Few months in and questions, questions, questions

[Eirianwen]

Hi there!
I'm still pretty new to the marine aquarium hobby and I've got a few questions I'm hoping some people on here can shed some light on

I have a 54 gallon corner aquarium with a 70 gallon canister filter and a 300w led light, live sand and about 30 pounds of live rock and growing. I have aquarium decor like logs and stones in the tank to provide hiding places until I get enough live rock built up. I take my water about once or twice a month to my LFS to get it tested and they always tell me my readings are good with the occasional adjustment of salinity.
I feed Omega One Marine Flakes (with garlic), hermit crab pellets, frozen brine, and have kelp feeding stations.
My current life forms are as follows:
1 Sixline Wrasse
1 Gold Head Goby
1 Green Mandarin
1 Dwarf Fire Angel
1 Snow Onyx Clownfish pair
1 Purple Pincushion Urchin
1 Bulb Anemone
1 Condy Anemone
1 Pom Pom Crab
2 Emerald Crabs
3 Banded Trochus
4 Peppermint Shrimp
9 Mexican Turbo Grazers
11 Hermit Crabs

Questions:
1. the 300w led light system I have has rendered my aquarium heater completely obsolete and is keeping my water pretty hot around 77-79 degrees F and I know my inhabitants prefer it more on the 70-73 range. Is there something I can do to bring my water's temperature down for them? I read that Anemones require 5watts per gallon which would put me at 270 watts, not wanting to get less than required I went with the 300w.

2. The light I bought is a MarsAqua Dimmable 300w LED Aquarium Full Spectrum light for salt and fresh. Is this a good light or did I go wrong?

3. After buying my Condy I found out that clowns and Condies don't generally host each other and so I bought a Bubble Anemone before getting my clown pair but my clowns seem to have no interest in hosting with the Bubble. Is there something I can do to bring them together or are they just clowns who won't ever bond with an Anemone?

4. I also want to ask about my clowns. They seem very healthy, no sign (that I can see) of parasites, damage, or sickness but they consatanly just want to swim at the top of the tank in generally the same area and on their sides. sometimes I catch them swimming around normally but still close to the top of the water.

5. Now that I've gotten my pretty Mandarin I've read that their food source is something called copepods. Where do I get these and is that all that my Mandarin will eat?


Look forward to hearing all of your experienced answers and criticism, which I will take with the proper grain of salt knowing you're just trying to help by berating me for my poor choices xD

 

[thegrun]

1. 77 to 82 degrees is ideal, but you will likely need something to cool the tank in the summer. Fans blowing air across the surface of the tank can reduce the water temperatures by several degrees, but I would not lower the current tank temperature below 77 degrees.
2. It is an adequate light, not great but not bad.
3. All fish are different and yours may never be hosted by the anemone. It often takes a few months for clowns to decide to move, rearranging your rocks may help them move to the anemone, but you can never be sure.
4. Your oxygen levels may be low in the tank. It would be very helpful to you and anyone trying to diagnose your tank's problems if you had your own test kits and you conducted regular weekly water tests and kept a log with all the results. At a minimum I would test for salinity (refractometer), nitrates and alkalinity.
5. There are numerous on line vendors who sell copepods, but it is going to be expensive to keep the Mandarin fed. Your tank isn't nearly big enough to produce enough pods on its own, so you are going to need to constantly purchase more copepods. With a 6 line wrasse in the tank which is a great pod hunter and will out-compete your Mandarin, your Mandarin is going to slowly stare to death. I would strongly recommend you research any and all fish before adding them to your tank. You would be best to return the Mandarin for store credit.

 

[Eirianwen]

2. It is an adequate light, not great but not bad.
4. Your oxygen levels may be low in the tank.
5. There are numerous on line vendors who sell copepods, but it is going to be expensive to keep the Mandarin fed. Your tank isn't nearly big enough to produce enough pods on its own, so you are going to need to constantly purchase more copepods. With a 6 line wrasse in the tank which is a great pod hunter and will out-compete your Mandarin, your Mandarin is going to slowly stare to death. I would strongly recommend you research any and all fish before adding them to your tank. You would be best to return the Mandarin for store credit.

What light would you suggest for my tank if the one I have is only "œadequate"?
What could I do to get more oxygen into the tank if that is the problem? Is there a way to find out if that is the problem? None of my other fish seem to have any problems covering the whole of the tank.
I've read about people buying copepods to start with and then breeding from there in a separate tank, is that actually possible or just some hoo-ha?

 

[Percula9]

If you have a protein skimmer,there is plenty of oxygen in the water.

 

[thegrun]

I would not bother to change lights unless your anemones start to decline. There are oxygen tests available, Salifert makes an O2 test kit. A hang on the back protein skimmer would both help oxygenate the water and improve water quality. You can both buy and raise copods, but it a bit of work IMHO to do so.

 

[homer1475]

As far as the clowns hanging out at the top. It has nothing to do with low oxygen, it's what clown fish do. My last pair never moved from the top of a powerhead which happen to be in the top left corner of the tank. The only time they would move is when I fed them. Don't sweat it, clownfish are weird they will host anything from a coral, to a powerhead, to the corner of your overflow. It's just what they do.

As thegrun has pointed out, there are many places online to buy pods, but it will get very expensive and your tank without a sump is not large enough to support 2 dedicated pod eaters. The mandy or six line(honestly I would take them both back. Six line will become a major ahole, and the mandy will slowly starve to death) are both dedicated pod eaters. They can be trained to eat other things, but especially the mandy need many many pods to survive.

I would also consider getting your own test kits and keeping a log. When things go wrong, you don't want to have to wait until the LFS opens to test your water. I have found my log going back to when I started the tank a great piece of "equipment" that has helped me many times when I needed to know certain things. I not only write down my parameters, but any new additions and new equipment. You would be surprised when something conks out and you can look back and say "thats still under warranty, I only got a couple months ago".

The light is more then adequate. Many many people grow all kinds of corals under black boxes(it's what we call cheap Chinese knockoffs) myself included. Some of the "established" old geezers(sorry thegrun I do view your opinions much above everyone else around here, but you do come off like an old geezer sometime) don't like them, but they are more then adequate.


The best advice at this point anyone can give you is to slow down. You have a pretty fully stocked tank in under a couple months. Some of the stuff(anemones, mandarin) shouldn't even be added till well after your tank is established(read minimum 6 months). This is to prevent the animal from wild fluctuations in parameters as you yourself get better at reefing and can understand whats happening when things start to go wrong.

Also just a small FWIW, garlic long term when fed to fish has been shown to cause liver damage. It's fine short term to get finicky eaters to eat, but should not be fed long term. The best food anyone can feed is fresh uncooked seafood, or fresh frozen commercially prepared foods like LRS reef frenzy.

Whatever happens and whatever you decide, welcome to the hobby. It's not easy, fast, or cheap.

 

[oldhead]

Wow, just a few months in with all that stock? I must go really really slow. I don't have that much at 2 years.

 

[Eirianwen]

Ok, so I don’t have a protein skimmer because there is no where for it to hang since I have a corner tank and it’s up against the wall.
The clowns are pretty much sticking to swimming in my powerhead flow.
Return the Mandy and the Six, I can do that. Don’t want the fellas starving. The Six eats everything I put in there just fine but don’t want a bully either.
I didn’t get my own test kits because they’re all done, from what I can find, by colors and I’m kinda color blind so I have trouble telling if I’m reading the tests right. But I can give it a go.
The anemones seem to be doing well, they’re healthy looking and eat when I feed them. I was just worried that the light was overheating the tank and it’s soooo hard to tell what lights are actually good and which ones are phony-bologna, at least for me.
So just keep adding more live rock at this point?

 

[homer1475]

Look into the salifert tests. They are titration type tests where you have a definitive color change(even people who claim to be color blind can tell the difference) and you just read how much reagent you have left.

Ammonia, and nitrite, yes those should never have to be used again. The tests you should be doing are Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium, at the very least. And to a lesser degree Nitrates and Phosphates.

Hanna makes a very nice alkalinity kit that outputs a number not a color. Although they are a bit pricey, they work great.

 

[Eirianwen]

Ok
And get rid of the flakes all together and just feed fresh and frozen seafoods from the LFS?

 

[homer1475]

Pellets are fine as is flake, just not stuff with garlic in it.

 

[Eirianwen]

Once I get rid of the two big copepod eaters is there any chance that copepods will come in on the live rock that I buy and start breeding? Or is that highly unlikely?

 

[homer1475]

Thats exactly how it happens.

 

[bucky145]

i would definetly suggest getting some Hannah checkers for test kits since your color blind it would help you immensely keep an eye out BRS or some the others will be having a sale sooner or later and maybe you can grab some!

 

[Eirianwen]

Thanks for all the info guys and gals!