Hello Everyone..Newbie here!!

Turtle77

Turtle77

New member
I just wanted to say hello to everyone and make my presence known. I have been reading for a few days already and I am loving this place. Wanted to give a little background about me.

I started looking at getting into saltwater tanks a few months ago. My parents had freshwater tanks when I was a kid but saltwater tanks are so much prettier if done right. I knew it was harder than freshwater but hey I have time and like a challenge but I didnt want to spend alot of money and stuff just die so I started doing my research. I started reading everyone I could get, checking out books at the library(mostly ancient books, not current and the present new technology non existant in these books) and trying to get involved in reading alot of forums both here and nanotanks.com. I kept an eye on craigslist ( love this place by the way for everything) and saw a posting of someone leaving for the Navy soon and wanted to sell thier well established nano cube for like $300. I am the type to never accept the first price so I offered $150 and was accepted. A week later I went and picked up my tank and now here I am at home and loving every minute of it.

This is the most fun I have had in a long time with several different hobbies. My only let down is that none of my friends or family have ever been into saltwater at all and I find that I have alot of little questions that I just want to talk about with someone. Tons of stuff I just want to talk about. So I am glad I found this place.

My tank came like I mentioned before well established. I have done all the water checked and salinity all check out. I got it home and set it up and have been doing my daily top offs and feeding the clownfish. I have been checking on all the forums and website pictures trying to determine the names of what I have in the tank and this has been fun. It came with alot of critters I was not especting like snails, crabs, some kind of worms and little shrimps that come out only at night. I would love to start hanging out with some people and start learning alot more. I am so upset that I didnt find this place until after you guys latest frag swap and meeting or I would have been there just to watch even.
I am going to add some pics of my tank, please no laughing or snickering for now. Just remember I'm a newbie. Anyone in the LaVergne area give me a holler.

YOu all tell me what you think. I have alot of ideas but will save them for a later post. THanks all!!!

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Welcome to the addiction, Turtle. Don't worry; the reef club has monthly meetings, and several opportunities to swap during the year. Meetings are also held at local LFS and are quite educational. Lots of good folks who would certainly be willing to help you out.
 
Ok so just by looking at my couple of pictures you can probably see that the tank I have recieved has quite a bit of Aptasia. I have been battling this for a few days a little at a time. When I was at Aquatic Critter early this week and told them about the problem I was basically in there asking for Joes Juice like someone has told me to get. but when they heard that it was pretty much rampant in the tank they went into the back and pulled out another product that they said works wonders called Aiptasia-X. seems to be doing a pretty good job. I have been trying to knock out a few dozen a night and no more. I am worried using it too much in a night will bother my other tank inhabitats. Now I have read the directions over and over and asked the experts and all say that it should bother anything else but it just feels weird seeing all the stuff floating around the tank afterwards. Anyone have any experience using this stuff?
 
Welcome Turtle, glad to see you here. I have not used Aiptasi-X so I cannot comment on that. I did fight the aiptasia battle last year and used Joe's Juice and shrimp to get it all taken care of. So keep us posted on your experience with the Aiptasia-X. Look forward to see you at the next meeting and if you are in Murfreesboro anytime, you are welcome to drop by and chat and look at a couple of tanks, in fact there are several of us in the boro. BTW the tank looks good, well done

Norman
 
yes you are correct . I have gotten pepperment that didnt touch the stuff. I think it also depends on whats svailable to eat also
I had aptasia also just a few and my pepperments didnt touch it until I became more strict with my fish feeding. I guess they got hungry because 4 months after I got them my aptasia started disapearing.
 
all the peppermints that ive ever had ate them overnight!.....just make sure that you didnt purchase a camelback shrimp, which some stores like petco will mis-label
 
In my experience, I'd not count on pepps to control aiptasia until after you've already got them under control with other means. That's also why I'd recommend getting a couple to everyone before you have problems. They are fun little inhabitants and are compatible with the vast majority of fish and other reef critters. They are also relatively cheap when compared to most other reef critters. Just my $.02.

What kind of light(s) are you running? What brand? Definitely PM me before the next meeting and, assuming you'll be there, I can try to bring you a few corals similar to what I passed around at the last swap.
 
Welcome, Turtle!

You will find that we all (especially me) like to talk about all the little things of reefing. :)

As far as recommendations, I would say you may want to get your rock up off of the sand a bit. It will be able to filter better with more flow all around it. :)

Brandon
 
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>The Middle Tennesee Reef Club!</b></i></big></big>

Good to have you here! Good advice given so far on the aiptasias. A couple of peppermint shrimp would be a good thing to have in there :)
 
Hay welcome I see you are in Levergne so if you come over to Murfreesboro some time give me a call I can show you our tanks and also some of the cheap ways of controlling aps it is basically only pickling lime mix.
 
Welcome to the club, I do see you've got more then just Aiptasia, you've got Majano Anemone as well. Peppermint shrimp ate all my aiptasia, majano, and tulip anemone. Like it was mentioned earlier, make sure you get the right kind of Peppermint shrimp, they are mis-labeled sometimes.....
 
Hey guys sorry I havent replied, went out of town for the weekend. Okay so like I have a million questions. DMBillies I have no idea what lights I am running. The guy who owned the tank before actually took the NanoCube lid off and mounted the lights to something he made and then added another setup of lights to it. He said it was plenty of light to run the corals. I have turned it over and tried to figure out what wattage but I cannot find anything on the bulbs themselves. He didnt really care that much what it looked like so all the wires are kinda hanging out the top. I am going to try and put together something better and mount the lights I have one it, hopefully something that I can raise up and also mount some moonlight leds to it as well. But I am not really a mechanically inclinded person but I am creative so we will see.

NeveSSL what did you mean by getting my rock off the sand? I dont really like the way the rocks are stacked now. Do you think it would hurt anything to take them all out and re-arrange them at this point? Will it hurt anything to stir everything up again with re-arranging all again?

Waynesworld let me know what your recommendation was for the Aiptasia...

Mikeyjer what is Majano Anemone and is it a bad thing? which is it in my tank?

Sorry for all the questions but I will have a ton of them for a while....
 
If you can post a pic of the lights somebody might be able to help you figure it out. I'm sure what you've got can keep the corals you've got already pretty happy (fairly low-light corals). What you can eventually keep in there may be limited by the lights... although I imagine if he went through the trouble of making a light for it, it is likely more light than would come stock.

And since I'm posting I'll try to answer your other questions...

For aiptasia, you'll want a peppermint shrimp and some Joe's juice. Just turn off all of the flow in the tank and drizzle a bit of joe's juice in the mouth of each of the anemones. Let the tank sit with no flow for a few minutes so they have a chance to eat the powder (I'd say 10 or so) and then turn the flow on. Since you have a small volume of water, I'd recommend doing a few each night as opposed to trying to wipe them all out at one time. Joe's juice is reasonably safe in your reef, but you'll want to avoid getting it on other corals (especially in the mouths of those corals) and I wouldn't use a whole lot all at once because the water volume is so small. Once they are beat down a little bit, hopefully the peppermint shrimp will start to take over and get rid of the rest.

A majano is similar to an aiptasia in that it is an anemone, they usually come into the tank as hitchhikers, and they can become pests. For your purposes, I'd say it doesn't matter much to differentiate the two since fairly similar "treatments" are recommended... but you can always do a search to read about them.

NeveSSL (Brandon) was trying to say that it couldn't hurt to try to build your rockwork with more open spaces between the rocks and underneath of them. Water flowing around the rocks allows them to be more efficient filters, keeps them from collecting as much waste directly on them (from low flow "dead spots"), and allows the sand to do a better job as well (not being covered with as much rock). As you get some more experience you'll see that flow in the tank is very important... also, a little more open rock work with caves allows the fish to swim through and creates a little more of an attractive look anyway.
 
On your last picture, towards the left bottom corner, that biggest and the clearest looking one is the Majano anemone. My 90 bowfront used to be covered with aiptasia, majano, and tulip anemone. I put two peppermint shrimp in there and zap the bigger Majano and Aiptasia with Joe's Juice and Peppermints took care of the rest. Didn't expect them to go after Majano or Tulip cause I was told they won't touch them. But after Aiptasia was gone, so did the Majano and the Tulip....
 
ok DMBillies here is the pictures of the lights. The guy who owned the tank did it own lighting job and so the top is all open and not covered. One light is white and the other has a blue tint to it, not like a moonlight blue tint just a barely blue tint.
I cant find a wattage marking or anything on them at all.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11107081@N02/2524473616/" title="P5252175 by chernalp, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3247/2524473616_12fc2bea7c.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="P5252175" /></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11107081@N02/2524473916/" title="P5252176 by chernalp, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3229/2524473916_ed3369a439.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="P5252176" /></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11107081@N02/2523649473/" title="P5252177 by chernalp, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3134/2523649473_96be9bdb18.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="P5252177" /></a>
 
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