Newbie looking for setup advice.

[russb]

Well my tank has been cycling for the past 3 days. Its got marine sand, and a fake coral piece. The saltwater is reading properly. Has a heater at 78 (since out house is at 65 during the day).

I'v been told the Nano is small so it cant house much without frequent water changes (every 4-5 days when its busy). I was thinking a red lobster (they only grow to 5 inches at most?) and a clown fish (aka. Nemo style).

:?: My question is one, will that work in the Nano? Two, do I need a real live rock in there for the lobster (instead of the fake piece of coral thats in there now)? Three, will there be room to eventually put a sea horse in as well? :?:

Also can the clown fish go in after just several days of cycle since theres no live rock or live sand or coral? :?:

Sorry, I'm so full of questions... any advice would be helpful (in laimens terms). Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to RDO russb!

You haven't bought any livestock yet have you? Just asking because if you haven't, that's good, it's probably best at this point to hold off until you have a better idea where you want to go with this tank..

If all you want is a clown of some sort you should be ok with frequent water changes (depending on just how small your nano is...)

Now, when you say the saltwater is 'reading properly' what do you mean exactly? (I'm going to assume salinity of somewhere between 1.022 and 1.026 right?)

Norm

 

[russb]

Havent purchase any fish (or lobster or seahorse) yet.

Your correct about the readings.

Also, does live rock need live sand?

Thanks for your help.

 

[russb]

Oh yeah and I should have mentioned sooner, its a 12 gallon Nano.

 

[Anonymous]

russ,
I think you should make a very good investment in a reefkeeping book FIRST..."Natural Reef Aquariums" by John Tullock is a great book. It's available at amazon.com. While you're reading it, don't add anything. It will be another month at least before your tank is ready for any life to be added to it at all.

 

[Anonymous]

That's a really good suggestion Matt... - Another good one that's probably a little cheaper is: The New Marine Aquarium: Step-By-Step Setup & Stocking Guide - I just bought that one for my step-son and flipped through it and was real suprised at how much it covered.. (I wanted to keep it for myself!)

Anyway, there are ways you can get started pretty quickly, but all of them require a LOT of attention on your part.. - And knowing what direction you want to go in before taking any more steps would be really wise. (For your pocketbook if nothing else...)

If you're absolutely determined to start right away though, I'd say your best bet would be to go with a single clown and plan on lots of big water changes. (Do you have an RO or some other type of tap water filter? - You do mix your salt in a separate container right?)

And no, you don't need sand (or rock for that matter) - depending on what you want to do exactly.

But for the most part, clowns and seahorses aren't found in the same tanks very often... - One prefers conditions that are a little different from what the other would prefer.

 

[Anonymous]

many will tell that seahorses NEED LOW water flow...(and GD may be refferring to other differences i'm not sure) but in my experience seahorses do just fine in high flow systems...

 

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people get flow and intensity (or velocity) confused... From what I understand, not many seahorses get along too hot with intense water movement. (High but well-dispersed FLOW is one thing, a blasting directed jet is something altogether different...)

Anyway, another reason I mentioned the clown/seahorse bit is that many people like to see their clowns hosting in anemones... And most anems would probably make a nice snack out of a seahorse if given the opportunity I imagine...

 

[Anonymous]

Ditto.

Seahorses are very slow moving, slow feeding fish. They don't usually get enough to eat when kept with other faster moving fish, like clowns. I have never personally kept horses, but know a few people who have bred them and raised their offspring. Their requirement for very frequent feedings makes them fairly difficult to keep. I would never suggest keeping one unless you have a few years of SW fish keeping experience. Another requirement is vertical space...horses need to be in tanks something like 3X their height.

You can find all of this info and a whole lot more at www.seahorse.org , a great resource for this type of stuff.

 

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people get flow and intensity (or velocity) confused... From what I understand, not many seahorses get along too hot with intense water movement. (High but well-dispersed FLOW is one thing, a blasting directed jet is something altogether different...)

Anyway, another reason I mentioned the clown/seahorse bit is that many people like to see their clowns hosting in anemones... And most anems would probably make a nice snack out of a seahorse if given the opportunity I imagine...

perhaps it's really an individual preference because honestly mine plays in in the powerhead current...mostly she spends her time hunting but almost every day she will rise up and swim in front of the powerheads and literally be blasted hard and away.... :lol: she will return again and again as if it were fun...
i observe my tank a lot and she is not stressed, i guess mine just likes to play..... now that i think of it i do remember at least one other person describing the same behavior on seahorse .org

 

[russb]

Thanks for all the feedback. I've done a lot of homework and reading now.

I've decided that I want the tank to have live rock, marine sand, and two seahorses.

Have some live cured rock in the tank now, about 6 lbs. Going to give it a couple weeks to adjust. Keeping the light on it 3-4 hours a day, just enough to keep the rock alive and algae from developing etc. Been changing 15% of water every two days right now. Anything less it seems to get slightly cloudy.


As for the seahorses idea... going to give some time to prepare the tank first, as it seems very critical.

For now (in a couple weeks after the live rock is all settled in) it seems like it would be a good idea to add a single fish in the tank that produces the same amount of waste that two seahorses will eventually produce in order to prepare the tank for them. Then remove the single fish and add the two seahorses (as the water will already be adjusted and have grown the proper bacterias for the amount of waste/amonia the two seahorses will produce). Does that make sense?

It seems there are two theories out there on seahorses and current.

Many things say the seahorses like the currents and they like to ride them but its also important that they have something in the tank to latch onto.

It seems they just have a hard time getting there food against other fish or if the current is taking it away, not that they have an issue with the current.

Would it be bad to keep the standard flow/current that the pump produces and shut the pump off for the seahorses during feeding times for 10 minutes? Sounds like leaving the current as is would be beneficial to the live rock and the seahorses would enjoy the current as long as they were able to get there food during feeding time. Shutting the pump off for 10 minutes during feeding time seems to help both the live rock and the seahorses.

Any feedback on these ideas?

 

[Anonymous]

For now (in a couple weeks after the live rock is all settled in) it seems like it would be a good idea to add a single fish in the tank that produces the same amount of waste that two seahorses will eventually produce in order to prepare the tank for them. Then remove the single fish and add the two seahorses (as the water will already be adjusted and have grown the proper bacterias for the amount of waste/amonia the two seahorses will produce). Does that make sense?

Unless you plan on getting adult seahorses, no... It sounds like the old use/kill a damsel to cycle the tank routine that used to be pretty much standard practice some years ago and it's not necessary.

Just let your rock cycle with the water thats in the tank (if it were me I wouldn't bother too much with water changes during the cycle) and once all your A-N-N (Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates) are reading about 0, add your horses.

The key thing in adding livestock in a reef setup (which FOWLR is an arguable form of reefing) is to do it gradually so as not to spike / tip the balance too far.

I'd start doing water changes after you've added your horses... - Like after about a week so as not to stress them too much after aclimating... (How 'bout the rest of yous guys.. - That sound good?)

 

[russb]

Thanks for the feedback. Its most appreciated.

The info on waiting to change the water is very helpful, it seemed like I've been changing it to often while the rock adjusts. I'll do it less frequently, meanwhile its good practice on adjusting salenity :>)

Just for the record.. the "remove a fish" idea was taken out of context...never mentioned "use/kill" a fish... it was "remove" a fish... meaning return him to the store (they said they will welcome him back if it would help prep the tank and apply a credit towards the seahorses). Just wanted to be clear on that. I wouldnt kill a fish just to prep a tank, but thanks for looking out for the fish :wink: .

 

[Anonymous]

:lol:

Sorry, didn't mean it that way toward you at all..

Just that in the past a lot of damsels have met that fate all for the purpose of cycling a tank..

Good luck on it and if you can shoot us some pics from time to time! :wink:

Norm

 

[Anonymous]

in my opinion if you want your seahorses to be happy....you're gonna need a lot more than 6 pounds of rock...how big is your nano...sorry if i missed that..

 

[Anonymous]

russ,

Since it seems you're determined to get seahorses, I'll try and help you as best I can. First of all, you should be aware that seahorses are threatened or endangered all over the world. The good thing is that captively bred individuals are available. You shouldn't consider purchasing anything else. www.oceanrider.com sells CB individuals.

I also think you should be asking these same questions at www.seahorse.org

They can tell you more specifically about the care you'll need.

 

[liquid]

One thing I've always wanted to do is setup a dwarf seahorse nano. Alisa Abbot just published a book on the subject and it should be available from Amazon.com. If you ever get on IRC, I've seen Alisa on #reefs occasionally and she goes by the nick SeaNemesis. She's a cool frood who knows where her towel is.

Shane

 

[liquid]

BTW, I *highly* recommend Seahorse.org. VERY knowledgeable people over there. When you post over there, please let them know that Reefs.org highly recommended them. If you check out our links page ( http://reefs.org/links/ ) you'll see we've been partners with them when it comes to recommending good websites for up-to-date information.

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys, I've never kept horses either Matt, and wasn't paying attention enough to catch that he's only going with 6 lbs of rock right now.. (Good call Abu..)

I've tossed it around about keeping a couple horses in the 'fuge, any of you guys have any ideas on that? (Think they'll put too much of a hurt on the pods - which is the 2nd biggest reason I have for running the fuge.??)

Thanks and good luck Russ!

 

[russb]

Thanks, I've been checking the org out. Lots of useful beginner info there.

Thanks for noticing the live rock shortage as well. I read about the importance but didnt see any specs on how much was needed. Now it seems its 1-2 lbs per gallon of your tank size. I'll be getting some more in the next couple days.

Also sounds like CB is the way to go for food survival and transition, but survival against disease is better with non-CB as they are used to fending more diseases away. Well, to each his own as they say....

Personally I think I'll go CB.

The shop I deal with wont sell CB, he says they price gouge and their the ones funding all the attempted bans on seahorses (though most of that wont be decided until mid 2004 according to the org) .... personally I dont agree with the shop about price gouging, I think its preservation, but the shops been good on everything else so far.

I might just order the horses from somewhere else... been looking at few sources online.

Thanks again for the warm welcome and all the helpful info everyone.