salt water beginer with alot of questions

tattoofishguy

tattoofishguy

Member
ok. here it goes. i got a 35gal hex shape tank,went to aquarium world bought a filter system, live sand, salt, and three decorating rocks for the center. they told me i did not need a skimmer.so they also said mix the sand with water accordingly add clorine killer and let sit for 4 to 6 weeks. so its been almost a week now and ive kinda been looking up stuff on the internet.my questions are.
1. if i add starfish and snails and such do i still need to clean as much?
2. do i need to add live rock or is regular rock fine?
3. if i do need live rock, how much do i need?
4. i wanna add anenamies, will they atach to the regular rock or only live rock?
5. what do i feed the anenamies?
6. when i clean the tank do i need to clean rocks too?
your input will help thank you.
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
I would recommend not adding anemones. The require a huge amount of light and are very hard to keep.
I do highly recommend balancing out and stabilizing operation by adding macro algaes or other plant life right from the start. In my opinion that is more important then anything else.
just my .02
 
mrdc

mrdc

Active Member
What kind of tank are you going with? A fish only or reef tank? I would avoid the starfish since they need a lot of live rock to feed on. They are usually found in big tanks and if enough rock isn’t provided, they will starve to death. If you go with live rock, I have seen where you should go somewhere in between 1 – 1.75 lbs per gallon. You want to avoid getting too little so your internal filtration won’t be ineffective and you want to avoid too much so you can try to avoid dead spots as best as possible. Anemones like a lot of light so what sort of lights are you running. They also will determine where they like to sit and will move around. They get their food from the light. Cleaning should be done. A basic rule of thumb is a 10% water change weekly or bi-weekly. You don’t necessarily clean your rocks by scrubbing them but you do want to siphon any material buildup.
And I also agree with Beas about the tank needs to be stabalized first before adding any coral or fish.
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by tattoofishguy
http:///forum/post/3230812
what is macro algae? and what kinda plants?
FWIW I did not know about macros when I started my 55g back in 2002. LFSs did not mention them. Plus my previous marine tanks were all started "clean" and I just let whatever algae showed up grow. I now will not start a marine tank without macros.
I also add FW mollys (acclimited to salt) after the tank has been running with macros for a week. And don't add food for the first week.
Macro algaes are algae only "organized" and can actually look like plants. But unlike FW plants they have no circulation system, do not flower and so on.
They are also food for most fish and cleaner crews so you need to protect them in some kind of refugium which can be nothing more then a tank partition so you have a small "macro" area and most of the tank is still a fish and coral area. On my 55g for instance I just crammed in an 1/4" square egg crate (lighting diffuser for dropped ceilings) about 3" in front of the back glass. Then added 2 4' 2 tube utility fixtures behind the tank pointing forward to light up that area. So macros would thrive between the back glass and egg crate and fish thrive in front.
When the macros are thriving you can get little to no ammonia or nitrItes spikes with a possible initial nitrates spike. So the cycle is very safe compared to the amoina->nitrIte->nitrAte bacteria only cycle.
Chaetomorphia looks like brill pad and just grows to whatever shape the refugium is. but is does not attach to anything so can move around and get into filter and powerheads. Caulerpas to attach to sand and rocks but a known to have some bad side effects on delicate corals.
my .02
 
jacknjill

jacknjill

Active Member
For your question on live rock, you can add a small piece to seed your "dead" rock, but in the end, all your dead rock will eventually become live rock by itself. So really, its up to you.
 
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