Questions about tanks

[jrgilles]

yea, kind of a bummer. I was wanting to get a mated pair in my system. Could still do it, but I'll have to get them trained to frozen food. Still have awhile before I'm going to think about adding them anyway, to let my tank mature a bit more.

 

[bigblue141]

Ooooh Ill go look for her. Would definately love to talk to someone who has one of those tanks. Im very excited about it!

So I am researching the fish I am wanting to eventually keep, they are 2 clowns, 2 mandarins, and a cleaner goby. And then of course corals and clams.


Would I be able to keep a pipefish with those? Man those things are freaking cool!

Pipefish and Mandarin Dragonet's are difficult to keep long term due to their finicky eating habits and their requirements for a vast variety of crustations to feed on to meet all their nuturitional needs. Tigger pods alone will not suffice these fish alone. You will need a diverse selection of tiny foods for these fish to feast upon.

ORA is coming out with Mandarin Dragonet's that will supposedly eat pellet foods making getting all their nutritional needs to them much easier

Do lots of research on all your fish prior to purchasing and bringing home to ensure you can care for them throughout it's entire life span.

 

[BonnieC]

They'd both be fish I would be adding waaay later. I plan to take my time on this whole project.

I got totally screwed by LFS and now I am so paranoid about everything. I bought a 10g tank that he has "prebuilt" with fish. It had cycled, etc and was 6 weeks old....and it had EIGHT fish in it. 1.5 weeks later I am down to 3 fish and they wont refund even though I followed his instructions to the T. I just walked into the store knowing nothing, got excited by the tank and totally suckered. I feel sorry for the fish!

The wierd thing is we cant figure out WHY they are dieing. Im on another board and no one knows why. Ive been testing the water and the only thing off is nitrates which are 80! But everyone says that wont kill the fish. Im getting ro/di water from the LFS, salinity is 1.022 (was 1.021 and Im slowly bulding it), PH 8.4, nitrites 0, ammonia has always been 0. Temperature is somewhere between 75-79 (sucky little stick on doesnt tell me much).

LFS guy says that because water tests fine, I MUST have poisoned the water somehow with cleaner....whatever. Ive never had any cleaner near that tank.


Anyway, so I have been researching like crazy. Gonna get a bigger tank and start over from scratch. Not sure if the 3 remaining fish will make it. The tank SEEMS to be recovering now. But that's why Im asking so many questions, wanna make sure I do this right this time! (And never go back to that store)

 

[jrgilles]

What store was it that sold you this setup?

 

[BonnieC]

Zamzows ...Ive just chalked it up to lesson learned

 

[spllbnd2]

Zamzows ...Ive just chalked it up to lesson learned

Well just checked out Zamzows website and it seems they are similar to a Petco or Petsmart type of place. Not really what we here would call a LFS.

LFS are places that only deal with saltwater fish and corals and maybe freshwater fish too. They're not those places that carry anything and everything for all your pets needs.

Hope fully those 3 fish left can survive until you can get the larger tank set up.

 

[BonnieC]

Yeah, we don't have much for LFS here at all. I did find a couple places though so I wont be going back to Zamzows. It's just a shame. Dropped $300 on it, most everything died. And in the end, it's not even the right tank for me. I guess it'll be a very expensive QT tank. I dont even think I could make a sump out of it since its a halfmoon shape.