Learning from experience

[Paul B]

I don't know where I am going with this thread but I was looking at my tank and I was thinking about how I now know how to keep anything I want to keep and all the failures I had in the past with the same animals. I don't think it has anything to do with DSB, BB starboard, NSW etc. It has to do with patience and observence. I remember my first copperband butterfly. It didn't live very long and neither did the second or probably the third. I had a fish only tank in those days and I would read all I could, the problem was that there was no information out there and since the hobby just started, no one kept one for any length of time. I would feed it some clams, or chopped fish but no matter how much I tried the poor fish would get some malady or just drop dead. Of course it was not the fishes fault, it was mine. Then I started diving and observing fish on the reef. After a lot of this you can almost feel what the fish is thinking (well not exactly) but a little at a time you begin to learn what this fish needs. Unfortunately for moorish Idols they are arguably the prettiest looking fish in the sea and the first ten or so that I had were unluckier than the butterflies. I would feed they mussels, seaweed, amphipods and anything else that I could think of. Don't forget there was no internet or even computers.
But after diving with them and following them around I gained valuable knowledge and so far I have been a little lucky.
I think we have to figure what these animals do in the sea and where they hang out not just feed them some frozen mysis and hope for the best. Fish in the sea eat all day long and almost never get one large meal like we like to feed them.
People talk about tangs especially hippo's as ich magnets. This may be true but it is our fault and not the fish. All tangs live in schools, you will never see a lone hippo or yellow tang, if you do it is sick and will soon be eaten. If someone collects one of these fish and puts it in a tank alone (like we usually do) it is extreamly stressed and constantly looking for it's cousins. That is also why they hide a lot. They are very scared. All fish also know what depth water they are in. You would never see an adult tang in water a foot deep like some of our tanks. Royal grammas live in very deep water, I have seen them many times over 100' down. When we keep them in very shallow water they know it and they don't like it. We can't have 100' deep tanks but I just want to demonstrate why fish seem to be prone to disease in a tank. We also feed our fish commercially prepared food like mysis or clams. Wild fish never see mysis, wild fish eat predominately, wild fish, and they eat the entire fish, bones, guts and all. They get their calcium from the bones and their vitamin A from the liver of their prey. We should try to find these foods if we would like our fish to be as healthy as they can in our very stressed tanks.
Just a thought.
Paul :idea:

 

[Scooterman]

No fish would ever want to live in a glass box if given the choice, or corals for that matter. It is aggravating to see so many people buy fish, & corals & just dump them in their tank, no research, no learning. It is a long way from 35 years ago when we didn't have the available information we have now & still we see so many people here fairly new maybe a year into the hobby & not striving to read, learn & practice patients. When first starting out the reefing pioneers were learning & at the cost of many fish & corals but now we're at the point that isn't necessary, we can do better. With so many more people doing it the hard way now it impacts everything 10 times over. I love the hobby, I regret that we keep them in cages but hopefully by doing this we learn how to help them in th wild & flourish, corals, fish every species has needs & understanding required, we should at least try our best to supply that to them. This is a reefing forum, I wish we would see more of that instead of some of the stupid links to Paris or other topics that takes away from the real reason why we're here.

 

[Paul B]

WE also have to learn to think outside of the box. There is a reason why we don't see all kinds of fish in all habitats. Some live on sand flats like jawfish and some prefer coral reefs like tangs. People still put horseshoe crabs in reefs. It's the same with corals, we see some types of corals in very turbulent water and some in almost stagnant water, these can't be intermixed or you would find them like that in the sea.
I think one of the biggest problems or setbacks is the lack of plankton in a tank, again we can't fix that but we can try to imitate it as best we can. Most people who dive just dive for the sake of diving to look at the pretty fish but if you just lay on the bottom for a while the fish will not notice you and you will become one of them (to them anyway) then you can observe them in detail and see how they interact with each other. Also there is an unmeasureable amount of baby fish on a reef around the base of corals and under rock ledges. Coral fish just dip down when they are hungry and take a bite. They don't always succeed but at least when they do, they are getting fresh fish. I try to feed my fish whole fish whenever I can but the only way I can do that is to collect them in the sea. As far as I know they do not sell frozen food small enough to feed a 1" royal gramma. The sea is full of these fish and it would be beneficial if someone would make them available. I can't seem to find any anyway just frozen silversides which are about an inch long.
At least we have newborn brine shrimp. I hatch these every other day and put them in my reef, again they are not a natural food for reef fish but it's the best we have.

 

[Krish]

I agree with you Paul about the fish in the wild to an extent Living on an island my whole life I get to experience the underwater world all the time. I never paid much attention to corals until a few months ago, but I have always been fascinated with fish! I've too tried keeping butterfly fish and they never make it. The never seem to take the prepared/canned foods. The only way I have seen them successfully been kept is in a tank, was one that has a weekly supply of fresh rocks from tidepools teaming with little critters, parasites etc for them to pick on, but after a while, it gets a bit tiring to go out every week to collect these rocks (so my friend said who I've seen keep them this way) I was told that if you get butterfly's from one part of the island they will die in no-time and if you get it from another part they thrive, but I've never kept any long enough to really experience it. About the tangs, I couldn't agree more. They are always in schools grazing all day, but too you do see a tang here and there all by his lonesome grazing alone. I think the problem comes when you have too small of a tank and not enough food for them to graze on all day. I figure they must get into an agressive mode trying to keep get all all for themselves do to a limited supply of algae on the rocks etc. Also, you have people mixing different species of tangs that are never found together in the same place in the wild and so, that may arise aggression as well. All in all, I think the tank size and food supply plays the biggest role where tangs are concerned. The only fish I normally see in the wild chasing one of their own are those darn damsels(LOL). Definately, the majority of fish found on reefs graze all day. I'm not sure if it is in their motabolism that the have to continuously eat or if what they are eating (which may be small prtions here and there) may not be filling, but they do pick on rocks all day!

In any event, nothing is more relaxing than spending some time underwater. Everything is so quiet, colorful and peaceful down there and definately always something new to look at

 

[CarlaW]

Does anybody mind if I just tag along here??? I you can't learn something from a guy that has been doing this for 35 years, you can't learn!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Paul B]

Kkrish I too live on an Island but not a tropical one. I have much more experience diving with New York lobsters and flounders than I do with copperband butterflys but since I have been diving since the sixtees, and I get to the tropics almost every year, I have amassed enough time underwater in the tropics to learn a lot more than I did before I started diving. It is also true about what your friend told you about collecting fish from one location living better than another place. I see that here as well. I used to have a sea urchin business where I would collect purple urchins for algae control in reef tanks. The urchins I collected in the Lond Island Sound were much smaller and delicate than the same type I collected from the south shore of Long Island in the Atlantic. The Sound urchins diden't do well at all but the Atlantic ones lived about two years.
You probably have more experience watching tangs than I so I believe you can see some alone but they are rare.
Krish as for the weekly supply of fresh food I really try to collect as much as I can but I can only do it in the summer. Here in NY we have a tide difference of almost 8' so at low tide we have very large tide pools. I go out there (I have a boat) and turn over rocks to collect amphipods, copepods, worms and seaweed to dump in my reef. I have never introduced a disease like this and as most people know my reef is not as clean and pristine as some on here. That is not an accident I want that on purpose. I want some algae growing and some detritus is home to thousands of copepods and worms. These animals do not like to reproduce on sterile sand as they too like to eat. As I said I only collect these things in the summer but they reproduce all winter. Inadvertantly by doing this I am also introducing different strains of bacteria to my reef which I also want to do as I feel it is of great benefit. If you never do this your tank will be full of the same very few types of bacteria that you aquired from the LFS. I feel diversity is the key to a healthy sand bed (or DSB, BB, RUGF whatever) My tank is going on 36 years old without a crash and I have always done this. I have no way of knowing if it would have crashed if I had not done this.
Charlie, don't forget that I have made numerous mistakes and killed many fish, also my methods scare a lot of people so if you follow my advice, you do it at your own risk :badgrin:
I wish I could have learned what I know now forty years ago, there was absolutely no information out there on anything and I did not even know anyone with a salt tank for many years.
Don't get me wrong, I am not the king of aquariums, there are a lot of things I have trouble keeping but I now know what they are and I don't buy them. Simple. Some things just can't be kept with other things.
Anyway I am rambling again, sorry.
Paul

 

[CarlaW]

Charlie, don't forget that I have made numerous mistakes and killed many fish, also my methods scare a lot of people so if you follow my advice, you do it at your own risk
I wish I could have learned what I know now forty years ago, there was absolutely no information out there on anything and I did not even know anyone with a salt tank for many years.
Don't get me wrong, I am not the king of aquariums, there are a lot of things I have trouble keeping but I now know what they are and I don't buy them. Simple. Some things just can't be kept with other things.
Anyway I am rambling again, sorry.

I realise that Paul!!!!! I figure you almost have to be like a watchman goby, you take in alot of sand, and sift out only what you need!

 

[MikeS]

I remember my first marine tank I set up over 20 years ago....it had epoxy coated gravel covering a UGF, a few dead coral skeletons, a "bubble wand" in the back, and one of those cool reflective foil tank backings, all illuminated by a single NO flourescent bulb.:lol: It was overstocked with a bad mix of fish, underfiltered and maintained by seat-of-the-pants efforts on my part. Needless to say, many fish met thier untimely demise in that tank. But as PaulB stated, information was hard to come by, and what little you could find was by today's standards usually wrong. No internet at all, just a few books here and there, and the occasional LFS guy who was likely just as clueless as I was on the subject:lol: . Forget about protien skimmers and other things like that...while they were availible, they were pretty hard to come by in Wyoming and extremely expensive if you did happen to find one.

But, I stuck with it and learned a lot about what works and what doesn't, what fish seem to do well and what ones to avoid, ect. Once the internet came along, it changed everything in the hobby. IMO the internet is the single biggest advancement in the marine tank keeping hobby, period. Now, you have access to a vast wealth of information (too much information in some cases), and you can purchase just about any gadget, accessory, ingrediant, ect, you need for your tank. ( I remember having to drive to Denver, CO sometimes just to find salt...:lol: ) The learning curve today is much faster than it was, which is an advantage to the newcommers to the hobby. But still, even with all that, the one virtue that will always pay off is paitence. I do see a lot of newcommers that get frustrated because things are not going as quickly as they would like, or becuse they are experiencing problems. If us old-timers could do it, so can you... Forums like this are a gold mine of information. Sure you get differing opinions on almost everything, but if you look past some of that, you'll see that there tends to be a general concensus on most issues. That doesn't mean that is always the "right" way to do something, it just means that is the commonly accepted method currently, and usually it will work for most.

MikeS

 

[CarlaW]

Mike, I can agree that the internet is an unbelieveable source of info. What I sometimes wonder is whatever happened to sitting down with a good old book, and reading. The internet is great, but I still believe that people should invest in a few good reef books, there are some classic ones out there. Maybe then you wouldn't see as many posts about why their goniopora is dying!!!!!

 

[MikeS]

Mike, I can agree that the internet is an unbelieveable source of info. What I sometimes wonder is whatever happened to sitting down with a good old book, and reading. The internet is great, but I still believe that people should invest in a few good reef books, there are some classic ones out there. Maybe then you wouldn't see as many posts about why their goniopora is dying!!!!!

I would agree Charlie...

The main problem with some (not all, mind you ) books is that they #1 get dated...I have an aquarium book from the '70's that has a large section on marine tanks....the information provided there on the hobby is almost laughable by today's standards:lol: And yes, that's the book I cut my teeth on so to speak when entering the marine hobby... . The second problem is that you generally only get that particular author's point of view on subjects *cough*Dr. Ron*cough*.:lol:

I would say a good book would consist of mostly factual or reference information...such as water chemistry information, species identification, ect. My favorite is Tullock's "Natural Reef Aquarium" book. If you ignore the part on setting up your first tank, I find the rest of the book is a decent basic reference on water chemistry, lights, equipment, coral species, ect. He also has a good overview on the basics of a few different approaches to Reefkeeping, like Monaco, Berlin, Jaubert, ect....without leaning towards one or the other. Defiantely a good book for the beginner and a decent quick reference guide.

What I'd really like to see is a reef book that is purely reference and factual...ie water chemistry, species identification, physical properties of light, coral metabolism, ect....

MikeS

 

[CarlaW]

I would agree Charlie...

The main problem with some (not all, mind you ) books is that they #1 get dated...I have an aquarium book from the '70's that has a large section on marine tanks....the information provided there on the hobby is almost laughable by today's standards:lol: And yes, that's the book I cut my teeth on so to speak when entering the marine hobby... . The second problem is that you generally only get that particular author's point of view on subjects *cough*Dr. Ron*cough*.:lol:

I would say a good book would consist of mostly factual or reference information...such as water chemistry information, species identification, ect. My favorite is Tullock's "Natural Reef Aquarium" book. If you ignore the part on setting up your first tank, I find the rest of the book is a decent basic reference on water chemistry, lights, equipment, coral species, ect. He also has a good overview on the basics of a few different approaches to Reefkeeping, like Monaco, Berlin, Jaubert, ect....without leaning towards one or the other. Defiantely a good book for the beginner and a decent quick reference guide.

What I'd really like to see is a reef book that is purely reference and factual...ie water chemistry, species identification, physical properties of light, coral metabolism, ect....

MikeS

Yes, that is a problem with books, but they are just like the "net", if you read enuf, you can sift what you want from them.
If we took everything that we get on this forum for gospel, we would be babbling idiots,........................ wait a minute......................................

 

[MikeS]

Yes, that is a problem with books, but they are just like the "net", if you read enuf, you can sift what you want from them.
If we took everything that we get on this forum for gospel, we would be babbling idiots,........................ wait a minute......................................

:lol: Agreed :lol:

That's why I'd like to see a reference book that is nothing but facts...facts on water chemistry, facts on light physics, the most up to date facts on coral taxonomy, facts on bacterial biology...a pure reference book, no takes on setting up a tank or anything like that...that would be great...

MikeS

 

[CarlaW]

Maybe Boomer will write a book for us, hint, hint!!!!

 

[Krish]

Yeah Paul...It is usually the Pacific blue tang (yellow as a juvenile) at the juvenile stage I usually notice on their own and not in groups. I guess that was because that was one of the tangs I always looked out for when going diving. I can't say I've ever seen a few juveniles schooling ever, but the adults do it all the time. I think it is cool all the stuff you add to your tank. Don't feel bad about being the only one here that does it. You are a bit extreme but my tank consists of everything from out of our waters except the fish and that is mostly because I can't get those fish locally. My tang is coming out real soon as he will get too big and I am contemplating the 2 clowns in exchange for a few small local fish to have a full Bahamian reef setup. If you have never seen my pics, I've got tons here showing all of my findings over the past year as well as some other local things and if you look on the last page or 2 there, you'll see some shots of my tank with all local corals I have in it. http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15653

Nothing beats having these things in your backyard. I think I'm starting to get knocked a bit for my methods of introducing things (LOL), but hopefully people will realize it is a bit different when it comes down to harvesting things right out of the ocean and not from this store that got this fish from this guy who just got it from another guy across the state etc. Fresh from the ocean IMO, is a bit different. Just my opinion though...

 

[Paul B]

Charlie, I like the analagy watchman goby, very apropo.
Mike I also think in that book there should be a chapter on what a particular fish eats in nature, if it schools how it mates where it lives and the depth it lives etc. There are many people here who have never seen the ocean ( I just came back from it ten minutes ago, looks the same as it yesterday)
I think we could live without the chapter on "first get a stand"
The internet has a lot of information but I still miss learning the hard way. I guess now people kill a lot less fish. I saw my first moorish Idol and had to have it. I probably just fed it flake food and wondered why it soon died.
My first tank was also one of those black enameled tanks with a slate bottom. Rusted like hell. My first gravel was driveway bluestones. My UG filter was a plastic plate and I drilled holes in it, I made my skimmer out of, I don't even remember but I also built my first ozonizer.
I had a salt tank in the early sixtees but it was local fish like eels, sculpins, flounders, sea robins, crabs and lobsters. I would feed them table scraps. I still have a local tank but I feed them better now.
If I had the time I would really have a nice tank (lots of live asphalt) but of course life gets in the way and my wife has plans for some of my time.
Have a great day.
Paul

 

[MikeS]

The internet has a lot of information but I still miss learning the hard way.

Sure, the best learned lessons are usually the ones learned the hard way... But I do like being able to do the research before diving into a new species or technique blind...it does save a bit of money and headache...:lol:

If I had the time I would really have a nice tank (lots of live asphalt)

Now that construction season is slowing down, I've had a bit more time to play with the asphalt specimens you sent me Paul...I'll do a post probably tomorrow updating you on my progress and theroies so far...

MikeS

 

[Paul B]

Mike if that asphalt is the key to a successful reef I'll split the millions with you :lol:

 

[MikeS]

Mike if that asphalt is the key to a successful reef I'll split the millions with you :lol:

:lol: Acually, I think your case is pretty unique...I'll elaborate more on that hopefully today

MikeS

 

[Paul B]

Mike it just so happens that this morning we went to our cousins picnic and that is the beach where I collect the asphalt.
Now I am off to another party.
Have fun.
Paul

 

[Paul B]

There is a lot of mis-information going on in this hobby but it is no one's fault. This is not an exact science because of all the variables. Just about everything here is a variable. Water is different everywhere, livestock comes in various states of health, forget about lighting, I am an electrician and I don't know all the variations in lighting, I do know none of it compares to sunlight, food is another one, fresh, frozen, flakes, pellets, homemade, all has advantages but none are the natural diet of fish. Most of our animals come from a LFS, this is unfortunate because it is yet another stressful envirnment that these animals go through and a lot of them die there. As a mater of fact, a good portion of animals die in wholesalers and dealers tanks.
Thats the lucky ones that make it there from the collector.
The newly collected fish are very cheap, I have seen lookdowns for sale in the Caribbean for $2.00 a pound. They sell in NY for $125.00 each. That is not robery, many of them are lost in transit and it cost more to ship water than fish. Add all the fish that die and the LFS does not really make that much. I know three owners of very large stores here in NY and none of them look very wealthy to me.
I also think the internet also confuses everything. Now we have many people who have a tank a few weeks giving advice which may be helpful but you should take it with a grain of salt. I have been doing this for over fifty years and I make plenty of mistakes. We are always learning. I sometimes read something I wrote a while ago and I don't agree with it anymore because I found a better way. We also need common sense, if someone says they have a 1/2" slug that ate an entire tank of hair algae, I would question that. Also if I say for example that I can keep a mandarin for ten years with no care that is because my reef is different than yours. I can't keep anchor corals, I don't know why but they grow like weeds in some tanks. We will know all of these things in time but for now we have to keep experimenting and learning.
Have a great day.
Paul