waiting in the interminable lines in the dark and the snow that week; they went to sleep hungry and malnourished but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken. Don, Definitely appreciate the feedback...but I just want to clarify a couple of things. I HAVE kept saltwater tanks before, just not reef, so I'm aware of which clowns should and shouldn't be mixed. I also have a reliable LFS whom I trust IMPLICITLY...no offense to the posters here, but as I don't know any of you really, I would trust the LFS over any advice that I receive here (again, I trust this shop and don't think he'd try and screw me to make a buck...if he did, he'd lose my freshwater business, the frys of cichs that I am now bringing to him, and my business of buying supplies for my cats, dog, and snake). I spoke with him last night when I stopped in to pick up the r/o di unit, and he also recommended NOT bringing an anemone into the picture, though his reasoning had more to do with not killing off other corals, than it did for the sake of the anemone itself. The truth is, I am in NO rush to get this up and running. This is a long term project, not a quick 'up and attem' that I've done sometimes setting up cichlid tanks for others. I know that cichs are far 'tougher' to environmental changes than most of the saltwater creatures I'll be looking at...and I also know that there are animals and plants considered "easy, medium, and hard" to keep successfully. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once kept a moorish idol, certainly considered by most to be a fairly difficult fish to get to thrive in captivity. My plan right now is to start very, VERY slowly. This weekend's goal is to accomplish a couple of things: 1. Get the tank set up, complete with filtration, skimmer, refugarium, powerheads, heater, lights etc. Basically everything that I have so far. 2. Get the substrate in...I plan on using standard non live sand, but I will be buying from the LFS, not from home depot as recommended in an earlier post. For the slight difference in price, I'm willing to take my LFS's word for it that his sand will cause fewer issues than sandbox type sand. 3. Get the water in, with the proper salt mix. 4. After allowing to run for a bit, use my test kit to see what the water looks like in its 'stock' state with no livestock. That way I'll know if my r/o unit is working correctly, and if there's anything weird about my local water that I need to be aware of. At this point I'm not fully 'reefed' yet, so if it turns out my water is funky, I can still change over and just do a fish only tank (which would be disappointing, but I'm not going to fight a losing battle of forcing something to try to live in water it simply can't live in). That's literally ALL I have planned for this weekend. Once I'm confident that things are running as they're supposed to, I will be visiting the LFS again (likely NEXT weekend) to pick up a combination of uncured live rock and dried corals. I'll use the dry corals in the bank to setup a base (since they won't be seen) and then stack the live rock appropriately, remembering that I need to make sure the rocks are touching the bottom of the tank, not sitting on top of my substrate. Once THAT is done, I'm done for a couple of weeks. I'll monitor the water quality daily, again using the test kid, and see how well it starts cycling. I have no intention of rushing in to stocking the tank with other corals or fish. As far as I'm concerned, it can sit in this state for months, if needbe (and yes, from all I've read, I know a couple weeks should be sufficient). I really do plan on taking my time with this. I know from experience that first time aquarium keepers biggest error is typically rushing too much stuff into their tank. I've built small fish-only salt water environments for other people, and watched them DESTROY hundreds of dollars worth of livestock by not cycling properly, or by overstocking a tank. The people who listen, and wait, and are patient typically have far more success. I myself DID screw up my first freshwater tank, overstocked, and watched as the fish died one by one. This is not a mistake I will ever repeat. As for the question of anemones, I would eventually like to add one, but this is way, way, WAY down the line once I'm comfortable: with both the process and my setup, keeping in mind this is my first time using an overflow and refugium...a large departure from hanging filtration or even the cannisters I'm used to. I hope that sets everyone's mind at ease that, while not THE most educated person on reef keeping, I am fortunately not an idiot either...and in fact am reading "the new marine aquarium" as we speak. Mitch > "Pszemol" <Psze...@PolBox.com> wrote on Wed, 26 Sep 2007: > [quoted text clipped - 74 lines] > but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making > obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken. Sounds great! Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com Big Habeeb wrote on 9/28/2007 8:59 AM: > Don, > Definitely appreciate the feedback...but I just want to clarify a [quoted text clipped - 149 lines] >> but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making >> obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken. Big Habeeb <mitch.brenner@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007: > I just want to clarify a couple of things. I HAVE kept saltwater tanks > before, just not reef, so I'm aware of which clowns should and shouldn't be > mixed. Yeah, I saw that after I posted before. A reef is a little more delicate than just a saltwater fish tank. But it isn't that different. If you've already kept a tropical tank, then the change to a reef is relatively minor. Mostly: the corals need higher quality water, and excess fish load fouls the water too quickly. So as long as you keep your fish bioload much smaller, you should have a reef no problem. Oh, and extra lighting, of course. Fish don't care, but most corals use photosynthesis for at least some energy needs. > he also recommended NOT bringing an anemone into the picture, though his > reasoning had more to do with not killing off other corals, than it did for > the sake of the anemone itself. There are lots of reasons for not starting with an anemone. Killing off corals is a fine one. Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake), then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once. Just makes the tank more unstable, if you aren't good at caring for a tropical tank. > I also know that there are animals and plants considered "easy, medium, and > hard" to keep successfully. Sure. > As I mentioned in an earlier post, I once kept a moorish idol, certainly > considered by most to be a fairly difficult fish to get to thrive in > captivity. Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't doing that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. Or even with an anemone. I had thought you were a novice. But actually Pszemol is right on at least this point. With the experience you already have, you could probably succeed just by reading a book about the care of sea anemones, and following the suggestions. I still wouldn't recommend starting with one, but it isn't particularly harder than keeping a Moorish Idol, for example. Both are sensitive creatures, who need stable conditions and specialized care to thrive. > My plan right now is to start very, VERY slowly. This weekend's goal > is to accomplish a couple of things: All sounds great. I'm sure you'll do fine. Have fun! -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis don@geddis.org http://reef.geddis.org/ To me, there's no better symbol for the world than a grasshopper lying dead on a gravel road, and maybe there's a globe lying next to him. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey > Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to > accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake), > then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once. I disagree totally! 1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not guarantee it will die. They are pretty hardy animals and can survive quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-) I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked into pump intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed and anemone survived. Literally only a stump was left on the rock. In a matter of days the stump healed and guts stopped hanging out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral disc was formed with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed normally! 2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water! Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body. Even if you grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will not cause a major outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank. The 8-10" rose bubble tip mentioned in the point #1 was damaged in a 10 gallon tank with fish, crabs, two SPS corals, green button polyps and red mushroom corals. All things survived with no issues. There was no water qality issues, no ammonia outbreaks as well. 3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but this is only an illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and in most cases it will recover. These animals have EXTRAORDINARY capabilities to regrow lost parts of their body and this property is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the anemones. Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones in their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if you scrape their stump/foot of the rock with a brush... Ornamental anemones like bubble tips are not much different. This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar but anemone totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see if it survive... And this is exactly what I was talking before. > Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't doing > that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. Or even > with an anemone. How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol possible to help someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone??? > > Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to > > accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake), [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] > How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol > possible to help someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone??? I think he was just insinuating that it means I know a little bit about monitoring water quality/conditions etc. Mitch "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007: >> Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to >> accidentally kill one (e.g. it gets caught in an overflow or pump intake), >> then you could release a great volume of toxins into the tank all at once. > > I disagree totally! Well, let's have a debate then! > 1) Even if an anemone is torn in on overflow or pump intake it is not > guarantee it will die. Of course it isn't a guarantee of death. But it's surely highly correlated with near-term death. Happens often enough. > They are pretty hardy animals and can survive > quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-) Not a chance. I have a hard time killing Aiptasia anemones even deliberately. Cut them in half, grind them up, stop feeding, little light. The damn things just show up everywhere. Can't get rid of them. If you asked me to kill a rose bubble tip, it wouldn't last a week. > I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked into pump > intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed and anemone survived. Literally > only a stump was left on the rock. In a matter of days the stump healed > and guts stopped hanging out from it. In the two more weeks a small oral > disc was formed with very little tentacles. Anemone started to feed > normally! That's a great story. But hardly a common one. Anemones getting ripped apart by pumps, and then dying, is far more common. Another difference with Aiptasias. You toss a single Aiptasia into a pump, and your whole tank will be filled with Aiptasias within a month. In constrast, you toss a rose bubble tip into a pump intake, and you'll almost certainly not have any rose bubble tip left a month from now. Your anecdote notwithstanding. > 2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water! Did I restrict my comment to the body of the anemone? The tentacles are filled with toxins, which is how the anemones regularly kill nearby corals. They're designed to be released in small amounts, on contact. But if you grind up a whole bubble tip in a pump, all the toxins from all the tentacles will be release into the water in a short time period, as the animal disintegrates. In the ocean, this isn't a problem. But in a tank with limited water volume, you can wind up with great trouble for your other livestock. > Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body. Even if you > grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will not cause a major > outbreak of ammonia or "toxins" in your tank. I wasn't talking about ammonia from the decomposition of the physical mass of the anemone body. You're right that anemones have surprisingly little mass given their fully-inflated volume. I was talking about the toxins built up in the attacking tentacles. > 3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but this is only an > illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and in most cases it will > recover. I disagree completely with your "in most cases" phrase. Yes, it's possible. But, unlike Aiptasia, you can't take bubble tips and regularly chop them up into ten pieces with a knife, and expect to get ten healthy individuals in a few months' time. > These animals have EXTRAORDINARY capabilities to regrow lost parts of their > body and this property is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the > anemones. Anyone who had ever problems with Aiptasia or Majano anemones in > their tanks will confirm how hard is to get rid of them even if you scrape > their stump/foot of the rock with a brush... Ornamental anemones like > bubble tips are not much different. Bubble tips are hugely different in this respect, from Aiptasia and Majanos. Bubble tips are far, far, far less robust from damage than those other species. > This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar but anemone > totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see if it survive... And > this is exactly what I was talking before. Sure, of course there are some properties that are different. Fish, cats, and cows have eyes, for example, and anemones don't. I still think it's crazy to believe that caring for fish is more similar to caring for cats/cows than caring for sea anemones. >> Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't >> doing that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. >> Or even with an anemone. > > How is the knowledge collected with keeping a morish idol possible to help > someone in keeping a healthy sea anemone??? Obviously, the basics of keeping a stable ocean environment. Salinity, temperature, water changes, feeding schedule, freshwater topoff, cleaning the glass, etc. etc. etc. For a Moorish Idol in particular, it includes a sensitivity to minor environmental changes, as well as a specialized diet. Most fish you can just toss anything barely edible into the tank, and they'll get by. You've got to be a little more careful when taking care of a Moorish Idol. As you similarly must be a little more careful when taking care of an anemone. But the basics of care, in terms of 90% of what you spend your days and hours doing, is the same with any tropical fish tank. -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis don@geddis.org http://reef.geddis.org/ Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money. > "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007: >>> Just to throw in another: anemones are filled with toxins. If you happen to [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Of course it isn't a guarantee of death. But it's surely highly correlated > with near-term death. Happens often enough. In most cases I am familiar with, injured anemone was not even given a chance to recover - it was removed from the tank with the assumption it will die anyway. >> They are pretty hardy animals and can survive >> quite a lot of abuse... Think of them more like Aiptasia :-) [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > If you asked me to kill a rose bubble tip, it wouldn't last a week. The difference is mostly in size. Aiptasia anemones are quite small and easy to hide in even smallest rock hole, crevices... That is their survival technique - they burry stump in the rock and during the day, when you do your killing actions, you barely see them. If you inspect your tank with a flashlight, at night, you will see how tiny polyps are expanding long stumps from the holes in the rock. That is why you cannot kill them off the tank. Bubble tip anemones are much larger animals, mostly out in the open so they are more easy to injure/remove from the rock without chance of survival. The basic principle is similar: both bubble-tips and aiptasia are hardy animals with great capabilities of regeneration after injury. Ask people who lost their anemone in some injury accident if they even gave them chance or if they removed them from the tank right away. >> I have witnessed personaly a rose bubble tip anemone sucked into pump >> intake the way WHOLE ORAL DISC was removed and anemone survived. Literally [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > almost certainly not have any rose bubble tip left a month from now. Your > anecdote notwithstanding. Well, the difference is probably mostly in size of a polyp. >> 2) Anemone body is a thin bag filled with *water*. Not toxins, water! > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > In the ocean, this isn't a problem. But in a tank with limited water volume, > you can wind up with great trouble for your other livestock. Tentacles are PART OF THE BODY. When I was talking about their body I was including tentacles. Their are like the latex glowe: take a glowe and exhale some air into it (or water, to be more similar). You will have a perfect model of a sea anemone. They are hollow inside. Stump, oral disc, tentacles - anemone is a bag of thin "skin" filled with water. Yes, tentacles are covered by a nematocysts (stinging cells), but that is is: just a thin layer of cells: http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~darrenbarton/id93.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidocyte Microscopic cells, microscopic volume. They have no significant volume of toxins to be dangerous when diluted in the tank vast water volume. They act only when injected to the victim body by the nematocyst then the skin of live anemone is touched. If the toxins were dangerous when anemone is destroyed, people would have problems after destroying Aiptasia anemones in their tanks, but people do this routinely with no adverse effects to the water quality. >> Deflated animal will have almost zero volume of its body. Even if you >> grind it into pieces and let to rot in your tank you will not cause a major [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > I was talking about the toxins built up in the attacking tentacles. Once again: toxins are not filling tentacles volume, they are filled with water. Water inside them gives them form and shape - microscopic stinging cells are found only on a thin surface layer. >> 3) Injured anemone only LOOKS DEAD and rotting, but this is only an >> illusion! Leave it in the tank untouched and in most cases it will [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > into ten pieces with a knife, and expect to get ten healthy individuals in a > few months' time. Yes, you can, and as I said before it is done routinely to create many new anemones from one specimen. Fish stores do it, aquarists do it, scientists do it - and it is pretty easy. Dont believe me? Look http://reefnest.com/diy/slicinganemone/index.html http://blogs.frags.org/showblog.php?bid=92 There is not much left to debate, my friend. >> These animals have EXTRAORDINARY capabilities to regrow lost parts of their >> body and this property is rutinelly used in the asexual propagation of the [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Bubble tips are far, far, far less robust from damage than those other > species. But far, far, far, far more robust from damage than fish... And that is why I see more similarity between different kinds of anemones (Bubble tips, Aiptasia and Majanos are just kinds of anemone!) than between anemones and fish. Fish are more similar to cats and cows: when you cut cat a head it is dead and the head will not grow back. When you cut anemone in half, in a matter of days/weeks you will have two anemones. >> This is a great example how fish, cats and cows are similar but anemone >> totaly different. Try cuttin head of a cat and see if it survive... And [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > I still think it's crazy to believe that caring for fish is more similar to > caring for cats/cows than caring for sea anemones. You can think whatever you want :-) However, "I think it is crazy to believe" is not a valid argument in a debate. >>> Agreed. If you kept a Moorish Idol (although I think you said it wasn't >>> doing that well, unfortunately), you should have no problem with a reef. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > But the basics of care, in terms of 90% of what you spend your days and hours > doing, is the same with any tropical fish tank. Exactly. So morish idol is not that different: it just needs specific diet and that is why people have problems with this fish... In case of sea anemone, not only their diet is quite specific but also their anatomy, their behaviour, how they look when happy or sick, how their reproduce, how they heal after injury, how to tell they are dead etc. I have read about people toss away a perfectly good and healthy anemone just because they noticed they expell all water from their bodies, their normal life function, but they look dead to an uneducated owner. Does it prove they are "difficult"? No, they are just different. If treated right they are pretty hardy animals and we know very well how to take care about most of the species. It is enough data out there that after reading something about the animal you will not kill it. p.s. how many sea anemones have you killed yourself? "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote on Sat, 29 Sep 2007: > http://reefnest.com/diy/slicinganemone/index.html > http://blogs.frags.org/showblog.php?bid=92 Interesting. I'll admit, I didn't know about this forced propagation. Still, there's a huge difference between carefully cutting a large, mature, healthy, well-fed specimen in half; vs. randomly chopping it into ten pieces, or grinding one through a powerhead pump. If you take an Aiptasia, smash it into paste, and pour it into your tank, I'm going to bet that a month later you have an Aiptasia infestation all over tank. You do the same to a bubble tip anemone, and you'll never see it again in your tank. > I have read about people toss away a perfectly good and healthy anemone > just because they noticed they expell all water from their bodies, their > normal life function, but they look dead to an uneducated owner. So tell me, how do you tell when an anemone actually is dead? > Does it prove they are "difficult"? No, they are just different. If > treated right they are pretty hardy animals and we know very well how to > take care about most of the species. It is enough data out there that after > reading something about the animal you will not kill it. Of course it's possible to take care of them and even raise them. But that doesn't make it easy, especially compared to some other aquatic species. > p.s. how many sea anemones have you killed yourself? I suppose the answer is one, but maybe it depends how you count. I've had up to five anemones over a few years. Had a sabae and long-tentacle green for awhile, then they started killing nearby corals, and I returned them to the LFS. Had a rose anemone for a long time. It grew big, and split: http://reef.geddis.org/55g/life.html#rose Then one of the daughters split again. So I had three for many months. I got a "reef safe" black spiny sea urchin at one point. Only to discover that within half an hour it basically found and devoured one of the rose clones. I pulled the urchin off, but the anemone was hard and bleached white over 3/4 of its body. I'll admit, I threw that one out (and returned the urchin). The other two clones, at different times much later, seemed to grow "sick". When it happened, the anemone would stay deflated 24 hours a day. Its foot would release from the rock, and it would just float all over the tank drifting by the currents. It would refuse to eat. I'd force some meaty food into its mouth, and it wouldn't react, and the food would eventually fall out. The tentacles weren't sticky. Anemones are capable of devouring themselves when in a low-nutrition situation, so the the anemone would slowly get smaller and smaller over weeks. It didn't seem to be water conditions. When it happened to the first clone, the other clone spent the whole time perfectly happy. Full expansion each day, eating happily, etc. Water changes seemed to have no effect. I don't know what went wrong. Much later, my last remaining rose clone had the same kind of failure. I generally left them alone for a few weeks. Aside from trying to reseat them in a rock (which never stuck), and force-feed, I didn't know what to do. Eventually I worried that the animal would decompose and release toxins in the water, potentially endangering my other fish and corals. So I'll admit that, in the end, I did remove each animal before it was completely dead. Note also that during all this, I had only been a reefkeeper for about six months. I think I'm much better at it now, can maintain much more stable water conditions, etc. I don't keep anemones any more, but I've got plenty of sensitive species, such as stony corals and seahorses. And a group of clownfish, which seem perfectly happy adopting a hammer corals (and before that, frogspawn corals) as hosts instead of their natural anemones. OK, your turn. How many anemones have you kept? How many have you killed? How much propagation have you done? -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis don@geddis.org http://reef.geddis.org/ Be on the lookout for a leopard which escaped from the zoo early this morning. It was spotted near the corner of 12th and Cherry at around 8am, and in all likelihood still is. > "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote on Sat, 29 Sep 2007: >> http://reefnest.com/diy/slicinganemone/index.html [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > healthy, well-fed specimen in half; vs. randomly chopping it into ten pieces, > or grinding one through a powerhead pump. What difference are you talking about? > If you take an Aiptasia, smash it into paste, and pour it into your tank, I'm > going to bet that a month later you have an Aiptasia infestation all over > tank. No, it would not work. And if you are ready to bet, than we could arrange an experiment in controlled environment (like a aiptasia free tank "inoculated" with smashed aiptasia paste). >> I have read about people toss away a perfectly good and healthy anemone >> just because they noticed they expell all water from their bodies, their >> normal life function, but they look dead to an uneducated owner. > > So tell me, how do you tell when an anemone actually is dead? Only when you really see/smell it roting. Your nose is your best tool to recognise invertebrate death in reef tank. >> Does it prove they are "difficult"? No, they are just different. If >> treated right they are pretty hardy animals and we know very well how to [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > But that doesn't make it easy, especially compared to some other aquatic > species. You are drifting again into a BAD understanding of word "easy" :-) There is nothing difficult in carying for an anemone, I asure you. No special skills are required. Only some minimal knowledge. With this minimum knowledge you can be sure of success. What I understand about "difficult" animal is for example when you need to feed some slug a special kind of sea sponge... It is difficult to buy such sponge, or to keep it in a tank with slugs, so inherently it will be difficult to take care about slug which only diet is such sponge. Another example, mandarin fish - it is difficult because it will only eat live plankton. Because it is usually hard to have plenty of live plankton in the reef tank carying for a mandarin is difficult, but only in certain situations (small tank, new tank etc). After a while, when reef is mature and tank is big enough to support a mandarin, carying for that fish is EASIER than carying for other fish: mandarin will feed itself from the rocks! >> p.s. how many sea anemones have you killed yourself? > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > http://reef.geddis.org/55g/life.html#rose > Then one of the daughters split again. So I had three for many months. Very nice pictures... > I got a "reef safe" black spiny sea urchin at one point. Only to discover > that within half an hour it basically found and devoured one of the rose > clones. I pulled the urchin off, but the anemone was hard and bleached white > over 3/4 of its body. I'll admit, I threw that one out (and returned the > urchin). Well... Urchin damage is only mechanical damage if I am correct, so it would likely survive the injury if given a chance... Different story is with predatory sea stars, they engulf prey with their stomach outside of their body and start digesting the prey even before consuming it. This kind of chemical poisoning would be in my opinion much harder to heal for an anemone than urchin bite. But I would ask some marine zoologist to be sure... > The other two clones, at different times much later, seemed to grow "sick". > When it happened, the anemone would stay deflated 24 hours a day. Its foot [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > know what went wrong. Much later, my last remaining rose clone had the same > kind of failure. Maybe they did not like the spot they were in and decided to move out ;-) > I generally left them alone for a few weeks. Aside from trying to reseat > them in a rock (which never stuck), and force-feed, I didn't know what to do. > Eventually I worried that the animal would decompose and release toxins in > the water, potentially endangering my other fish and corals. So I'll admit > that, in the end, I did remove each animal before it was completely dead. Sad story.... They are beautiful animals. > Note also that during all this, I had only been a reefkeeper for about six > months. I think I'm much better at it now, can maintain much more stable [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > OK, your turn. How many anemones have you kept? How many have you killed? > How much propagation have you done? I have kept two bubble-tips, one green-brown variety, which is now huge in my 58 gallon reef and a small rose bubble-tip which healed quickly after a power filter intake accident in a small 10 gallons pico reef. This accident was really looking horrible. Whole anemone was sucked into the tube of the power filter. Only base/stump with hanging out guts was left on the rock. It was total surprise for me, because anemone was sittin in one spot for months already. suddenly it moved for a suicidal mission. As I have already described before, it healed quickly. I had major water quality issues in my reef tank about two/three years ago. I lost two tuxedo urchins, 2 sea cukes and my anemone was very sick, similar to what you described: lack of inflation, non-sticky tentacles... Basically I have neglected the tank, let the maroon cyanobacteria overgrown the rocks and probably poison a lot of animals. After taking care of phosphates issues and correcting water quality my anemone recovered fully and sports beautiful bubble tips under the power compacts. Luckily, both are now growing fast and are perfectly healthy. "Pszemol" <Pszemol@PolBox.com> wrote on Mon, 1 Oct 2007 : > Another example, mandarin fish - it is difficult because it will only eat > live plankton. Because it is usually hard to have plenty of live plankton [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > EASIER than carying for other fish: mandarin will feed itself from the > rocks! Yeah, I've got a couple of those too. Even easier than the regular fish: I don't even have to feed them! I have no concern that I can take off on vacation for a week or two, and the mandarins might starve. Maybe the other fish, but not the mandarins. >> I got a "reef safe" black spiny sea urchin at one point. Only to discover >> that within half an hour it basically found and devoured one of the rose [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Well... Urchin damage is only mechanical damage if I am correct Actually, this didn't seem to be. > so it would likely survive the injury if given a chance... Different story > is with predatory sea stars, they engulf prey with their stomach outside of > their body and start digesting the prey even before consuming it. This kind > of chemical poisoning would be in my opinion much harder to heal for an > anemone than urchin bite. The urchin sure looked like it did exactly what you are talking about with the sea stars. I don't think I saw the stomach come out, but maybe it did. But this was no mechanical ripping. There was no question that 3/4 of the anemone, the part touched by the urchin, was chemically destroyed and already rotting, within an hour. The color went from the usual translucent pink, to solid white. Just horrible. -- Don _______________________________________________________________________________ Don Geddis don@geddis.org http://reef.geddis.org/ Winner, "Papers I wish I hadn't written" contest: Montagnino, Lucian A., "Test and Evaluation of the Hubble Space Telescope 2.4 Meter Primary Mirror" Proc. SPIE, Large Optics Technology, Vol. 571, August 1985 Long spined urchins have venum in the spines. Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com Don Geddis wrote on 10/2/2007 8:06 PM: > The urchin sure looked like it did exactly what you are talking about with > the sea stars. I don't think I saw the stomach come out, but maybe it did. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > -- Don Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but... They are (generally) not reefkeepers themselves, and only need to know enough to keep their livestock until it is sold. It is rare to find an expert LFS that is a reeftaker, and trusting their advise implicity may lead to problems. The LFS may give you advice in good faith, but that still doesn't mean that he is giving you truly knowledgeable or good advice. Generally these gusy just don't know much and as they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. >Don, >Definitely appreciate the feedback...but I just want to clarify a [quoted text clipped - 155 lines] >> but much cheered by the certainty that no greedy capitalists were making >> obscene profits by actually delivering them any chicken. > Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but... > [quoted text clipped - 170 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Gaijin, I'm lucky - the LFS I do most of my business with (Pet Shanty in Scotch Plains, NJ) has not one, but 3 guys who practice what they preach. They're all knowledgable, and in fact have several tanks that are of the 'not for sale' variety in the store, to show off their abilities (they have a TREMENDOUS 30 year old coral named 'steve' in a tank by the front of the store). There's another one a little ways up the road who I trust somewhat, but honestly will not be going there for livestock. I trust them enough to buy equipment, but beyond that they seem somewhat shady...willing to tell you that just about anything is OK to make a sale (they're the ones who originally had me put a moorish idol in my tank). I've used them for most of the equipment I purchased, owing to better prices, but any live rock, fish, coral etc will be purchased from the first shop I mentioned. The fact that they do have 'keeper' tanks helps set my mind at ease that they do know what they are doing...and while it's unlikely I'll have all the 'best' equipment as these tanks likely do, I still trust that they won't send me in the wrong direction completely. As I mentioned previously, I take care of all of my various pets from this shop (cats, dog, snake, cichlids), and while they do well with the other stuff, fish and saltwater in particular is where they really, really shine. Mitch > Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but... > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > good advice. Generally these gusy just don't know much and as they > say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I find this very sad and every time I read this on the groups it makes me more and more thankful for the quality of expertise that I get in the LFS's that I go to.......for example I went into one of them this week when it was quiet and got the following different questions from 4 members of staff with genuine interest and good advice: 1. How's the reef going? 2. How's the pond developing? 3. How are the community fish doing? 4. How are the Mbunas? And then when I was taking the RO water out to the car (and yes I'm buying my own unit in the next couple of months) - OK the person I coerced to take it to the car for me, started talking about Discus (another project I'm embarking on) - he breeds them and gave me some great tips all of which are backed up by my research.... They employ at least 4 staff who have their own reef tanks and all of their staff keep fish themselves......and are employed for their specialist knowledge - they are expected to cross train but you quickly learn to find those that don't have a true passion for the set ups/fish they are selling...... Gill How do the LFS's strings feel when he pulls them? Are they tight around your arms? Listen LFS's have only one thing in common, THEY WANT YOUR MONEY and they will do whatever it takes to EARN YOURS BUSINESS... iy >> Its not that all LFS's are out to screw you, but... >> [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > > Gill > How do the LFS's strings feel when he pulls them? > Are they tight around your arms? > Listen LFS's have only one thing in common, THEY WANT YOUR MONEY and they > will do whatever it takes to EARN YOURS BUSINESS... > iy Hmmmmm.....well I would personally prefer to spend my money in a place that shows an interest, gives good advice service and has healthy well cared for stock looked after by hobbyists that work in the shop rather than somewhere that might be cheaper but does not have that level of customer service.....sure they want my money but I have a choice as to where I can shop so places with bad, uncaring service from unknowledgable staff won't get my business......not a matter of string pulling more a matter of good commercial sense from the LFS Gill Hey gang, ok so here's where I stand after tshi weekend (unfortunatley I did not make my goal of having it up and running with water and substrate). I have the tank setup in what will be its final position...unfortunately I realized too late on Saturday that I didn't have a good surge strip around to setup all the various bits and pieces, so tonight I'll pick that up so I can actually get started. The refugium is setup, all connected to the tank correctly (far as I can tell, at any rate), so I now have 2 questions: 1. Where should I place the heater? The LFS recommended dropping it either into the refugium or into hte overflow box...any opinions on that? 2. Protein skimmer. I have one. It's put together and sitting in my refugium. A couple things I'm unsure of: the 'waste' tube...where should that be pointing? The guy at the store said just to stick it into a soda bottle or something...agree on that? Other question...where should the power pump go for the skimmer? I have the pump for the overflow in the 'clean' side of the refugium, but was unsure where to position the pump for the skimmer...Should it be in the water in the ref.? Does it matter if it's on the dirty or clean side? Thanks again all for the wealth of great advice! Mitch > 1. Where should I place the heater? The LFS recommended > dropping it either into the refugium or into hte overflow box... > any opinions on that? Heater should be located in a place where it will be submerged properly (check the mark on the heater for minimum water level) in the water. Most heaters tolerate fully sumberged situation. Second - it should be located in the place where is a good and constant water flow to make it work efficiently. Thrid - it is good to have it concealed from the view, an eye sore :-) I keep mine in the sump, in the horizontal position. So mine is fully submerged, it is in very high water flow place and it is concealed from view. The problem of this location is that if something happens with the circulation pump moving water up from the sump to the tank, the tank will stop be heated. > 2. Protein skimmer. I have one. It's put together and sitting in my > refugium. A couple things I'm unsure of: the 'waste' tube...where > should that be pointing? The guy at the store said just to stick it > into a soda bottle or something...agree on that? Waste tube should be pointing to any waste container you imagine. Soda bottle is good idea, I would use a milk bottle during first phase of the live rock cycling because your skimmer might produce a lot of waste during this time. > where should the power pump go for the skimmer? I have the > pump for the overflow in the 'clean' side of the refugium, but was > unsure where to position the pump for the skimmer...Should it be in > the water in the ref.? Does it matter if it's on the dirty or clean > side? I have no idea what you mean by clean side or dirty side of the refugium. Refugium is a place inside the reef tank or outside reef tank where there are no planktonic predators, so planktonic creatures can develop without predation. Refugium is then a place where plankton grows and then water from refugium flows to the main tank commensing steady feeding process of planktonic creatures to your reef. Refugium is usually filled with macroalgae because algae is a perfect substrate for organisms like copepods or amphipods to live in. Refugium is then lit, preferably in the opposite lighting phase to the main tank to limit pH drifts between night and day. You might be talking about some filter/sump having clean and dirty side... Skimmer removes dissolved proteins and other dissolved organic chemicals, so it does not really matter on which side of the sump.filter it is located. Note, that sometimes outflow from the skimmer will have some residue air bubbles, which can migrate through the circulation pump to the main tank and make water look cloudy due to the microscopic air bubbles in the water. For that reason alone it is good to put skimmer in the sump as early to the water flow as possible to let the water de-gass freely before it hits the return/circulation pump. > > 1. Where should I place the heater? The LFS recommended > > dropping it either into the refugium or into hte overflow box... [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] > as early to the water flow as possible to let the water de-gass > freely before it hits the return/circulation pump. I think by refugium I was referring to the sump. I still don't have all my terminology down, obviously :) I appreciate the tips. I think I will put the heater down in the sump. Skimmer is pretty much setup, just a matter of getting the pump in now. I'm picking up a surge strip with 4 'always on' ports, and 2 sets of 2 'timed' ports (2 separate timers). That should take care of my lighting needs for the time being, as well as the various other "plug us ins" that the system requires. I won't be turning any of it on, however, until I get some water cranked into the tank...which is going to take awhile, using the R/O unit and whatnot. I'll keep everyone updated in this thread as to how it's coming along :) Mitch > I think by refugium I was referring to the sump. I still don't have > all my terminology down, obviously :) Any book you have read explain the term refugium for you? If not, get the book I gave you the title, maybe from the library. They elaborate on the subject of refugiums, algae scrubbers, filters in the sump etc. Of course, if I remember correctly... It was couple of years ago I had this book in my hands but I remember it was very informative on alterative technologies. > I'm picking up a surge strip with 4 'always on' ports, > and 2 sets of 2 'timed' ports (2 separate timers). Are you sure they are to separate timers or just they work on opposite schedules with one set of hours? What is the brand name and model number of this timer? > > I think by refugium I was referring to the sump. I still don't have > > all my terminology down, obviously :) [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > What is the brand name and model number of this timer? Dont have the brand name on me - happened to see it at the LFS...but yes, the box says in great big letters "2 timers" :) > Dont have the brand name on me - happened to see it at the LFS >...but yes, the box says in great big letters "2 timers" :) Please check it for me if you have a chance... I was looking for such timer and could not find. Thanks. Pszemol wrote on 10/1/2007 1:03 PM: >> Dont have the brand name on me - happened to see it at the LFS >> ...but yes, the box says in great big letters "2 timers" :) > > Please check it for me if you have a chance... > I was looking for such timer and could not find. > Thanks. You can see the details on the Coralife web site. Wayne Sallee Wayne@WayneSallee.com > Pszemol wrote on 10/1/2007 1:03 PM: >>> Dont have the brand name on me - happened to see it at the LFS [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > You can see the details on the Coralife web site. Do you think he is talking about mechanical timer discussed in the thread "Timer Review"? > > Pszemol wrote on 10/1/2007 1:03 PM: > >>> Dont have the brand name on me - happened to see it at the LFS [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Do you think he is talking about mechanical timer > discussed in the thread "Timer Review"? No, its not a mechanical timer. It is a digital. I have a mech timer on my cichlid tank and it absolutely sucks :p I'll letcha know about this timer once I have a chance to og pick it up (hopefully tonight after work) Yea I thought he was talking about the same thing, now I see that he is talking about a digital one. I think Coralife made digital ones too, but not sure. I just now went to the coralife website, and it's dow |
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