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Hello, I'm struggling to understand the relationship between alkalinity and calcium levels in my tank. I’ve read a ton about it but I’m still confused. I have a high level of calcium (500) and low alkalinity (7) I’m not sure how to address this. I have B-Ionic calcium buffer system with component 1 alkalinity and component 2 calcium but I’ve never used it. Can someone help me out? Specifically can you tell me what you would do in my situation. I have a 13.5 gallon fluval evo tank. I also have a protein skimmer attached For coral I have some mushrooms and Xenia, a pink birds nest coral, zoas, and some leather corals. Additionally I have a coco worm (hard tube feather duster), a clownfish, 2 cardinalfish, and one tiny goby.
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Hi all I feel like I’ve just about finished stocking my 30 gallon tank. I’m really proud of the work I’ve done so far. I’d love to hear feedback on my little ecosystem I designed. Criticism is welcome as well. I just want to show off the product of my efforts and hear ways I might still improve it. My tanl is a 30 gallon biocube. It’s been set up for about 4.5 months now but it was mature and full of water and rock when I received it used so I got a little head start. i have attached some photos I took yesterday there are are a couple of frags that got burned and were put on the sand temporarily. let me me know what you think!
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Hi all ive decided to get a peacock mantis shrimp and give it its own tank. I found an old oceanic 8 gallon bio cube on Craigslist for 35$ and was thinking of using that. It fits perfectly on my nightstand. I also have a 20 gallon setup that I took down a few months ago when I upgraded. But it is a budget 20 gal setup and not exactly quiet or pretty. I think 8 gallons could be big enough for a mantis shrimp if I provide it with lots of burrowing spaces and a deep sand bed. What do you think?
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So let me preface this by saying that yes my tank is small for those two tangs. They get along great and are just in the tank for algae control until I move them to my larger system. So so recently my female clown has become more and more aggressive. To the point where the male now has to resign to the bottom corner of the tank. Today I sat down and observed my tangs seeming to break up the domestic dispute. Every time the female started acting up the hippo tang arrived and carefully slid between them and guided the female away. The yellow tang even joined in too. This video is not a one off and doesn’t even do a fantastic job of demonstrating the behavior I’m talking about. Does anyone know what’s going on here. I can’t think of any other way to explain the behavior than that the tangs don’t want to see the conflict for some reason. Heres the link to the video: https://youtu.be/GUaWYtLBfgE
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I had velvet in my tank so I took all the fish out and am quarantining them in copper. I know you’re supposed to let the parasite starve by leaving fish out of the tank for like 6 weeks. But how long until the fish themselves have no parasites. Shouldn’t the copper kill off the velvet quickly. At least within one lifecycle at most I would think. I don’t want to keep my fish in copper any longer than I have to. There’s a few fish that I know are particularly sensitive and stressed by it. So how long until the copper has definitely killed the parasite. Just ich or velvet. Idk about any other parasites.
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To those of you who have a MAME design skimmer, could you post a picture of how you have it set up? Specifically, how deep into the water do you place it and how high up do you have the bubbles go? I know it is working for me since I have green water that comes out, but sometimes it works awesomely (like very dark green water) and other times it doesn’t work as well. Im under the impression that I need an ATO to get the best use out of it, but until I get one, could you guys share with me the ideal placement for it? Additionally, do you find it to be super wobbly? I’m not sure if there’s a better way to set it up, since the instructions were all in Japanese.
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Yesterday night my clownfish started flashing. There was nothing visible on his skin. I gave him a freshwater dip. I just got home from work today and he’s got a big white something hanging off his face. It almost looks like some sand stuck by his mouth, but it’s definitely stuck on. Quick background on my tank, it’s new (like 2ish months) and all the fish are newish too. I added a cardinalfish a LFS. Then I added the clown who I got from divers den live aquaria. Then I added a second cardinal from a second LFS. I’ve added coral from local stores and that I’ve ordered online. I didn’t quarantine anyone (I know I know I should have). Both cardinalfish are looking and acting totally normal. I gave the clownfish a freshwater bath for 5 minutes last night. I know it was probably too little too late, but I wanted to do something. Nothing visible came off him. It’s my first tank and I didn’t quarantine because I don’t really have the space or money to set up a quarantine tank. WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?? What’s the cheapest/easiest but still ethical way for me to fix my clown? Aldo let me know if you need any additional info from me.
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What type of algae is this and how do I best treat it?
Hannahhhh posted a topic in Algae, Disease, & Pest Treatment
What is this brown film that’s covering parts of my sand? None of my clean up crew seems particularly interested in eating it. I tried to siphon it out but it was kinda heavy and didn’t want to get pulled out of the tank. -
Hi all. I've really been struggling recently. If you get angry reading this you probably should be. many mistakes were made that WILL NOT be repeated. FOR A DETAILED EXPLANATION READ THE WHOLE POST IF YOU HATE READING AND JUST WANT A SYNOPSIS JUST READ THE BOTTOM PARAGRAPH AND CONCLUSION I have been running two tanks, a 20 gallon and a 30 gallon bio cube. First mistake: I didnt quarantine a rabbitfish. Now the 30 gallon has ich and I cant undo it. For now, the infection is under control and my fish are not symptomatic, but I know my tank will have ich until I go FALLOW. I am tentatively content to rest that issue while I deal with a more pressing matter... my 20 gallon disaster. Second mistake: I bought a fish at Petco AND didnt quarantine. That got me MARINE VELVET. I only mention the ich in the 30 gallon because the one benefit it gave me was helping confirm my diagnosis in the 20 gallon tank. So here is the story. I had just arranged to buy a 75 gallon tank to replace my 20 gallon. I got so excited and went out and bought a tiny blue hippo from petco and put him straight in the 20 gallon. I thought it would be fine because the bigger tank transition was just a few days away (new tank came already cycled). But the tang didnt last two days after breaking out in tons of tiny white spots and eventually looking cloudy right before it died. Soon my coral beauty took ill with the same symptoms and i knew i needed to act fast. I did a lot of research and decided it was probably velvet. I ran to the only pet store still open (look at Petco profiting from their booby-trapped fish) and picked up a 20 gallon long, a bubbler, a heater, a power head, a tiny hang off filter, and cupramine and FINALLY set up a quarantine tank. I removed the filter material that came with the filter and added an empty sponge bag to hopefully grow some good bacteria. I used some of that instant cycle stuff to add a little of that good bacteria off the bat. Finally I added some pieces of PVC pipe for the fish to hide in. I did not buy a copper test kit (they didnt have one). I followed the instructions on the cupramine bottle and added the first dose. Then I caught the angelfish (who wasnt too far gone because he put up quite a fight) and added him to the hospital tank. The coral beauty quickly lost its spots over the next few days. I did not remove the rest of my fish because they weren't showing symptoms and I would have to destroy my rockwork and knock over all my corals and nems to even have a chance of catching all of them. Fast forward a week and all the fish in the 20 gallon still appear and behave as if they are completely healthy but the coral beauty has broken out in white dots again! I dosed the copper exactly as instructed on the days it told me to. I added a total of 40 drops over several days which is half what the bottle told me would reach a therapeutic dose. I had been told that the recommendations on the bottle were overkill but clearly, I needed the full dose so I added the other 40 drops to the quarantine tank. That didn't help, and two days later the coral beauty looked even worse. I figured maybe I was wrong to diagnose velvet and perhaps it was not a parasite but a fungus or a bacteria. I had some Ruby Reef "Rally" lying around and so I dosed the quarantine tank with that too. Sure enough, the spots went away again. I knew if it was indeed velvet and I had just botched the treatment then the velvet was still living in the 20 gallon. So when I finally upgraded to the 75 gallon tank I moved all the rock, sand, and inverts, but added all the fish from the 20 gallon to the quarantine tank. Then I started the timer for 6 weeks until the potential velvet starved in the fish free 75 gallon tank. Mistake 3: I bought more new fish. Undeterred from my past mistakes I picked up a new baby hippo tang from a reputable store as well as a dottyback and added them to the quarantine too. I figured as long as the quarantine tank had to be up and running I might as well take the opportunity to add the new fish I needed to quarantine anyways. Well the velvet came back and the dottyback and baby hippo #2 died in 2 days. Mistake 4?: More fish Well its been 2 weeks since the dottyback and 2nd hippo died. that makes 3 weeks of no fish if you add the days that the 20 gallon had no fish and the days since the 75 has been up and running. I have done 8 50% water changes on the quarantine tank in that time. I make sure to add back the copper I remove each time. The copper should now be at 1.5 times the recommended dose. Everything has been looking healthy so two days ago I went to the LFS and bought a small hippo tang. Today it has some tiny white spots. SYNOPSIS: I didnt quarantine my new fish and introduced marine velvet to my tank. I have seen ich before and this was much smaller and more numerous dots and killed very quickly. I set up a hospital tank and dosed 50% recommended of cupermine. A week later the velvet came back and more fish died so I dosed 100% the recommended dose. The velvet still came back and more fish died again so I upped to 150% dose. I had two weeks without symptoms and I added a new fish and two days later it has velvet. I have been doing proper water changes, I removed all carbon and other filters that arent mechanical, I have no skimmer or UV sterilizer. I am so sure its velvet based on how it looks, how the fish behave, and how quickly it kills. CONCLUSION: What am I doing wrong? Other than the unintended torturing of so many innocent fish. Every time I think I've killed the parasite with cupramine it comes back. I'm at 150% recommended dose for crying out loud. Nothing should be able to survive long enough in the swimming stage to infect a fish. Can anyone tell me what's going on? And why are half my fish totally immune while others die within 48 hours of introduction?
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Hi all, I’m looking for opinions on wether it is worth trying to cure my ich. I have ich ich in my 30 gallon reef tank. It broke out about 2 months ago and all the fish made it. I bought some reef safe medicine that claimed it would cure ich knowing it wouldn’t cure it. I do credit the medicine with lessening the burden on my fish and allowing them to fight through it. My my understanding is that ich is definitely still alive in my tank. Just not in plague proportions. I’ve heard fish start to build a degree of immunity to a particular strain of ich after they fight off the initial infection. So there’s just a small amount of ich feeding on my fish in low enough numbers that my fish maintain their immune systems and appear asymptomatic. And I guess I could be ok with that. It feels precarious. If the ich ever reaches critical mass then it will start to tax the immune system of the fish. The stress of fighting it off weakens their immune system and it snowballs into another outbreak. That’s my understanding. But can I avoid giving ich that foothold? My fish get along great. My parameters are stable. And I don’t plan on adding any more fish. So all the biggest triggers to stress a fish and start an outbreak are mostly neutralized? in the meantime, as my fish continue to fight the daily battle of enduring a handful of ich bites, they are slowly building more immunity. Like a cruel vaccine? Maybe? ive also heard from someone that ich can only reproduce and undergo its lifecycle a finite number of times (many years worth). But still. If all my fish hang on, and nothing new is added, could it be possible to make it to the finish line and beat ich by running out the clock? there are tons of encrusting corals that cover a maze of mat holes and crevices in the tank. I could only remove the fish by tearing it all down and sacrificing a lot of coral die off. Can I live with ich? Has anyone done it? Is it really worth tearing down my tank to kill it?
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Hi all, I have a cleaner shrimp in my 30 gallon tank that seems to have a voracious appetite. I’m very happy with the small skunk cleaner and how much he tries to clean my fish. But counterintuitively, this makes me worried about my fish. I know my tank has ich since I had an outbreak in the past, but all my fish currently look and act healthy. No spots or scratching on rocks or any other unusual behavior. My largest fish, a foxface rabbitfish has been getting a lot of attention from the shrimp. The rabbitfish was also hit hardest by the ich in the past. It’s a small tank and I guess it’s not easy to avoid the manic little shrimp (the rabbitfish is moving to a bigger home soon), but the rabbitfish often swims slowly past. The shrimp jumps on and starts to clean and the rabbitfish shakes him off shortly after. Not sure if the fish is asking for it or not. Either way, my real question boils down to this: If my cleaner shrimp is cleaning my fish a lot does it mean my fish is getting sick? Even if the fish shows no signs of infection? thanks in advance to any thoughts and advice!
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I just got a tiny yellow watchman goby, and I would like to pair him with a shrimp. I’m wondering if anyone has a suggestions on the specific species of shrimp. Additionally, my goby is TINY. He's likely to be way smaller than any shrimp I get, is this a problem? Have you guys had success pairing a goby with a larger shrimp? Does anyone have any suggestions on convincing the goby and the shrimp to pair up? Thanks!!
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Just looked in my tank, and all my corals are pouting. What do you guys do when you see something like this? I did a water change with nutri seawater (first time using it) 6 or so hours ago, but my corals don’t usually get this mad at me with water changes. I included a picture of my parameter chart for a reference. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!!
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I am wondering why my tank would have low alkalinity but normal calcium levels? My alkalinity is currently 6.5 and my calcium is 440. What’s the best way to fix this? Water changes? I’ve been reading about calcium and alkalinity online but I’m still somewhat confused with their relationship and so I’m not sure how to address this issue.
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I recently got a coco worm (Protula bispiralis) from my LFS. They convinced me that it’s easy to care for them and so I bought it. After doing more research I realized I really shouldn’t have bought it, as my tank is new and I’m relatively inexperienced. I’m wondering if any of you have experience caring for coco worms, specifically protula bispiralis, and if so, could you let me know? If you know anyone else who has cared for them, could you tag them in this post? I’d love to have a few people that I could contact and ask if (and when) I run into problems with my worm. My care regiment for it it has been feeding two or three times a week with either reef roids or two little fishies marine snow. I do weekly water changes, sometimes bi weekly. It seemed pretty happy for the first few days I had it, but now I find that it’s retracted about ~50% of the time that I see it (it’s possible that it’s out much more often than that, I’m just basing that number on when I walk by/look at the tank).
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Does more flow make the tank feel bigger?
HingleMcCringleberry posted a topic in Beginners Discussion
Hi all. I picked up a coral beauty angelfish for my 30-gallon tank. My 30 has most of my collection of corals and I got unlucky and got a coral beauty that picks on all of them. I also have a 20-gallon tank set up that isn't fully stocked yet so I have moved the fish to that tank. I think 20 gallons is a little small for a fish that size and I had an Idea that I thought might help but I want to get advice first. I've posted to this forum before about getting a tang and everyone informed me of their need to do lots of swimming and that my tanks just couldn't provide the needed swimming space. That got me thinking. If bigger fish or fish with a more active lifestyle need to get more exercise to be healthy and happy then could I supplement more tank space with more water flow. Obviously, it would never be a substitute for actual swimming room but if I increase the flow a lot would the tank maybe feel larger to the fish since it needs to swim harder to get from one side to the other? Could increasing the flow help my coral beauty be healthier and happier in my 20 gallon? Right now my 20 has a small powerhead that is rated for 200 gph and a hang-off protein skimmer and two hang-off filters that add some flow as well. I have a bubble tip anemone in my 20 and it's in a perfect location where it can't bother my zoas and frogspawn which are the only corals in the 20. I don't want a change in flow to inspire my nem to pack up and move so I don't want to add more flow if I don't have to. But I'm totally prepared to take that risk if you all recommend that more flow will help a larger fish feel more at home in a borderline tolerable tank. Let me know what you all think! -
Low alkalinity, what does this mean and what should I do?
Hannahhhh posted a topic in Water Chemistry
I have a pretty new tank and my alkalinity is low. I’m new to the hoby and I’m struggling to understand what exactly this means, why it happened, and how to fix it. Can you guys help me out? If you don’t have time to explain stuff, I would be thankful if you could include a link to a good explaination. The stuff I’m reading online just has me more confused. Temp: 80.2 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: ~15 Alkalinity: 6.5 dKH (0.5dKH resolution) pH: 8.2 I have a fluval evo 13.5 and a MAME design protein skimmer. I have a tiny clownfish and a small cardinalfish. One Mexican turbo snail, a few hermit crabs, and a pom pom crab. I also have a small Xenia and a small spotted mushroom coral. -
I would love a Midas blenny, can I keep one in my 13.5 gal tank? Is that too small? What experience have you guys had with them?
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I just got my first coral, it’s spotted mushroom from live aquaria. I’ve read their instructions on placement and water flow, but I’m wondering, how do I know if these corals are happy/doing well? How do I know if I should move them to a different place in the tank?
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Hi all. I know there’s lots of literature on how to dip your fish to get rid of parasites. But I want to know how often you can dip a fish and I haven’t been able to find any answers when scanning the forums and web at large. I have a fish that’s gotten to be covered in ich. Very visibly so with large dots. I know dipping won’t eliminate the problem with the parasite still living in my tank. But I dipped my fish this morning in fresh water for 5 mins and watched the majority of the ich fall off or seem to disappear after returning the fish to the tank. I don have a quarantine tank or I would be using it. And I don’t want to treat the whole tank with chemicals if I can avoid it. Currently the fish is behaving as if it were healthy with somewhat elevated breathing but still eating well and swimming normally. In any case. The dip didn’t knock all the white spots off the fish but I was encouraged by the results. Assuming this infection is going to continue to persist to some degree after dipping the fish I am hoping that repeated dips might slowly allow the infection to lessen and the fish to have a chance to fight it off. (Yes it will live on in my tank but it could starve off in time if all the fish are healthy enough to avoid infection no?) bottom line. I do plan to dip this fish again as needed to prevent it from ever reaching a point of no return but I’d like to be as aggressive as I’m able. How often can I dip my fish? Twice a day? Every couple days? Every couple weeks? Etc.
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Hi all, First, a huge thank you to everyone on this forum that has been so helpful to me with all the posts I’ve made. Your advice has been crucial as I have been learning more about this hobby. I want ant to ask about lighting. A month ago I picked up someone’s used 32 gallon biocube that they had modified. They removed the canopy and replaced it with a mounted vivaspectra led light and a mesh cover. Recently ive been looking to change that setup since evaporation has been requiring me to add fresh water to the tank twice daily to maintain salinity. It’s impractical to have to use the RODI machine that often and so I built myself an acrylic cover to replace the mesh lid. I want ant to know if this will affect the light that reaches the tank. Does anyone have experience/ is it a good idea to run light through an acrylic panel and still grow healthy corals? aditionally the light is adjustable and can dim the 10k whites and actinic lights independently and im trying to decide what ratio of the two will be best for growing my corals. A few montipora, some acans, a couple chalices, and Zoas are the corals I’m currently growing. Assuming I have the right placement for each what spectrum of light is ideal to help them grow? More blue or more white? Will the acrylic lid affect how this ratio reaches the corals? any advice is deeply appreciated!
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Hi all. ive been trying to plan fish for my 32 gal bio cube. I think a leopard wrasse would be awesome but some places say they’re really hard to care for. Why is that? Do they eat pellet/flake food or need live pods? Also some places say they’re listed as difficult because they struggle to survive shipping. Are they hardy once acclimated?
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Need help identifying this (with pictures)
HingleMcCringleberry posted a topic in Beginners Discussion
Does anyone know what this is. It just showed up and it’s right after I was an idiot and didn’t dip a new coral. Should I be concerned? -
I dont know what this is but it seems to be growing or living on the side of my acans. Will it hurt them?? Ignore my serpent star. It seems to have two tentacles/antennae?
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Thinking of buying a decent sized colony of Acan Echinata on sale at my LFS. Does anyone know how fast this coral grows? With/without feeding? Is it hard to care for? Basically any advice? Is it ok for someone with beginner to moderate experience with corals? (I’ve been keeping Monty Cap trumpets and frogspawn successfully for a few months)
