Increase Maturity in Reefs

[reefinginBD]

Hey there, I will be setting up a 600 litre mixed reef tank with dry rock and sand. I will most probably use dry sand as that is the one most commonly found here and for rocks, I want to use AF rocks. For filtration, I plan on using a roller mat and protein skimmer along with bio media in the beginning but later on, I may add a refugium if needed. I am planning on using a piece of live rock to cycle the tank which will hopefully increase biodiversity and also help mature the tank faster. But, the only live rock that is available here is man-made rock which was kept in a tank without fish and corals, the tank was ghost fed and then later the rocks are seeded with copepods. I am kind of hesitant about taking rocks/bio media from other people's tanks as 99% of the people here do not qt their fish. So, I am not willing to take that risk as I have no idea what is in their tanks. So, can you guys please give me some advice on how I can increase biodiversity, stability (in the beginning I will just have an ATO to make sure that the salinity is stable. Later on, I will add dosers if and when needed.), and hence maturity in the tank? Any and all answers are appreciated! Please do let me know!

 

[Seymo44]

You can try some of the various bottled bacteria products, and/or bagged live sand. I’ve used the “Real Reef” brand live rock and it’s aweful. Very dense, and unnaturally textured. Also, for some reason, coralline doesn’t grow on it. I have some in a couple of my tanks that have coralline everywhere except for these rocks. But adding a piece or two of this can seed your tank with beneficial bacteria.

If you’re wanting to start with rock and/or water from an established tank, that is an excellent way to introduce beneficial bacteria. Just let your tank go 90 days fallow after adding something from someone else’s tank if you’re worried about disease. But you still could end up with flatworms, aiptasia, or other hitchhikers that you may not want.

If you are quarantining your fish, then you’ll need to QT all coral, snails, crabs, etc. An encysted ich tomont could be attached to coral bases or skeletons, snail shells, or crab shells.

 

[FSP]

What happened to going to the beach?

 

[reefinginBD]

What happened to going to the beach?

ah so 95% of the corals here are dead the seaweed is peeling off the rocks due to pollution. I think it’s better not to take anything from there. Plus it’s around 12 hours away from here :/

 

[reefinginBD]

You can try some of the various bottled bacteria products, and/or bagged live sand. I’ve used the “Real Reef” brand live rock and it’s aweful. Very dense, and unnaturally textured. Also, for some reason, coralline doesn’t grow on it. I have some in a couple of my tanks that have coralline everywhere except for these rocks. But adding a piece or two of this can seed your tank with beneficial bacteria.

If you’re wanting to start with rock and/or water from an established tank, that is an excellent way to introduce beneficial bacteria. Just let your tank go 90 days fallow after adding something from someone else’s tank if you’re worried about disease. But you still could end up with flatworms, aiptasia, or other hitchhikers that you may not want.

If you are quarantining your fish, then you’ll need to QT all coral, snails, crabs, etc. An encysted ich tomont could be attached to coral bases or skeletons, snail shells, or crab shells.

I won’t be adding corals to the tank for the first 2-3 months. So shouldn’t the coral pests die off by then? Aptasia is not too big of a problem, we all get it at one point or another. If I let the tank go through a fallow period, then what should I use as an ammonia source? I will be setting up the tank in January or February. I already bought the bio media that I will be using. So, what I can do now is get the bio media from an established tank and then put it in a bucket along with the bio media that I will be using and just ghost feed it to keep the bacteria alive. Would that work? Please let me know. Also, I couldn’t find any bottled ammonia to use in the tank, so that is not an option for me. The tank is about 7 years old. It is a Red Sea 750 XXL. The tank might have had ich or velvet about 3-4 years back but the fish are fine now. It was probably ich since more than half of them survived. They were treated and now all the fish are healthy. So, will it be safe to take one or two pieces of bio media from that tank and add it to mine? Like keep the bio media in a bucket along with the bio media that I will use and just ghost feed it for 3 months? Then I can use it to cycle my tank as well. I will attach a picture of the tank below! All the fish are healthy now! Also the coral pests. Shouldn’t they starve to death by the time I add corals? The only coral that I may add in the beginning is gsp and that’s about it. I will be quarantining all the fish, but unfortunately I cannot quarantine corals or invert. I will dip all the corals in coral rx and hydrogen peroxide or revive and as well as iodine. I will just dip the frag plug it self and not the coral in the Hydrogen Peroxide dip. Is there anything else I can do to prevent bringing diseases into the tank through corals and inverts?
Also here is the picture of the tank!

 

[Seymo44]

Honestly, in this hobby you will encounter most pest as some point or another. Dipping corals in Revive or Coral Rx helps a lot. Peroxide dips are icing on the cake. I do peroxide dips on most new corals. Montipora eating nudibranchs should die off without a host, as should many euphyllia eating flatworms. You can scrub snail shells and frag plugs with a toothbrush, but without keeping them in a fallow tank for 45-90 days, there is still a chance for ich or velvet making it’s way into your system.

 

[happyhourhero]

Order from indo pacific sea farms. Great diversity packs and a great org.

 

[Seymo44]

In case you’re curious, my current QT regime is as follows:

20 gal fish qt tank. Observe fish for a week, feeding heavily. One treatment of API general cure, which is prazi and metro together. Then 30 days of copper safe at 2.5ppm. Then another treatment of API general cure if I see stringy poop, flukes, etc. Then all fish go into a temp and ph matched freshwater dip for 3-5 minutes before being released into the display. I usually keep the salinity of the QT around 1.018. This isn’t really low enough for hypo salinity treatment, but I’ve noticed it does help with flukes substantially.

Corals and all inverts go into a fishless 10 gal frag tank for 72 days. Observation only. Corals are dipped before being added to frag tank, then again before going into display.

I’m not under the delusion that I can prevent all pests and parasites; I am simply minimizing the chance of contamination as best as possible.

 

[Seymo44]

Order from indo pacific sea farms. Great diversity packs and a great org.

This it’s a great idea to introduce both micro and macro organisms. I’ve gotten spaghetti worms from them before. Unfortunately, my sixline ate them all in about a week hahaha.

 

[reefinginBD]

Order from indo pacific sea farms. Great diversity packs and a great org.

Unfortunately, I am from Bangladesh and I do not think that they ship the items here :/ I'll still check it out tho!

 

[reefinginBD]

Honestly, in this hobby you will encounter most pest as some point or another. Dipping corals in Revive or Coral Rx helps a lot. Peroxide dips are icing on the cake. I do peroxide dips on most new corals. Montipora eating nudibranchs should die off without a host, as should many euphyllia eating flatworms. You can scrub snail shells and frag plugs with a toothbrush, but without keeping them in a fallow tank for 45-90 days, there is still a chance for ich or velvet making it’s way into your system.

Ok so yeah this is what I was planning on doing for the corals and inverts. So for inverts, if they are snails or hermits or anything with a hard shell, then I will use a toothbrush to clean it off and after acclimation, I will give it three rinses in water from the dt. The first rinse will be after brushing their shells and then leaving them there for about a minute. After that into the second dip with an air pump to agitate the water a bit for around another minute or so and then finally into the third just to make sure nothing really makes it into the tank. And for inverts like shrimp, I will do the same thing just without brushing. For corals, do you think I can use both of the dips? Coral RX and Revive? First I will acclimate the coral and then use a brush to clean the frag plug and if it is an lps then clean its skeletal structure as well and then rinse it in water. After that, I will dip them in Coral RX and then with Revive. I will use a turkey baster or smth to help clean the frags. I will dip the corals in fresh saltwater after the first dip and then also after the second dip in revive, then I will dip the corals in Iodine and finally only dip the frag plugs in peroxide to clean them off algae. Then, I will use a bone cutter to cut the plug off and just keep the disk. If I can then I may get a Dremel and cut the frag plug off completely and then glue the corals to a new plug as well. Will this work or will this process put too much stress on the corals and kill them rather than do any good? What would you say to do and what to change or add in this process for both the corals and inverts? Please do let me know! Thank you in advance!

 

[reefinginBD]

In case you’re curious, my current QT regime is as follows:

20 gal fish qt tank. Observe fish for a week, feeding heavily. One treatment of API general cure, which is prazi and metro together. Then 30 days of copper safe at 2.5ppm. Then another treatment of API general cure if I see stringy poop, flukes, etc. Then all fish go into a temp and ph matched freshwater dip for 3-5 minutes before being released into the display. I usually keep the salinity of the QT around 1.018. This isn’t really low enough for hypo salinity treatment, but I’ve noticed it does help with flukes substantially.

Corals and all inverts go into a fishless 10 gal frag tank for 72 days. Observation only. Corals are dipped before being added to frag tank, then again before going into display.

I’m not under the delusion that I can prevent all pests and parasites; I am simply minimizing the chance of contamination as best as possible.

Do check the reply above for how I plan to add the corals and inverts and let me know if that is ok or not and what else to remove or add from those processes. And for fish, I will be using the httm method along with two doses of general cure and h2o2. I will feed the fish gc just for a few days to treat them internally if they do not have white or stringy poop. But if they do, then I will feed the gc for 10-14 days. I will do two doses of gc in the water column for external parasites. The temp will be kept higher at around 28-19 degrees and the salinity at around 1.019-1.020. After 14 days, I will add the fish to an observation tank and if all is ok then I will add it to my tank on the 21st day. I will also wait about 2 weeks after a shipment of fish comes, to make sure that only the healthy ones are there, usually most of the weaker ones die within that period. Then, I will observe the fish before getting it and also see if it eats food. I will also check to see if any other fish are sick in that system and if they are then I won't be getting that fish. This is just another step that I will take before the qt process just to be safer. I will also check the tanks that I will be getting the inverts and corals from to see if it is clean and if all the fish are ok just to reduce the chances of getting diseases through them as well. Hope this will work. Let me know!

 

[Seymo44]

Using both coral revive and coral rx would likely be safe, but redundant. From all accounts that I’ve heard, they basically do the same thing. Cutting the frag plug off entirely is a great idea. Scrubbing snail shells is what I used to do before setting up the frag tank. However, nothing you’ve mentioned will prevent ich torments from being transferred over. These things are nearly microscopic and can be tucked away in places that a brush bristle cannot get to. I have never tried the tank transfer method myself, but I do intend on using it for a mandarin that I plan to get soon.

Ich is not as terrifying as everyone makes it out to be. There are many long time reefers on here who are successful with “ich management.” This is where you use diet, UV sterilization, biodiversity, etc. to reduce and nearly eliminate the effects of having ich in your system. I am not a huge fan of ich management, but it is a somewhat viable option. Your QT plan is pretty good, but without QTing your inverts ich will find its way in. If/when this happens you can start practicing ich management. Search for ich management on the forums to find more info on this.