Jonah

A diary following a foray into the salty side of tropical fish keeping by an enthusiastic but clueless amateur.

The ongoing photo diary is here http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/members/jonah-albums-dabble-dark-side.html

Prologue

Through a contact on our local freecycle group I was gifted a D-D 12 gal nanocube which having been brought home sat forlornly in the corner looking abject and dejected.

It looks just like this http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/nanocube only available now in 28gal form but I have a 12gal versions which is just the same device in miniature without HiQ lighting

However plans were afoot and much research was being undertaken into the practices and rituals pertaining to the dark side of the arts of fish keeping.

D-Day - 3 Mass hunt starts on e-bay for the potions, lotions and ritual objects so desired by practioners of SW fish keeping

Orders placed for SW master test kit, thermometer, hydrometer, I know refractometers are better but I have to leave a birthday present option for the family.

Day 1

So off we troop to the LFS and we venture into those halls dedicated to practioners of the dark arts to purchase those previously unheard of items never normally associated with FW fish keeping.

RO water, what? I have to pay for water!

live rock, looks very inanimate to me, its not dancing in the tanks and I have seen more life in a mausoleum!

live sand http://aquatic-store.co.uk/marine/view/701 I only bought the 10lb pack and it says on the packet to just throw it in and add some fish in the tank with it! Oh no we won't, we've heard that claim in FW as well and we all know how well that works!

Instant Ocean Crystals bit pricier than common salt but like FW I presume one gets what one pays for.

Wife and daughter wander round the tanks looking at the fish and inverts while taking notes for further research on what could become a denizen of the new salty cube.

Off home we trundle and get to work on setting up the tank, mixing water and crystals and testing salinity, and again, and again.

Make a SW mix at 1.040 and scrub the rock with the specially purchased toothbrush disappointed as no creatures scurry out to escape the high salinity, no bristle worms and no stomapods not even a mini shrimp!

Get to a salinity of 1.025 in the tank that’s mid range so will leave it there for now while we cure the live rock. Cure it? It looks so dead it best be a miracle cure! Hmm those 2 chunks of rock that looked quite big in the shop don't look so big in the tank.

Day 2

Back to LFS used all the RO water yesterday so need more of that for the upcoming water changes and more rock.

Buy twice as much rock as yesterday!

Again scrubbed in a bin full of 1.040 salinity water but again the life teeming out of the rock to escape the high salinity is conspicuous by its absence!

Put rock in the back of the tank to make a reef wall looks quite good as a sculpture, and it hides the heater nicely but are those couple of spots of Purple, Brown and Red what is considered to be life?

I come to an arrangement with a fellow fish keeper who has a really large salty setup, 150UK gals, and with a very diverse selection of corals and inverts. He is going to bring me a couple of pounds of substrate from his tanks and we will experiment to see what, if anything, this will seed my tank with. Now that will keep me entertained for a couple of months watching and hoping for hatchings and rootings. If nothing else the biological filters will get a good headstart. The annoying part is I won't get it for a few days.


Day 3

1st Disaster strikes. I come down to find the temp way down and the heater full of water, not too perturbed however as my FW tanks have 2 heaters in them so steal the backup 50watt from one of the fry tanks and install in the cube. I feel another trip to LFS coming up however, I now need 2 spare heaters to go with my 2 spare filters, well you never know when you might need one after all do you?

Shawnie

whahooooooooo ...so much for relaxing ! LOL

and talk about MTS~ you got's it bad!!!

Jonah

I used to be sane, and level headed and then I fell under the wiles of some enchantress's who lure normally sane people into the depths of MTS with their enabling spells.

Shawnie

o my goodness!! id get rid of that "enchantress" from your life..that cannot possibly healthy for a man of any age !!

navyscuba

Why whenever someone is trying to setup a tank there is always a little devil waiting to strike.

Shawnie

i so agree!!!!!!!!!!

Jonah

Don't know, but something always does! Its what taught me to double filter and 2 heaters per tank. But it can get expensive that way without freecycle and ebay.

Must be where Murphy's 1st law came from I guess

navyscuba

Yeap is like with my new tank everything was good and then I added the fish and all kinds of weird readings went up and down and one of my heaters quit good I got one in the mail two days before. Hopefully today when I get home everything will be peaceful. Knock on wood.

Butterfly

Shawnie! Are you enabling again? You enchantress you
Please keep us posted with more pics please
carol

Shawnie

wasnt me!!!!!!!(best shaggy voice)
at least I dont think so hahaha..

Jonah

I did say enchantress's didn't I Carol lol?

Pics will follow as soon as something emerges worth a photo.

PS Carol you have enabled my loach collecting I now have Dwarfs to go with my khulis

Butterfly

Now I know we need pics in the loach forum. They are the most darling little rascals I've ever seen. Do you like them?
Carol

Lucy

Very entertaining, Jonah, good luck! Looking forward to seeing updates.

LOL Carol the loach enabler.

Jonah

Well whoever it was who said nothing moves quickly in a salty tank was surely exagerating weren't they. They vastly over estimated the speed of things!

The Cycle is kicking off nicely today I did the 1st set of reading and have ammonia = 0 nitrite = 1 nitrate = 10 an pH = 8.

Who ever thought I would have 'nice' brown diatoms growing at the front of the tank on the substrate. i didn't but I do!

But there are changes afoot on the rock;-

I have a nice colony of what looks like Hair Algae on one outcrop Do I get the toothbrush out on this?

I also have soome interesting polyp like things growing on another piece of rock ther must be 6 or 7 on the same piece of rock Anybody care to venture a guess what they could be?

There is also something growing in the bottom of the crevice here but its not very well defined yet so here is the before picture.

And do I see the 1st vestiges of coraline algae growing here?

tank is at 1.025 salinity and 26 degrees with light on for only 4 hours a day at the moment.

Jonah

Ah dash it, been and removed the birthday pressie option from the family and bough my self a refractometer, and using all the latest technology available to me I have managed to prove that it is at least as accurate as the floating hydrometer/thermometer I put in the tank on day 1.

But the cycle has cycled up nicely the last few days have seen constant readings of Ammonia = 0 Nitrite = 0 PH = 8 and Nitrate < 5 and nearer to 0.

Took the pieces of live rock with the biggest algae growth I have seen in my life, hair algae so long you could put a parting in it! Out of the tank and gave it a good going over with the toothbrush. whilst doing a 25% PWC.

But being a noob at all this dark Side stuff, I don't feel yet like entrusting a fishy friend to my limited understanding of the arcane arts and so, after lengthy discussion with one of the Salty practicioners at the lfs I have taken the plunge and introduced Herman the Hermit and his 2 Nerite snail chums to the cube.


They now are going to have the freedom of the cube for the next couple of weeks while we ensure that they can survive and that the cycle stays, well, cyclical.

I have been reliably informed by my LFS (?) that they will not only prove the cycle is a round thing of beauty by their continued existance, and hopefully thrive in their new abode, but they will also serve to control my otherwise uninhibited algea farm.

Now to while away another week or 2 testing the water for quality and making changes when required whilst we look at how many whale sharks we can comfortably fit in a 12gal Nano-cube.

One thing thats not going in their will be Yellow Seahorses man have you see the price of those creatures!

Jonah

Well I must be doing something right, probably more by accident than design i hasten to add.

Herman is still climbing all over the tank and doing a stirling job removing the algae! Mind you I havent seen the snails since the day they went into the tank, they must be still alive though as the water still reads at Ammonia = 0 Nitrite = 0 PH = 8 and Nitrate < 5 and nearer to 0.

I have to admit though that the live rock still looks like, well, dead rock. A few bits of green red and purple in very small places but its not having parties or anything.

Decision time is upon us now do we try and add something else to the tank a small easy to care for coral or a little clown fish, i have been told that the clown will be fine without his anenome but I still think I might try the anenome first and the fish 2nd.

Shawnie

wow i just caught up on this thread of darkness! im so proud of you!!! that seems to be coming along well!