Small Tank Fast Problems

Small Tank Fast Problems

So now I have my hospital tank set up and all I have in it is one Damsel fish, I decide to go down to the pet store and get a few new fish to keep him company. While at the store I pick up two Convict Damsels and name them bonnie and clyde, I also bought a Blue Green Cromis which I named houdini. Something always happens when you walk into a saltwater fish store and that is you want to buy just one or two more, so that's what I did I bought a cute little Yellow Tang(she was only the size of a silver dollar)I named her lucy. I also decided to get another Anemone because the first one died after that nasty tank crash I talked about in the previous post, this time I was sure not to dump the bag but rather put on some rubber gloves I recently bought just for the purpose of my fish tank. What motivated me to buy the Anemone was that I had these two Ocellaris Clownfish that had no Anemone to host and I thought they would naturally take to the new Anemone, I was wrong my new anemone was on his own. I had read that Anemones needed Clown fish to regurgitate their chewed up food and that how the Anemone eats, so I went out and bought Invertebrate food which I squirted a couple of times a week at him (roughly 10cc or so). Back to my subject of small tanks fast problems or better yet MORE IS BETTER when it comes to water volume. I put houdini and lucy along with the new Anemone in the main display tank and I put bonnie and clyde in the hospital tank along with mo my mean mo the asshoe Dam selfish. Everything was going O.K. in that small tank, I checked water parameters regularly and I couldn't see any signs of stress in the fish. What I didn't realize is that those small little filters that come with the tank are not that great and that fish tanks need regular water changes especially in a smaller tank, also I didn't have very good lighting. So needless to say sometime in about the fifth or sixth week maybe seventh week, I came home to a dead Convict fish and another the next morning and then moe died the following day (sad day for sure). I hate losing fish no matter what and considering these have all been my mistakes from just not knowing and my attitude of live and learn is costing those little fishes lives. So I packed up the hospital tank and it sits there ready just in case of an emergency but I would rather not use it unless I desperately have to.

The Hospital Tank

With all the sick fish I had after the crash I read up on the use of a hospital tank. I went looking for a little ten gallon tank I could use for that, after going to a few stores, I found the best deal at one of the small pet stores across town. This particular store had the tank and all the equipment needed to set this hospital tank successfully, he had also been keeping and selling salt water fish for over ten years. This is where I learned that adding garlic to the water helps calm the fish down and helps them fight off disease, he also told me that clown fish will sometimes develop those parasites when they are first introduced to a new tank. The store owner(Harold) also said that I might be better off just treating the clown fish with the garlic in the main tank to limit any stress of being moved into yet another tank, which I did. I bought the hospital tank for about forty bucks because everywhere I had been reading that having a hospital tank was a good idea and that any new fish should be added to the hospital tank first to minimize any risk of disease. I set it up immediately and waited for the water to get to temperature, in the mean time I added the extreme garlic to the main tank. I was able to catch one of the last remaining aggressive Yellowtail Damsel and I put him in the hospital tank, I also put just base rock in the new tank and not live rock, this is just in case I have to use Iodine or Cooper for any treatments, Iodine and cooper kills all living things including live rock. Within a week my clown fish was fine and showed no signs of any disease and my Yellowtailed Damsel was doing just fine as well.

Time For Some Learning Lesson

Well the first learning lesson was leaving the window open overnight. The second lesson was how I introduced my Anemone to my tank when I brought him from the store. What your supposed to do is float your animals in the tank for about 45 minutes then you add about a cup of tank water to the bag every 15 minutes, and after about an hour of doing this you net your fish out of the bag and add him to the tank. I did that for all my fish that I bought, however with the Anemone I couldn't figure out how to net him out of there, SO I DUMPED THE BAG into the tank. Lesson number two those tanks at the store are full of chemicals to keep the fish subdued. The next day I came home to a dead Velvet Damsel, a very sick clown fish, and a sad looking Anemone. I immediately went out and bought a ten gallon hospital tank, and began to wait until the water got up to temperature. While I was at the store the guy there told me about adding garlic solution to help the fish relax and that would in turn help them get better. So I added the garlic right away and set up my hospital tank, by the time the clown fish that looked like he had white worms growing off him had all but healed.
Lessons:
#1 Be careful with open windows
#2 Don't add the store water to your tank
#3 Make sure you take your time acclimatizing your animals
#4 Never add too many fish at the same time only do a couple at a time.
#5 Have a hospital tank set up to make sure your fish are disease free.
#6 GARLIC WORKS GREAT, I add it their food every day
#7 Stress causes disease and kills fish, add garlic to the tank when they are stressed for what ever reason.

Stocking The Tank

Well the tank has finished cycling and I've captured, killed, or removed all but two of my yellow tailed damsels. It is now time to begin the task of stocking the tank with a community of fish that are compatible, so of to the book store and pet store to find a good book that shows which fish get along the best. The best book I found was The 101 Best Saltwater Fishes, I found that in Vancouver at J&L Aquatics in Burnaby close to S.F.U. on Lougheed hwy. I also found they had the biggest variety of stock and supplies and the best prices. When I was there I also picked up some live sand 40lbs bag and replacement media for my Marineland canister filter, and I also bought a package deal for a clean up crew. The custodian package I got was for a 50-60 gallon tank it included 45 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs, 5 Red Scarlet Hermit Crabs, 15 Astrea Snails, 15 Margarita Snails, and 15 Cerith Snails, and all that for $150.00. I also bought another 60gal pail of Seachem Seasalt for $40.00 and a few other books on reef keeping. I waited until I got back from Vancouver until I bought fish because I was worried about the 4 hour car ride back to Kelowna, a worry that I should not have had, as they would have been fine I would have just had to worry about the temperature. Anyways ounce I was back I waited until the two for one sale and I bought two False Percula Clown Fish (Ocellaris Clown Fish) and a Lawnmower Blenny Fish. The next weekend I went down and bought a bubble tipped Sea Anenome, man was that guy beautiful. That Anenome was a good 6 inches in diameter and had a real nice purple colour to him, at the store he was a pink colour and was about half the size. I found out later that the reason he changed coulour was because of my blue actnitic lights becuase it had the same effect on another fish I bought a Royal Gramma who was half bright pink and half bright yellow and when I got him home he was half purple and half yellow. I also bought a Blue Velvet Damsel Fish.

Cycling the tank

Well I bought my three little fish and all I had to do was wait about four to five weeks for the tank to cycle, which as I stated on the previous post I knew nothing about. So I did my best to research what it meant, and from what I could figure was that as the fish were fed and produced bio waist, that would in turn crate nitrates in the water which in turn would create nitrites, or something like that. At this point I had no chemistry kit to test the water so I had to bring a sample to the store and I relied on them to tell me how everything was doing. Another thing I was to do was to take notice of the different colour algae blooms, it was supposed to go green, brown, red, and back to green again. I never noticed anything much more then a slight change in colour that showed up on the gravel and all the tests that I did at the store came out perfect, no traces of anything. One thing that I forgot to mention that during that first month was that I had read that providing the tank with fresh air was a good thing, well one night I forgot to shut the window and the next day two of my fish were looking pretty sick. They were really pale almost white and they moved slow, well the next day one died and the other fish was missing. Well off to the pet store again to buy their replacements, two more damsels which I named David and David. I learned the hard way (which I tend to do) temperature change is a really bad thing and needs to be monitored extremely closely. So a month went by and everyone at the store agreed, my tank must have finished cycling and it was now o.k. to add different fish, the only problem was that those yellow tailed damsels were mean fighting fish and I now had catch them. Well about week after adding David and David to the tank that missing fish came to the surface and was hiding at the top of the tank. This was good because it was a week after I added David and David that I learned that these Damsel were not to be kept and they were only there to help the tank cycle. So I caught him and put him in a breeder isolation container which acted as bait to catch the other damsel. At this point Larry Died, Curly was captured and so was one of the Davids, that only left Mo and the other David, and of course Zena my six lined wrasse. The clerks at the store figured would be OK, hopefully, and if they were too aggressive we could try and catch them again.

Setting up the Live rock and filters and everything else

I proceeded filling up the tank with Reverse Osmosis water that I bought from a near by bottled water company, I used R/O water because thats what the clerk at the pet store told me I needed. I let the tank run with just water for about a week, until I went to the store and bought all that rock. Again on the advise of the sale clerk I waited a couple of days before I put any fish in the tank and when I did I had to buy Damsels because they were extremely hardy fish and could handle the effects of Cycling, which I didn't really understand what that meant but no worries I was patient. When I added the rock and was waiting to add my damsels I notice a wierd looking thing running around on the gravel, he looked like a miniture lobster or something like that. I didn't think much of it and figured he just was a stole away from the rocks, along with my six snails and my six lined wrasse (Zina). I later learned that he was a mantis shrimp and could be very hazardest to the fish that I would be keeping. Anyways with no way to catch him I was stuck with him, funny thing is I never saw him ever again? So I research the internet looking for the best way to arrange the rock formation and read up about how to place the rocks carefully on the glass bottom making sure not to crack the glass. Then I was to place the gravel around the rocks and that would make them super secure and the snails and fish wouldn't be able to knock anything over. I also placed some sea shells I had in the original tank many years ago, I bleached them and was very careful to rinse them thoroughly. So off to the store to buy three fish, yellow tailed damsels, and I named them Larry, Curly, and Mo.

What it took

Well what it took to get things going again was seeing the equipment I needed at the right price. I had been thinking the time was right for me to get back into the hobby and I was visiting various pet stores and asking all sorts of questions about what I needed. First thing I new I needed was a new filter because the old Magnum filter was not working and I needed to replace it, but with what? I found the largest canister filter available on sale for half price at a local store who sold salt water fish (SWF) and all the equipment needed to keep them including live rock. So I went home and started researching that canister filter and all the other things I would need to get started again and that's when I learned about live rock and how it acted ass a filter. So on August 23, 2009 I went down to the store and bought that great big filter (the Marineland 360 multi-stage canister filter), and I went home and started rinsing out all my crushed sea shell sand bed that was still in the tank the whole time it was in storage. I spent the better part of that whole weekend washing that gravel with vinegar and rinsing repeatably. I also did some research on the proper lighting I would need to keep the live rock purple and full of Coraline that I was going to be putting in. After visiting a few individuals who were selling their equipment, most of them were home made style lights or the king that you put into a great big fish tank cabinet, I decided to order a brand new hood for my tank that came with four sets of 65 watt true actinic lights and two 250 watt metal halides lights and for moon light effects it had 6 blue LED lights and to keep everything cool it had a fan built into the hood. So I ordered that hood through e-bay and bought it from a business in Texas, that was the first major purchase I had ever made through the Internet and man I was nervous. I ended up paying three hundred for the hood and eighty for tax and duty to bring it into Canada for a grand total of three hundred and eighty dollars, that same light hood was selling at one of the other pet stores for eleven hundred dollars, saving me seven hundred and twenty dollars. That next Monday I went to my nearest bottled water store and bought a couple of five gallon water bottles for twenty bucks each and started filling my fish tank with pure reverse osmosis bottled water, each water fill cost me a two bucks. After making seven trips to the water store throughout the week after work each time, my tank was darn near full and ready for some live rock and fish. That next weekend I went down to the store and bought my first round of live rock and put them into a couple of old plastic 5 gallon milk bones containers which I washed with vinegar water and rinsed thoroughly, the first round was 35lbs which I got for half price which worked out to $4.50 per pound. I ended up going back to the store two more times that day and cleaned them out of all but one or two rocks for there fish to use. In one of my trips I noticed a small little fish at the bottom of my bucket, I added her to the tank not thinking she would make it, but what the heck I had nothing to lose. I named that little fish Zena because she looked like a zebra only purple and grey. All in all I now had 80lbs of Jakarta live rock and six Mexican turbo snails, and a six lined wrasses, which the sales clerk never charged me for, all for $360.00. So my total investment up to date was $229.00 for the filter, $380.00 for my lights, $360.00 for my rock, and about $100.00 on miscellaneous things like water bottles and heaters, food, salinity testers, fish nets, ect. All I needed to do now was let the tank cycle.