Hey, hows it goin? I'm Mark, and i'm pretty new to the hobby. I got my first tank about a a month and a half ago. its a used 20g tank, that had 26 lbs of live rock, an aquaclear 20, and a 30 hang on back filters, a heater, a crapy 15w flourescent, and a bunch of salt, food, nets, air pumps, and crap i'll never use. 2 clownfish, 1 yellow tail blue damsel, 1 chocolate chip star fish, and 1 snail. And all this for $200 bucks. Canadian ehhh? Since then, i've learned alot, and spent alot! I burnt out one of my filters, so i got a aqua clear 50, and that all i use now. i got a coralife 130w, 2 foot light thing, that works pretty good, its got daylight and actinics,.and i got 4 hermit crabs, and a cleaner shrimp, and a threw them in there, and then i had some green crap growin on my glass, so i went to the fish store and got some snails. i was gonna get ,l ike a dozen, but ,they only had one kind there, its an astrea snail? and i didnt want a dozen of them, so i got 3, and when i find another snail, i'll get 3 of them, and 3 of somthing else. the snails worked pretty good. they ate all the green stuff on the glass, but they left snail tracks everery where, and then the snail tracks started gowin green stuff, so i bought one of those magnet things today and i t worked good, now my glkass is clean. i gave the star fis h away because he ate corals and snails, and then i got 3 little green things on a rock, and a mushroom. i just put the rock with the green things on a bigger rock. i didnt glue it or nothing, its just sittin there.its not very big, the rocks abou 1/2 an inch. i dont know what the hell it is, the store said it was a zooanthid, but i cant find any pics of it, or anything that looks like it. it seems to be doin fine. I might have killed the mushrooms. they were on a big ugly plug, and i tried to break it so it was smaller and i could fit it in somwhere. i ended up scraping them off and placing them where i wanted, and that was it. i thought theyed die for sure, but the big one seems to be doin alright. its movved a little bit, and its way down in a cave, and i can hardly even see it but it looks like it doin ok. i just got a power head today, and set it up. it works pretty good, and i think between it and the filter, ive got a good amount of flow. i know this was kind of a long post, but i just wanted to introduce myself, and my tank.
sounds like you have had an interesting journey so far, hopefully we can make future efforts more successful and planned out..
thanks for stopping in and introducing yourself..
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Hey mhatt, how are things in Alberta? One of the first tidbits of advice I like newbies to know and understand is this:
The only thing that happens fast in marine aquariums is disaster. And. Disaster happens faster in a small volume of water than in a large volume of water.
My point being, you're working with a small tank which has very limited holding capacity in terms of bio load. What I can gather from your post you have the following critters...
2 clown fish
1 Yellow Tail Blue Damsel
4 Snails
4 Hermit Crabs
1 Cleaner Shrimp
3 little green things (Zooanthids)
1 Mushroom (maybe more if they survive being scraped off the rock)
I think that covers your critters. My question to you is...
Being successful with your new found love requires commitment and dedication. It's good that you found TR and are asking questions. We look forward to helping you find your way. But, you have a responsibility to further your education beyond TR because, while the people on TR are well educated in most things reefy, we can't be responsible for answering all your questions without you making a commitment to further your own education through research.
There are many good books on the subject. some authors to look for are Tullock, Calfo, Toonen, Fenner and others. There's also the Internet, which is a vast resource center. One site I use a lot is Wetwebmedia. Tons of info there. We wish you nothing but the best in your reefing adventure, mhatt. Expand your horizon.
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
i try to keep my salinity 1.024-1.025. i started with a swing arm hydrometer, and then i got a refractometer, and that turned out to be more like 1.027- 1.028. i adjusted that. my biggest problem was phosphates, but they are startin to go away. they possably came from tap water, the person i got the tank from used tap water, with a water conditioner.i also used this the night i moved it, because i had nothing else, and i needed a few gallons. i saved as much of the origonal water as i could. my phosphate meaured about 2 ppm. since then ive used distilled water. and done about 3 , 10% water changes. phosphate has gone down to 1 ppm. amonia, nitrite, and nitrate are all the lowest on the scale. ph is good. i dont have calcium, alkalinity, or magnesium tests. one thing ive wondered about is RODI water, vs distilled water. I buy my water, and any place i go, gives me a funny look, and says DI? i know its deionized, but how important is this? can i use just RO water, or is distilled water beter?
And the closest pictures ive found to my little green things, are the one on gwens profile. if your reading, what are they?
theres some green crap groin in the bottom corner over top of coral that i dont know if it was alive or not to begin with. it came with the tank, and it was one of those things that got discovered as the tank was getting torn down and moved, (oh, look theres somthing growing there). theres another rock with some un identified growth as well. the green stuff hasnt gotten any worse for a few days, and may even be getting better, im not sure yet. that corner didnt have alot of flow and i just put a powerhaead there. maybe the phosphates have somthing to do with it also.
the mushroom still looks good. theres a big one, and a real little one. the little one has no color, and is almost see through. its always been like that. is that normal? will they start growin reproducing more mushrooms? the LFS said they would.
i think i lost my little blue fish. i havnt seen him for a few days. he never looked that healthy to begin with. they just got a shipment of them in at the fish store, and they looked much brighter then mine.
Congrats on up grading to a refractometer, that's an important step. Concerning distilled, RO and RO/DI water, distilled could lead to several potential problems. If it's distilled over copper pipe, copper could leach into the water and you would be adding a little copper to your tank every time you change water. Ro water is good but may leave behind some undesirable elements. RO/DI is your best bet, it gives you Lab quality water. You can get a really good system from a company on E-bay. Just do a search for "Aqua Safe Systems". Several of us on TR have purchased their RO/DI units and are very satisfied. For a little over $100 US, I got a 100 gallon a day unit including shipping. It's a Canadian company, too.
Your little green things, like Gwen's avatar are Zooanthids. Glad to hear your shrooms are doing better. The clear one should color up in time. Yes they should produce more shrooms in time also. Under ideal conditions they can become somewhat of a nuisance although I've never experienced that problem.
Well Mark it looks like you are advancing along the learning curve. I'd say good luck but it takes more than good luck. Good luck comes to those the research, read, study and learn.
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
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