New Member... New Tank... Newbie... 30 Gallon Long Posting

[Stidd]

Brian~

Hope things are going well for you man... REALLY sorry to hear about that tank of yours. Honestly... If you need a set of hands... Let me know! You play drums eh? Theres a completely different HUGE topic that can be discussed for hours. I've been playing for about 15 years. Love it!

I looked up the Hermit Crab and believe it IS a Scarlet Red. What should I watch out for? Basically all he does is sits on the same rock and eats. Doesn't really move around the tank too much. There were a couple times I thought he was gone but an hour later... He was in a different spot. His shell blends perfectly with the Rock he's on. Should I keep him in there? It's funny... When you mentioned that you had one that trashed your tank.. I pictured a hermit crab lifting rocks and throwin' em and breacking shells over corals and stuff... LOL

You aren't kidding about being patient.

Merv,
Thanks for the solid advice! The Algae looks more like turf. It isn't really leafy like flowing in the water or anything. It just clumps up in the sand and around the edges of the rocks where they meet with the sand. I'll shoot some pictures and post em up later tonight so you can see what I mean. There are probably 1000's of species of algae. Trying to describe one is tough.

I think I see what I may have been doing wrong with feeding. You mentioned turning off all the pumps! That makes SOO much sense! What do you mean by target feed though? food injected directly into stomach with a syringe? J/K...
The Shrimp LOVE the food that drops to the bottom of the tank. They scoop it up and its gone in seconds.

In your Fluval... You didn't run a filtration pad? What is the deal with pads anyways? Are they a must?

Thanks!

Guy

 

[cmsurfr22]

i would stop syphoning the sand. any kind of anerobic bacteria that's starting to build up in your sand will be destroyed by syphoning....when you get the fuge you can add some chaeto macro algea and that will help soak up phosphates in your water and your algea problem should start to dissappear...you also might want to get in on the clean up crew group buy and get some more snails(typically 1 per gallon). if your testing for phosphates and getting a 0 reading that doesn't mean you don't have a phosphate problem it just means the diatoms have consumed them all.

pads and sponges = nitrate factories i would get rid of them

 

[Stidd]

Well... My first tragedy...

I came home to find one of my Shrimp munching on a chromis skeleton. Out of the 3, I am down to 2 and 1 of them seems quite distressed. I believe the big one has been fighting with the others and probably killed my little one. It could have been to protect food. I don't know... I checked my water params and everything was solid. All the other characters are okay... I thought that Chromis were supposed to be peaceful. Maybe I was underfeeding and they became protective...

I will wait and see...

As far as the promised photos of the algae in question... Here are 6 photos.

Making a neat design in the sand. This looks like a thick carpeting on the sand...

This is algae growing on the back wall. It started out brown and turned green. Now it is growing hair that flows in the water. Looks like ferns...

Rocks

Some of the rocks have these air bubble on them. Sometimes they surface... Weird

Guy

 

[cmsurfr22]

i've heard that blue/green chromis are just as aggressive as other damsels and chromis....i believe phyl and john can probably tell you more about this as i heard that they started with 12 and they are down to 8 or so.....

 

[concept3]

that looks like blue-green cyanobacteria to me.

 

[blange3]

Hey Guy!

Glad things are progressing. I agree with Doctor Merv, cyano it is!

Where do you live? Maybe you can borrow a couple of these cyano eating Dr. Mac snails I just got and see what they can do.

Also skip the additives for now. And remeber, if you add it - test for it!

 

[Brian]

I don't think Blue/Green chromis' are as aggressive as other damsels to other tank inhabitants. But to themselves? that's another story....

If they don't have a lot of tank space they tend to wipe each other out. In my 120g there was a definite pecking order.I had 6 then 5 then 4 and it stayed at 4 but like I said, there was one that was a lot bigger than the others, and one that was a lot smaller, who still got picked on occasionally. I wouldn't be surprised if they are taking each other out.

 

[cmsurfr22]

i agree with reefdrumz i've heard that they are aggressive like damsels but only to each other....

 

[JohnS_323]

Our blue/green chromis aren't aggresive at all. Not to each other nor to other fish. We started with 1, then right after that added 2 more and they all got along fine. A few months later I bought 5 more (I think). Of those, one came in looking pretty bad and died the next day. Another got sucked into the intake of a maxijet. The other 3 went through QT and into the main. Now all 6 school together and get along really well.

That's been our experience. I can't say it would be the same for everyone, though.

 

[Stidd]

I’ve seen the largest Chromis pick on the other 2 especially during feeding. I always saw all 3 eat however because of how spread apart the food was. I just hope that he will leave the second one alone and just get along with everyone. I don’t believe that the Shrimp would have caused this. None-the-less… I think I am going to offer up my second Cleaner shrimp and go back to one.

If anyone is interested in a trade of some sort, let me know. He is in really good health and his body is about an inch and 1/2. I just feel better just having 1 shrimp for now.

As far as the cyano bacteria goes… I’ve been reading wetwebmedia about it as much as I can. Everything leads to water movement, nutrients, and insufficient skimming. I wish I could say I had a top of the line skimmer. It’s a CPR Bak-Pak… It is collecting some gunk but I don’t think its as much as it could or should. Does 1 cup a day sound like a lot to anyone for a 30 gallon system? My skimmer is no where near those results. I guess I have to mess around with it some more. Also read that Kalkwasser will help the skimmer out some. Maybe I will save my pennies and get a AquaC EV-120. Maybe I will save even more pennies and do it right with a LifeReef Protein Skimmer… I visited the store where I purchased the live rock in my tank and their tanks are FILLED with the cyano. Now I know where I got it from. ERRrrr!!!! Is it even possible to kill this bacteria 100% ? Spoke to the owner and she is taking down her Saltwater displays for now. Something to do with the water quality in her shop.


I am going to suck up as much of the cyano as I can and keep my feeding under control. I’ll work on the Skimmer to see if I can get it to skim some more and maybe start Kalkwasser. As I progress… I’ll add the sump/fuge with macro algae to starve everything else. Hopefully this will bring some solid results and I will actually be able to create a nice home for future residence…

If anyone is interested in the Shrimp... Let me know.

Blange… Thanks for the offer on the snails. I don’t want to take your snails though. VERY kind of you… I may just take a ride to TROP anyways this weekend. What sort of snails should I ask for? And how many do you suggest for my tank?

 

[Brian]

Guy,

If you haven't been to Trop already, why don't you just get in on the Invert Buy? It will save you money and they have all kinds of stuff to choose from.