A bunch of questions....

[dave green]

I just acquired several new fish for my tank... they were not planned on, but sometimes you must look at a gift as it is.... especially one as generous as the one I have recently received.... while the recent population explosion has raised some questions, it also brings other questions that had been lurking in the back of my head.

To start, here's what's in the 55gal tank:
A bunch of live rock
chaulerpa (wavy)
chaeto with little buggy guys running around n them (that's one of my questions)
2 cleaner shrimp
1 coral banded shrimp
1 ghost cave shrimp that has left a picture perfect molt (or that may be 0 ghost cave shrimp)
hermit crabs
snails (tiny ones and two decorative cone snails with red and white candy-looking shells)
three emerald crabs (although I never see them together)
a white/pink/purple/brown condy (?) anemone
a sea apple
5 coral frags, one of which I think is about to go to coral heaven... it's a bleaching open brain
1 6-legged magenta starfish
1 serpent star
1 clownfish (orange with clean black lines around the white)
1 6-line (8-line?) wrasse
1 dragon goby
1 mandarin
1 yellow tang
1 foxface
1 flame angel
1 juvennile emperor
1 tang that is a bristletooth and a flamy-tail
a flame hawk
a diadem dottyback
a purple dottyback

All of the fish are small, and there is no evidence of crowding (or so I think right now) and a pecking order seems to have been established.

So here are the questions:

Do fish normally hide out of sight for a couple days (emperor angel and new flamy tail tang) when first introduced?

How do i get that shimmering light effect with my fluorescent light tubes?

How much chaulerpa is too much?

Do shrimp leave perfect molts right out in the open?

How much should my water be moving?

How do I get just a little more movement without having to drill holes or macguyver it?

How does one use a turkey baster to feed animals and corals?

Some of my chaulerpa has this yellow fuzzy ball on the end that sometimes dissolves/explodes in a mist of stuff that hangs in the water for a while. What is it? and is it bad for fish?

How long should I really have my coralife lights on if I want to grow chaulerpa but not red slime?

How can I feed my anemone without the cleaner shrimp getting in there and pulling food out?

If my open brain is dying, how can I revive it before it's too late? Some bleaching is occurring.

I have a sump, but it seems to be more of a place where water flows out of the fishtank through a big sponge into another tank then into a channel with white confetti-looking staff into another tank and then gets pumped back into the system. Is there supposed to be something else there?

My water always tests perfect when I take it in (except once where salinity was a little high and calcium was low). Should I just leave it alone and see what happens?

Welcome to the world of the newb!!!!!

Thanks!

 

[blind1993]

20x is good 55x is better, regarding water movement

sump needs a skimmer(for that bio load), heaters, and other equip.

leave water alone.

that is a little on the high side with the fish so get a good skimmer(i did not read that you had one).

fish like to hide for the first couple of days.

 

[cdub]

Do fish normally hide out of sight for a couple days (emperor angel and new flamy tail tang) when first introduced? fish will sometimes be shy the first few days in a new tank

How do i get that shimmering light effect with my fluorescent light tubes?
you cannot without metal halides, that is the only way to get the shimmer effect

How much chaulerpa is too much? that type of macro algae is not recommended

Do shrimp leave perfect molts right out in the open? yes

How much should my water be moving? in a reef tank 20-30x, in a fowlr i think you can get by with 10-15x

How do I get just a little more movement without having to drill holes or macguyver it? powerheads, but i don't think you have anymore room with all those fish in a 55.

How does one use a turkey baster to feed animals and corals?put the food in a cup of saltwater and suck it up into the baster

Some of my chaulerpa has this yellow fuzzy ball on the end that sometimes dissolves/explodes in a mist of stuff that hangs in the water for a while. What is it? and is it bad for fish? like i said before, not a good type of macro algae

How long should I really have my coralife lights on if I want to grow chaulerpa but not red slime?without corals 8 hours a day, red slime is an indication of too many nutrients in the water

How can I feed my anemone without the cleaner shrimp getting in there and pulling food out?feed the shrimp first

If my open brain is dying, how can I revive it before it's too late? Some bleaching is occurring. get better lights, ie t5's or metal halides

 

[blind1993]

also try to feed the brain some mysis to help it gain some health.

 

[seedless reefer]

I stopped reading at sea apple.

That thing is gonna fry your tank one day.

 

[cameron]

Do fish normally hide out of sight for a couple days (emperor angel and new flamy tail tang) when first introduced? Yes

How do i get that shimmering light effect with my fluorescent light tubes? You don't for the most part. Adding some VERY bright LEDs can but pretty much only MH lighting is going to give you are real shimmer.

How much chaulerpa is too much? Any. This stuff is bad news.

Do shrimp leave perfect molts right out in the open? Yes they leave them in the open but generally no they aren't perfect. Shrimp tend to leave molts that look kinda like a shrimp, but they are very empty and skunks tend to be fairly translucent. Crabs tend to leave molts that are nearly identical to a live one.

How much should my water be moving? Depends on the coral. SPS require a lot of flow (20x plus), LPS less and softies even less.

How do I get just a little more movement without having to drill holes or macguyver it? Powerheads. Simple, cheap, low watts, easy to install.

How does one use a turkey baster to feed animals and corals? Generally it is not necessary. If you do want to use one, simply mix up some frozen or live food in a small container, suck in the food with the baster, put in the tank, squirt a little out to get the fish or fishes excited then squirt out the rest. Eventaully they will get used to baster and jump on it before you even squirt any food out. Most fish eventually come to the front of the tank whenever you walk near it hoping to feed.

Some of my chaulerpa has this yellow fuzzy ball on the end that sometimes dissolves/explodes in a mist of stuff that hangs in the water for a while. What is it? and is it bad for fish? Sounds like it is spawning. This stuff will eventually take over your tank if you are not very careful.

How long should I really have my coralife lights on if I want to grow chaulerpa but not red slime? No hard answer here. Keep sucking the redslime out and if you do not have excess nutrients in the tank eventually the redslime won't grow no matter how long your lights are kept on.

How can I feed my anemone without the cleaner shrimp getting in there and pulling food out? Hmm... I would probably trying to feed the cleaner seperate from the anemone but at the same time, but I am no anemone expert.

If my open brain is dying, how can I revive it before it's too late? Some bleaching is occurring. Check water params, check flow, check lighting. Moving it higher or lower in the tank can often be helpful. Removing it from direct flow as well. Make sure your water params are spot on first.

I have a sump, but it seems to be more of a place where water flows out of the fishtank through a big sponge into another tank then into a channel with white confetti-looking staff into another tank and then gets pumped back into the system. Is there supposed to be something else there? A skimmer needs to be there somewhere. Got pics?

My water always tests perfect when I take it in (except once where salinity was a little high and calcium was low). Should I just leave it alone and see what happens? If you have corals you have to dose calcium and alk buffer generally speaking. You must also perform weekly, semi-weekly or monthly water changes. Waiting too long between water changes can cause huge problems in a tank that aren't easily reversable.

BTW, too many fish for that size tank and some fish aren't even good specimens outright for your tank.

 

[ralph atl]

trade or sell that sea apple. You seem a bit "over your head" (not to be disrespectful), but you need a lot of info quickly. I suggest going over to reefcentral.com real quick (not to offend anyone here, but he needs ecpert info like yesterday!) and also buying a great book like "The Reef Aquarium Volume 3" by Sprung. If you stick ti this site, that's great, but find some very experienced reefers quick that you can connect your hip to quick. You have too many fish in that tank, you have fish that will die in that tank no matter what (i.e., Mandarin & Dragon Gobi needs at least a tank with 75 lbs of live rock in an espablished tank for at least a year!), and coral that tank months (if not years) of experience, stablity, and water quality that has to be near perfect. What are your parameters? Calcium? Phosphates? Nitrates? Alk? PH? Magnesium? Temp? Salinity? Flow? Skimmer? Phosphate removal? Fuge? Caulpera cannot be in the main tank, I hope it's in a fuge? Sorry, but I see a disaster comming unless you realize what you are doing & ACT on it!

 

[cameron]

mysterybox;94545 wrote: I suggest going over to reefcentral.com real quick (not to offend anyone here, but he needs ecpert info like yesterday!) and also buying a great book like "The Reef Aquarium Volume 3" by Sprung.

Hmmm... that is certainly an opinion. Off topic but I can honestly say that 95% of the posts on ReefCentral you will receive on this post will be hostile and not very helpful. 4% will be from idiots and maybe 1% will be from people who will take the time to listen and answer your questions. There are a lot of smart people over at ReefCentral, but most won't respond to this post for obvious reasons and honestly we have a lot of smart reefers here on these boards that can and likely will be as helpful.

I am not going to spell out what you need to do, but I can tell you that you need to research each fish/livestock and how many you can successfully keep in a 55g.

 

[ralph atl]

Cameron;94547 wrote: Hmmm... that is certainly an opinion. Off topic but I can honestly say that 95% of the posts on ReefCentral you will receive on this post will be hostile and not very helpful. 4% will be from idiots and maybe 1% will be from people who will take the time to listen and answer your questions. There are a lot of smart people over at ReefCentral, but most won't respond to this post for obvious reasons and honestly we have a lot of smart reefers here on these boards that can and likely will be as helpful.

I am not going to spell out what you need to do, but I can tell you that you need to research each fish/livestock and how many you can successfully keep in a 55g.

I disagree with your numbers that 95% are hostile, etc, etc. however, I do believe you are correct that there are way too many hostile people on that site (and yes.....you must muddle through the idiots to find what U R looking for!) Howver, in this situation, there are a few very smart people there that can give this guy 24-7 attention just because of the volume of people. I would recommend the Chemiestry, SPS, New to reef, Reef, forums. If there are a few people here that are willing to give 24-7 attention to his needs in preventing a disaster, even better! Again, I did state that if he could find someone here that would adhere to his hip, fine. I'm sorry for being blunt, but he is hours, maybe days from total crash. Again, I'm not trying to be rude.

 

[cdub]

browsing wetwebmedia.com will give you a lot of answers to the questions you just asked also

 

[dave green]

Thanks, y'all! I appreciate every bit of feedback and knowledge that you gave. Someone correctly mentioned that I may be in over my head and that I need a lot of information and I need it fast... which is why I put out the questions.

Accepting that many fish at once is a huge risk with a 55gal, I understand... a lot of the "rules" were broken.

My friend was shutting his tank down and if I didn't take them off his hands, then they were going down the toilet... so hopefully some of the guys will make it.

Mystery, I appreciate the urgency in your responses...

I went in with my eyes somewhat open and not completely uneducated... Judging from the fish going in and what was already there (for example, the two dottybacks are being introduced at the same time), I figured it was worth a shot... and I do expect a couple of them to go down (the Mandarin, for example), but the others that will go... good question.

I'd like to address a couple of very legitimate concerns that were brought up...

First, the sea apple...

It's a time bomb... one that we don't know when it will go off, and I understand that when it does, I'll need to start the entire system over. It's something that I've wrestled with a bit and finally decided that when the time comes, the time comes...

But let's say I chose to get rid of it... who would buy one? Where would be a good place for me to sell it?

The second point concerns corals.... which seem to be a big line of demarcation. Maybe I should wait on coras and see what happens over the next few months.

I'll keep you posted, both good and bad. Thanks for all y'all's help! Hopefully I can save some of these fellows from going to fishy heaven too soon!

 

[dave green]

oh, to clarify... that post wasn't meant to be sarcastic in any way... sometimes reading things on line doesn't communicate the whole message. I appreciate EVERYONE'S advice and feedback... it is all valuable and it's helping me figure out what the best next thing to do is.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[wbholwell]

I would try <u>very</u> hard to get rid of that sea apple. And if you have any corals that are bleaching/dying your best bet is to sell them or give them away to someone more capable. What kind of corals, lighting, and skimmer do you have?

 

[stroid]

Try Petland Dunwoody they always sell sea apples maybe they can give you store credit and you can put it towards a skimmer or something.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Hey David, for what it is worth, I agree that you need a lot of education really fast. I consider myself a pretty experienced reefer who has his 55 gal stocked to the max and can get away with it because of how I have set up my system but even I would not stock your 55 that much with that mix of fish. It is a recipe for disaster! My advice would be to pick what you like the most and go trade the rest for store credit. If you need one of the experienced reefers to come over and give you some advice, I am sure one of us would be more then happy to stop by or have you stop by our houses. You have A LOT of complex questions that need a lot of lengthy answers and are really hard to answer via the forums.

 

[lorenk]

David, maybe pick 5 or 6 fish and put the rest of in the For Sale thread...you might be able to trade or partial trade for some equipment such as a skimmer or lights.

I would do it at the soonest...if one or two of those die and you're not there or don't see them because they are behind rocks, you could spike and loose everything.

I have a 55 with 5 average sized fish and I that's about all I feel comfortable with at my experience level.

 

[dave green]

I think I'd like it if someone were to come take a look at the tank and chat about it. It's up in my wife's salon in Marietta and I'd be interested in any advice.

As far as lowering the population, I don't think that's going to go over with the Missus to well... I'll just have to figure out how to make it work.

Thing is, I've seen and worked with tanks set up like this that worked well (Okay, no dottybacks or mandarins were involved), so while I understand the logic, I also have to look and say "but I've seen it done and work for months on end before."

...which tells me that there's gotta be a way if I can be pointed in the right direction.

soooo..... I'm not really sure how to make it worth someone's while, but I'd love to pick a brain on this...

 

[linda lee]

davidbgreen;94885 wrote: Thing is, I've seen and worked with tanks set up like this that worked well (Okay, no dottybacks or mandarins were involved), so while I understand the logic, I also have to look and say "but I've seen it done and work for months on end before."

...which tells me that there's gotta be a way if I can be pointed in the right direction.

The ones you saw that were *working* with an excessive bio load -- is it possible there was a 100+ gal sump on the other side of the wall that you couldn't see?

Is the tank drilled? Could you possibly increase water volume by adding a huge sump/fuge combo and putting it in another room where it would be out of sight? Then you'd have a place for all that macro algae and pods. We plugged in an air freshener once that heated and diffused oil with disasterous results.

Also, you mention the tank is in a salon... what kind of salon? Is the tank tightly covered? Be careful about air-borne chemicals, aeresols, etc. which may end up on the water surface.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Ya all that linda said.... and more...

David, I would be more then glad to help but I got to warn you, I am not very forgiving with advice! If I think you are out of your mind, I am going to tell you.... If I think that you are wasting the life of an animal, it is going to get under my skin.... Worse yet, if I think you do not care about what is best for the animals and consider them disposable, I am just plain not going to support that way of thinking. There are plenty of great displays that can beautiful that do not include a Mandrin that will starve to death, a angel that will grow way too big for the tank, and a sea apple that will nuke everything on the drop of a hat. How does it look for your customers when the phrase "Look at the beautiful tank with a few dead fish!" comes out of their mouth.

This hobby is not about "add x, then add Y, then you can keep Z". I know people who have set up better then mine that can not keep some of the corals I keep, heck I know people with set ups almost like mine that I can not keep some of the stuff they keep. This hobby is about science, with a dash of luck, and a lot of knowledge... I think you are heading for a world of headach and a lot of money loss by taking the approach of "I have seen it done before so I must be able to do it!"

 

[blind1993]

hey when you comeover we can discuss some of this and see if i can be of any assistance also if you are selling anything tell me to see if i am aloud to buy it.