Cin's Nano

[percy-cin]

My husband bought me my first saltwater tank for my birthday, April 20th, and it's been an adventure ever since. Everything I know about saltwater tanks, I've learned in the last month. The first thing I learned is that this is neither an easy nor a cheap hobby, but it's way cooler than I thought it would be. The tank is a 12 gallon Resun DMS-400 with 10lbs LS and 5lbs LR. We were told by the LFS that we needed to allow the tank to cycle for 2-3 days before we put in any fish. We found out later how incorrect that was. But not knowing any better, we cycled the tank for 3 days until all the sand had settled then we hit the fish store. We picked up what we thought were two true percs and a long tentacle anemone. We discovered a few weeks later that one was a true perc (Michael Tangelo) and one was a false perc (Lightning McCorndog). This was my tank the first day we had it all set up.

 

[lando101]

Very nice setup! I'd get more live rock if possible for a biological filter, in which you then could cut bck on the filter!
How many wats of light?
Also, i'd keep to the false perc clownfish only because differnt types dont go well, but if their happy, i'd just keep them together!!!

Best of luck, cant wait to see how it progresses in time!
Landen

 

[paintballer768]

Are you running stock power compact lighting on that? If so the anemone might have a tough time surviving in there. I would recommend strong T-5's or metal halides for one. Im sure many other people are going to post all the details, but theres plenty for sure. Read around and Im sure youll learn fast
And youre also going to want to get 1.5 times the gallons of the tank in live rock. Meaning, I would recommend buying somewhere around 18 lbs of LR for that tank. The bacteria in the rocks act as a very very good filtration method, and help keep things stable, which is especially important in a small system.

 

[percy-cin]

Shortly after we set it up, we noticed issues. The true perc hosted with the anemone, but didn't get along with the false perc. They chased each other around the tank biting each other's fins. According to the lfs, it was normal for them to fight until one of them became the dominant female. We noticed the false perc doing the shaky submission thing so we changed Michael Tangelo's name to Tangelina since he was now supposedly a she. Two days later, the false perc died. I think it was stress. Plus our water conditions were horrible. When we discovered that our water was so bad, we immediately started making huge adjustments. That seemed to send our anemone into shock and he died about a week later.
Since then, we've learned a lot, like not to believe everything they say at the lfs such as "Acclimation isn't necessary". This forum has been a lifesaver for my fish. We allowed the tank to cycle and we fixed the water issues. Last week we started adding to the tank again. First we picked up a six line wrasse and two more pounds of LR. When we brought the wrasse home, we noticed that he had a torn fin covered in what looked like ich. The next morning we woke up and he was stuck in the corner covered in a thick layer of slimy mucus. We took him back to the fish store to get there opinion and they took him back. Then next day we went back in to find him at the bottom of the tank being eaten by crabs.

It was sad to see. But apparantly two more wrasses from that shipment died as well so they gave us a refund. This time we bought a tailspot blennie (Benny) and a peppermint shrimp (Pepe). We acclimated them for a while and they seem to be doing well. Up until today, we thought we couldn't keep coral in our tank due to poor lighting, but according to the lfs we can so we picked up a small piece of green star polyp. Unfortunately it looks like we might have an investation of aiptasia, but I'm hoping the peppermint shrimp will take care of it. So here's my tank after all of the changes. It's not much, but I'm proud of it.

 

[percy-cin]

Yes we do have the stock lighting and yes, it did kill the anemone. He was doing really well until we started using a stabilizer bacteria. Then he fell over dead

. I want to get another anemone, but I'm going to wait until we upgrade to a larger tank.
I didn't realize that we needed that much LR. We have about 7lbs now, but I'll be sure to put that on the top of my lfs shopping list. This hobby rocks. I just hope I don't have to kill anymore innocent fish in the process.

 

[lando101]

Whats your test results? If we could see them we may be able to help fix this!

 

[paintballer768]

Well heres a quick break down of what you should do, or let this happen starting now. The tank needs to cycle. That means the bacteria in the tank needs to stabilize before the tank can become "functional." Functional meaning can start turning ammonia to nitrite, to nitrate.
You NEED to buy a test kit for the following levels if you wish to keep corals, like that green star polyps you have: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, high range pH, alkalinity, and calcium. Alk and calc could wait a little longer, since green star polyps are hardy corals and you dont have many more in the tank.
If there is a trace of ammonia in the water, which Im guessing there will since of the dead fish+anemone+new tank, you need to test the water every other day until the tank brings the ammonia down to 0 by itself. While the ammonia is lowing naturally, the nitrite should increase, and then shortly after begin its decrease to 0. Once the nitrite begins going down, the nitrate should go up. This is the final step. Nitrate can be removed a number of ways, but the safest, most economic, and healthiest way for your fish is to do water changes. That means taking the water out and replacing it with new water. Any reading of ammonia or nitrite is highly toxic to fish. Ammonia is caused by deaths in the tank and excess food decay, to only name a few.
I would advise you also before you buy any more fish, to start researching some. A 12 gallon tank will only really allow you to have 1 fish or so, and most fish will outgrow a 12 gallon in no time. If you want to keep an anemone, or many other corals, you must look up what it takes to support them, the most prominent factors being lighting, flow, and tankmates.
And to end my jumbled up mess of advise, do not listen to your LFS. Every single one Ive ever been to has tried to get me to buy something that is either not right for my tank, or given me bad advise. They are out to make money, and we arent, so we arent afraid to tell you how it is

Good luck

 

[paintballer768]

And if the GSP (green star polyps) have not opened up yet, give them a few days or so. They tend to be very skiddish corals when it comes to transportation and acclimation, yet nearly impossible to kill.

 

[fishy4991]

I really like the second picture! you're off to a good start

 

[percy-cin]

Originally Posted by paintballer768
http:///forum/post/2621530
Well heres a quick break down of what you should do, or let this happen starting now. The tank needs to cycle. That means the bacteria in the tank needs to stabilize before the tank can become "functional." Functional meaning can start turning ammonia to nitrite, to nitrate.
You NEED to buy a test kit for the following levels if you wish to keep corals, like that green star polyps you have: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, high range pH, alkalinity, and calcium. Alk and calc could wait a little longer, since green star polyps are hardy corals and you dont have many more in the tank.
If there is a trace of ammonia in the water, which Im guessing there will since of the dead fish+anemone+new tank, you need to test the water every other day until the tank brings the ammonia down to 0 by itself.
I would advise you also before you buy any more fish, to start researching some. A 12 gallon tank will only really allow you to have 1 fish or so, and most fish will outgrow a 12 gallon in no time. If you want to keep an anemone, or many other corals, you must look up what it takes to support them, the most prominent factors being lighting, flow, and tankmates.
do not listen to your LFS. Every single one Ive ever been to has tried to get me to buy something that is either not right for my tank, or given me bad advise.
I agree with everything you've said. We did buy a testing kit for nitrites, nitrates, ammonia, and ph. We also have a salinity tester. We also just started putting Formula 28 in the tank. Any opinions on that are appreciated. In the beginning, we tested the water at least every other day. We did multiple water changes and we finally have our water conditions where they should be. Ph is a little bit high, but other then that everything is in their parameters. From what we know, we're safe to have two small fish so we're going to stick with the true perc and the blenny. We may get another peppermint shrimp to help out with the aiptasia. I'd like to get some more corals, but we haven't done a calc or an alc test. Should we make that a priority?
And I've given up believing anything they've told us at the lfs. They've told us that our dying fish were just fine, that we only needed to cycle the tank for 3 days before putting in fish, that a false perc was a true perc, that our water conditions were fine for adding fish, that we could keep anemone, etc. The list goes on and on.

 

[percy-cin]

Originally Posted by paintballer768
http:///forum/post/2621532
And if the GSP (green star polyps) have not opened up yet, give them a few days or so. They tend to be very skiddish corals when it comes to transportation and acclimation, yet nearly impossible to kill.
And my green star polyps are opening up. Yeah!!!

 

[paintballer768]

Originally Posted by Percy-Cin
http:///forum/post/2621726
I agree with everything you've said. We did buy a testing kit for nitrites, nitrates, ammonia, and ph. We also have a salinity tester. We also just started putting Formula 28 in the tank. Any opinions on that are appreciated. In the beginning, we tested the water at least every other day. We did multiple water changes and we finally have our water conditions where they should be. Ph is a little bit high, but other then that everything is in their parameters. From what we know, we're safe to have two small fish so we're going to stick with the true perc and the blenny. We may get another peppermint shrimp to help out with the aiptasia. I'd like to get some more corals, but we haven't done a calc or an alc test. Should we make that a priority?
And I've given up believing anything they've told us at the lfs. They've told us that our dying fish were just fine, that we only needed to cycle the tank for 3 days before putting in fish, that a false perc was a true perc, that our water conditions were fine for adding fish, that we could keep anemone, etc. The list goes on and on.
I would say to go ahead and keep what you have in the tank, and make sure the tank is cycled. The dosing of bacteria may have helped the process along. I like to let my tank work things out itself for the most part. I didnt add any bacteria, or do any water changes in the cycle. Only afterwards I did changes to get the nitrate down.
If you want to start adding a few more corals, I would say go get one more and test kits for the calcium and alkalinity as soon as ya can. Its important for their growth so I would put that on top of the list for now.
When you do get them, calcium should be around 400-450 ppm, and can be raised with a 2-part supplement or I use "SeaChem Reef Calcium." Alkalinity can be in a variety of conversions so I will list the two most used. It should be between 2.8-4 meq/L or 8-12 dKH. There should be conversion methods in the instructions of the tester somewhere.