A six line wrasse would be a great addition. they’re cool to watch, stay on the smaller side size-wise, and they’ll eat some types of unwanted reef pests.
Hey everyone!
Couldn’t resist yesterday, LFS had a frogspawn and it’s probably the coral I wanted the most right now. After some research I decided to get it. Put in last night and it was still closed up this morning. Needless to say I was worried and thought I made a huge mistake buying it. Came home from work and he was wide open again PBJ! I’ll try to get a photo of it soon.
Also got my reef test kit now and my updated values are pH 8.2, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0.5ppm, calcium 280-300, kH-8 and phosphates 0.25ppm. Any of those I should be worried about? Looks like calcium is a little on the low end from what I’ve read.
Good luck with your first coral!!!
Raise the calcium level above 300, then decide at what level you would like it to be.
Here is a link to a good chemistry calculator
cool, thanks for the link. looks like i need to lower my phosphates a bit too. did a water change tonight. hopefully that helps a bit
That calcium level seems really really low! it doesn’t sound like your system would’ve consumed that much calcium already, and that would be a really bad batch of salt to yield that low of Ca.
alk of 8 is good, and the relating Ca number would be around 400 as a generalization. (these two parameters share a relationship)
have you done anything to change any levels? dose any Ca, or Alk supplements?
Anyway, i would suggest having the Ca double-checked before raising it. That just seems so low that somethings not quite right :
:
No i haven’t done anything with any chemicals or additives, just the instant ocean salt and RO/DI water. The salt I bought was used though, bought it off of CL and it was about 80% full. I will remeasure the CA levels again tonight. First time I tried that test (API Reef Master) so I could have easily missed the reading. Thanks for the suggestions, hadn’t realized Ca and Alk could predict each other, going to have to read into that.
[quote=“JackRyan, post:46, topic:6040”]
hadn’t realized Ca and Alk could predict each other, going to have to read into that. [/quote]
roughly the short answer is, they get consumed in equal amounts…
here’s a good read, and i get a lot of good info from other articles on the RK site… lots of reputable authors :
:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php
[quote=“JackRyan, post:46, topic:6040”]
No i haven’t done anything with any chemicals or additives, just the instant ocean salt and RO/DI water. The salt I bought was used though, bought it off of CL and it was about 80% full. I will remeasure the CA levels again tonight. First time I tried that test (API Reef Master) so I could have easily missed the reading. Thanks for the suggestions, hadn’t realized Ca and Alk could predict each other, going to have to read into that. [/quote]
Bryan, now you gonna be a biologist and chemist at the same time. lOl
haha yea, I can never get away from chemistry
hey everyone, got some updates for my tank…
First the bad news…when I got the frogspawn in I was a freaking out that I added it too soon so I rushed a water change and in doing so I think the water parameters changed to quickly and the smaller of my two clowns didn’t make it. For two days or so afterwards he was swimming with his head upwards the whole time. He def wasn’t looking good but still ate a little bit so thought maybe he would snap out of it. The other clown is still doing great.
After the clown died I wanted to get another fish in there so the clown wouldn’t become too territorial so picked up a six line wrasse and he is awesome. He zooms around the tank and darts in and out of the smallest of holes in the rock. I really like him. He also seems to like the clown a lot too.
Finally got my other light so I posted a couple pics below. Finally looks like a real tank.
FTS
First day, closed up
Opened up
Wrasse
Festing
Its looking good with 2 lights finally YahoO
the clown may be coincidence, but you mentioned “maybe parameters during a w/c” ?
i don’t think a w/c would hurt a clown… unless the temp or salinity was drastically diff ::
you certainly don’t want to stress and worry about a small water change…
did you test anything while the clown was doing the death roll? find anything outta wack?
and the sixlines are great… just notorious jumpers when spooked ( if you look on the floor in the lfs theres usually a dried up sixline : ( ). mine only jumped out once in three or so years now… luckily the mrs was standing right next to the tank, he got scooped back in and is fine
Also my frogspawn really looks like he has grown already. Would it be possible to grow a noticeable amount in 1 week or is he just getting used to the tank more?
[quote=“saltcreep, post:51, topic:6040”]
i don’t think a w/c would hurt a clown… unless the temp or salinity was drastically diff ::
you certainly don’t want to stress and worry about a small water change…
did you test anything while the clown was doing the death roll? find anything outta wack?[/quote]
I feel really stupid but I rushed the water change in a hurry to “save” the coral (which was going to be fine anyways I think looking back) and the water I added was probably too cold. Also it kind of went in right on his head verdict_in it was a huge mistake but I think I learned my lesson. All other parameters were in check. I checked them each day the clown was acting weird.
About the sixline, I made sure to get a grate for the top of my tank, defiantly don’t want him on the floor when I get off work.
How are you mixing your W/C water?
I am mixing it in a 5gallon bucket because I feel the 30 gallon brute I have is to excessive (a 10% W/C for me is roughly 5 gallons). I mixed it with a hydor 750 gph that is to strong for my tank. Also I was using an old, small heater to warm it up but since this incident I have purchased a new titanium heater for my tank and my old heater has been moved to the W/C mixing.
hey guys, I noticed a white pill bug looking thing on my glass today. Any ideas what it might be? I can’t get a good photo and my online searchers have come up inconclusive
Most likley a Chiton
Most are harmless to our tanks and corals
cool. was a little worried, hadn’t seen him until I purchased my coral
any help on this thing? Saw it a couple days ago and it has grown fast since then. Hope it’s not bad…
If its what I think it is, you might want to get it out of the tank ASAP. It’s biopsis hair algae(spelling). Very hard to get rid of. You will have to take the rock with it out and tear it off to the root and hope you will get all of it off the rock. Other wise it will grow back and back with vengeance. It grow very fast and everywhere.
If it’s some other type of macro algae, it may be OK. If in doubt take it out.