New to forum

[KookyNewky]

Hello,
I recently was talking to a salesman in Newburgh, NY and he refered me to this site. My question is what is the least expensive way to get my tank to host corals and inverts?

My current equipment
-46gal bowfront tank
-2 aquaclear 402 powerheads pushing an undergravel filter system
-2 24" 20w actinic blue, 1 36" 20w 50/50 actinic white, 1 36" 20w standard bulbs for lighting in 2 fixtures
-Seaclone 100 protein skimmer
-Penguin 330b biowheel filter

My livestock
-10 turbo snails
-1 blue devil damsel (2.5inches)
-1 royal gramma (2.5 inches)
-1 gold striped maroon clown (2.5inches)
-20-30lbs of Live Rock
-40-50lbs of dead coral and dolomite which I believe is starting to grow coralean algae.

Although the fish in the tank are relatively new to the tank, the tank itself has been running for over 4 years now with the live rock being in the tank for nearly 2 years.

 

[taikonaut]

Welcome to RDO, KookyNewky.

>... My question is what is the least expensive way to get my tank to host corals and inverts?

It really depends on what coral/invert you want to keep. If you just want hermit crabs, you maybe able to get away with your current setup. But if you want something more demanding, such as SPS coral, there you may need to change quit a bit of your equipment just to get started.

Let us know what you have in mind, and we will give you some comments, hopefully helpful comments. What do you think?

 

[KookyNewky]

I was thinking along the lines of an anemone to go with that maroon clown I have. After I successfully keep that alive for a while I wanted to get into the easier to keep corals (not that I know what they are yet). I am a beginner when it comes to the invert/coral field. I have tried and failed several times to keep condi anemonies, flame scallops, featherdusters, and starfish alive longterm. The starfish died mechanically by the way of the power head. As for the others I have no idea why they died.

 

[hdtran]

Let me say that anecdotally, anemones are among the most difficult invertebrates to keep. The Condylactis (again, anecdotally) is one of the hardier ones, so poor success with that should steer you away from more delicate anemones until you have more experience. The first thing you will need for any anemone will be more intense lighting. Commonly kept anemones (including the Condylactis) also have photosynthetic algae, so they all require significant lighting. I don't believe that your 4 fluorescent lamps provide sufficient lighting for any anemones (including the Condy).

Flame scallops, according to the books, are short-lived, so yours may just have expired of old age. I cannot speculate as to your feather dusters' cause o death.

Have you been logging your water parameters? How are they? Any problems with nitrates? I'd recommend easy corals (zoanthids, green star polyps, leathers) before anemones. And before that, as Taikonaut has ably pointed out, some radical restructuring.

Best regards,

 

[Anonymous]

I was thinking along the lines of an anemone to go with that maroon clown I have. After I successfully keep that alive for a while I wanted to get into the easier to keep corals (not that I know what they are yet). I am a beginner when it comes to the invert/coral field. I have tried and failed several times to keep condi anemonies, flame scallops, featherdusters, and starfish alive longterm. The starfish died mechanically by the way of the power head. As for the others I have no idea why they died.

I think you're kind of looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Anemones are some of the most difficult to keep invertebrates in the hobby, as a rule. There are 'easy' anemones, like condylactus (which do not naturally host any species of clownfish, btw). Bubble tip anemones are considered to be some of the easiest host anemones. Either way, anemones require pristine water conditions (your biowheel and UG filter are nitrate factories), and intense lighting (at least VHO or PC, probably MH).

To give you a bit more info regarding some of the other things you've mentioned, don't feel bad about losing a flame scallop--they're virtually impossible to keep alive long-term. Most think it's some kind of food requirement that just can't be met in our tanks. Starfish are a whole 'nother story with the same end result--most are extraordinarily sensitive to osmotic shock (change in salinity). If you acclimate them wrong, they're doomed (although it sounds like yours just decided to dice himself instead).

Has your UG plate ever been cleaned out? If not, that would be my first suggestion. 4 years worth of gunk collected under there will make any sort of tank setup difficult. And if you're going to dig under there to clean, you might as well yank the whole thing out if you're considering a reef setup down the road a bit.

And welcome to RDO!

 

[KookyNewky]

So if lighting is one problem I have then what am I looking for as far as lighting is concerned?

 

[Anonymous]

Depends on what you want to keep long-term. If you're looking at mostly soft corals and maybe a bubble tip anemone and such, you can do an Icecap ballast or somethng with some VHO bulbs. If you want sps corals and clams down the road, I'd definitely save your pennies for a good halide setup.

 

[Meloco14]

I agree with sharkky. Though you can also go with PC's instead of VHO, it's personal choice. I think it would help a lot if you researched exactly what kinds of corals/anemones you want to keep in the future. If you only want some soft corals, mushrooms, and easy LPS's, you can get away with VHO or PC lighting. If you want SPS or clams, you will need MH. As far as other suggestions, I would take out the undergravel filter and take off the biowheel from your powerfilter. With that much rock in there for 2 years it should all be live and filtering your water, so you probably don't even need the power filter. If you get into some of the more demanding corals and anemones I would recommend getting a better skimmer too. You don't mention anything about a sand bed. I would add about 2-3" of a fine sand bed, and seed it with live sand. This will help filtration a lot also. If the only reason you want an anemone is to see the hosting from the clown, you may want to consider certain corals instead. Clowns in captivity will occasionally host in ricordea and frogspawn, and any other similar coral that looks like an anemone. These corals are much easier to keep than anemones. There is no guarantee that the clown will host in a coral, but there is no guarantee they will host in an anemone either. Hope this helps, if you have any other specific ?'s just ask

 

[Len]

Getting good advice here, so let me just add...

 

[KookyNewky]

Thanks all