Got some cool things in today. Had the lights off all day to let them all find their new homes. Hopefully I can get some pics tomorrow. Copperband butterfly, aipstasia eating filefish, couple emerald crabs, bunch more snails and a tiger stripped serpent sea star which im super excited about. Probably won't see it often as it will hide in the rocks but still cool.
Owsley saw the sea star for the first time tonight. Unfortunately it appears someone kicked his ass. I defrosted some frozen shrimp and target fed him and he went after it and then scooted back into the rocks. No idea if he's gonna make it or not.
We are having insane copepod bloom apparently. I don't believe it's unhealthy for the fish but man does it make the water look ugly.
I've never had an aquarium, but I've been looking at this thread and the different fish when I go to the store. It's gotten me interested in getting something. What would be a good starter set/fish for someone like me to look at?
Depends on if you want freshwater or salt to start. Once you decide that, then we can help breakdown to the different types of either.
Community fish, cichlids, planted or combo? I'm not an expert at freshwater but I think cichlids are the coolest to look at. I think Redav has a freshwater tank.
I was thinking community fish or cichlids. I doubt any plants, maybe 1. How hard is keeping up with a saltwater vs freshwater?
I would say saltwater is harder/more expensive to start but once you have it up and running, the maintenance side is not that bad. Especially if you aren't doing a bunch of hard to keep corals and stuff. If you do like killrbee7 did and start out with the right equipment, it goes much easier. We learned by trial and error (probably holds true for freshwater as well, don't skimp on the equipment). But now I've learned enough that I can keep our tank running pretty well even without the best of the best equipment (although we do have good stuff). Wasted a lot of money buying cheap equipment that I had to upgrade from anyways. Saltwater wise the biggest lessons I've learned are; don't rush it, slow and steady wins the race; don't buy cheaper equipment just so you can get up and running quicker, you'll regret it and waste money; soak in all the information you can from people that have been doing this way longer, learn from their mistakes so hopefully you avoid them.
It's really hard to take a pic of a copepod bloom. I just want them to reduce some so the water doesn't look so crappy. I'm sure the fish and other little critters running around are enjoying it though.
Decided to add another guy to the tank. Been a couple weeks of the UV sterilizer, so the tank and fish are looking much better. We put in a small Panther Grouper. Got a good pic of him and our other latest additions (Dragon Goby and a Blonde Naso Tang). The Red Sea Sailfin Tang also making an appearance lol
killrbee7 I'm adding a 40watt UV sterilizer this weekend too lol. Also added a Vlamingi Tang and Flame Tang yesterday. Soon as the water clears up ill get some pics.
killrbee7 how's your sailfin behaving? Our desjardini turned into such an asshole we have him away. Tank has been much more peaceful since.
Ours is chill. The only one that can be a jerk is our Humuhumu, but he’s my favorite so isn’t going anywhere lol
Anyone know what this black stuff is? Just noticed it. Did a water change a week ago and wasn't there. Black algae?
Freshwater right? I'm not very knowledgeable on that but that would be my assumption. I can send the pics to my local guy and ask. He does a lot of freshwater too.
Ours was chill at first. I think because he was the only larger, more active fish for so long he just decided he was the boss of everything.
This thread led me reef2reef out of boredom during quarantine. and I have been wanting to pick up a new hobby for a while. Have had freshwater tanks growing up but never dipped into the saltwater realm. Found out one of my coworker's husband is fairly active on r2r and has offered to help answer ?'s when I'm getting set up/ have issues etc. which will hopefully help eliminate some common beginner errors. Does anyone have good recs on where to buy a decent bundle from top to bottom (for the most part). I have looked on marinedepot and their suggestions didn't know if there were any other reputable sites worth looking into. Don't really want to build my set up piece by piece if possible.
Cable management is not my strong suit but it ran all night with no leaks. Should really help improve the water over the next couple days.
Do you work with my wife? lol. I'm not sure on the best places to buy bundles, killrbee7 did a redsea bundle so he might have more info on those. We pieced ours together over time, mainly because I was in a situation where I could help a friend's company in return for credit on equipment and such. Bulk Reef Supply is a really popular website as well that you should check out for any deals. R2R also occasionally has giveaways for whole bundles. Then depending on how the fish stores in your area are you'll want to check them out. The buy/sale forum on R2R is really active but unless you find someone in your area selling a tank, you'll have to settle for possibly finding all the other equipment on there. I have seen people offer pretty crazy deals on whole tank packages on there though. If there's a reef club in your area, they probably have a sub forum on R2R as well. If we could have bought a bundle we would have. Just our LFS put outrageous prices on their bundles. Definitely don't make the mistake we did and buy low end equipment at the start. You just wind up wasting money when you have to replace it because it either breaks or doesn't do the job you need it to do.
How involved are you wanting to be? Could probably do a small freshwater planted aquarium pretty cheap. You could have some colorful schooling fish and with the right filter it shouldn't be too much hassle.
As little involvement from me as possible. Her birthday is in September and she keeps saying she wants a fish. That's all she really wants. Told us everything else we were going to get her to donate it to the Stead Family Children's Hospital as her cousins were born premie there and she's seen first hand what kids go through there.
Redav my buddy couldn't tell by those pics. Said it could be some kind or algae or could be something worse. He just really couldn't tell. Sorry man.
Owsley check out the pods lol. And yes my over flow is dirty. I'm gonna shop vac it out this weekend.
You guys have some amazing aquariums so please forgive me when I ask probably a rookie question. I put together a 10 gallon tank for my kids. They wanted glow fish. I was told at the store you can't add other types of fish in the tank with them. If I wanted to add something like a snail or some other fish that could help keep the tank clean is that possible? Also how common is it with Glow fish that you have one alpha who I think is killing the others. Would it be wise to keep adding glow fish to the tank or is this asshole going to keep killing them?
Unfortunately I have no experience with those fish. It looks like there are multiple species of them, do you know which ones you have? In my experience with my tank, even if you have multiple different species there will be at least one that tries to be the tank boss. Now whether he kills other fish or just chases then can depend on type of fish, setup, etc.
It started as chasing off the others... So he could have a section of the tank solo. He then took it another step. Fucker. I'm pretty sure I have a bunch of Tetra's if that helps
I don't know much about them but unless there is something specific about the water for glow fish, I don't know why you couldn't have some other things like snails or plecos in there. Who said you couldn't have anything else in there?
The lady who helped us at the fish store. My wife asked if we could put other fish in the tank outside of gofish and she said no. I didn’t ask if we could add something like snails so I was asking in here
I got a little tank about 2 weeks ago now and let the water cycle for a week before adding fish. I got 3 mollies and a gourami. I had the water tested and they told me everything was fine. Unfortunately the gourami passed today while I was at work. I'm not sure what happened. I also have a friend willing to give me a salt setup for free. Not sure if I'm ready to venture into that. I told him I'd take it, but I'd rather him sell the fish and coral he already has since idk how soon I could get it set up.
Yea id probably get a second opinion on adding other fish. I'm not aware of anything special in the water for them that would stop other fish from being added.
It happens in fresh or saltwater tanks unfortunately. We've had $6 chromies die after months and a $100 tang suddenly in a week. There's so many variables with how the fish are collected, raised, shipped, etc. We had to just come to accept that sometimes those things happen. If he's willing to give you a salt setup free take it. Even without the livestock, the equipment for free will be a blessing. And I probably wouldn't take the coral and stuff for free as a first timer. Coral especially can be notoriously fickle. If
He says its a 32g Coralife BioCube with the stand. I'm trying to watch youtube videos now to learn things. He's had it for about 3 years and said he's just kind of over it
Owsley frank the tank molted again. Can't wait for him to come out all the way and see how big he is. I can tell he's bigger easily already.
Picking this group up Friday. Should help clear out the copepod bloom. Also added 5 peppermint shrimp yesterday to hopefully nibble on the aiptasia so I can stop manually removing it.
So we were given a Kenya Tree coral and a WWC Pandora zoa. The tree is already looking at home, I think the zoa will take a little longer. We also added some lyretail anthias to help clear out the copepod bloom we still have going. As you can see Michael Scott (Vlaminigi tang) and Lt Dan (Lt tang) are not starving lol. Oh and Frank the Tank keeps getting bigger and bigger. Owsley you may have to re-home him to the ocean if he doesn't slow down that growth lol.
Caught them all begging for breakfast this morning. I love the one of the vlamingi tang showing off his Mohawk trying to look even bigger than he is.
Redid the aquascape this weekend. More swimming room but also some more places for the bigger ones to claim as homes.