Smithrz
Active Member
I thought 'd share my experience within the hobby so far, mainly for other beginners to see where I am, and for you more experienced folks to have a little smug giggle and say to yourself "Yep, been there" to yourselves.
Yesterday, was the one month anniversary of me adding salt water, an ammonia source, and liquid bacteria to it. And while I entered into this will full intentions of listening to all the experience of this forum, and "taking it slowly", I will hold my hands up and admit, I failed, miserably ... not completely failed, just failed at going slowly. Coming into this, I knew patience was going to be the hardest thing for me. I'm a super impulsive, I have ADHD, and Autism, but I'm also a super driven person; once I get a bee in my bonnet, I can't be stopped.
Here's a photo of my tank (under white light only), behold:
For the keen eyes, yep, it's a Red Sea Reefer 170 G2+ (165ltr total volume with the sump, 135ltr display volume). I think what you're seeing here is the expected Diatoms outbreak, although I do see some strings of it around the tank (see following photos), which could mean it's Dinoflagellates, however, I think the strings came from me scraping it off the back wall). Overall, really happy with the tank itself, but I would say that the Red Sea down tube water level diaphragm sucks, and I found many many posts about this here, and resorted to running the tank "pretty full" where some water trickles into the emergency down pipe, it was the only way to get a stable water level in the display and sump. If you know, you know.
Notice the long stringy stuff above the rock here, it's not a big crack in the glass as it looks!
Most recent parameters:
- Nitrate: 25
- Phosphate: 0.05
- Alkalinity 9.2
- Ammonia: 0
- PH: 8.1
- I run the tank at a stable 35ppt salinity, and 25c (small typical fluctuations daily of +/- 0.2)
I'll list my livestock, and again, I just want to admit; I've gone too fast, I know... hopefully that means you'll all be nice and not berate me for what I already berate myself for.
Fish:
2 x Clownfish (as seen in the photo)
2 x Fire Fish (hiding because it freaks out with the lighting change)
1 x Royal Gramma (same^)
Inverts:
1 x Cleaner Shrimp
1 x Blood Red Shrimp (or Fire Shrimp)
6 x Hermit crabs (all very small)
1 x Emerald crab (also tiny)
1 x Blue Tuxedo Urchin
4 x Nassarius Snails
2 x Konch Snails
Corals:
None yet, for some reason I seem to be managing to be patient before adding any, although I am getting antsy to add some softies.
Problems:
Okay, so mistake number one (actually it was a later mistake, but I'll come back to that). I thought what I had was an algae outbreak, I didn't realise that Diatoms were actually a bacterial bloom, so yeah, I bought a lot of clean up crew (not all at once I should say, I added these over time). The Konch's and Nassarius I only added yesterday, and I'm quite impressed with the Konch's work ethic at eating the Diatoms! I'm hoping that there's enough going on in the tank that all the inverts are finding enough to eat (I feed a mix of frozen foods once a day), and so far I haven't seen any signs of die off, so fingers crossed, and maybe I'll reap the rewards of a decent CUC when the algae does come.
Let's talk about actual mistake No1. When I added my first fish, I admittedly broke first-fish protocol by adding 2 Clownfish, and a Six-line Wrasse. What can I say, I was like a Magpie in the fish sop, and he was super small and beautiful, I caved, I'm sorry. He actually settled in great, and got one well with the Clownfish. Then I added a Royal Gramma (which was one of the fish which attracted me to the hobby). Oh boy, the wrasse was not having it. Long story short, I removed the wrasse and returned him to the fish shop... after a few days, my Gramma looked much happier, and was no longer hiding for it's life, this was the first time I felt like I did the right thing by returning a problem fish, which I worried would attack every future fish I added due to being territorial.
I'm not really panicking about the Diatoms (or Dinos?) just yet, the snails are doing the work, and the turkey baster tidies up what they don't get, but I'll happily accept any advice you all have on this one. Let's get into problem No2 (or 3, whatever, I have problems okay!? haha)
I think my tank already has Ich. This one hurt... I first noticed it on the Gramma, well I noticed him flicking the sand and I started reseaching what that maybe meant. After a few days of this, I could see little white spots, suuuuuper small, barely visible tbh, but my partner got me one of those Flipper magnetic magnifying glasses for my birthda, so I looked at him through that, and was pretty convinced it was Ich, he also had some parts of his fins missing, but I haven't seen any fish nipping at him. I observed a few more days, then started seeing one of the clownfish flashing, and one of the firefish, and some fish rubbing on the rocks as well now. Interestingly, it was the three fish which I think are the most stressed out. The Gramma from the 12 hours of hell with the Wrasse, the smaller of the 2 clowns, because the bigger one bullies it a little, and the smaller of the fire fish, which just seems nervous and hides a lot. So I kinda convinced myself that the Wrasse triggered a major stress event with the Gramma, which set off the chain of events.
You know what makes this whole Ich thing more annoying? I had bought another small tank with full intentions of making it a QT tank, it even has water in it, with the heater on, and I've been cycling it!!! Did I use it for any of the fish? Nope. Why not? Because I'm an impatient idiot, and I wanted livestock in the DT. I also incorrectly had the belief that "I can't infect an empty tank, can I?", and I also didn't really know that stress events could trigger infections in fish.
So what am I doing now? Well, I'm 5 days into treating the DT with Polyp-lab Medic, and will finish the 20 day treatment, and I'm ordering a UV Sterilizer this week, and taking the Ich management route, because can anyone reeeeally imagine me running my DT fallow for 76+ days? Me either. I know I know. I'll try to be better, I am learning. So far, the fish seem to be okay, and the spots fell off and they stopped itching and flashing as much, although I do still see the Gramma doing it now and again). I'm hopeful that the fish are young, and strong enough to fight it off, and I'm maintaining a healthy varied diet for them, including garlic infused frozen food. If the worst happens and they all die, I will then run the tank fallow for 3 months before "starting again", but I am hopeful the steps I'm taking will stop that from happening.
So what have I learned?
- I hate my Skimmer, I've only started to figure it out in the last week!
- Managing a small tank is way more work than I anticipated
- Staying on top of making RO and Salt water is a kinda annoying task
- I'm lucky that I like routines, I am vigilant with water testing and weekly water changes (proud of myself)
- There's always more things I need to buy, no matter how many times I think I have everything I need
- Marine fish are way more interesting behaviourally than fresh water fish (subjective)
- Towels, I needed to move man towels into my cabinet next to the tank
- The Red Sea mesh lid is ****, and was a pain in the butt to build, don't buy it, spend more on something better
- Trying to read Salifert test kits has shown me I'm more colour blind than I realised
- Fire fish are really boring fish
- Don't leave a back-syphon stop valve sitting outside of your RO reservoir, especially if you didn't make sure it was water tight (I woke up to a small flood on day 2)
- Having a tank is a big distraction from watching tv, in a good way
- I still love the hobby, and actually enjoy checking how things are going, monitoring things, testing, etc... there's always something going on in there, my partner loves it too!
Anyway, this has turned into a super long post, and if you made it this far then I hope you appreciated the candor, and can relate to the experience so far. And if you're new like me, or csidering started, I say do it ... but be aware that everything is expensive, especially if you want it right now, or need it in a hurry. You can definitely do it o the cheap, but you'll need to spend time looking for the right things at the right prices. It's a fascinating hobby though, I am way more engaged in it than I ever was with fresh water, although I was a teenager with no money back then.
Thanks for reading
Yesterday, was the one month anniversary of me adding salt water, an ammonia source, and liquid bacteria to it. And while I entered into this will full intentions of listening to all the experience of this forum, and "taking it slowly", I will hold my hands up and admit, I failed, miserably ... not completely failed, just failed at going slowly. Coming into this, I knew patience was going to be the hardest thing for me. I'm a super impulsive, I have ADHD, and Autism, but I'm also a super driven person; once I get a bee in my bonnet, I can't be stopped.
Here's a photo of my tank (under white light only), behold:
For the keen eyes, yep, it's a Red Sea Reefer 170 G2+ (165ltr total volume with the sump, 135ltr display volume). I think what you're seeing here is the expected Diatoms outbreak, although I do see some strings of it around the tank (see following photos), which could mean it's Dinoflagellates, however, I think the strings came from me scraping it off the back wall). Overall, really happy with the tank itself, but I would say that the Red Sea down tube water level diaphragm sucks, and I found many many posts about this here, and resorted to running the tank "pretty full" where some water trickles into the emergency down pipe, it was the only way to get a stable water level in the display and sump. If you know, you know.
Notice the long stringy stuff above the rock here, it's not a big crack in the glass as it looks!
Most recent parameters:
- Nitrate: 25
- Phosphate: 0.05
- Alkalinity 9.2
- Ammonia: 0
- PH: 8.1
- I run the tank at a stable 35ppt salinity, and 25c (small typical fluctuations daily of +/- 0.2)
I'll list my livestock, and again, I just want to admit; I've gone too fast, I know... hopefully that means you'll all be nice and not berate me for what I already berate myself for.
Fish:
2 x Clownfish (as seen in the photo)
2 x Fire Fish (hiding because it freaks out with the lighting change)
1 x Royal Gramma (same^)
Inverts:
1 x Cleaner Shrimp
1 x Blood Red Shrimp (or Fire Shrimp)
6 x Hermit crabs (all very small)
1 x Emerald crab (also tiny)
1 x Blue Tuxedo Urchin
4 x Nassarius Snails
2 x Konch Snails
Corals:
None yet, for some reason I seem to be managing to be patient before adding any, although I am getting antsy to add some softies.
Problems:
Okay, so mistake number one (actually it was a later mistake, but I'll come back to that). I thought what I had was an algae outbreak, I didn't realise that Diatoms were actually a bacterial bloom, so yeah, I bought a lot of clean up crew (not all at once I should say, I added these over time). The Konch's and Nassarius I only added yesterday, and I'm quite impressed with the Konch's work ethic at eating the Diatoms! I'm hoping that there's enough going on in the tank that all the inverts are finding enough to eat (I feed a mix of frozen foods once a day), and so far I haven't seen any signs of die off, so fingers crossed, and maybe I'll reap the rewards of a decent CUC when the algae does come.
Let's talk about actual mistake No1. When I added my first fish, I admittedly broke first-fish protocol by adding 2 Clownfish, and a Six-line Wrasse. What can I say, I was like a Magpie in the fish sop, and he was super small and beautiful, I caved, I'm sorry. He actually settled in great, and got one well with the Clownfish. Then I added a Royal Gramma (which was one of the fish which attracted me to the hobby). Oh boy, the wrasse was not having it. Long story short, I removed the wrasse and returned him to the fish shop... after a few days, my Gramma looked much happier, and was no longer hiding for it's life, this was the first time I felt like I did the right thing by returning a problem fish, which I worried would attack every future fish I added due to being territorial.
I'm not really panicking about the Diatoms (or Dinos?) just yet, the snails are doing the work, and the turkey baster tidies up what they don't get, but I'll happily accept any advice you all have on this one. Let's get into problem No2 (or 3, whatever, I have problems okay!? haha)
I think my tank already has Ich. This one hurt... I first noticed it on the Gramma, well I noticed him flicking the sand and I started reseaching what that maybe meant. After a few days of this, I could see little white spots, suuuuuper small, barely visible tbh, but my partner got me one of those Flipper magnetic magnifying glasses for my birthda, so I looked at him through that, and was pretty convinced it was Ich, he also had some parts of his fins missing, but I haven't seen any fish nipping at him. I observed a few more days, then started seeing one of the clownfish flashing, and one of the firefish, and some fish rubbing on the rocks as well now. Interestingly, it was the three fish which I think are the most stressed out. The Gramma from the 12 hours of hell with the Wrasse, the smaller of the 2 clowns, because the bigger one bullies it a little, and the smaller of the fire fish, which just seems nervous and hides a lot. So I kinda convinced myself that the Wrasse triggered a major stress event with the Gramma, which set off the chain of events.
You know what makes this whole Ich thing more annoying? I had bought another small tank with full intentions of making it a QT tank, it even has water in it, with the heater on, and I've been cycling it!!! Did I use it for any of the fish? Nope. Why not? Because I'm an impatient idiot, and I wanted livestock in the DT. I also incorrectly had the belief that "I can't infect an empty tank, can I?", and I also didn't really know that stress events could trigger infections in fish.
So what am I doing now? Well, I'm 5 days into treating the DT with Polyp-lab Medic, and will finish the 20 day treatment, and I'm ordering a UV Sterilizer this week, and taking the Ich management route, because can anyone reeeeally imagine me running my DT fallow for 76+ days? Me either. I know I know. I'll try to be better, I am learning. So far, the fish seem to be okay, and the spots fell off and they stopped itching and flashing as much, although I do still see the Gramma doing it now and again). I'm hopeful that the fish are young, and strong enough to fight it off, and I'm maintaining a healthy varied diet for them, including garlic infused frozen food. If the worst happens and they all die, I will then run the tank fallow for 3 months before "starting again", but I am hopeful the steps I'm taking will stop that from happening.
So what have I learned?
- I hate my Skimmer, I've only started to figure it out in the last week!
- Managing a small tank is way more work than I anticipated
- Staying on top of making RO and Salt water is a kinda annoying task
- I'm lucky that I like routines, I am vigilant with water testing and weekly water changes (proud of myself)
- There's always more things I need to buy, no matter how many times I think I have everything I need
- Marine fish are way more interesting behaviourally than fresh water fish (subjective)
- Towels, I needed to move man towels into my cabinet next to the tank
- The Red Sea mesh lid is ****, and was a pain in the butt to build, don't buy it, spend more on something better
- Trying to read Salifert test kits has shown me I'm more colour blind than I realised
- Fire fish are really boring fish
- Don't leave a back-syphon stop valve sitting outside of your RO reservoir, especially if you didn't make sure it was water tight (I woke up to a small flood on day 2)
- Having a tank is a big distraction from watching tv, in a good way
- I still love the hobby, and actually enjoy checking how things are going, monitoring things, testing, etc... there's always something going on in there, my partner loves it too!
Anyway, this has turned into a super long post, and if you made it this far then I hope you appreciated the candor, and can relate to the experience so far. And if you're new like me, or csidering started, I say do it ... but be aware that everything is expensive, especially if you want it right now, or need it in a hurry. You can definitely do it o the cheap, but you'll need to spend time looking for the right things at the right prices. It's a fascinating hobby though, I am way more engaged in it than I ever was with fresh water, although I was a teenager with no money back then.
Thanks for reading
