Getting back into the hobby

SALTYMOPAR · Apr 21, 2020

I've been out of the salt water hobby for 6 years moving and job kind made me close up shop. You can skip to my last paragraph to save you from reading my life story

So my girlfriend had a 29 gallon tank somehow i have become the keeper of that tank. Nothing special hob filter good amount of rock and a aqueon led that can grow algae like crazy. Two clowns and bi colored dwarf angle.

10-12 weeks ago her male clown died really unknown why only thing i could think of was PH. This sparked me build the new tank i didn't want to lose another fish if i could help it.

New tank 40g breeder with a 20 long sump bean animal drain with a overflow box across one end to make peninsula tank return pump is a mag 9 with two random flow generators that are plumbed through the over flow box. The two bean animal drains dump into filter socks. Running a bubble magus 5 elite skimmer 24/7 i stop it 45 mins for feeding. I have a refuge set up on the end of the sump due to how much flow the sump actually sees i can adjust how much goes to the refuge I've been running my cheap led 6.5k light 24/7 in the refuge. I run carbon and purigen 24/7

I cycled the tank fishless with bacteria and dosing amonia. Three times brought the level to 4.0ppm watched it go through the process after three times the nitrates we're very high 80-160ppm (api test kit) did a large water change got the level down to 10ppm added a new clown then 5 days later i added girlfriend clown then five days later added three pajama Cardinals day later lost the smallest one because he wasn't eating and he was pretty skinny. Went to the LFS got my dead cardinal replaced with a watchman and a diamond goby also got a frag of GSP and a frag of zoanthids. Its been in the for two weeks last weekend i added a rose anemone last weekend. My girlfriend clown has never seen an anemone took her a less than 24 hours and she was all over it.

So my question my tank is still very young and my previous tanks ive had i never really got to concerned checking calcium,alk,mag always did biweekly water changes. I was lazy but i could grow zoanthids like crazy and acons did well. This tank im trying to be better on the husbandary things my stats
PH 8 api
Nitrates 0 api
Phosphate 0 maybe .01 hard to tell with the redsea test kit
Alk 8 api
Calcium is 400 api
After reading up on reef tanks having your nitrates and your phosphates at 0 is not necessary a good thing.
I have shut off my refuge light see if i can get thing to come off of zero. I also think i feed everyone well, and after the pump turns back on what little food that is flying around normally gets eat but then again i change socks out every 3 days so food doesn't rot. Maybe i should play with my skimmer how much it runs. Just looking for advice or maybe im just over thinking it. Other than having zero Nitrates and Phosphates every thing seems to be happy my zoanthids seem a little closed up i believe the no3 and po4 having something to do with it.

Birdbrains? · Apr 21, 2020

Welcome to Reef2Reef, the tank looks great!

Sorry to hear about the loss, it is always terrible to lose a beloved pet, everybody loves their fish.
I don't keep corals, so I am not gonna be the one advising you on how to get better coral growth but I suppose it won't hurt to let the tank age more so you don't overthink it. Did you transfer any of the zoanthids from the previous tank or just add new ones? Different types of stingers will always try to poison eachother, so with a mixed reef, the best thing you can have is an overpowered skimmer to remove the physical toxins. If you usually didn't keep a close eye on the swings, it is probably not a concern in your tank now, since you don't have heavy coral density to eat through the available resources of alk, cal and mag yet. I keep a macrodactyla doreensis anemone, they grow happily in freshwater river outlets, lagoons and dirtier shorelines so I don't do additive adjustment, just water changes and as you mentioned, some specific types of stinger likes a little phosphates and nitrates available, nems included. It could easily be a matter of letting a little build up before you see the growth that you are used to but otherwise I would think the biggest issue would be with getting the different stingers to get adjusted to the toxins they use to suppress the growth of other types of stingers.

I just keep anemone fish because they don't actually always do well with other types of fishes since they aren't open sea swimmers but more a kind of trick-swimmer.
Did the dead clown have any issues with agression from the dominant fish or the angel? I have seen some cases of angels really rejecting clowns as tank mates, sometimes agression doesn't happen until the fishes are more mature and it might have allowed the clowns only as long as they were juveniles. Was the fish tank raised or ocean caught? Never underestimate the psychological stress an ocean caught fish goes through in tanks that aren't humongous, sometimes it doesn't help getting better gear if the fish was just stressing.

Anyway, great to have you in the forum with us, do keep us up to date (everybody loves the pictures

)

vetteguy53081 · Apr 21, 2020

Billldg · Apr 21, 2020

Welcome to R2R!!! Welcome back to the hobby!!!

frankiereef · Apr 21, 2020

SALTYMOPAR said:
I've been out of the salt water hobby for 6 years moving and job kind made me close up shop. You can skip to my last paragraph to save you from reading my life story

So my girlfriend had a 29 gallon tank somehow i have become the keeper of that tank. Nothing special hob filter good amount of rock and a aqueon led that can grow algae like crazy. Two clowns and bi colored dwarf angle.

10-12 weeks ago her male clown died really unknown why only thing i could think of was PH. This sparked me build the new tank i didn't want to lose another fish if i could help it.

New tank 40g breeder with a 20 long sump bean animal drain with a overflow box across one end to make peninsula tank return pump is a mag 9 with two random flow generators that are plumbed through the over flow box. The two bean animal drains dump into filter socks. Running a bubble magus 5 elite skimmer 24/7 i stop it 45 mins for feeding. I have a refuge set up on the end of the sump due to how much flow the sump actually sees i can adjust how much goes to the refuge I've been running my cheap led 6.5k light 24/7 in the refuge. I run carbon and purigen 24/7

I cycled the tank fishless with bacteria and dosing amonia. Three times brought the level to 4.0ppm watched it go through the process after three times the nitrates we're very high 80-160ppm (api test kit) did a large water change got the level down to 10ppm added a new clown then 5 days later i added girlfriend clown then five days later added three pajama Cardinals day later lost the smallest one because he wasn't eating and he was pretty skinny. Went to the LFS got my dead cardinal replaced with a watchman and a diamond goby also got a frag of GSP and a frag of zoanthids. Its been in the for two weeks last weekend i added a rose anemone last weekend. My girlfriend clown has never seen an anemone took her a less than 24 hours and she was all over it.

So my question my tank is still very young and my previous tanks ive had i never really got to concerned checking calcium,alk,mag always did biweekly water changes. I was lazy but i could grow zoanthids like crazy and acons did well. This tank im trying to be better on the husbandary things my stats
PH 8 api
Nitrates 0 api
Phosphate 0 maybe .01 hard to tell with the redsea test kit
Alk 8 api
Calcium is 400 api
After reading up on reef tanks having your nitrates and your phosphates at 0 is not necessary a good thing.
I have shut off my refuge light see if i can get thing to come off of zero. I also think i feed everyone well, and after the pump turns back on what little food that is flying around normally gets eat but then again i change socks out every 3 days so food doesn't rot. Maybe i should play with my skimmer how much it runs. Just looking for advice or maybe im just over thinking it. Other than having zero Nitrates and Phosphates every thing seems to be happy my zoanthids seem a little closed up i believe the no3 and po4 having something to do with it.

welcome to R2R family!

SALTYMOPAR · Apr 22, 2020

SALTYMOPAR · Apr 22, 2020

Birdbrains? said:
Welcome to Reef2Reef, the tank looks great!

Sorry to hear about the loss, it is always terrible to lose a beloved pet, everybody loves their fish.
I don't keep corals, so I am not gonna be the one advising you on how to get better coral growth but I suppose it won't hurt to let the tank age more so you don't overthink it. Did you transfer any of the zoanthids from the previous tank or just add new ones? Different types of stingers will always try to poison eachother, so with a mixed reef, the best thing you can have is an overpowered skimmer to remove the physical toxins. If you usually didn't keep a close eye on the swings, it is probably not a concern in your tank now, since you don't have heavy coral density to eat through the available resources of alk, cal and mag yet. I keep a macrodactyla doreensis anemone, they grow happily in freshwater river outlets, lagoons and dirtier shorelines so I don't do additive adjustment, just water changes and as you mentioned, some specific types of stinger likes a little phosphates and nitrates available, nems included. It could easily be a matter of letting a little build up before you see the growth that you are used to but otherwise I would think the biggest issue would be with getting the different stingers to get adjusted to the toxins they use to suppress the growth of other types of stingers.

I just keep anemone fish because they don't actually always do well with other types of fishes since they aren't open sea swimmers but more a kind of trick-swimmer.
Did the dead clown have any issues with agression from the dominant fish or the angel? I have seen some cases of angels really rejecting clowns as tank mates, sometimes agression doesn't happen until the fishes are more mature and it might have allowed the clowns only as long as they were juveniles. Was the fish tank raised or ocean caught? Never underestimate the psychological stress an ocean caught fish goes through in tanks that aren't humongous, sometimes it doesn't help getting better gear if the fish was just stressing.

Anyway, great to have you in the forum with us, do keep us up to date (everybody loves the pictures )

the angel fish is an odd ball he spends the majority of his time hiding in his cave 95% of the time in the 29 gallon tank. last night i pulled him out of the 29 and put in the 40 gallon tank as the last fish to add to the tank to allow the other fish time to get settled to the tank.

As soon as i add him to the tank he B-lined it to one of the rock cave which was not to far from the anemone. he was hanging out by the entrance of the cave and started interacting with my Female clown not harmful but like he was try to push her away from the anemone by laying sideways and pushing her away. My female clown has never been around an anemone her whole life but the male clown that i bought a few weeks ago he was pulled from a tank that had a few of them. he showed her what you needed to do less than 24 hours i had both clown playing with the anemone. my female is hosting that anemone and i will say shes not going to let anyone near her anemone the male clown get hassled for being near it. hope the anemone get bigger quick so they both have room to play in it. i hope the angel understands the clown not going to move i might have to move the rock the anemone is on. i like the bi color angel he's a beautiful fish i have never seen one in any of the LFS around me always Coral Beauty and Flame. I'm hoping i don't have to catch him and take him to LFS only time will tell.

Daniel@R2R · Apr 22, 2020

Welcome back!! 8 dkh for alk is fine. I'd recommend getting a better test kit than API though. They're generally not regarded as a reliable test

Birdbrains? · Apr 24, 2020

SALTYMOPAR said:
the angel fish is an odd ball he spends the majority of his time hiding in his cave 95% of the time in the 29 gallon tank. last night i pulled him out of the 29 and put in the 40 gallon tank as the last fish to add to the tank to allow the other fish time to get settled to the tank.

As soon as i add him to the tank he B-lined it to one of the rock cave which was not to far from the anemone. he was hanging out by the entrance of the cave and started interacting with my Female clown not harmful but like he was try to push her away from the anemone by laying sideways and pushing her away. My female clown has never been around an anemone her whole life but the male clown that i bought a few weeks ago he was pulled from a tank that had a few of them. he showed her what you needed to do less than 24 hours i had both clown playing with the anemone. my female is hosting that anemone and i will say shes not going to let anyone near her anemone the male clown get hassled for being near it. hope the anemone get bigger quick so they both have room to play in it. i hope the angel understands the clown not going to move i might have to move the rock the anemone is on. i like the bi color angel he's a beautiful fish i have never seen one in any of the LFS around me always Coral Beauty and Flame. I'm hoping i don't have to catch him and take him to LFS only time will tell.

Omg that sounds marvelous! Fishes are just the best pets in the world really. Angels are such a beautiful fish, I wish I could keep them but I am somewhat concerned over the floor in my apartment and decided to keep a nano instead of diving into the bigger tanks. The female polymnus I keep is always keeping a close eye on the anemone but mostly let that male play around in it during mornings and evenings, otherwise she seems to want the male to catch dinner elsewhere, like a knight outside her castle or something like that. Remember to take tons of pictures of your fishes while they are small, they grow up so fast

Btw. I also thought of reminding you that besides real Zoanthids, Palythoas, and Protopalythoas sometimes gets mislabeled under the name Zoanthus but the Palythoas are highly poisonous. They can sometimes cause problems if disturbed or antagonised by other cnidarians in the tank, so make sure you know exactly what species you've got. My favourites are definitely the zoanthus sociatus, that yellow/green brightness just looks marvelous in actinic light.

I hope that the new set up runs without a hitch, the calm of marine tanks is just so amazing (when they don't stress us out of our minds lol).