Help! I have no idea what im doing.

[jayden kolonne]

I had no issues with my copperband but my long nose picked at any coral including sps.

Are the longnoses hard to keep, they seem easier to feed. Also I will have 4 anthias in this tank and they will be feed pellets 2 times a day and then fed with the whole tank at night. (Frozen)

 

[Tamberav]

Are the longnoses hard to keep, they seem easier to feed. Also I will have 4 anthias in this tank and they will be feed pellets 2 times a day and then fed with the whole tank at night. (Frozen)

you may want to do frozen twice a day for the butterflies.

They are easier to keep than copperbands but spotfin pretty sure is harder than the copperband to get eating.

 

[jayden kolonne]

I just have no idea how dense that rock is or if he made it in his basement or if it will start to disintegrate in two years.

It says it's mined in FL. Reviews look good. We will see how it goes.

 

[jayden kolonne]

you may want to do frozen twice a day for the butterflies.

They are easier to keep than copperbands but spotfin pretty sure is harder than the copperband to get eating.

Did I choose the three hardest fish to keep? I am so stupid. But if they are all picky it should be easy to train them since there won't be much food aggression when there's no fish for them to compete against. I was told if you want butterflys its best to start with them.

 

[Tamberav]

It says it's mined in FL. Reviews look good. We will see how it goes.

Ah maybe it is just normal dry rock they paint purple then.

 

[Tamberav]

Did I choose the three hardest fish to keep? I am so stupid. But if they are all picky it should be easy to train them since there won't be much food aggression when there's no fish for them to compete against. I was told if you want butterflys its best to start with them.

Well if they are quarantined and all eating then you will have a lot better luck.

it’s better to add butterflies before tangs.

It’s harder to add corals after butterflies since it’s easy to kill a frag with picking than a colony.

If you have issues getting them to eat, that is where live black worms can save the day.

LRS is a brand of frozen food that is really great quality.

Reef Frenzy, LRS Foods, Best Reef Food, Complete Reef Food, DIY Fish Food,

Larry's Reef Services (LRS) produces the ultimate reef food!

www.larrysreefservices.com

 

[jayden kolonne]

Ah maybe it is just normal dry rock they paint purple then.

I think thats what they are trying to do, just fake coralline algea.

 

[jayden kolonne]

Well if they are quarantined and all eating then you will have a lot better luck.

it’s better to add butterflies before tangs.

It’s harder to add corals after butterflies since it’s easy to kill a frag with picking than a colony.

If you have issues getting them to eat, that is where live black worms can save the day.

LRS is a brand of frozen food that is really great quality.

Reef Frenzy, LRS Foods, Best Reef Food, Complete Reef Food, DIY Fish Food,

Larry's Reef Services (LRS) produces the ultimate reef food!

www.larrysreefservices.com

It seems good, is san Francisco a bad brand? I like that LRS is American made and all but isn't SF also made in the US with good ingredients? Also I can order SF online. I'm going to order frozen clams and get live muscles at the store when the fish come.

 

[Tamberav]

I think thats what they are trying to do, just fake coralline algea.

It seems good, is san Francisco a bad brand? I like that LRS is American made and all but isn't SF also made in the US with good ingredients? Also I can order SF online. I'm going to order frozen clams and get live muscles at the store when the fish come.

You can order LRS online too. Premium Aquatics uses dry ice so they are the best for ordering frozen food.

I like some of the San Fran stuff and use it in rotation but this is the ingredient list in LRS:

LRS Reef Frenzy® ingredients:
Fresh Wild Caught Scallop
Fresh Wild Caught, Hand Peeled Shrimp
Fresh Wild Caught Ocean Perch and Whitefish
Premium Piscine Energetics Mysis Shrimp
Squid
Euphausia pacifica krill
Fresh Shucked Oysters and Clams
Zooplankton and Rotifers
Seaweed (Porphyra)
Blanched Broccoli Flowers (Rich in Vit A&D)
Oyster Eggs and Ovarian Tissue
Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids
Buffered ascorbic acid added as an antioxidant
D. salina algae (Beta carotene to boost pigmentation, immunity)
LRS Probiotics


The first ingredient in the angel:butterfly blend for SFB is brine shrimp… not impressed by that! Seems most of them
Are that way. Like they trying to fill it with cheap stuff. Brine shrimp is not nutritional enough unless freshly hatched baby stuff you feed live.

 

[jayden kolonne]

You can order LRS online too. Premium Aquatics uses dry ice so they are the best for ordering frozen food.

I like some of the San Fran stuff and use it in rotation but this is the ingredient list in LRS:

LRS Reef Frenzy® ingredients:
Fresh Wild Caught Scallop
Fresh Wild Caught, Hand Peeled Shrimp
Fresh Wild Caught Ocean Perch and Whitefish
Premium Piscine Energetics Mysis Shrimp
Squid
Euphausia pacifica krill
Fresh Shucked Oysters and Clams
Zooplankton and Rotifers
Seaweed (Porphyra)
Blanched Broccoli Flowers (Rich in Vit A&D)
Oyster Eggs and Ovarian Tissue
Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids
Buffered ascorbic acid added as an antioxidant
D. salina algae (Beta carotene to boost pigmentation, immunity)
LRS Probiotics


The first ingredient in the angel:butterfly blend for SFB is brine shrimp… not impressed by that! Seems most of them
Are that way. Like they trying to fill it with cheap stuff. Brine shrimp is not nutritional enough unless freshly hatched baby stuff you feed live.

I hear your point, I should actually start up my brine shrimp hatchery again just incase for when they get here. Btw does frozen baby brineshrimp work, or does it need to be live. I like to do large batches and then freeze them in gummy bear molds.

 

[Tamberav]

I hear your point, I should actually start up my brine shrimp hatchery again just incase for when they get here. Btw does frozen baby brineshrimp work, or does it need to be live. I like to do large batches and then freeze them in gummy bear molds.

Don’t see why you can’t freeze freshly hatched shrimp.

You could make your own frozen mix if you wanted. Not uncommon here because of the price of food.

DIY Coral & Fish Food: Here's How I Do Mine.

DIY Coral & Fish Food: Here's How Joshporksandwich Does His... Hello Everyone, Over the years, I have had a lot of questions about my tank. The most frequently asked question is not about lights, equipment, or about chemistry. The most frequently asked question is about how and what I feed...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Dburr1014]

Wait, so if my tank is already established, adding new rock even if I keep the old one will make it go through the ugly cycle again?

No, this is false depending on what you consider uglies.

A running reef tank with new added dry rock will populate the new rock rather quickly. The new rock will most likely turn brown from diatoms, but it won't get covered in algae like you see in newly setup tanks.

 

[Formulator]

@Formulator
When did you add your zoa's? They look so good,it looks like over 30 heads or something for each colony. How did you get them to grow? How old is that colony?

I think march or april. Nothing magic about getting them to grow. Just stability, light, flow. I pay close attention to nutrients and keep my nitrates at 10-20 ppm and phosphates 0.1 ppm.

 

[CKW]

You are asking some very basic questions and I think you need to do more research before you put anything in your tank, including water. Maybe someone will be nice enough to take the time to walk you through, but there is just too much information to cover IMO. I would start here and then come back with more specific questions if there is anything you don’t understand.

Thread 'The Supreme Guide To Setting Up A Saltwater Reef Aquarium'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.138750/

Lord! Slow down! One step at a time! Research and reading is your friend right now. All of us here at R2R will help but for heaven’s sake take it slowly.

 

[jayden kolonne]

Lord! Slow down! One step at a time! Research and reading is your friend right now. All of us here at R2R will help but for heaven’s sake take it slowly.

I already had this tank for 5 months and 3 months running. I just want to take the next step and add more fish.

 

[SueAubu]

I wish there was a head scratching emoji.

What does this mean???

Sorry... Damsels are mean when they get old and cranky. The are territorial and, soon, they decide the entire world is their territory!

 

[SueAubu]

I want tangs butterflys wrasse and anthias

Please make sure you do your homework on each of those high-maintenance fish. Each of them have very specific feeding requirements and habits. If you're looking for a work-free tank, they are the opposite. I starved a few dragonets before I realized what they need. Still, It's a ton of work just to make sure I hatch baby brine or farm the copepods they need to hunt. The wrasses will live on copepods, but they take a tank that is 6-12 months established to develop a good colony. Butterfly's have an exacting diet, as well, and require a feeder so they can eat in the proper position, or they'll starve. I don't know much about anthias other than my local guy had a crop, each roughly the size of a dime, that he was asking $100+ for. My damsel would have called those an expensive lunch.

 

[SueAubu]

Honestly I couldn't tell you, I just fed the fish and let it run, I let algea grow on the glass until there was a die off, then I just wipped it off and everything seems OK, I went through that purple algea thing though. I run lots of ceramics as well as a 2in sandbed and live rock. Is this what most people use for filtration?

I'm still experimenting with filtration. I'll get yelled at for this, but when my ta ks are getting ugly, I still have the best luck with a HOB (Yes, on a reef tank) and/or a canister aio alternative to a sump. The tank with a sump is just aggravating me, especially in the heat!

 

[SueAubu]

Live rock, skimmer, filter socks are generally the basic set up.

If you run too much filtration you can strip too many nutrients and starve corals and get what is called Dino which is the worst most annoying algae.. sometimes toxic to corals and inverts.

So you don’t just add anything without testing and monitoring.

As you move forward with your tank, quality test kits will be useful.

I think the dinos are what you are calling the purple algae. Believe it or not, you don't want those parameters you listed before to be that close to zero. Too much nitrate, hair and bubble algae chokes out the tank (red and blue legged hermit crabs took care of hair, emerald crabs take care of bubble) too few nitrates and dinos choke out everything...

Keep in mind, this hobby really is fun!!!!

 

[SueAubu]

Please make sure you do your homework on each of those high-maintenance fish. Each of them have very specific feeding requirements and habits. If you're looking for a work-free tank, they are the opposite. I starved a few dragonets before I realized what they need. Still, It's a ton of work just to make sure I hatch baby brine or farm the copepods they need to hunt. The wrasses will live on copepods, but they take a tank that is 6-12 months established to develop a good colony. Butterfly's have an exacting diet, as well, and require a feeder so they can eat in the proper position, or they'll starve. I don't know much about anthias other than my local guy had a crop, each roughly the size of a dime, that he was asking $100+ for. My damsel would have called those an expensive lunch.

Oops, I kept reading and see you already have your fish on the way. You have time to figure out now they like best to eat. There are lots of threads here that are fish-specific. That's how I found out how to not starve my dragonets, this time. I built a feeder and hatch baby brine about every 3 days. eBay and etsy have a neat butterfly feeder, also works for sea horses, go figure. One things I've learned this go-round with fish is that fresher is better. I verified the BBS because now the wrasses , tangs and dotyback wait for them to escape the feeder, too. (The nutritious thing about BBS is the yoke sack that feeds them for the first 3 days, so that how long a hatch is good for) Plus, their jumpy movement lets the fish get their hunt on and keeps them from getting bored.

But that LBS sounds perfect for my nems!!!!