My husband and I have two tanks...he has his project and I have mine. I am trying to learn for myself how this whole thing works. He helped me start the tank and now I am trying to get more information and figure out how to do this myself. I have a 46 gallon tank.....it has live rock, a few mushrooms, buttons and some feather dusters. I am curious what lighting is best to get coral and an anemone. I have two clowns, mandarin gobie, two shrimpgoby's, 6 line wrasse and a longnose hawkfish. What other fish would be best with those? what are the easiest coral and anemones to take care of? and any other info would be great. Like i said i am real new at this and I am trying to do the best I can. My husband helps but he confuses me with all the stuff he throws at me and he gets frustrated...lol. Thanks
I am new and need some help.....
- Thread starter llunacy82
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lavenderfish
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You only have a 46 gallon tank. You really don't need any more fish.:shock: Your sixline will eat copepods as a hobby as well as other fish food and will out compete your mandarin for its natural food source unless you have trained it to eat something other than copepods. The clowns will also do this but are not quite as hard on the pod population as the sixline. If you do not have the mandarin eating something other than pods please find it a good home.
As for info-read as much as you can. Check multiple sources since information/opinions may vary wildly. Get a good book about setting up reefs and read it cover to cover. Impulse buys often lead to deaths.
Get test kits. Saliferts are expensive but good. How long has the tank been set up? What equipment do you have. What are you doing for nutrient export?
With more info we can set you on the right track. There is a lot of good info on Reef Frontiers. Help yourself to that search button.
As for info-read as much as you can. Check multiple sources since information/opinions may vary wildly. Get a good book about setting up reefs and read it cover to cover. Impulse buys often lead to deaths.
Get test kits. Saliferts are expensive but good. How long has the tank been set up? What equipment do you have. What are you doing for nutrient export?
With more info we can set you on the right track. There is a lot of good info on Reef Frontiers. Help yourself to that search button.
Krish
RF STAFF
Welcome to RF!! I see Shannon has given you great feedback so far! Let us know more about your system in terms of are you using a skimmer, how long has the tank been up and running, are you using a sump etc...That will better help us help you. As for lighting, mushrooms from what I understand don't need all that much as well as most softies. PC's should work fine. In any event, let us know a bit more about your set up and we'll help you along the way
Let us know more about your system in terms of are you using a skimmer, how long has the tank been up and running, are you using a sump etc...That will better help us help you. As for lighting, mushrooms from what I understand don't need all that much as well as most softies. PC's should work fine. In any event, let us know a bit more about your set up and we'll help you along the way
spongebob lover
flea whisperer
Shannon is right .
for a 46 gal i think you got to many fishes .
I'd get rid of the manarin or the six line because they're just gonna fight over pods.
How old is your tank? Anemones need and like mature tanks (at least 1 year old tank), they like strong light (Metal Halides) and they gotta be fed at least once a week.
the easiest corals to keep as soft corals because they can handle dirtyer water, but before you get into corals you gotta tell us about your filtration set up .
what kind of flow do you have?
do you have a skimmer? and what kind is it?
what kind of lighting do you have right now?
also what are your parameters? Calcium, Alkalinity, ph,Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia.
if you go to the library section you'll find alot of info doodette .
last thing..... Welcome to RF doodette .
.for a 46 gal i think you got to many fishes
.I'd get rid of the manarin or the six line because they're just gonna fight over pods.
How old is your tank? Anemones need and like mature tanks (at least 1 year old tank), they like strong light (Metal Halides) and they gotta be fed at least once a week.
the easiest corals to keep as soft corals because they can handle dirtyer water
, but before you get into corals you gotta tell us about your filtration set up .what kind of flow do you have?
do you have a skimmer? and what kind is it?
what kind of lighting do you have right now?
also what are your parameters? Calcium, Alkalinity, ph,Nitrate, Nitrite and Ammonia
.if you go to the library section you'll find alot of info doodette
.last thing..... Welcome to RF doodette
.
spongebob lover
flea whisperer
hey your beat me to it !!
.Jan
Well-known member
What is it about "mature tanks" that anemones like? The comparative lack of fluctuation in water parameters?
spongebob lover
flea whisperer
well you got me on the English part
... what does fluctuation means? it if means... stable water parameters, then yes dood.
Jan
Well-known member
LOL...
Yep, that's what I meant.
Yep, that's what I meant.
I think you may have an emergency on your hand. I too have a mandarine and she was doing ok in my 80 gallon. Then I added a six line wrasse and it I havent seen a pod since. My mandarine is slowly starving. I have never seen any mandarine eat anything but live pods. I now have to dose pods to my display tank. Its hard to get live pods from the store and they are way to expensive to just buy and feed. I have to cultivate them myself in a separate tank.
hope this helps
josh
hope this helps
josh
Herefishyfishy
Smart Bass
The Hawk will eat pods too. Unless you have seen it regularly feed frozen food, return or sell the Mandarin before it dies
Brie
BRA
Just an idea, for those of you with mandarins.. you can buy huge amounts of pods here.
http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_1...ategory=4&category_search=63&root_parent_id=4
11.99 for 200. Beats a local store here that sells a vial of like 50 for 18 bucks.
mud1059
Active member
Her tank was purchased used and has been running for approx 1 yr. I did add some supplemental water along with the substrate. She has
40 lbs LR
11 lbs substrate
30g sump with a large ball or two of chaeto
3 VHOs on an Icecap 660 ballast
Berlin Skimmer (I know)
400 gph return
400 gph PH
All her fish are juvenile still. Percs are 1", everything else is approx 2". They were originally purchased for "both tanks" however, I lost that battle til I got some reinforcements. Thanks!
The goby is probably going to end up in my refugium until we culture some pods, I'm very new myself and didn't realize the food issue. We may be removing all the LR just to get him out though
40 lbs LR
11 lbs substrate
30g sump with a large ball or two of chaeto
3 VHOs on an Icecap 660 ballast
Berlin Skimmer (I know)
400 gph return
400 gph PH
All her fish are juvenile still. Percs are 1", everything else is approx 2". They were originally purchased for "both tanks" however, I lost that battle til I got some reinforcements. Thanks!
The goby is probably going to end up in my refugium until we culture some pods, I'm very new myself and didn't realize the food issue. We may be removing all the LR just to get him out though
rad, sounds like you are on top of it then. I am glad you came to the right place for help. Some of the people on here come up with stuff I could never dream off. Ive been slowly absorbing all the information on reefing over 8 years and I still feel new at it. Im constantly learning new stuff and killing less and less. My first couple years my tank was like death row im sad to say. Now i am constantly giving frags, zoos, zenia... to friends and LFS. It improves my hobby kharma.
peace
josh
peace
josh
MarineTeng
Reef Padawan
u can always try and feed ur mandrin frozen foods, if your lucky then u won't need to cultivate pods
I am thankful for all the help that you guys have been giving me...I appreciate it. We set up a thing for brine shrimp yesterda so hopefully later today it will be almost ready since it said ittakes up to 24 hours. we did buy some pods last night and threw some in the tank and put the rest in my husbands refusem(can't spell) but i still think we might move the goby JIK. As for the rest of the food we have been alternating. One day we will give them frozen shrimp and then the next day it will be the reg froazen food. so i am hoping that helps. All the fish seem to eat everything and the goby he hides so I can't tell what he's doing. I really hope he's ok.....I should have researched more before I bought fish but I was just excited.....guess i'll learn.
Since my husband posted up what kind of tank and sump i have is there anything else ya'll think I really need?? what about water flow....is what i have ok enough or do i need one of those things that circulate the water more????
Since my husband posted up what kind of tank and sump i have is there anything else ya'll think I really need?? what about water flow....is what i have ok enough or do i need one of those things that circulate the water more????
Krish
RF STAFF
Your best bet IMO would be to observe the tank itself a bit and see if there are any areas that are lacking a bit of flow. You typically don't want any deadspots in the tank as you need to keep all of the waste/detritus in the water column to be filtered off or used up by the corals. Any waste allowed to settle, will rott and degrade water quality. Some people like tons of flow (like myself
) but not always necessary...It all depends on your corals selection as well, but for the most part, just try your best to prevent any deadspots in the tank
