Hi everyone!

[Thunda]

HI everyone! I'm Lisa & my husband is Todd (we both share this account). we are brand spanking new to the marine aquariums. We got our 30 gal tank & live rock (26 lbs)  about 3 weeks ago. we now have 21 hermit crabs, a damsel fish (3 stripes), an itty bitty starfish no bigger than the size of a pencil eraser, a possible bristle worm (that I may or may not have accidentally killed, thinking it was bad for the aquarium). this Friday, we will get 9 more hermit crabs, 1 or 2 peppermint shrimp & possibly a snail or two.

We became members of OVAS on Tuesday (signed up as a family membership).

We are looking forward to meeting all of you & learning form your expertise! 

[Darth]

thats a lot of hermits in my opinion, snails are a better investment at this point, are you guys doing fish only or gonna get coral? Welcome to the club

[NanoSF]

Welcome!

You sound like you are off to a good (maybe slightly rapid) start . There are lots of people on here with some great knowledge. There will be lots to learn, but that is half the fun. Don't be shy to ask the stupid question rather than make the stupid mistake  

Okay now for your first dose of advice. I wouldn't get the peppermint shrimp just yet. Many people have trouble with these guys. They are fairly sensitive. If you really do want to try them, add them very slowly. They are the most sensitive to the transition between bag (old tank water) and new tank water.

Remember this. You will be told it by everyone with experience. GO SLOW!!! It is the hardest and most important thing in this hobby IMO. Next most important is a good local fish store (LFS) we luckily have a few great ones in Ottawa. Choose them wisely.

[NanoSF]

Haha Darth. I was going to throw in some more advice about the hermits too but I didn't want to scare them off  . I agree with Darth. I actually have 0 hermits and a bunch of different snails. Hermits are fine, but snails are even more important. That is a lot of hermits this early. Everyone does things a bit different though, so you are not required to take our advice. Especially Darth's advice  JK.

[NjOyRiD]

I would also add just a bit more live rock
+1 on the snails!

[tophoo]

welcome to the club!!

+1 on more live rock.  IMO it should be 1-1.5lbs per gallon

You need at least 15 snails in there too 

[Thunda]

Morning everyone! (Lisa here)

it's funny how people have different options  about tank set up (regardless if it's fresh or marine).

When Todd & I started doing our research about 2 months ago-ish, we were told to get up to 30 lbs of live rock, 30 hermit crabs 4-5 snails, 2 shrimp max over a span of a month or two for a 30 gal tank. once they are established, then we could add the fish.

Since the tank we got was a rescue tank that a guy was upgrading from, so the algae & bacteria were already established (he gave us the water, the sand, the power heads, the heater, skimmer, live rock, test kits ). the guy threw in the damsel for free.

right now, we just have the T8 light fixture & we were told to get the T5 (or better to go to LED) for when we go coral but that won't happen for a while, since we are in the middle of planning our wedding. lol

Only problem we are having is the temperature. our place is so hot, it's naturally keeping the water temperature at 82 Deg F.  Just a pity we can't buy "coolers" for our tanks! lol the summer should get better with the air conditioner. i think we will be able to keep the temperature then to about the 77 deg F easier.

[JetJumper]

Only problem we are having is the temperature. our place is so hot, it's naturally keeping the water temperature at 82 Deg F.  Just a pity we can't buy "coolers" for our tanks! lol the summer should get better with the air conditioner. i think we will be able to keep the temperature then to about the 77 deg F easier.

Oh but you can
http://www.sunlightaqua.com/aqua/products.aspx?request=AQUA_CHILLERS&title=Chillers%20/%20Heaters&type=product

PS: hope the wedding goes well, My wife and I just got married not to long ago in August.  Fun times!

[Darth]

yes everyone is going to have a different opinion and a different expirience you have to take it, and dift through it. I personaly found the advice here in this forum has been spot on, these people have done their researc, so to first off, they told you 3 crabs did they say what kind? different crabs do different things, same as different snails do different things. They are all a great part of the clean up crew. Some of the best in my opinion are scarlet and electric blue legged hermits (not to be confused with blue legged) these are the Now you say you got the set up from someone else nice, have to you tested the water paramerters?? A good test kit is invaluable! As well as water are you using and ro/di unit, what are your sg levels? When it comes to shrimp as they said your best option is drip acclimation. Most inverts are really delicate. Your tank seems like its well on it's way any idea of stock?
What kind of fish are you gonna put in? ( a word of advise the damsel may have to go, as they are mean fish LOL) As far as lights are concerned you will hear from everyone don't get what you can afford now, save for what you are gonna keepp in the tanke in the future otherwise you are gonna be upgrading lights and be spending more in the long run. So now I have bored you, enough, would love as previously asked to hear what are you plans for the tank going forward?

[NanoSF]

As JetJumper has told you there are in fact chillers for aquariums. For your size of tank however a fan and temperature controller is a much cheaper option. Sometime you can find temperature controllers for under $50 used. The other option is an aquarium controller which has temperature controllers built in. Cost is getting higher but this will also give you lighting timers. By far the best money I spent on my set up was a controller. In fact I wish I would have spent more and got a better one at this point. You just blow a very small fan across the surface of the water and it cools incredibly effectively. You just have to make sure you replace the evaporated water with RO water. If you want to know more about some cheap fan options PM me and I will try to help you out with more details.

[Darth]

I forgot my tank is kept at around 80 with no Ill effects as of yet

[Thunda]

Hi everyone!

that is sweet about the cooler for the tank.  I never knew such a thing existed! a friend suggested we simply leave the  lid  off the tank, to allow the heat escape (our tank has a black plastic dome lid). well, our temperature went form an 82 deg F down to 79 deg F & the damsel  seems to be a lot happier.

for us, we are just going to keep it rocky for now, until maybe going coral in a year form now.

we just got ourselves some snails. 3 that burrow under the sand, & 2 for the rocks. we might by more next week. Once our Nitrate goes down a bit, we are thinking of adding 2 clown fish.

We are not sure what other small fish we can add. I know it's not going to be much, because the live rock takes up so much space.

We were thinking of eventually adding a sea cucumber, sea lettuce & maybe a larger starfish & 3 peppermint shrimp. But I am not to sure if that will be to many of the clean up crew?

[NanoSF]

You don't need to wait a year for coral. Many corals are hardier than fish or shrimps. If you go to a good LFS they will tell you some easier corals to start with. The good thing about coral as apposed to fish is they are neutral when it comes to the load on your tank. They don't help or hurt basically. Some coral require food so they do add load to the tank, but many require light only and therefore will not add a load to your tank. Just make sure you ask lots of questions about the growth of the corals you like. Some corals are like weeds that you may be fighting back for years to come. The advice I wish I got when I started was to stay away from certain corals, they have been a pain in my side for a long time. If you are careful and selective I would definitely look into corals before adding too many fish, shrimps and starfish.

In fact, on that note, there isn't any starfish that you should have in a tank of your size as far as I know. If there was I would like to know too. A sand star, the cheapest and smallest of the full size star fish needs a lot of food in a big sand bed (at least 60 gallon tank with lots of sand, some think much more). They help keep the sand bed clean but most people think they eat too much of the beneficial things in the sand bed too. I have one in a tank that is too small, but I have a deep sand bed and a tank that has had no fish and therefore tons of critters in the tank for it to eat. I have had my tank for over 5 years too so there has been lots of time for the critters to multiply. I still think my star might starve over time if I don't move it. All the other stars are more sensitive and require even more space.

If you don't mind me asking where do you go for your fish and supplies? The reason I say this is the burrowing snails, did they tell you to get them? I don't know much about them but I thought they needed a fair amount of food in an established sand bed. If not they would require feedings to survive. I will leave that out there as a guess, and maybe someone will tell me I'm wrong. So don't worry just yet, but do look into it. My advice for the best LFS for advice is Marinescape. I'm sure others like different stores, but there are some to stay away from as a rookie. You would have to PM me for that information though 

Like Darth said before that damsel will really limit the fish you can keep. Either give it up or make sure you ask lots of questions about the fish you want with it. I'm not even sure a pair of clowns will work with the damsel. The littler of the two clowns is going to have a tough time for sure.

Just to let you know a sea cucumber, sand star, and the burrowing snail (Nassarius snail I assume) all do the same job basically. You definitely can't have them all in there.

[SWFitzy]

alot of very good info passed on in this post. my past experience with damsels is that they are difficult to keep with any fish. The ones that i had were big bullies. they didnt like any of my other fish.

[Thunda]

LOL I know we don't have to wait that long for coral, but we are planning for a wedding for this summer.  

The advise we got form Fish Tails, they said that we should have 30 hermit crabs, 4-5 snails & 2 shrimp for our 30 gal tank. But at Aqua Valley  the guy there said we can have 30 crabs & up to 15 snails. & the people at another store (i forget the name, but it's on Carling) said we can have all that, plus up to 5 shrimp. the shop on Carling also advised us on the burrowing snails.

At Aqua Valley, the guy identified  that we had a 3 banded damsel fish. he said that we were lucky since the 3 banded damsels tend to be "friendlier" and the 4 banded. No clue how accurate that is, but if we keep to 3 or 4 small fish, i THINK we would be good. *crosses fingers*

I don't know about all of you, but I think the hermit crabs are neat, but if they die off as quickly as I have read some forums say they do, I just might not bother buying any more & just stick with snails. & if the snails die...  well their shells could be used as new homes for the hermit crabs as they grow.

there are coral that we should stay away from? why is that? & which ones are those?

I see alot of you guys & gals using a lot of acronyms... like LFS, RO water? what do those mean? Also, whe you guys say PM me... what's that?

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

[NjOyRiD]

come on the chat: ill explain everything!!
flashchat, beside logout

[NanoSF]

Next most important is a good local fish store (LFS).

The only reason I used LFS (local fish store) in my post is because I had already used it before and said what it was, but that was way back at the beginning of this thread. I see Phil may have already informed you of some these abbreviations if you did in fact go to the chat. If not RO is reverse osmosis (water), PM is a feature of this board. It means personal message. You can click the person screen name and there are icons or links that allow you to send them a personal message through this board.

It is good that you have been to the main LFS in Ottawa. The one on Carling is the Marinescape that I mentioned. If they told you the burrowing snails were fine, they are probably right, so forget what I said. I am surprised though.

The corals to stay away from is really a personal choice. Some people stay away from things like xenia, GSP (there I did it again...it's green star polyps), sometimes mushrooms that can overwhelm the tank, or some leathers that grow like crazy. It is up to you though. Lots of people have those corals too, you just have to know what you are getting into. These things are the weed like corals in my opinion.

[Hookup]

Join the flash chat ... And get some more ideas... 

Don't think I saw anything wrong above...


One word, there are dozens of right ways to do things...  But most people tend to do things "their way".  Doing one thing cause person x advised it, then something different cause LFS B advised it can be problematic.   As an example, running a DSB or RDSB is a bad idea if you are running ULNS... Or GFO and a refugim are possibly redundant... Etc...