Sally's new tank

stripepike · 03-28-2007, 06:07 PM

The story all starts when I was 2 and a half. When my little brother was born my paretns gave me a fish tank to keep me occupied. I fell in love with fish. I have kept from ever since then and have studied them in school so much that I have a bachlors degree in vertebrate zoology and a geology masters degree where I studies fossil sharks.

For the most part I have kept fresh water tanks. I tried marine tanks when I was little but my family didn't have the money to do more than a 20 gallon with an undergravel filter. which at the time 25 years ago was high tech for a small tank. I have kept al sorts of fresh water fish from natives to tropical, to planted tanks to breeding soft water south american cichlids to hard water africans. 7 years ago they remodeled the petsmart near where I live. my brother worked there and was able to snag one of thier huge tanks when they remodeled. my mother looked at this tank and said to him that isn't coming in to my house. so I got it. the large tank on the system is 180 gallons and there were two top tanks on the system totalling 50 gallongs and a sump that holds up to 75 gallons. I moved last summer and the stand self destructed so when I rebuilt the system I kept the big tank and the sum. it is filled with lake malawi cichlids. I curently have tons of babies that have been bred in my tank swimming around the rock work. I have a 65 gallon tank as well that I have had for geez I have absoultly no idea now how long I have had it, got to be 15 years. In its current incarnation it has nicaraguan cichlids and some sanctoperca, with tetras and other small dither fish.

having the huge tank and the small "65" gallon tank I have been really happy for a long time. 6 months ago my mom lost her large albino channel cat fish in her 125 gallong tank (another of the tanks that followed my brother home from petsmart). When geoff worked at petsmart people would come in and say know any one who wants a tank $50, we got alot of tanks that way. In helping her figure out what to put in the tank and how to revamp it I have been able to vicariously been living through her. A couple weeks ago she dug the 80 gallon out of storage and set it up. I have been helpign her set it up. in this process I have gotten the work fish tank envy. My husband is not big on the fish tanks, especially since we have a 180 tank in the living room. I had to talk him in to letting me have a new tank.

So on monday I went to the pet store and purchased my first tank in years. it is a 44 gallon that I am going to turn in to a reef tank. It is 24X18X24. I have a deep sand bed and 40lbs of base rock and water in the tank. and everything is running. I am going to put a micron filter on it for a couple hours tonnight just to clear the water. I am going to let the tank run till this weekend and then add some live sand and some live rock. But I might wait on the live rock till the lights arive. I am puting 4 t5 bulbs on it and will add a 250watt metal halide light when I start to add corals. but I am not planning on adding the corals for 9-12 months. I am planning on adding 2-3 fish in about 3 months. My husband asked me why are you setting the tank up if you arn't going to put fish in it till june. It is so hard to be patient.

I will get some pictures up on my web page in the next couple days. http://homepage.mac.com/stripepike/
you can also see pictures of my africans on there. I will probally also get some pictures of my nics up there too.

Sally

veriann · 03-28-2007, 10:50 PM

sweet, sally, now thats an introduction!
firstly welcome to Talkingreef
hope you enjoy your stay & mingle with the locals.

something to note though, you dont need to wait for your lights in order to add the live rock, besides abit of scale back of cal algae nothings dependant on the lights unless you have organisms already attached.

stripepike · 03-28-2007, 11:11 PM

so i get homoe tonnight and what is the first thing I see as I carry a 50lb box of base rock into the house, the blue labidochromis in my african tank were spawning. Granted breeding african cichlids is like breeding guppies it will happen even if they are remotely happy. but this is the 4th pair in 4 weeks to have eggs, and the clutches of the first two pairs are healthy babies swimming around the tank. They must be very happy. there are picture of both the babies and the adults spawing on my webpage
http://homepage.mac.com/stripepike

In order to clear up the cloudyness in the reef tank I put a 50 micron filter on it. and with in two hours it was cleared up enough that I could see all the way through it so I retrieved the pouring bowl that I had left in there incase I was going to change some of the water to get the cloudyness out (the freshwater fish keeper in me, when the tank get cloudy change the water, but that doesn't involve having to mix up salt). I put the rest of the base rock in the tank after washing it. but I stired the sediment up way too much and the water is way too murky to artfully arange the base rock so right now it is in a heap on the bottom of the tank.

after looking at the live rock in the store today I almost brought some home with me but decided it was best to wait for the water to clear then add it to the tank. which maybe tommorrow since I am leaving the micron filter on over night

Sally

veriann · 03-29-2007, 02:42 AM

..................

chase33 · 03-29-2007, 09:24 PM

Nice pics. Welcome

stripepike · 03-29-2007, 10:52 PM

I went to the store today and bought 37 lbs of live rock. I had 60lbs of base rock in the tank already. I ended up taking about 10lbs of the base rock out. so in the end there is about 80-90 lbs of roock with a 4inch sand bed. As for the pumps the pump on the protien skimmer outs out 295 gph. then have a seio that puts out 620 gph, and then three maxijet power heads with 160 gph. the maxijets are going to be on timers to turn on and off so only one or two of them will be running at a time. that is going to turn the water over about 25 timer per hour. is that too much current? I have pretty much decided what fish I want to put in the tank but havn't decided yet what kinda of current I want on the tank. as it is a deeper tank it is going to have 4 2ft t5's and a 10k 250w 10K bulb on it. I am not going to put the metal halide on the tank untill I start putting corals in the tank. mostly because of the electric bill and there are already 5 4ft flourescents bulbs on the 180g on the other side of the room and was trying not to blind people sitting in my living room.

In my freshwater tanks I currently have and have had in the past I tend to biome tanks where all the fish are from the same part of the world. In my african cichlid tank all but two of the fish are from Lake Malawi and I mave two lake tanganikans cichlids in there. I know with freshwater tanks alot of the reason for not mixing hard water african cichlids with soft water south american cichlids is diffrent water chemistry. with marine fish indo-pacific fish have very similar water chemisty needs as those from the caribbeen. so how many of you out there do tanks that are particular to one part of the world or is it common to mix and match and not really pay attention to where this fish is from and that fish is from?

Sally

chase33 · 03-30-2007, 12:17 AM

With corals there is almost never too much flow and yours isn't too much. I love African Chiclids and have had setups similar to the one you mentioned.

Danamck · 03-31-2007, 02:26 AM

Hi Sally. Welcome to Talkingreef.

Regarding flow - this is really dependent on the corals you plan on keeping. In general, SPS require more flow than LPS, which require more flow than soft corals. There are, of course, many exceptions to this rule! The amount of flow you have is a good start, IMO. More important is to make the flow random (which you are doing with timers) and to make sure that the corals do not get blasted with a strong direct output from you powerhead. Many corals tend to adapt to varrying conditions. I have a huge amount of plusing Xenia that has grown right into the direct output of a Seio 820. I was told that it would not survive. Not only is it surviving, but it's growing even faster.

I know that some people have tanks set up for fishes from specific regions, the most popular being fish from the Red Sea. This is actually not a bad idea, as the salinity of the red sea is a bit higher than the norm. That said, I think you will find most people want to collect their favorite species of fish and corals, and these tend to come from different areas. The discision many people face is whether to go fish only or reef, as there are some amazing fish that can't be kept in a reef tank due to picking on or consuming corals and inverts. A few of us lucky ones get to set up a tank of each. You are similar in having a freshwater and saltwater tank.

Good luck with the tank. Please keep us up to date.

**CarmieJo** · 03-31-2007, 11:39 AM

Hi Sally and

to TR.

Nice images! I know a couple people who keep biome marine tanks. Around here these are mostly from people doing their own collecting off the coast on NC. But, most of the people I know keep mixed tanks.

stripepike · 04-01-2007, 10:18 AM

Over the weekend while helping my mom set up her 40 gallon planted tank, we were bounching ideas back and forth, and I pretty much haved decided to theme my tank a fijian reef. yeah I know most of the fish and corals and all of that are not endemic to fiji but found through out the whole indo-pacific. I am thinking I will put a dwarf flame angel, some purple firefish, and a bicolor blenny in the tank. eventually I will decide on the corals to go with them.

the other thing I have been thinking about it is: So next month my company is expanding across the hall and I am getting my own office. being that I work as a geologist for a water rights firm we should have some water in the office. I am thinking of setting up either a 29g old tank that I have that I would have to reclaim from my dads turtles or get 24g aquapod, and setting up a fish only with live rock with mandarin in it. I know mandarins are agressive to conspecifics, do you think they would be agressive to bi-color blennys? and in talking to one of my co-workers she says I should put a clown fish in there as well. will they compete with the mandarin?

Does any one out there keep feather stars or crinoids? the books I have read about them say they are fairly hard to keep in the tank cause of thier filter feeding requirments. my degree is in paleontology so I have a fondness for paleozoic oddities that are still around like crinoids and braciopods. When I was scuba diving in belize we went to a place called tunicate cove where there was the most beautiful tunicates and in the corals around the embayment there were the most lovely orange crinoids. They had to drag me out of the water and back on to the boat. Do any of you out there have experience keeping them?

chase33 · 04-01-2007, 02:18 PM

You might want to hold off on the mandarin for now. Most reccommend it only be added to a well established tank that is at least 6 months matured and more closer to a year. The tank needs lots of LR and enough copepods and amphipods (spotted mandarin) as they are their primary source of food. I've read (in TFH magazine) where some people have been able to get them to eat other foods those this is not the norm. Hope this helps.

stripepike · 04-01-2007, 02:44 PM

let me clarify. I decided on the theme and what fish to add to the tank. but I am not adding any fish to the tank untill after I get back from japan in the middle of may. I don't want my plant waterers/fish feeders to have to deal with a chrisis of a newly introduced fish. if I do the tank in my office I am fully aware that mandarins need a well established tank with out much other competition. that is why I think a bicolored blenny will be a good tank mate for it and no direct competition for food.

I am doing what every aquarist does well I want this fish and that fish and it is probally best if I don't put them together so well either don't get the fish or get another tank.

Sally

Shananagans · 04-02-2007, 03:30 PM

Welcome, I am also fairly new to SW as well. I have been keeping african cichlids for about the past yr. I just moved them from a 38g in to a 55g. Most of mine are from lake tanganikans and only 3 are from lake malawi, and a few loaches.

As I'm sure you have already noticed you will need to put alot more time, effort and $ into SW. Waiting to get back form your trip is a good idea, patience was the first thing I was told about when entering this hobby.

And as far as I know current is good. DIff corals and anemones will require diff amounts or current and light. So simply place them in the appropriate loaction. And if anemones do not like thier location, they will relocate themselves. On the other hand you may find to much current for the fish. I have heard others say their fish only swim one way, kinda humorous for us, not so great for the fish. So just keep an eye on that. You should do just fine tho, it seems you have a good grasp on what to do. But I am no expert, just a humble apprentice.
Good Luck.

Danamck · 04-02-2007, 09:14 PM

stripepike -

Your Fiji reef theme sounds great. Add the Flame last, as he will be the bully.

I would suggest skipping the mandarin fish. While they are beautiful creatures, they have particular dietary needs. Even if he was the only fish in a 29 gallon tank, and you waited several months to add him AFTER setting up the tank (to allow the pod population to grow), he would probably deimate this population in short order. Now there are people who have been able to get manadarins to eat frozen foods, such as mysids, but this is the exception rather than the rule. If you insist on a mandarin, I would suggest waiting longer than 6 months, and adding a refugium to keep up the population. Also, make sure there are no other fish that would go after the same food source (a six line wrasse comes to mind). I QT'd a six line in my 10 gallon coral QT tank that had a HUGE population of pods, and he eliminated them in 24 hours. He was very fat and happy though.

stripepike · 04-04-2007, 11:03 AM

The live rock has been in my tank for a week now and my NH4+ was only at 0.25ppm last night when I tested it. The NO2- and N03- didn't register any thing. I tested the