getting 1st half of the package today

[ttmitsu]

im going to pick it up at the air port at 3:00 and i have a few questions.
how long should i put the lights on i have 4 65w power compacts 2 actinic and 2 white?
how much ammonia is to much, i talked to some one there yesterday and they said not to dso a water change unless there is more then a certain amount of ammonia because it will slow down the cycle , how much is it?
should i acclimat the stuff or just throw it in , i have my levels perfect so i figured it has to be better then the shipping water so just toss it in, any in put?

thanks

 

[ReefRob]

TBS recommends 5 hours of light per day when you are cycling. I got my first shipment two weeks ago and my ballast failed the next morning. It is a long story but I went without lights at all for the first five days and there didn't seem to be any harm. Too much light is worse than too little (algae problems.)

Somewhere on the TBS website, or maybe the second shipment acclimation instructions, they recommend doing a water change when/if the ammonia levels reach 1 on your test kit. I've been doing small water changes all along and my cycle has been prolonged it seems. My ammonia never reached more than 0.5 but I noticed my Condy anenome was suffering yesterday so I changed 10% of the water and he recovered. With the second half of the shipment anyway I wouldn't let the ammonia get anywhere near 1.

As far as acclimating, read the TBS website under "The Package" where they have some instructions. I just set my rock out for 20 minutes to get off the unwanted crabs (about five came off) then plopped them in the tank. About a dozen small brittle starfish survived this abrupt approach (and a cool pistol shrimp) so the animals must be able to take it.

One thing I learned is that I'm glad I stabilized the rocks on the glass bottom rather than placing them on the sand. The pistol shrimp is an amazing digger and immediately excavated what must be a three-bedroom apartment under a big rock which could have been trouble had it shifted.

Good luck and enjoy it!

 

[ttmitsu]

i picked it up yesterday i got 3 medium sized rocks and one huge one.
when i went to unload the sand there was a snail the size of a softball with a pointed shell i put him in my old thirty gallon until the cycle is over and he clean the entire tank a million times better then it ever was in one day. ive never seen anything like him what is he?
i also got one red emerald crab about the size of a half dollar should i keep him?
and what i think is a gorrilla crab why are they bad he seems to just hide in his hole all day should i take him out?
besides them there was a handfull of strange snails, feather dusters, an anemone i cant identifyand 2 cukes one lived the other im not sure about. and the clicking from a mantis or a pistol has been going off since i put everything in the tank its one click every couple of minutes what should i bait the trap with?

 

[ReefRob]

Wow I've not heard of a softball sized snail. If you can start a new thread with a picture you'll get a lot of interest. You got a lot more hitchikers than I did. The emerald crabs are cool. They just sit there and fan the water for plankton. Definitely keep them.

I've seen my little gorilla crabs picking at coral polyps and nipping at an anenome. I've not had any luck trapping them but I haven't tried hard yet: waiting for my tank to finish cycling but I've heard that a piece of shrimp or krill works nicely.

With all the filter feeders in your tank you might want to pick up some live plankton. DT's is good stuff you can get at your fish store.

 

[ttmitsu]

"Wow I've not heard of a softball sized snail. If you can start a new thread with a picture you'll get a lot of interest. You got a lot more hitchikers than I did. The emerald crabs are cool. They just sit there and fan the water for plankton. Definitely keep them."

yeah the snail is huge its not round though, its a pointed shell like a conch, the shell is brown white and yellow in rings, and under the lights his body is black with blue and white dots?
sorry no digital camera

as far as the gorilla crab by your description he is like a bad hermit crab on steroids right?

about the live plankton i have alot of barnicles to maybe i should, what else should i be feeding, i was going to put some squid in and see what came out to eat while the lights are off

 

[ReefRob]

I'll bet you got a fighting conch:

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_1...ategory=4&category_search=63&root_parent_id=4

Look familiar?

All I've fed the starfish (I got about twently small hitchhikers) and the pistol shrimp has been shrimp bits so far. I'm going to pick up some more stuff at the LFS this weeknd. I'm sure squid will be appreciated.

 

[docklink]

ttmitsu, What size tank are you stocking? If it is a fighting conch, they can get even bigger than that, I believe. Pretty cool none the less.

 

[ttmitsu]

much smoother shell only one point, looks like it was painted by hand and im almost poitive its not a conch it like the glass and rocks to much

 

[ttmitsu]

this morning the ammonia was 0.5mg/L today and nitrites were at 0.8MG/L so i just did a 20 % water change,the new results were ammonia 0.2-0.4 mg/l and nitrite 0.3-0.8 mg/l should i keep doing water changes until there is no ammonia or let it cycle naturally?

anyone know how to convert mg/L to PPM?

 

[hdtran]

Reefrob,

I think you typoed porcelain crab for emerald crab. The porcelains are the ones who fan water for food; red emeralds look like emeralds, but are red. They eat algae, but will also pick at corals. You can positively ID a porcelain crab by counting the number of legs behind the big claws. Porcelains only have 3 sets behind the big claws, all other crabs have 4 sets.

Ttmitsu,

1 mg/L is almost exactly 1 ppm. (1 L of water is almost 1 kg of water). Just let your tank cycle naturally. Perform water changes if needed to keep ammonia levels below 1.0 ppm (1 mg/L), but once you've done that, let the ammonia feed the nitrifying bacteria.

 

[ttmitsu]

what is it that the gorrilla crabs do thats bad, do could i put him in my FOWLR tank with a few snails a cuke and hermit crabs , or will he kill the fish?

also how high could the nitrite get safely i know 1.6 mg/l kills fish but i dont want it near that, at what nitrite level should i do water changes?

 

[hdtran]

So-called "Gorilla" crabs won't go after your fish (unless the crabs are large and the fish small), but they'll definitely pick at your corals and attack your snails when hungry. They're the ones who look very hairy, with a black tip at the end of the claw, look like small stone crabs.

The red emeralds eat algae, but I've also seen them pick at corals. I haven't seen the red emeralds go after snails.

Your decision if you feel that your snails are safe in the FOWLR, or if you're willing to target feed the crabs so they don't attack your snails for food.

I personally would not worry about nitrite so much as ammonia. If you keep your ammonia under control, I don't think your nitrite will spike up to dangerous levels.

 

[ttmitsu]

just a update ammonia 0.0-0.1 and nitrite 0.0-0.3
i picked the stuff up thursday night and its almost done, that thing about water changes slowing it down is definately exagerated because i did at least one a day.
2 things came with my package that i threw in my existing tank, and now 6 turbo snails are dead. one was a extremely small crab the size of a m&m and black , the other was that huge snail and when i woke up this morning that huge snail was on to of the turbo snail and when the big snail moved away the turbo was dead.
1st i dont know if the turbo was dead before the big snail was on top of it or not the other thing is whe i picked upthe big snail it was locked on the turbo and would let go? is there cannibal predator snails? oh yeah its a lkittle smaller then a softball now that i got a good look at him but he is about 4 times the size of a large turbo?