First saltwater tank, 40 breeder

KleineVampir · Sep 30, 2019

I got a really nice conch, very pretty smooth shell. And at a great deal! 1.70 for a "cerith" snail. Lol that is one big cerith snail! The guy at the pet store did not know the difference, apparently! That's fine by me. I've spent plenty of money there. I got some more salt for the 20g sump I'm hopefully about to get plumbed. Also another feather duster since the one I got seems to be doing so well. He is constantly emitting waste which says to me he's getting plenty of nutrients out of the water. I figure one more won't hurt.

KleineVampir · Sep 30, 2019

The conch looks like it was a good choice. I'm against crabs in the aquarium though. Still haven't seen my emerald in a while, not sure if I mentioned that. If he's dead it is what it is, not getting another one. Also I have the sneaking suspicion that conchs are better than cucumbers. Also the astrea snails are amazing. Possibly the best snail, at least for my tank. Nassarius snails are probably good too, but probably more as a scavenger of dead livestock. The conch is an omnivore that will actually eat the algae out of your sandbed, from my understanding.

KleineVampir · Sep 30, 2019

Post cataclysmic tank, looking better than ever! A little gha but that isn't the end of the world. The feather dusters add a LOT to the tank. So do the shrimp.

KleineVampir · Oct 3, 2019

The sump finally got done. Though I still have the HOB fuge running. I need to actually get another pump to pump the water out of it so I can get rid of it. That water isn't gonna come out any other way!

KleineVampir · Oct 4, 2019

I got a big filter pad thing and I stuck that in there. I also got bioballs but now I kinda regret it. They don't sink like I was hoping and some people think they can cause an imbalance of nitrates vs nitrites, which does make sense. Any good filter media out there I should get? I mean sure at first I was just gonna put the chaeto in there, but the middle chamber is plenty big and there's a chamber on either side of that. Might as well use the other two chambers for something.

KleineVampir · Oct 6, 2019

Man I just made my tank cloudy with soda ash. And here I was thinking the sump was making it sooooo hard to change the water...well, I think what happened is that calcium was still sitting in the sump when I dumped the soda ash in there, even though I'd done the calcium several hours before. So it started precipitating and it's been foggy for a while now. Like 3 hours already. My idea to fight this is to put the carbonate in the fuge, which I still use to receive the water from the sump. That way they can't sit together in the sump and make a big mess. All I did was add 3 tablespoons! I didn't think it was that much, especially since now it's 60 gallons. Oy vey.

KleineVampir · Oct 8, 2019

I really want a coco worm. Not sure if I should get one though.

KleineVampir · Oct 9, 2019

That red grape macro looked great at first but it's collected a ton of hair algae. Some of which happened during my cleaning efforts. Not sure what to do about it. Emerald crab still MIA. Now I have 2 cleaner shrimp. I'm hoping they'll be able to breed and maybe go into the sump to develop. Also one of the feather dusters lost his crown which is sad since I love seeing it. Not sure what to do feather duster wise. I like them but I'm not sure if I just want a bunch of the same ones I have. Seems like that might be the best option though. It's either that or go for the coco worms but seems risky given that I'm not sure how well my current feather dusters are doing.

KleineVampir · Oct 13, 2019

Welp...yesterday I got 4 more feather dusters, 2 of which I had to buy the rock that they were on. That rock even came with a free emerald crab that was hiding in it! Not really thrilled about that but at least he is too little to do any real damage. The rock also came with white calcareous sponge, for what that's worth. Anyways I'm finding that I really like feather dusters but it seems like information on them is pretty scarce.

For now I think I'll stick to my 6 feather dusters. Then later I'll probably get some fancier kinds. I think these are just the hawaiian feather dusters but those are one of my favorites anyways. I've finally come to the point where I don't feel that the aquarium really needs anything. I've been in the habit of constantly buying stuff and upgrading but it looks like I can stop paying and just enjoy my aquarium now. Also got the front glass cleaned off and everything seems fine. Lost a clown but it was the rather inferior one that was picking on my nice clown, so I'm not going to shed too many tears on that one. I think I'm just gonna have the one clown until I can figure out something better. If he dies I can get a nice new pair which the tank could use. The firefish seem fine. They have their hidey-hole.

Right now I'm just gonna cruise on a certain schedule, which is 1 tablespoon of calcium, 1 of soda ash (the calc and alk is every day), and the iron supplement every other day added directly to the chaeto in the sump/fuge. Then all I gotta do is drop in some fish food every day and that's it.

KleineVampir · Oct 19, 2019

KleineVampir · Oct 19, 2019

I wish my blenny would come back! He's been gone for a few days now. Maybe he's a goner, I dunno.

KleineVampir · Oct 22, 2019

I bought (but have not yet received) 4 bangaii cardinals and 10 margarita snails. Those fish have a lot going for them in my book. They look good and they are the easiest to breed. I might need to get into mysis shrimp or some other kind of food for them though. Seems like I don't have very good luck with clownfish so I guess I'll just give these guys a try.

Of course I bought 4 figuring there's a decent chance that there will be 2 males and 2 females. Breeding them might kinda become a hobby within a hobby. Also I just don't have enough fish in the tank and it feels a bit silly. But I've given up on trying to get algae eating fish like tangs since they're a bad combination of too expensive and they get too big. Heck I might even give up on the whole lawnmower blenny thing too. I don't feel he did that great of a job anyways. Hopefully the margaritas plus all the other snails I have in there will do the trick.

H3rm1tCr@b · Oct 22, 2019

How’s the tank going? I feel like you’re still going too fast but idk. The worms need to be fed phytoplankton and other filter feeding foods and it concerns me that fish keep dying. Some fish can live for over a decade. I would highly recommend not buying any more creatures for a while and meticulously studying threads on setting up aquariums, it’ll help. Just go slow and research on absolutely everything. On that note, I’d check out Paul B’s threads, he’s been in the hobby for over forty years. He knows how to do pretty much everything from what I’ve seen. Good luck!

KleineVampir · Oct 22, 2019

H3rm1tCr@b said:
How’s the tank going? I feel like you’re still going too fast but idk. The worms need to be fed phytoplankton and other filter feeding foods and it concerns me that fish keep dying. Some fish can live for over a decade. I would highly recommend not buying any more creatures for a while and meticulously studying threads on setting up aquariums, it’ll help. Just go slow and research on absolutely everything. On that note, I’d check out Paul B’s threads, he’s been in the hobby for over forty years. He knows how to do pretty much everything from what I’ve seen. Good luck!

Yeah I don't get why I have so many fish die. And yet some of them have been fine in there.

You could say I went a bit too fast at first but at this point it's been what, 6 months? It should be plenty well established by now. Besides I find not doing water changes really ages the tank fast. Most people constantly do water changes which lengthens the amount of time it takes to actually have an established aquarium. Which is probably why you would say that.

This has been going on for some time, not sure why you would say that I should go back to the absolute basics as though I didn't do that to begin with. I know what I'm doing. I know I pushed it a bit in the beginning but I was excited about getting into the hobby. That and the alkalinity disaster were probably the only 2 times anything was really my fault.

About the feather dusters: I find they are doing fine without phytoplankton. The are constantly crapping out a string of green stuff which tells me they're getting plenty of either phytoplankton or some kind of proto-algae already. I think they will be fine since there is actually no fine filter in the tank now. Feeding phytoplankton is for people who have overly clean tanks and do water changes.

KleineVampir · Oct 29, 2019

Well I upgraded the light on das uber-fuge. It's a Kessil H150 magenta, now discontinued. Not to mention the 4 cardinalfish that I added like a week ago. All are still alive so apparently they are doing ok.

I finally caved and bought that light because of the hair algae problem in the display, and plus the chaeto was not doing that well..so I put 2 and 2 together and decided light was the main problem. It's not like there aren't enough nutrients in the tank!

KleineVampir · Oct 29, 2019

ope, turns out if you just look closely at the actual light you can see what kind of light it really is. It's actually a purple, not magenta. Which is even better. I was told it's a magenta but the seller is a busy guy with a lot on his mind!

KleineVampir · Oct 30, 2019

Also I bought, but have not yet received, 3 lettuce nudibranchs, 5 random hermits, 2 blue legged hermits. I'm giving hermit crabs a chance to prove themselves! And nudibranchs too but they are said to eat hair algae. Hopefully these guys will help clear out the hair algae that's been growing on my rocks and substrate. And with the new and improved fuge, maybe the hair algae will stay gone!

KleineVampir · Oct 30, 2019

I also have been thinking I would make a list of critters that I've tried out and whether or not I recommend them. I'd better do it now before the list becomes so long that I can't remember them all.

Emerald crabs - No.
Clownfish - Yes
Firefish - Yes
Feather dusters - Yes
Astrea snails - Yes (Need acclimation)
Nerite snails - No
Trochus snails - Yes but probably not worth the cost, might as well just get astreas.
Sea hare - No
Cerith snails - Yes (Dwarves and the larger ones are both good)
Lawnmower blenny - Yes
Margarita snails - Not sure yet but I think they are good.
Limpets - No (probably needs acclimation)
Fuzzy chiton - No (probably needs acclimation)
Fighting conch - Who knows he just went into the sand and disappeared!
Nassarius snails (vibex) - Yes
Bangaii cardinalfish - So far so good!
Cleaner shrimp - Yes
Fire shrimp - No
Cowries - I'd like to try them again someday but I think they need acclimation.

KleineVampir · Nov 1, 2019

I got the hermit crabs and nudibranchs in. Looks like one of the lettuce nudi's might not make it. Their water was very cold when I got them. And I did not leave them outside. They're pretty small, maybe about 3/4 of an inch long. Silly little guys. Very soft and very light. I thought they would enjoy being in there with the GSP and the hair algae growing on it, and actually that seems to be true! The 2 that are definitely still alive are running around in there. The thing about them being so small is that it's not like they're gonna eat a lot of algae right now.

The hermits seem good. They completely destroyed one of my snails but I'm 90% sure that snail was either dead or dying. Plus it was just a cheapo astrea, nothing fancy. So unlike snails they will actually find and eat dying snails, which is good for the tank. Keeps the ammonia out.

Oh and one of the hermits has 4 little barnacles on it. 3 of them definitely alive. I thought that was pretty cool! They say barnacles don't generally live that long or proliferate in a tank but with my water, who knows!

KleineVampir · Nov 1, 2019

Oh yeah and I am gonna try hydrogen peroxide to deal with the hair algae in the display. If I shouldn't do it, speak now or forever hold your peace! You have a couple days to convince me not to while the bottle's in the mail!