Questions: Books, and my tank.

[Wakeaholic]

Ok, I have had my tank set up for about 4 months now, everything is going well, I have a leather coral, some ricordia, a couple peppermint shrimp, hermits, snails, and a fromia sea star. It is a 40g breeder with three 40 watt t-8 50/50 bulbs. Filtration comes via a wet/dry with no bioballs and only the filter floss, a skimmer, and a bag of carbon next to the return pump. My sandbed is about 3"-4" inches (80lbs.) and I have about 55-60lbs of live rock. Is there anything I need to change about this before I get an octo? I was thinking about deepening the sand bed a little, putting about 20 more lbs. of live rock, and maybe building a fuge in my sump. If I were to build a fuge, what should it include, I would probably make it simple as far as plumbing so that it overflows into the rest of the sump and back to the tank. Secondly, is there any good literature on keeping octos or should I just study this forum. Thanks!!

 

[lawfish]

Hey Wake:

I don't think that you need to deepen your sandbed for a bimac. However, the light setup that you have may be a bit bright for an octo (may tend to make it hide out in the rocks during the day instead of exploring). How many hours a day are the lights on?

I wouldn't be suprised if the shrimp became Octo-snacks, but the starfish should be okay. Also be prepared for the octo to possible rearrange your corals as he/she grows larger.

For additional information you should also check out Tonmo There is a lot of basic Octo-keeping material there.

You may also want to consider putting bio-balls back in your wet/dry as Octos produce approximately three times as much waste as a fish of similar size. Good Luck

George

 

[lawfish]

Oh Yeah!

Make sure to test you water parameters particularly for Copper. Even Trace amounts of Caopper can be deadly to an Octo. I would suggest only using RO/DI water.

 

[Wakeaholic]

Thanks for the response, sorry about the delay. Anyway, the lights I was afraid might be too bright, I have them on about 10 hours a day. About the rearranging, when I move soon, I'll find a place for my few corals and securely fasten them. I used tap water to initially fill the tank but have used ro and ro/di since and will continue. I do a 10% water change about once a week so the tap water should be about out. Anyone have any ideas about the fuge?

 

[cephalopoder]

Reading the past posts in this forum is one of the best places to start.
Be careful of tap water. It can be very bad for cephs if you have copper pipes.
I only reccomend RO/DI water for cephs.
I could never understand why people spend so much money setting up a tank, live rock, lights, live stock... only to skimp on the most important thing.. The water!
In the end, using goog water will save you a lot of head aches. Remember copper kills cephs.