guatenano Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Hello everyone Ive been in this site aa bunch for the last couple of months and today i finally got the time to start my tank thread. The tank was set up mid May and its been going well so far. I am currently trying to save my one Clownfish from ich, and he seems to be doing ok. Here are some pictures of the tank, the set up, the fish, the shrimp and lots of stuff. Sorry in advance if pictures come out terrible, but i only have an iphone and that will have to do for now. Custom 16 Gallon tank. refiugum (about 2 of the 16 G) Odyssea lamp, 2 white t5 2 blue t5 4 blue LEDs reef octopus nano skimmer (NS-80) Tuchele nanostream 6015 (476 GPH) Odyssea EX250 power head with DIY return plumbing Oddysea 100 W heater Livestock: 10 Bluelegged hermit crabs 2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp True percula Clownfish (felix) Corals: Green Frogspawn (2 heads) star polyps leather coral Some different kinds of polyp colonies which i dont know the name of (I choose them because of the awesome colors) Tank: IMG_6068_1__dragged_.tiff Lights IMG_6074_1__dragged_.tiff Refiugum IMG_6073_1__dragged_.tiff These are all the pics I can post right now (only 1MB at a time so im sorry they have to be so small) Ill upload more in the next post Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 Shrimp Felix and his frogspawn Hermit crab Link to comment
metrokat Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 use picasa or photobucket for pictures. welcome. Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 use picasa or photobucket for pictures. welcome. ya ill give that a shot.... thanks! Link to comment
Mozimo Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Yah I use photobucket right through my iPhone and iPad if I'm not on my laptop Link to comment
TSwift Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 imgur.com is by far the best image uploader IMO. Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 Ok lets try with the pictures again this is the tank This is the refiugum (am i spelling that right?) Light Felix and his frogspawn One of the blue legged hermits shrimp polyps and this is the stuff i picked up today to give felix since hes been fighting some ich... im supposed to soak his food in some of this stuff to help boost his immune sistem and help him not get too weak... but im not too sure about it... let me know what you think Link to comment
neuwave Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Welcome. How's the reefing scene in Guatemala? Anyway selcon is a great additive for any fish, either healthy or sick. Works great to boost their immune system. Just make sure to keep him eating to keep up his strength up. Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 Welcome. How's the reefing scene in Guatemala? Well there deffinetly arent as many options here as there are in the US or bigger countries but the few LFS here in the city near my house have been real cool helping me get this tank set up, and also about the tratment for the ich plaguing my tank right now.... Anyway selcon is a great additive for any fish, either healthy or sick. Works great to boost their immune system. Just make sure to keep him eating to keep up his strength up. Thats exactly what the guy that sold me this one said... feed them this even if they are not sick to prevent them getting sick. Im goin to start mixing in some garlic which he said is really good too... Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Don't overdo it on the garlic, though, it can cause liver or kidney damage if you feed too much of it (can't remember which it is). At any rate, if he truly has ich, the garlic won't help. It'll either come right back every time, or it will appear to be gone, then first sign of trouble (temperature spikes or drops are the most common) it will rear its ugly head again. Other than that, I like your setup. Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 Don't overdo it on the garlic, though, it can cause liver or kidney damage if you feed too much of it (can't remember which it is). At any rate, if he truly has ich, the garlic won't help. It'll either come right back every time, or it will appear to be gone, then first sign of trouble (temperature spikes or drops are the most common) it will rear its ugly head again. Other than that, I like your setup. Ya i was only gonna dose some garlic a couple times a week not on every meal, but good to know it can be too much! thanks What do you think would be the best thing to do now then? i wanted to add some gobys but my plan right now is to not add ANYTHING for 6 weeks (if this proves to be enough time i will add some sweet stuff right for my Bday) I was planning on letting him be till he gets better and do water changes every 5 days instead of five, to get some of the ich out of the water, since i read that even when all the fish are out it remains in the water. And after the 6 weeks, if he seems better, add more fish.... If he dies (which i hope he doesnt since my nieces LOVE him) i was planning on doin the same... not add a thing untill after 6 weeks of constant water changes... Lemme know what you think Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Ya i was only gonna dose some garlic a couple times a week not on every meal, but good to know it can be too much! thanks What do you think would be the best thing to do now then? i wanted to add some gobys but my plan right now is to not add ANYTHING for 6 weeks (if this proves to be enough time i will add some sweet stuff right for my Bday) I was planning on letting him be till he gets better and do water changes every 5 days instead of five, to get some of the ich out of the water, since i read that even when all the fish are out it remains in the water. And after the 6 weeks, if he seems better, add more fish.... If he dies (which i hope he doesnt since my nieces LOVE him) i was planning on doin the same... not add a thing untill after 6 weeks of constant water changes... Lemme know what you think To be rid of ich in your system, the fish need to be removed and placed into a separate tank for up to 72 days (the maximum amount of time it can take for the ich to run its life cycle). During this time, add no vertebrates to the tank. Dip all corals in a heavy iodine solution to rid of any parasites, other inverts you can't do that with (such as shrimp) so you pretty much just have to wing it with them. Water changes won't remove the ich from the system. The life cycle is such that the parasite spends almost zero time in the water column. The only way to kill it in a system with corals in it is to starve it. In the meantime, the fish need to either be treated with A- copper, or B- hyposalinity, roughly 1.010 sg. Copper outright kills the parasite after it drops off the fish or after it releases spores from the cysts on the substrate/rocks/etc. Hyposalinity prevents the cysts from keeping water out and, essentially, suffocates it. There is no way to kill ich other than this method. Nothing else works, ever. People will swear up and down "oh, such and such product killed it and didn't hurt my corals" but it's simply untrue - it may have retarded some of the parasites or possibly even killed some, but there is no way for it to truly kill the parasite - it will only come back with a vengeance later - and it did harm the corals, it just hasn't shown yet. I learned all this the hard way - twice. Now all fish are proactively treated with Cupramine for 2-3 weeks (depending on the fish and if it eats well during that time) before entering my system. Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 New shrimp and bubble tip anemone!!! Hopefully felix will like the anemone better than the frogspawn and relocate, i feel like the frogspawn might be horting his skin a little... And the pepermint srhrimp i got to help clean up the green algae on several rock! Here are some pictures!!! Skunk checking out this new little guy Bubble tip And some better pictures of my polyps And this little guy... Im not quite sure what it is... My gf got it for me and she didnt ask... Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Peppermint shrimp do not eat algae. They are scavengers and are known to pick at corals if they are hungry. The anemone is bleached - meaning that it has expelled zooxanthellae due to stress. It will need to be fed at least every other day, each time a small amount of meat (silversides or mysis, feed a chunk no bigger than the anemone's mouth), and it will have a low chance of survival. Anemones are very difficult to keep alive, especially when bleached, need stellar lighting and high water quality, and above all, stability. They also get large, and having stinging tentacles, are usually a poor choice for nano tanks. And the last coral is called xenia. Link to comment
guatenano Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 Damn! Well i guess the shrimp is going in the fuge!!!! Keep toro company ( toro is my bully hermit that would just terrorize all the smaller hermits) And yes the anemone looks a lot more pale in the picture than it actually is :s My only camera right now is the one on my phone but thanks for the info, i now just have to wait for him to come out of wherever he is hiding to try and get him. Link to comment
guatenano Posted September 3, 2012 Author Share Posted September 3, 2012 So saturday i went to spend the night at the beach, and sunday when i got back, Felix my clownfish was full of ich again and swimming really poorly, i tried feeding him but he wouldn eat. He really seemed to be having a hard time swimming so i turned the powerhead off and then he managed to eat a little bit. i kept the PH off all night but this morning when i woke up he was dead Now i only have two Skunks, a pepermint, and some corals left.... i dont know if i should still feed flakes to the shrimp? they come out of their cave whenever i feed so my guess is maybe not twice a day but only once, so they help my CUC to some extent? On another note, now that felix is gone, i would like to wait for the ich to die off to add fish again.... I was planing on waiting 4-6 weeks which seems to be the general rule when you get the fish with ich out of your tank. If anyone could recomend something else, like adding something to the water to make it healthier while i wait for 1 1/2 months i would really apreciate it Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 So saturday i went to spend the night at the beach, and sunday when i got back, Felix my clownfish was full of ich again and swimming really poorly, i tried feeding him but he wouldn eat. He really seemed to be having a hard time swimming so i turned the powerhead off and then he managed to eat a little bit. i kept the PH off all night but this morning when i woke up he was dead Now i only have two Skunks, a pepermint, and some corals left.... i dont know if i should still feed flakes to the shrimp? they come out of their cave whenever i feed so my guess is maybe not twice a day but only once, so they help my CUC to some extent? On another note, now that felix is gone, i would like to wait for the ich to die off to add fish again.... I was planing on waiting 4-6 weeks which seems to be the general rule when you get the fish with ich out of your tank. If anyone could recomend something else, like adding something to the water to make it healthier while i wait for 1 1/2 months i would really apreciate it Sorry to hear that she didn't make it. Well, as of right now, your best option is to just wait. The average life cycle of marine ich is 21 days, so three weeks, but can easily go up to 72 days. I have fought ich three times - the first time, a 60 day fallow period turned out to be not enough. The last time, though, 23 days was all it took. You just can never know, unfortunately. I would do at least 30 days. In that time, you will still need to feed the invertebrates in your system. I would stop feeding flake food. It is almost all 'filler' and has little nutritional value in comparison to frozen and pellet foods out there. Do you have any New Life Spectrum or Ocean Nutrition pellets available to you? What about frozen cubes of mysis shrimp or Cyclop-eeze? There is nothing you can add to water to make it 'healthier', and if anyone tells you that there is, do not listen to their advice, they're probably trying to sell you something. Link to comment
guatenano Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Sorry to hear that she didn't make it. Well, as of right now, your best option is to just wait. The average life cycle of marine ich is 21 days, so three weeks, but can easily go up to 72 days. I have fought ich three times - the first time, a 60 day fallow period turned out to be not enough. The last time, though, 23 days was all it took. You just can never know, unfortunately. I would do at least 30 days. In that time, you will still need to feed the invertebrates in your system. I would stop feeding flake food. It is almost all 'filler' and has little nutritional value in comparison to frozen and pellet foods out there. Do you have any New Life Spectrum or Ocean Nutrition pellets available to you? What about frozen cubes of mysis shrimp or Cyclop-eeze? There is nothing you can add to water to make it 'healthier', and if anyone tells you that there is, do not listen to their advice, they're probably trying to sell you something. Well this is the stuff im feeding right now: As of frozen foods, the stores here dont sell it bc shipping takes a long time and i guess the food goes bad, but i could buy some pellets for sure! I could look for those two brands you recomended! If i dont find them would any pellet brand be ok? Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Well this is the stuff im feeding right now:http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o544/M...rs/59727b4a.jpg As of frozen foods, the stores here dont sell it bc shipping takes a long time and i guess the food goes bad, but i could buy some pellets for sure! I could look for those two brands you recomended! If i dont find them would any pellet brand be ok? Looks ok, but brine shrimp are not particularly nutritious, so I don't think flakes using brine shrimp would be, either. The Ocean Nutrition ones should be ok, but again, they are mostly filler. I've never used Zoplan, but it looks like it is a very small particulate food, so it may not be useful but to a few corals. I don't have experience with very many pellets. There are many brands, but a few of them really stand out, and those are Ocean Nutrition and New Life Spectrum. They are also the most popular, so i'm sure you'd be able to find them. Ocean Nutrition has two kinds, Formula One and Formula Two. F1 is meat-based, and F2 is plant-based, I purchased both and feed both kinds to all my fish (not just my tangs) so they all get a nice, varied diet. Link to comment
guatenano Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 so ive been watching the top part of the cave in which my shrimp live in. the top part of this rock is PLAGUED with this disgusting green algae that only seems to be multiplying like crazy on this rock that is the one nearest to the lights, its weird though since there are other rocks also exposed to just as much light that dont seem to be gettin this algae..... ill post some pictures later.. I also added some granulated coral to the display tank since my sand was being pushed all over the place by the power head, now this coral (which was originally white) is now growing some dark red/brown algae and my tank looks super dirty? its weird since the rest of this stuff that is in the fuge is still white and looks really good.... i want to know what i can do to get rid of that green algae and also this stuff growing on my display tank.... any suggestions are greatly apreciated Link to comment
guatenano Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 Ok so here is a pic of this algae i was talking about And this is what my tank looks like now :s Please help!!!! I feel like somethings really wrong, maybe some water chemistry is wrong idk... Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Hair algae in pic one and cyanobacteria (aka red slime algae) in pic 2. You need to lower your nutrient levels and siphon out as much cyano as possible and do a nice big water change. People leave the hobby all the time because they can't keep up the battle with cyano. You have nitrate and phosphate issues. I would purchase a set of test kits, preferably Red Sea or Salifert brand. If you can only get API brand, then I would skip on those. They are not accurate and do not have the resolution to tell you where your levels truly are, not well enough to battle cyano. One thing you can do is to start dosing a small amount of hydrogen peroxide, say around 5mL or so. Turn off all pumps and filters and spray the H2O2 directly onto the rock with the algae and another time onto the cyano, this will help you try and get ahead of it until you can get your nitrate and phosphate levels under control. Link to comment
guatenano Posted September 6, 2012 Author Share Posted September 6, 2012 So i found out why i have this GHA problem..... I woke up yesterday and set up my gopro to take pictures every 10 seconds to make a timelapse of what goes on in the tank during the day... maybe my lights were going haywire after i left or IDK anything.... turns out that the lady that comes to clean the house has been DUMPING food in the tank (not only a little, i mean taking all 3 different kinds of foods im currently feeding and just packing the water with it!!!! so i guess that explains my problem, now hopefully after i explain to her that she could potentially cost me a BUNCH of money she will stop, and things will go back to normal..... i might also just lock my food up so no one but me can touch it hahaha Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted September 6, 2012 Share Posted September 6, 2012 One of my coworkers did the same thing to the guppy tank we have at work. Seriously, two guppies, and he would dump in a palm-full of food. "Oh, well they need to be well-fed so they can breed better." Funny, they're both males. Link to comment
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