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View Full Version : Hmmm whoops. How fast could a nano be fish ready?


zachofalltrades
12/08/2007, 10:02 PM
So I had posted before and had been thinking hypothetically about setting up a nano tank, but wasn't in a huge rush. Well last night I was at a little fish store near my work which had a maroon clownfish that looked almost identical to my other one that pulled a Houdini. So I brought him home (got home late, about 12:30a) and the next morning he's getting tag-teamed by a six-line wrasse and a 3 stripe damsel. So I immedietly put him into an in tank quarantine chamber (just a clear thing that sticks to the tank and has holes in it) and he's doing better it seems. But obviously I can't just stick him back in the display now, I'd rather not just take him right back to the store, and I only have one saltwater tank right now with no refugium.

So... if I take a couple pounds of sand from my main tank and a couple pieces of rock, some fresh saltwater, run it for a few days to let the tank cycle a little, would he be ok?

I have countless tanks I could set up as nano tanks. I have an eclipse 3 gallon, an 8 gallon tall hex tank that I'd probably just put an aquaclear filter on, and several 5, 10, and 20 gallon long tanks. The 8 gallon hex was my original plan anyways, but I hadn't figured out the lighting for it yet. Any suggestions?

gsusfreak
12/08/2007, 10:08 PM
use that 20 long tank.....take half of the water you got, and some rock.....and you should be fine.......also, mix up some more water.....let that water sit overnight....then add enough to both tanks.....and i'll think they'll do fine......dont take any sand out of the older tank, and dont use any new sand on the new tank, since that can make your tank go crazy

NanoReefWanabe
12/08/2007, 11:00 PM
yeah i would say the biggest tank you have available...as the GSM gets big and is aggressive...surprising the 6 line would attack him..damsels are bastards though..

Agu
12/08/2007, 11:08 PM
I'd take the fish back ...............

zma21
12/09/2007, 11:01 AM
Yea, in my opinion you're simply going to have to choose which fish you want the most.

I'd get the damsel out of there anyway. If it isn't causing a major problem now, it probably will eventually.

zachofalltrades
12/09/2007, 05:45 PM
lol hmm I posted this in the nano forum figuring I'd get advise on starting a nano rather than a few people telling me to just get rid of fish and not start a nano... hmmm..

anyways, the damsel is several years old and has never caused a problem, he's small so only about 1.25 inch... the six line wrasse had been picking on the damsel before the clown came in. I wouldn't mind bringing the clown back in once he got big enough to fend for himself. The only fish I'd be really worried about him picking on is my engineer goby and mandarin, and I think he'd leave them alone since they're bottom dwellers.

zma21
12/09/2007, 06:30 PM
Remember, some of us have more experience in this hobby than you, and also vice versa.

We're not telling you it's a bad idea if we truly don't think it is.

zachofalltrades
12/09/2007, 09:26 PM
Oook.... maybe I'm just missing something, but I'm a little frustrated. I'm a very open minded person so feel free to point out my stupidity, I'll laugh, I swear.

My understanding of the situations is: I have about every common option for pico-nano tank setups at my disposal, and a very well established nano/small tank already. I have a fish that needs some alone time.

So the whole idea of letting a new setup cure is putting in liverock/sand... waiting out the die-off to see if it's safe (testing water for NH4, NO3, NO4) and then adding your first fish, watching the said specs to make sure the setup is catching up to the new bio load.

Ok, well all my stuff would be from an established tank, except I'd start off with new water (except what carries over from the rock/sand). The bacteria is already there, and to have it free floating in the water, covering the tank surfaces etc... should take a max of 24 hours, and wouldn't make a huge impact anyways. So I'm saying watch my specs for 24 hours, then add the fish, with water parameters that should be about identical to the old tank, and he'd be happy?

But instead everybody seems to be implying that I'm incapable of the care of a clownfish? I'm assuming it's a personal thing anyways since I've seen damn near identical setups (same fish too) with everybody saying "wow cool."

Not trying to be a jerk, but can somebody at least point out what I got wrong?

stevelkaneval
12/09/2007, 10:13 PM
nothing really to do with your question but you have a sixline and a manderen in the same tank? is the tank at least a 75? you do know that mandys eat only pods right? and you also know that a sixline eats pods right? how long has the tank been setup, do you have a fuge? i know some peaple get their mandys to eat brine and stuff but thats kinda like a snack to him it doesnt have all the nuitriants that pods do. most peaple who have mandy's and feed them frozen food offten do eventualy starve to death over time. and for all you who say mines been fine for 4 years then died. thats not an accomplishment seeing as a mandys life span is 14+ years. now for your question i recently changed tanks i used all my sand(rinsed many times to clean),50% of my original water and myrock etc. i dont see why you would have a problem. the only reason peaple are saying no to the sand is cause you have pockets of ditrius,ammonia and other stuff and if you were to stir that up it might affect both tanks in a negative way. youll be fine just get some new sand, or rinse the other stuff really good but thats gonna kill anything in the sand so just buy some new stuff.

Agu
12/09/2007, 10:23 PM
Sorry if I came off as condescending, didn't mean it that way. A maroon clown isn't rare. That's why I recommended taking it back. In an ideal world you set up a tank with the final inhabitants in mind, cycle the tank, and get the livestock.

You can setup an "instant" tank for fish. Just be prepared to do daily waterchanges (or twice daily) to keep parameters in check if the tank cycles.

Maroons get big, use the 20 gallon tank.

zma21
12/09/2007, 11:37 PM
I thought you were just going to hospitalize the maroon until it is healthy enough to go back into the main tank. As soon as you do that, there will be agression again, and welcome back to step one.

A maroon will grow too large to be housed in anything less than 20-25 gallons in my opinion after seeing my GSM pair balloon.

Rosseau
12/10/2007, 12:05 AM
Opinions on the fish aside. I agree with the advice of transferring rock and water (do a water change in your display and use this in the maroon's new tank). You should not have any die off or any cycle. I wouldn't involve sand.

herostar
12/10/2007, 12:16 AM
What you're basically doing is setting up a quarantine tank. I'd use the 10g or 20g. A say it's ready after 2-3 days if you put a little rock from your main tank in there w/ some circulation... Just do a water change every 2-3 days for the first two weeks to make sure levels stay good.

Keep in mind you're just keeping a fish and a rock in there, so water quality doesn't have to be at the same level as if you were keeping corals.


One thing I'd suggest is to put either the 6-line or the damsel in the QT tank, then re-introduce after a month or so. This will allow the clownfish to become familiar and stake out his territory. Maroon clowns are generally considered the most aggressive of the clown species, so I don't think in the long run you'll have too many problems.

gsusfreak
12/10/2007, 12:34 AM
i apologize if what i said came off the wrong way....i honestly thought i gave good advice, whether you think so or not

but seriously though, no one was implying that you couldnt care for a GSM.......but from hearing/learning/reading/experiencing what would be ideal for that type of fish, people will give their opinion according to that....and there are a lot of noobies out there that has no idea about keeping reef tanks, so people will try their best to inform

also, one has to question whether you are a newbie or not.....seriously....here's a a few noticeable points

1.you said that you're damsel is a "several" years old....yet your hobby experince states that you've only started been in this hobby for "this past year".......hmmm?

2.sixline and mandarin combo.......thats insane and almost unheard of......and im assuming that you DONT have a fuge ....since you say you only have 1 saltwater tank, and currently isolating the GSM in a seperation container inside the tank.....dont try to say that you have a fuge now, because the smart thing to do would be putting the GSM in the fuge until you find him a home.....obviously, you dont have a fuge!

3. assuming the above......there is no way a mandarin will thrive in a tank that small, and pod-less....and its hard to believe that you're payinging $25-$50 at the LFS for the pod bottles, since a mandarin can eat all of the pods in the largest bottle they sell in a day's work.....im not questioning your income, but why would anyone waste that much money just to feed one fish, the cheapest bottle cost more than the actual fish!

4.you were honestly thinking about putting the GSM in a 8gal hex????....the swimming surface is so tiny that the GSM would just be floating there.....thats like sticking you in a closet and asking you to be happy.....yea yea i know, you dont plan on having him in there for long right?.....but even a few days would make them go nuts.....why do you think online vendors ship their livestock overnight?

5. also, you obviously didnt quarantine the fish....which is usually a big no no, and noobie mistake....again, you state that you only have 1 saltwater tank.....and if u were to say that you did have a QT tank, than that would be the obvious place to house the GSM .......and you also wouldnt feel led to ask the question "would it be ok to reuse this or that" because setting up an instant QT is usually done with using half of the water from the main tank and not use any rocks or sand from it (which was my advice)

anywho, this isn't an attack on you whatsoever.....but it is a little disappointing to hear you rant about people who were simply trying to help.....no one ever insulted you, or said that you couldnt care for a GSM.....but from the looks of it, you sound like a noobie, heck you even asked a noobie question .....so people will always try there best to keep another fish from going down the toilet, so dont get ticked over good and general advice

p.s. i hope you're laffing, LOL....you swore that you would...lol

zma21
12/10/2007, 12:40 AM
Great post, john.

zachofalltrades
12/10/2007, 04:51 AM
John, you seemed to ask at least the same questions as everybody else so I'll just respond to yours to keep it organized, and let me start off by saying sorry for being a little snappy, maybe I'm just stressed... I got exam week coming up and had a semester project for one class and a term paper for another to write.

1. Yes, you read that right. Long story short, 3 1/2 years ago my girflriend's father passed, and shortly after her and I moved in with her mom to help out around the house with bills and what, not... he was a fish breader and had the one saltwater tank about about 25 or so freshwater tanks. Just recently I took over the saltwater because they had no idea to take care of it. My first saltwater tank so yes, I'm still learning.

2. Ok, again, you read that right. I'm not crazy so you don't have to try so hard to find anomalies in my statements ;) I bought the mandarin because they had one before that died. They had no regular feeding schedule and the tank had come along way in terms of water conditions so I figured I'd give it a try.... afterwards I found out about his pod demands. The six-line appeared one day when I came home from work, apparently my gf's sister wanted him...

3. No, I'm not doing that... he does eat frozen brine, and I've started growing baby brine to help a little. I had planned on upgrading to a 90 gallon eventually, and using the 30 as a fuge, but that's a ways off. I am aware of the fishes needs but with him seeming ok at the moment I think I have a little bit of time at the moment to think about what I'm going to do with him. He's been in there a couple months now...

4. Good point....

5. No I didn't QT the fish and yeah I know it's preached all day long. I didn't I guess because I had a bad experience in the past with working odd shifts when I had a fish in a QT, so by the time I finally got to come home to do a water change he was toast.

So thanks for the posts guys and again, sorry if I was a bit touchy because I've been stressed. I know that's not an excuse because I'm not generally an easily stressed person so I don't show other people a whole lot of sympathy when they blow either. I don't have a whole lot of fish stores in my area so even though a GSM isn't particular rare, this is the first one that I've seen in my area that had the nice dark tone rather than this barely-maroon orangish look, so I jumped on it thinking everything would be fine. I saw a post yesterday with the guy showing off his 3.5 gallon pico build and he had a GSM in the pictures of the tank, so I'm thinking "weird, I thought that fish could get to be like 6"... is it supposed to be good in a nano?" So I figured I'd put up a post expecting to hear somebody be like yeah sure, but since you already have the fish taking stuff from your tank so it's set up quicker would be a good idea. Instead I was told to take the fish back lol.....

PS well I can't guarantee I was laughing, but I also got about 4 hrs of sleep and it's not even 6am here yet.... it was more like a half-awake grin... that ok?

Oh and John I reread your first post to connect who had posted what and you did have a helpful response so that wasn't targeted at you... but you did have an informative response once again so it's welcomed. Thanks.

gsusfreak
12/10/2007, 10:04 AM
its all good zach, i dont think anyone was mad at ya....im sure its a lot better now that you posted all of the above...so people can understand where you are coming from

heck, if you still want to setup that 8 hex as another nano....then im all up for it....shoot, post up some pictures if you do....but still setup that 20 for the GSM....and then you can have 3 tanks!...lol

p.s.
is it terrible that i kinda knew that you response wasnt targeted to me?.......i just wanted you to see the reason behind why other people suggested what they did.....its hard to write deep responses to every post, since this boards has a gazillion members....so that maybe the reason why you'll get a "take it back".....people try to keep it short because even after long explanations, its usually ends up with the "take it back" option



by the way, school sucks for me too.....thank God i only have 2 more finals!!!...yay!

stevelkaneval
12/10/2007, 10:06 AM
look most peaple here are very seriuse when it comes to this. and why wouldnt you be after investing and time. they just want whats best for the animals we like so much. they are not being ***'s just to be an ***. all they are saying is please reserch before you buy a fish or coral. you can go to any site that sells manderins and they all say no less than 75 gallons and 100 lbs of lr with a fuge. dont worry weve all been there, the lfs "oh sure you can have that acro even though i know i sold you the lights and i know they are just pc's" let me just ring that up for you"

zachofalltrades
12/11/2007, 11:06 PM
okies, it's not related to starting up a new tank, but i had been thinking about what to do with my main tank ever since i was given the 3rd degree on here lol. but i made another thread to keep topics seperated so if anybody would be interested to pitch in their 2 cents then here's the link

refugium (http://www.reefcentral.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1269856)

hoosierpat
12/12/2007, 01:49 AM
You'll be fine in about 24 hours if you set up a tank. I wouldn't use the sand from your tank because it will probably cloud up the new tank pretty bad. You said that you recently took over the tank so I'm assuming that some maintenance was overlooked and I imagine that the sand bed isn't in great shape. I would add some new sand to the new tank, you could use live and the tank would be cloudy for about a day or you could rinse dry sand real well and probably not have much of a cloud at all. Use as much of the water as you can from the old tank and just mix new water for the old tank. Put in some nice clean pieces of rock and as soon as the temp, salinity, and water clarity look good you can acclimate the clown and be good to go.

Use the 20 gallon for sure. I wouldn't go with much less for clown, they can get big but probably won't get huge fast. Clowns tend to grow slow once they hit about 2.5". I've started a bunch of tanks real fast like this before. I can tell you from experience that you don't want to mess with the old sand. In fact, if you aren't going to necessarily keep the tank running for a long time, you should just forget about the sand altogether. Just run it barebottom. It will make it easier to siphon and clean which will be better for the water quality. Once you figure out what to do with the clown, you could use this as a quarantine tank so everyone will stop berating you for not quarantining.

Personally, I would get the wrasse out of there. They are a huge pain in small tanks. They are so aggressive that they aren't worth keeping, and they will definitely outcompete the mandarin for food. I put one in one of my 30's and I can't put any other fish in anymore. Its just him and an occellaris and a destructive little blenny. The clown will probably be ok with the damsel once it gets settled in.

zachofalltrades
12/12/2007, 10:30 PM
Hey, good reply, thanks. I definately take everybody's word on it to not use old sand. However, the vast majority of the sand is about only about 4-5 months old. When I took over the tank, it had a 24" undergravel filter in it (36" tank) with gravel covering that side of the tank, and the other side had bagged live sand that the best I can identify it as indonesian black stuff from caribsea... yeah interesting mix. So I painstakingly seperated out all the gravel from the tank, removed the undergravel filter, rinsed the sand that was left, siphoned the bujesus out of the tank, and mixed the remaining sand with 40lbs of dry seaflor special grade. Or something like that... at one point I had a 1-inch layer of sand in the tank, and the engineer goby looked at me every day like he was saying "just stick your hand in here and see what happens..." so I added the new stuff for a deep sandbed, and no threats ever since.

So 20 gallon long and no sand, got it... give me a couple days though, I'm supposed to be writing a term paper on welfare right now.....