just bought a tank

[hi'n'dri]

Hello,
I am looking for some advice and or ideas....
I just bought a tank in the last few days , i bought it used with all the equipment etc for about 1/3 what i would have paid in the store, so i feel i got a good deal. Plus i got some fish,"live rock", hermit crabs etc.
this is the info that i have on the fish that i have... :
1 Three Stripe Damselfish - hardy , aggressive
1 NIGER TRIGGERFISH - aggressive ...You absolutely cannot keep this fish with any corals or invertebrates. Even snails can be devoured.
1 YELLOW TANG - needs greens... what about invertabrates?
1 ENGINEER GOBY - wont pick at invertabrates
I do have some questions:
I really wanted to get into the invertabraes and corals more than the fish.. but from what i understand the trigger will kill all the invertabrates and corals... is this correct? what about the other fish will they absolutely kill other things?
and how willing are petstores to buy and or trade fish etc...
the tang needing the greens is another concern do i need to buy plants to grow in the tank or just but plants to drop in for feeding?
another question that i have is when people say live rock some try and interhange it with coral rock is this correct or totally wrong?
Thanks in advance.

 

[slick]

Hey Bob he said he got the fish with the tank. Sorry I cant help right now but will check in later.

 

[bob the builder]

HOW BIG IS THE TANK??????!?!?!? The trigger will kill and eat any invert . The damsel is very agreesive. I will answer your q's one by one:
1) The trigger will kill any invert. It is ok with corals though, you have a niger, right? If you do, it is harmless to corals.
2) the other fish are fine with inverts and fish.
3) i dont know...
4)The tang will eat algea off the rcoks.
5) dont know.
OH! sorry about that, just got slicks post. So they came with the tank? In that case, did you buy the tank with water already in it? This would help out A lot. And i am very sorry f i sounded a bit rude, my apology. Just the biggest q is:
Did you buy the tank with everything in it(LR, fish, hermits, etc)?
PS. welcome to the BB

 

[hi'n'dri]

Bob, slick is right the fish came with the tank... personally i would not have bought the fish but what was i gonna do throw them out on the ground ,, that just seems cruel.
one other thing that i just wanted to add .. from what i understand if this tank was ever treated for "ick" then the chemical treatment for it will not be good for invertabrates etc.. is that correct? and how long does this chemical treatment stick around .. are there any treatments for the treatment... ?

 

[bob the builder]

OHHHH! Now i get it. just one more thing, did you buy the tank with the water,fish lr, already in it, like a ready tank?
You are correct about the ick/ich treatment. Inverts cannot stand the ich treatment and will die. of coarse, they wouldnt do a ich treatment in the tank itself unless thw hole tank had ick. So if one fish did somehow have ick, they would have put him in a different tank to treat him. I hope that answers that question.
And i dont know the second q.
Just to tell you, i deleted 1 of my post, and edited the other one, they were useless.

 

[hi'n'dri]

ya i bought it used from an individual...

 

[hi'n'dri]

oh and i am sorry i forgot to list the tank size ,, it is 85 gallons.. .

 

[bob the builder]

Now that explains a lot! Thanks for telling me Anyway, i answed al your questions in the post above(or in the next one). If you have any more questions, just post back.

 

[bob the builder]

Anyway, you can have corals with those fish. The niger trigger is harmless to the corals, jut not to the inverts. You can get corals such as leathers, hammers, bubbles, polyps, colts kenya tree corals, etc with those fish. Just, it is hard to have a reef with no inverts. Inverts are a very impostant part of a ecosystem. They will clean waste, filter the water, eat left over food, clean rocks, ect. A life without inverts is like a life without ants. Ants do many things for us that we normally dont think of, like the same things as inverts do. Your tank, you dessision, so if you want to have inverts, dump the trigger, if you want to have a reef with no inverts, keep it the way it is. I dont make the choices, you do. Also, you just said you tank was 85 gallons, right? In your profile, you said your tank is 80 gallons, which one is it?

 

[manu]

ilove triggers and that niger trigger can get up to 18" in captivity so i would trde it in if you are going to get coral, but this is just my opinion

 

[hi'n'dri]

well ithink it is an 80 gallon ,, but the guy i bought it from says it is 85.. i need to measure and do the math to find out which..
I do appreciate your help in all of this.
I guess i will be trading in or selling the trigger.

 

[musipilot]

Hi, good luck with your new tank! Post the dimensions (lxwxh) and we'll be able to tell you the gallons. Answers to your questions one by one: The trigger will quickly make a meal of any inverts. The niger trigger is harmless to corals, so don't worry about that...however in the overall scheme of things, a reef type setup is ideal for keeping corals, meaning live rock, inverts, copepods, etc...which makes the trigger a bull in a china shop. Some pet stores (which you'll see here referred to as LFS) will trade, but not many. Call first. The greens for your tang is an easy thing to do...grab some food called Spirulina flake...comes in many brands and sizes, and he'll be all set. Your live rock question is best answered by referring you to the store on this website, read about live rock and you'll see why you certainly will want to keep that over switching to dead coral. For a reef type setup, I would consider trading or giving away the trigger (post here, you'll get a million takers) and going from there. Great fish, but not for what it sounds like you want to do. Good luck!

 

[the infamous sea cucumber]

Did it come with any sort of lighting set up? If you are going to keep corals you are going to need good lighting setup. You options are NO fluorescents, HO or VHO fluorescents, PC fluorescents, metal halides, or any combination there of. The minimal for corals with the weakest light requirement would be the NO florescent (max 40 watts per bulb). With an 80 gal tank you could fit a lot of those buggers under the hood, but you still would only be able to keep a few kinds of mushrooms/maybe some soft corals. Usually people spend the bucks and go with VHO (up to 110watt per bulb) PC (96 watt/bulb) or MH (generally up to 400 watt/bulb), or MH with a Actinic supplement. These setups for an 80 gal tank will probably run you anywhere from 275-650 bucks. If you want the most versatility (being able to keep SPS corals and certain clams) you'll need MH and you'll be on the higher end of the cost spectrum. Most people would say you need >5 watts/gal for a reef. That’s 400+ watts for your tank. I don’t know if your already aware of the lighting details of this hobby, but if you aren’t I would do a search on the net and find out all you can about Kelvin temps/bulb life and cost/watts per gallon/specific requirements of corals and other organisms/different lighting schemes/and cost.

 

[manu]

dude if you are going to do fish, think about what fish u like and then decide the needs of that fish, dont do the mistake that i did because i got the tank but the fish i like angels, triggers, and eels will eat the corals and the lights for the corals r a pain in the ass because ihad already got the light for the fish only?
just think b4 u do sum thing stupid

 

[zack schwartz]

I also believe you should figure out what fish you want. Then post that and we can help you more

 

[heavenly damsel]

There is a very active reef club in your area. You can find them in the reef club forum at reefcentral.com. You could probably sell your trigger there. If you just want to find him a good home check with the Dallas World Aquarium. Clubs are an invaluable resource especially to people new to the hobby.
I feed my tangs seaweed selects sheets and caulerpa that I grow in my refugium.
HTH

 

[hi'n'dri]

hi again,
as far as lighting goes , I am not against spending some money. but my question is: is there a difference between the MH bulbs sold at aquarium stores versus ones sold at regular lighting stores?... its just that i have seen 400W MH bulbs for 40$ at regular stores vs 120 at fish stores... and that is quite a difference in price!
another thing is that I would assume that it is better to go with more lower watt bulbs than for single high watt bulbs, the reasoning being that the light would be more spread out.
as far as what i want to put in this tank i am wanting to have the most versatality and to have alot of variety. thus as one said above go with MH with a Actinic supplement.
another question I have regaurding lighting is there such a thing as tomuch light?, I would assume that it depends on which fish etc you have in the tank..
anyway thanks again for the help.
and i will look into that club etc.

 

[jeo]

First off i will say that although triggers don't eat corals you can't really keep the 2 together because triggers will put a high bio load on your tank because they are messy eaters. You can expect to keep your water quality good enough for corals with a trigger unless you have a huge tank with excellent filtration. its just not a practical setup to have agressive fish in a reef tank.
The difference between the MH lights you see at home depot and the ones for aquariums is mostly the temperature (color mesured in kelvins) of the light put out by the bulb. The lights at home depot or wherever you go will put out yellow light which will be not good for corals although very good for algae. Most people use either 6,500K (white/yellow), 10,000k(pure white) or 20,000k(blue) bulbs. The higher the kelvin rateing the more blue the light is. Thats the big difference.
A general rule is one MH bulb per 2 feet, 175 watt or 250 watt is what you would probably end up getting for the right amount of light.

 

[the infamous sea cucumber]

Yup, jeo said it. Dont worry about too much light either, the sun still has a 400 watt MH bulb beat by a long shot. Considering the size of your tank, and if you wanted the best lighting system and the largest array of options. 1 MH bulb for every 2 feet of tank (175 or 250), the 250 watt will penitrate further down into your tank, meaning you could basically place any type of coral anywhere you wanted. + either 2 vho actinics or a couple of PC actinics. 110 watts*2/96 watts*2 respectively. At least for me, that system is out of my spending range...but, look for deals at places like <a href="http://www.hellolights.com" target="_blank">www.hellolights.com</a> or <a href="http://www.----.com" target="_blank">www.----.com</a> or even on the trading forem on this message board. You can sometimes find top notch systems that do not kill your budget

 

[byrself]

i just wanted to comment on the ich treatment with the live rock statement. the general concensus has been that ich treatments in a reef tank = disaster. there was a post last night in the reef tank forum about copper treatments. fallen04 had an interesting view on the deal, saying copper only stays in the tank for so long. so, if you want some more insight to that subject, maybe try to post in the reef forum and ask for help specifically from fallen04. said to have 20+ years experience with it, so i think he/she (?) could give you some good advice. it's hard to really know without knowing the exact form of ich treatments used, but if it's copper you "might" be safe. check with fallen04 though like i said. good luck with the rest, and i think you'd be happier without the trigger. nice fish but better off in a fish only tank imo. good luck.