New to Marine tanks and in need of advice

Sammydog

Sammydog

Reefing newb
Hi,

I've just (yesterday) aquired an established marine tank from some people who were moving and couldn't take the tank with them.

The set up is,
- Jebo 362R tank, 95litres (30gal)
- Aqualina light set up
- Resun CL-85 Chiller/heater

The tank itself has,
- A large amount of live rock (see pics)
- what looks like coarse sand or ground up rock on the base,
- 4 black clown fish
- one unknown fish that I think is a mandarin fish
- one anemone
- a lot of coral that I can't name.

The tank has a bit of green algae on the walls of the tank that I will remove this week when I do the first water change.

Now for the questions,

  • I don't have a protein filter and everything I have read suggests I should. Any thoughts on this before I go and by one?
  • Can anyone point me to a crash course in maintaining the tank and its occupants? I'm worried about not looking after the coral or anemone correctly.
Any advice or comments on things I should have but appear to not have would be great.


A few shots of the set up.

fish7.jpg

fish2.jpg

fish6.jpg
 
Heres THE best crash course on the net.:D Reefkeeping Articles

The skimmers that are made for those all in one systems usually arent worth the cardboard there packed in.So personally,I think you'd just as well off to keep up your water changes.
You've got a good looking tank.But that anemone doesnt look healthy to me.It looks like its bleached in the pic.
 
The anemone does look bleached. Is it white? If so, it's not healthy.

Everything else looks really good -- you should pull off as much of that algae by hand as you can (throw it in the trash). With water changes, you can prevent it from coming back. Be sure to use RODI water, not tap water.
 
yote said:
But that anemone doesnt look healthy to me.It looks like its bleached in the pic.
Click to expand...

The people we got the tank from said they didn't think the anemone was healthy and that they could only ever get them to last 12 months. So your probably right, its on the way out.

At what point should we remove it from the tank? It still has pink colour at the tips but it hasn't really opened up since we relocated the tank yesterday. The rest of the corals are looking nice though.
Bifferwine said:
The anemone does look bleached. Is it white? If so, it's not healthy.

Everything else looks really good -- you should pull off as much of that algae by hand as you can (throw it in the trash). With water changes, you can prevent it from coming back. Be sure to use RODI water, not tap water.
Click to expand...

I assume your talking about the algae on the rocks? I was going to ask if that should go.

Excuse the green on the tank wall, its going when I change the water in a day or so, but this is a better shot of the anemone.

fish8.jpg
 
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Even though that anemone is severely bleached,I think it can be saved with some attention and a lot of luck.
Basically with it being bleached,its starving to death.So pick up a pack of frozen mysis or krill.About every other day,thaw out just a small bit and feed it to the anemone.Pay close attention to your parameters also,especially ammonia,nitrites,and nitrates.Anemones are extremely sensitive to those.
Also check out Karensanemones.com.Thats a great site for information on sick anemones.
 
Thanks for the advice on the anemone, I'll take that on board and give the anemone some TLC. I checked the water ast night and the amonia and nitrate was a tad high everything else was spot on.

Do you guys see an issue with getting new water straight from the ocean? that's what the previous owner wad doing and I am considering doing the same.
 
I wouldn't get water from the ocean,unless I could get it 5 or 6 miles off shore.Reason being,the run off from rain water,oil from the boats.Theres just to many pollutants close to shore for me to be comfortable with it.
 
Unfortunately I've just pulled the anemone out of the tank. It was pretty much gone (just hanging limp like a lump of gooey stuff), I suspect being sick was bad enough, the stress of the tank move put it over the edge.

Should we wait before trying to replace it? The clowns look pretty lost looking in the area where it was.
 
Actually, a couple more questions while I am at it (I couldn't edit my previous post). Can anyone tell me about the coral in the photo, and probably more importantly, what is the best way to get rid of the green stuff on the rocks (and to a lesser extent on the wall of the tank).

attachment.php


Is this sort of growth something that a clean up crew would be good for, or should we just get stuck into it manually when we change the water later this week?

A lot of questions I know, but the help so far has been great and I am just getting a feel for things.

I'm really not liking the prospect of explaining the missing Anemone to my daughter in the morning. Fingers crossed she doesn't notice.
 

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The green stuff looks like hair algae to me. I would pull off as much as possible by hand and keep up with your water changes. Emerald crabs or a Sea Hare might help as well.
 
I would not replace the anemone if I were you. They are one of the most challenging animals to keep in this hobby, and are just not a good animal for a small tank or a beginner. Clowns do not need an anemone to be happy -- they will be perfectly fine without it. I think if you get a new one, it will just die like the rest of them. They are nearly impossible to keep in small tanks.

The coral in the picture is a frogspawn. They are relatively easy to keep, and yours looks very healthy. Some frogspawns will happily take pieces of meaty foods. If yours doesn't, it can get everything it needs from the light.
 
Biff's right about anemones.They need extremely stable conditions and mature systems.They also require more light than a lot of corals do.
But I hate to hear that you had to pull yours from the tank.
She's also dead on with the frogspawn.
Something else you might want to think about.I think that later on your going to start seeing trouble from having 4 clownfish.You'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you'll pick the 2 that get along the best and trade the other 2 for store credit or something.
 
The four clown have supposedly been in the tank for a few years along with the mandarin fish. The anemone is the newest addition and it was 12 months old.

What sort of trouble can we expect from four clown fish?
 
If they've been together that long,then your probably alright.

Normally when you've got more than 2 clowns,the mated pair usually kill the others.
There are a few people though,that have good luck with more than one pair of clowns,howevers that more the exception than the rule.
 
More questions................hope your not sick of them, I certainly appreciate the help.

We are in the middle of summer here and the heat is worrying me. Two days ago we had a hot day and the room temp got to the mid 30's (celcius) and the chiller struggled to keep the water below 28 celcius. A small part of the frogspawn suffered from the heat (I assume it was the heat).

Do you guys have suggestions for getting and keeping the temp down. I have heard fans would help but should our chiller be doing a better job?
 
The chiller should be doing a better job. But the thing about chillers is, that they release that heat into the air around them, so then they have to work even harder to cool the tank down because they are making the environment hotter. Chillers can be counterproductive.

If you put a little clip-on fan blowing across the water, that can drop the tank's temp by up to 10 degrees F.
 

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