So I have to steal my wife's thunder and report that we have our first fish. It's really her hobby, but I've become hooked during the tank cycle. We're lucky to have begged, borrowed, or stolen a great deal of equipment. I had a question about where to go from here.
Quick background:
40g breeder that we're starting with fish only, but sounds like either this will morph into a reef tank (or once we keep fish alive for a while, we upgrade and go bigger at which point we try coral).
1.5-2" of sand (was live when bought, we dumped in maybe 3 double handfuls and washed the rest)
60 lbs live rock that came directly from a tank breakdown. Also got ~8 hermit crabs of various sizes, 3 nass. snails with the rock and was lent a couple types of polyp & tube corals to see if they blew up. Everything lived fine while the ammonia spiked and is still with us after getting the fish.
Had ammonia spike, then waited for 3 days of zero ammonia before adding a firefish. He found a cave in the back of the tank and is eating well so far. Still monitoring ammonia and I understand that future stocking plans will really be dictated by the chemistry and how the fish, crabs, snails are doing but wanted some recommendations for our future purchases.
First question: should we be patient or rush in and use the rule of thumb of "whatever fits in the tank with gentle pressure?"
Kidding...just letting everyone know that we're aware of the need to take things slowly.
Actually a quick background on our fish plans and accessories before questions:
Definite:
2 ocellaris clownfish
blood/fire shrimp
Possible:
pearly jawfish
still researching other fish
If it's important to know, we have the following hooked up:
Coralife dual linear T5 strip, 18W 10k and 18W actinic
Koralia 3 and Koralia 2 for flow
filter for up to 60g tank, says 3 stage (i think it's got scotchbrite-type pouch full of charcoal and then looser scotchbrite, called bio-pad or something...it's supposed to house our nitrifying bacteria which I hope is really in the sand and rock)
Remora? skimmer driven by Rio 1700?
200W heaterstat
OK so now the questions:
How will the shrimp affect the bio-load? Does it count as a fish, count as a fish but perform cleaning to offset, or not count as a fish and purely part of the cleaning crew? Is it possible/advisable/insane to try to add this as our second livestock?
For the jawfish, we don't have much sand at the bottom. We're hesitant to pour another 2" or 3" of sand into the whole tank just for a jawfish or two to make burrows, is it possible to make a hill or two, possibly around a little pvc structuring to make some vertical homes for jawfish?
I'm intrigued by a fluidized media filter for biological filtration, but don't know enough about the oxygen requirements of the different types of nitrifying bacteria...I will do more research but if someone has recommendations on these things it might be helpful.
Many more questions but at this point I'm just trying to figure out if a shrimp is appropriate for our second inhabitant.
Thanks in advance,
uwaeve
Quick background:
40g breeder that we're starting with fish only, but sounds like either this will morph into a reef tank (or once we keep fish alive for a while, we upgrade and go bigger at which point we try coral).
1.5-2" of sand (was live when bought, we dumped in maybe 3 double handfuls and washed the rest)
60 lbs live rock that came directly from a tank breakdown. Also got ~8 hermit crabs of various sizes, 3 nass. snails with the rock and was lent a couple types of polyp & tube corals to see if they blew up. Everything lived fine while the ammonia spiked and is still with us after getting the fish.
Had ammonia spike, then waited for 3 days of zero ammonia before adding a firefish. He found a cave in the back of the tank and is eating well so far. Still monitoring ammonia and I understand that future stocking plans will really be dictated by the chemistry and how the fish, crabs, snails are doing but wanted some recommendations for our future purchases.
First question: should we be patient or rush in and use the rule of thumb of "whatever fits in the tank with gentle pressure?"
Kidding...just letting everyone know that we're aware of the need to take things slowly.
Actually a quick background on our fish plans and accessories before questions:
Definite:
2 ocellaris clownfish
blood/fire shrimp
Possible:
pearly jawfish
still researching other fish
If it's important to know, we have the following hooked up:
Coralife dual linear T5 strip, 18W 10k and 18W actinic
Koralia 3 and Koralia 2 for flow
filter for up to 60g tank, says 3 stage (i think it's got scotchbrite-type pouch full of charcoal and then looser scotchbrite, called bio-pad or something...it's supposed to house our nitrifying bacteria which I hope is really in the sand and rock)
Remora? skimmer driven by Rio 1700?
200W heaterstat
OK so now the questions:
How will the shrimp affect the bio-load? Does it count as a fish, count as a fish but perform cleaning to offset, or not count as a fish and purely part of the cleaning crew? Is it possible/advisable/insane to try to add this as our second livestock?
For the jawfish, we don't have much sand at the bottom. We're hesitant to pour another 2" or 3" of sand into the whole tank just for a jawfish or two to make burrows, is it possible to make a hill or two, possibly around a little pvc structuring to make some vertical homes for jawfish?
I'm intrigued by a fluidized media filter for biological filtration, but don't know enough about the oxygen requirements of the different types of nitrifying bacteria...I will do more research but if someone has recommendations on these things it might be helpful.
Many more questions but at this point I'm just trying to figure out if a shrimp is appropriate for our second inhabitant.
Thanks in advance,
uwaeve
. Again no real budge in parameters. Yesterday I put in another 25# LR from an established tank that was out of water for less than a day. I did a quick scrub w/saltwater before adding, and got pretty murky water. Didn't smell rotting, just a little seashore-ey. There was a minor ammonia reading after adding it (less than the first "positive" bar but certainly a different color than the 0 I had been getting). 15% water change and no ammonia detected.
