Little Tokyo tank

S

Sangogo

New member
Hi guys,

While I'm not fortunate enough to live in beautiful Okinawa, I hope that you will allow me to join in your group here. :) I live in Tokyo, but hope to bring a piece of Okinawa to my home in my tank. I get a lot of information from the Japanese magazine Coralfish (issue 6 came out this week), but I find it even more helpful to interact with people who have been in the hobby for a while.

After years of hesitation, I have finally set up my tank (after harassing Jeff a few times) and am posting pics at his suggestion.

here is the full setup: http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/sangotank/?action=view&current=tank2.jpg

here is the top of the tank:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/sangotank/tank3.jpg

stuff under the tank:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/sangotank/tank1.jpg

I took these with my phone which doesn't allow for great quality, but I hope you can see enough. In addition to my 55 gallon tank, I have a skimmer, sterilizer and cooler/heater.

I used 80 kg of live rock and have about an inch of live sand, which I ordered from Pukoa, as well as bacteria formulas recommended by Japanese aquarist magazines. The Pukoa people were so nice, they gave me a free gift. 5 hermit crabs and 2 starfish. Very sweet, but I had no cycled tank to put them into. After consulting Jeff, I put them in the tank and am hoping for the best.

I used mostly natural water, but I forgot about the sump when ordering water, so I had to mix enough water to fill the sump.

I have a stylish-looking metal halite lamp, but for some reason it keeps shutting off each of the bulbs whenever it gets too hot....and turning it back on after it cools a bit. I think I better call the store about this.

So far readings aren't bad on my tank. Ammonia still is only at .2, but I expect that it should spike soon enough. Hopefully my hermits and starfish can live through the spike. Right now they're quite active.

I do expect to make quite a few mistakes here and there . . . and send a few fish to the great toilet bowl in the sky by accident, but hopefully I will be able to avoid some pitfalls early on.
 
welcome.. your close enough to okinawa I think we can make an exception. =)

Tank looks good.. so, how long you been in japan? must be a while if your able to read japanese magazines..
 
This time around has been about 1.5 years. I did go to school here for a bit when I when I was younger though and went to Saturday Japanese school when I was in the States when I was in high school. I work in Japanese as well, so my Japanese level is probably not the best indicator of how long I have been here. :)
 
So... I get up to look at the tank . . . and I see this weird short worm like thing swirling up and down in the water. It looks like a really tiny snake or small slug . . . just making "s" formations over and over up and down in the water. Doesn't look like the other worms. I know I'm not giving you much to go by, but any idea what this is? Should I be taking it out of the tank?
 
The worm is normal and you will see quite a few of them in there. I have a few in mine. One recommendation for you. If you can place you chiller outside of the stand, Do so. The first time you have a water leak in the stand, it will damage the chiller. If you want to keep it in the stand, raise it up a few inches just to be safe. Also, is that crushed coral in the sump? If so, I would remove it as it will catch a lot of crud and you will end up with a nitrate and phosphate problem that will drive you nuts. In the first chamber where it looks like the water enters, put some cheato in there with one of those tetra 10000k compact flor lights and it will help control your phosphates and nitrates better. Your set up looks real nice and I am glad you finally got it up and running. Feel free to give me a call anytime if you have questions or problems.
 
Thanks Jeff!

If I take the coral sand out is there something I should be putting in its place? More of those glass rings maybe? I didn't order the crushed coral . . . the guy just gave it to me in the set along with the glass rings, so I just followed his instructions and used them.

Also, what exactly is "cheato?" (Besides a nasty looking orange snack by Frito-Lay.)

I went to a store today, and contrary to everything I have heard, they told me to start changing the water everyday. o_O I haven't even had a significant increase in ammonia yet. However, when should I do my first water change? I plan to change the water at least once a week following that.

Same store person says I need to get rid of the starfish because they will eat coral. Is this true?

(Oops, I realize that I wrote 80 kg of live rock in my first post, when I meant 80 pounds. It's 35 kg. I am thinking of adding more though, but not too much more since I like the current balance)
 
Would sugest doing %15 water change every two weeks.

Some starfish are bad.. some are good. what does it look like? you really should invest in a good camera if your going to stay in this hobby...lol

As for the coral.. not sure on that. Leave that one for Jeff.
 
I never was very into photos, so a good camera just seems wasteful to someone like me. :) I did take a few pics of the starfish though.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/sangotank/starfish1.jpg

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i320/sangotank/starfish2.jpg

I hear different things from everyone about the water change. I figure that I'm mostly going to test the water each week and take it from there. I'm mostly concerned about when the first water change should be, since I know the tank has to cycle first.
 
my tanks been back up and running for a couple weeks now.. once I get a chance, ill be doing a water change.

mm Is that one starfish or two? the second pic looks like a starfish I had before.. it was reefsafe.
 
Welcome to the "gang".

your tank looks like a great set-up. As jeff mentioned, remove the crushed rock stuff in the sump. your levels are gonna be all over the place all of the time. I had it in my first tank, and it was a big mistake.

-as for water change. I do 10% every 2 weeks...or so.
 
two starfish. The second one is much larger than the first. I hope they are reefsafe, since they're quite pretty in the tank and I wouldn't know what to do with them otherwise.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7623971#post7623971 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vest0830
Welcome to the "gang".

your tank looks like a great set-up. As jeff mentioned, remove the crushed rock stuff in the sump. your levels are gonna be all over the place all of the time. I had it in my first tank, and it was a big mistake.

-as for water change. I do 10% every 2 weeks...or so.
Click to expand...

Thanks!!!

What do you have in your sump instead? Are the glass rings ok?
 
I would take the glass rings out as well. Not really needed IMO. Chaeato is a macro algae and is very easy to grow. The purpose of it in our systems is to control nitrates and phosephates. From the pics, the first starfish is a red linkia. Very nice looking and are generally reef safe. I am not sure about the second one though. Linkias do however need a well established tank though so to keep a spike in ammonial from doing him in, Go ahead and do 5-10% water changes for the first few weeks and then slow it down to 10% every couple weeks. As long as your water is in check, they should do fine.
 
Since I'm on a new assignment this week at work, I think that I'll have to wait until next weekend to take the coral/rings out. Does the sump stay empty except for the cheaeto then?

In the meantime, my ammonia spiked to 1.0 today and the starfish were rather sluggish today. I did a small water change, since I expect the ammonia to get even higher. (Any ideas of how high the ammonia level will normally gets before it peaks off?)

Not that I had any expectations before, but I don't expect the starfish to survive the week at this point. (I suppose I should be glad that they were a free gift.) I tried some of that "StopAmmonia" stuff though. Hopefully it will buy me a little time.
 
Just try to keep it under 1 and you should be ok. Continue to do small water changes. You sump will basically be empty but you can put a couple small chunks of LR in it if you want.
 
Since I got home from work early today, I decided to take the crushed coral and glass rings out of the sump. Without going into speculation or confession of the million things I probably did wrong during the process, I now have a very cloudy tank from the crush coral bits that apparently were in the pumps after I took out the coral. I think any chance I had of keeping things alive have been significantly reduced.... oops.

At least I made the mistake early enough not to be catostrophic is my way of looking at it. And I figure I'll be better off from this point on anyway. So, where do I get chaeto?

I figure the coral grains will settle after a few hours and I did add more saltwater to make up for the space that was taken up from the corals. Ammonia readings are lower today than yesterday, but I seem to be getting some of this cobwebby stuff on my rock. I think I read somewhere that this is due to too much calcium?

Thanks for helping me fix this error early. :)
 
Jeff can probably mail you some Chaeto.. and I wouldnt worry to much about the crushed coral.. it will all settle down after a bit.
 
Don't worry about the cloudyness. It will go away in a day or two. The cobweb stuffI am not too sure about but woulnt worry too much. Take a turkey baster and blow the dust off your rocks though. If you can, put some of that polyfloss stuff they sell at the fish stores in a cloth bag like the ones you put delicate clothes in for the washing machine and attach it on the end of the overflow pipe going into the sump. it will help filter out some of the dust. Don't leave it in too long though or it will build up with nitrates. You can change it out every week to control that. As far as cheato, PM me your address and I can send you some. I have quite a bit right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
No little critters
Replies
5
Views
146
aschwarc
A
Ameya
Wild anemones in the Japanese sea
Replies
3
Views
190
OrionN
OrionN
L
Should have known better.
Replies
2
Views
141
lb013
L
hrdneglcry
How long for LR in empty tank?
Replies
4
Views
150
Dustin07
D
C
Looking for Octopus Eggs
Replies
9
Views
180
challengerdeepgirl
C
Back
Top