Advice please--lights, cycle, etc.

[bison]

Hello!
Shiny little newbie here, making her first post on day 10 with her first "real" tank, unless you consider that 10gal Hartz kit I had for about 6 months 20 years ago, but we won't talk about that anymore.....
Now.... I have a 55gal FO tank with "standard" 4 ft. 32W fluorescent aquarium light (it was part of the tank package). Also have a couple books on marine aquariums, none of which mention how long I should leave the lights on. Currently I have a timer set to turn on the lights at 11am, off at 11:15pm, but have tried shorter "on" times as tank temps keep creeping up to 80, even 82. (I should be aiming for about 78-79, right?) Heater is set at 76 and hasn't come on yet, but I suspect I won't need it till winter as I live in the south. How long should I leave the lights on each day? 6 hours? 8 hours? 10 hours?
On advice from LFS, have damselfish only to cycle tank. After reading more about it, I wish I'd gone with LS & LR now--is it too late to add some now that I'm a little over a week into the tank cycle?
Have one yellow, two blue (devil?), one small yellow-tail, two blacktails (4-stripe), and one very calm green chromis (viridis?)--all between 1 & 1 1/2 inches long. Using Cycle to help get my tank cycle going--is that a good or bad idea? (See numbers below.) Have a wet/dry trickle filter, but no protein skimmer (yet).
I suspect I may be overcrowded already. Fish have started congregating on only one end of tank, away from pump inlet. Have tried re-directing the water flow, but that seem to make little difference. Have plenty of hiding places for them with fake rock & silk plants, all of which I plan on replacing as time goes by with LR. One of the blue damsels is sluggish and isn't eating well x 4 days (he was quite active & fairly aggressive previously), plus he hovers near the one top corner of the tank whenever the lights are on. The green chromis seems to be keeping him company at times and even acts like blocking guard against the 4-stripes. The yellow was at first the most aggressive, but the two 4-stripes working together seem to be dominant now.
pH 8.2, Ammonia 0.25, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 2.5, S.G. 1.022-1.023
Any advice is appreciated!

 

[escape2thewater]

First of all, Hello and welcome to the board! You will find many very helpfull people here to answer your questions, as I have myself. As far as the lighting goes, on a FO tank you should leave the lighting on for as long as YOU want to b/c fish do not require any special lighting. Also I think you would be ok to add as much LR as you want to your tank now, especially since your still just a week into your cycle. You can add "cured" LR anytime, just in small amounts and as long as there arent any sensitive inverts in the tank IMHO. good luck and keep us posted!
Kyle

 

[luvnluk]

Hmmm...I'll answer what I can....as for lighting, you are all set for a FO. I keep my temp. at 79 and my lights on for 7.5 hrs. - opinioins usually vary on this. You can definately add LR; it will enhance your cycle - If you can, I would add it now and replace any fake plants, etc. I have heard of many people using "Cycle" to speed up the process, however, I would avoid adding anything unnecessary. Your damsels will probably show signs of stress untill your cycle is over, however, they are aggressive fish to start with. Welcome to the board, and good luck with your new tank!

 

[wyldgunz]

Hello and welcome to the board 8)
Some local fish stores try to sell stock without giving any info in my opion, i started out similar but made corrections quickly to get things on track. I have a 55 galon also but its a reef tank .
Id recomend taking all the fish back to the store, you dont need them and its crule to the fish as most probably wont survive. You can use the money from the fish to get a couple pieces of live rock to help cycle your tank.
Also make sure you acclimate the fish properly. A lot of deaths are caused my not doing so... Put the bag with the fish in the tank, keep the lights off to prevent further stress on the fish . After an hour open the bag and take out 1/4 of the water than add 1/4 water from your tank.Every 15 minutes after that repeate. Do this for a hour. After you are done release the fish into the tank. Do not put any of the water removed from the bag or left in the bag into the tank. I added a small section on quarantine for fish farther down.
If you dont have " The new Marine Aquarium" by Michael S. Paletta , I'd recomend taking a look at it, theres some good reading material.
You May want to look at a cleaning crew as well consisting of snails, crabs, and shrimp.
Im guessing you have crushed coral... its not too late change over to live sand mixed with southdown sand or live sand mixed with arganite ( get the smallest diameter arganite you can find)
Put whatever live rock you get on top of the sand dont burry it
Also get rid of the fake stuff they may leach chemicals into the tank and will get cluttered up with algae and whatever else that may find its way to it.
On a note i used a benificial bacterial addative that helped my tank cycle along. It worked well.
water temp is good around 75-80 i keep mine around 78. A heater with a Temp. probe is a good idea so it doesn't accidentally cook your tank.
As far as protien skimmers you wont need one right away but you should be looking for one that fits your needs and pick it up when you get a chance. My red sea 100 GPH works well on my 55g. But im looking for something better just so many options .
Lighting is something more of a personal preference than anything for fish only tanks, but if your going to spend money on a light get something that can be used in the future for whatever you might want to do to your tank. ( maybe a few corals or sponges) a vho or power compact with some atinics is good around 150-200 watts, look for 10k bulbs. The light helps the colors show in the tank and the fish.
As far as light cycle, my timer is as follows..
Atinics turn on at 8 am
Halides turn on at 9 am
halides turn off 7 pm
attinics turn off at 8pm
A 12 hr light cycle is recomended basically the light thoughout the day you get is what your tank should get. You can vary this cycle to whatever your work schedual is so you get more time to enjoy the tank if you work through the day.
Also when you get around to fish: QUARANTINE EVERY FISH YOU GET!
Do yourself a favor and get a 10 gallon tank, a small heater ,a copper test kit , copper sulfate, and an air pump with a sponge filter. Whenever you get a fish do a water change use the water from the change to fill the quarantine tank then acclimate the fish in the quarantine tank before putting it in. After that watch it for a few days make sure its doing good and theres no signs of disease.If you end up with Invertabrates or corals DO NOT get any of the copper into the tank , it WILL kill them. Give the fish a freshwater dip before introduction to the display tank. I treat mine with copper for 1 month before introducing it into the tank. I had the missfoutune of realeasing marine velvet in my tank that came with a clownfish i bought, and it killed a hippo tang, clown, and 6-line wrassle in 4 days. i put them in quarantine after i saw a problem treated with copper but it was too late. I cant stress the quarantine thing enough.
My fish eat 3 times a day... you can buy frozen meals for them that comes in little cubes, frozen packs of mysis shrimp, and flake food. Also some fish like to eat vegatibles theres different choices there like algae strips or live plants. My fish get a small feeding about 30 min after the halides come on , then a good portion of frozen misis shrimp(which you can also buy in a pack) mixed with part of a cube of the prepared frozen food wich i give them around 3pm. The last feeding i make a smaller feeding also and use reef compleate flake food and a little of the prepared frozen food. Dont over feed them it leads to algae growth and amonia/nitrate lvls increasing.
Also i would recomend getting garlic extract... add 2 drops to your mid day feeding , It increases appititte in fish and boost thier immunities against disease. A must have.
Theres a lot to learn about takeing care of a salt water tank but its well worth the hassle durring the early stages of it and if you get a mid to upper class system going theres not a lot of hassle involed. Ask questions and read up on differnt topic, you might read something that will come in handy later on.
Again id like to say welcome to the board theres a lot of info you can learn here and a lot of good people. And Congrate on your move into Marine Aquaria its not a hobby its a way of life 8)

 

[col]

On advice from LFS, have damselfish only to cycle tank
You've learnt your first lesson there then. In England all those fish you have are £5 each.
That makes £35 they have made from you, when the cycle should have cost virtually nothing.

 

[bison]

WOW! Thanks, everyone, for all the advice! Especially wanna thank WyldGunz for the long & very informative reply!
Happy to report, the small blue damselfish is eating again and his color is even better. He's still hanging out in the upper corner of the tank only, though.
Will probably try to get a quarantine tank this weekend. How big should it be is the next question.... 7 gallon? 10 gallon? Larger?
As for cleaners & critters.... would appreciate all recommendations for how many of each type for a 55 gal tank.... Am using a tap water de-ionizer, to help keep the algae down, but I know that won't be enough.
Am still working on my eventual stocking plan, but am aiming towards clownfish & anemone (will definitely need to upgrade the lighting for those, I understand) and fish that play well with them.
Future plans (very DISTANT future, that is) also include another show tank--possibly a 26 or 40 gallon bowfront for a few of those fish that don't play well with others (like maybe a lionfish).
My hubby is already shaking his head...and I'm already beginning to see that what I've been reading is true: this isn't a "hobby," it's more like an obsession....
Thanks again for ALL advice!

 

[wyldgunz]

Id say go with a 10 gallon the price difference is pocket change and it gives the fish a little more room. Get a couple pieces of pvp for them to hide in as well, making them comfortable is important.
For my 55 gallon(and 20 gallon sump/refugium)
Cleaning crew consist of.....
12 bummblebee snails
12 sandshifting snails
3 orange moon foot snails
6 astrea snails
10 turbo snails
1 cleaner shrimp
2 peppermint shrimp
6 blue leg hermits
6 scarlet hermits
6 zebra hermits
a sally lightfoot
4 blue knuckle hermits
2 emerald crabs
brittle star
sand shifting star
About 80% of these mentioned are in the display tank and the other 20% are in my refugium.
Its also a good idea to get a reverse osmosis set up it will cut the algae down a lot and help keep heavy metals and other unwanteds out of your tank.
A good lighting set up would consist of a 200-260 total watt light.. VHO's or power compacts... However if you want to go with corals especially clams/sps i would recomend metal halides, they are pricey for a nice hood but well worth the money. Im using a dual 250watt double ended 10k ushio bulbs with 3 inch Ice Cap cooling fans, external ballists and dual 110 VHO super atinic bulbs, in my reef set up. It does an extreamly well job of showing off the colors and keeping up with lighting needs of the tank.

 

[donjasper]

Originally posted by Bison
Will probably try to get a quarantine tank this weekend. How big should it be is the next question.... 7 gallon? 10 gallon? Larger?
Keep in mind that unless you're going to be re-plumbing all the time - the quarantine tank is going to be sitting empty most of the time. Mine's a one gallon somewhere in the garage. (I hate fish) The whole point of the quarantine tank is isolation - so you're going to need a little version of everything.
I would not buy anything out of a tank (lfs or not) that has some other critter in it that is dead or stressed. The lfs people might move diseased fish around, but sometimes they get lazy - or a critter pulls up sick before they can get to it.
I would not buy something that has been brought in from the wild. It might not survive the transition to captivity. It could be brining in some nasty illness from the outside. I think there’s a valid ecological point to be made about aquaculture – feel free to disagree with me.
There's much better choices for hosting clown fishes than anemones - I'd suggest a search on 'clown host' and read those threads. My brother had an anemone – it died –poisoning his tank killing all the critters. (Actually he said a shrimp tore it apart – which is a another issue altogether). You can search on sea cucumber to read of other instances of critters ‘nukeing’ an aquarium.
I'd only add a couple of critters a month. Each time you add something to the environment (new lights or new critters or whatever) the tank is going to need to cycle a little bit. So change the tank s-l-o-w-l-y.
I've convinced that some people treat their aquariums better than they treat themselves. Nothing is to expensive
I've noticed that the answers are more complete and deep when the questions were new and interesting. So I do a LOT of searching. Then new stuff comes up - and I plunge back searching again.

 

[jb1]

where are you at in n central florida?

 

[lesa]

Welcome I also would add the lr now and get rid of the silk plants, they will only get nasty looking as time goes by.

 

[beaslbob]

Just a few first gut feels here. Lighting is about right for a FO. I recommend you get macro algaes or marine plants right now. The sooner the better. As yous tank matures you, will notice brown algae that turns to green. The macros/plants will help prevent or control that plus stabilize and balance out the system right from the beginning.
Second order of business, get the ammonia down to 0.0 as fast as possible. Then get the nitrItes down to 0.0. (they will rise and ammonia goes down). When first cycling a tank I have found the only way to do that was to stop all feeding until nitrItes return to 0.0. Usually takes 3 days to a week. And the fish survive.
Then let everything ride for about three weeks or so. My last cycle type problem was ph lowering to 7.4 or so. By letting the system settle out I was much more sucessful when adding new fish.
Welcome and continued sucess.

 

[bison]

Thanks again for your help, everyone!
Will be setting up a 10 gallon QT and getting a piece or two of LR for the 55gal sometime tomorrow. Should be OK to move a piece or two of the fake stuff (fake rock/silk plants) to the q-tank, right?
Oh, and jb1--I live where there are two kinds of Gators....