64g Tokyo tank

[Anonymous]

Thanks both for the good advice and encouragement. The filter wool appears to be doing the trick, so no need to raid the wife's stockings/tights (no Andy, we don't call them pantyhose either :wink: ). The protein skimmer I'm a little bit more worried about. I had an e-mail from Premium Aquatics asking if I was running this on a power converter overnight. I don't know whether that's "Are you, because if you aren't, our skimmers won't run on Japanese current" (in which case I'd be fine) or "Are you, because if you are, these have been known to mess up our pumps" (which I'd be kind of surprised to hear to be honest). I now have to wait until Monday night for an answer as PA close over the weekend...

The good news is that the tank is almost completely clear now. It'll probably cloud up a little again when I remove the wool (I've changed it over once and it clouded up a fair amount, but this time I plan to switch off the return pump so that there's no water flowing through either the return or the overflow pipe into the sump (which both have wool at the end at the moment), wrap a plastic bag round the wool first and then remove it).

The bad news is that the rock is completely lacking in any life of any sort (I lie, I think I saw a peanut worm, but that's been it so far). Who knows, I might see stuff start to grow/emerge later, but given that last time there were literally loads of brittle stars, coral hitchhikers etc on the rock I ordered from this place last time I set up a tank, it's a bit of a disappointment. I suspect that last time I'd hit lucky and got some rock that had just been brought in, but this time I got some rock that had been sitting in holding vats for a long period of time.

Aside from anything else, I've read that taking natural live rock from the ocean in Okinawa is now forbidden. I wondered if the Okinawan Aquarium had an exemption, but now I'm starting to wonder whether they're using up stock from before the ban came in or leftovers from their exhibit tanks...(an impression strengthened by the fact that they only seem to have small chunks left). Whichever way, it's not great (though the shapes are nice and natural I guess, given that they're classic reef rock - literally long-dead coral for the most part).

So I'll order some of the rock from a place that aquacultures rock in Ishigaki-jima on Monday and see how good that is. If I order one of their large rocks and one of their mediums, I think I'll be done for this tank (and may end up putting a few of the least interesting/least useful rocks from this batch in the 'fuge).

One shot to keep the peanut gallery happy. Frustrating about the white balance. The first shot I took was too blue, but if anything, this is not as blue as it is in person. And yes, that's a big wodge of filter wool tied round the return.

[rimg]http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab238/TheEscapedApe/Long%20awaited/P1010572.jpg[/rimg]

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, and as you can probably tell, I've not really put much effort into aquascaping yet. Partly as I'd more or less already decided I'd order the extra rock from the aquaculture place.

 

[Anonymous]

The bad news is that the rock is completely lacking in any life of any sort (I lie, I think I saw a peanut worm, but that's been it so far). Who knows, I might see stuff start to grow/emerge later, but given that last time there were literally loads of brittle stars, coral hitchhikers etc on the rock I ordered from this place last time I set up a tank, it's a bit of a disappointment. I suspect that last time I'd hit lucky and got some rock that had just been brought in, but this time I got some rock that had been sitting in holding vats for a long period of time.
...
So I'll order some of the rock from a place that aquacultures rock in Ishigaki-jima on Monday and see how good that is. If I order one of their large rocks and one of their mediums, I think I'll be done for this tank (and may end up putting a few of the least interesting/least useful rocks from this batch in the 'fuge).

I seriously sympathize. A month on, the rock I ordered still hasn't got anything besides coralline, copepods and one half-inch crab. Here's hoping the second batch of rocks you order works out better. You might check with IPSF and see if they might ship their microfauna to japan, since they're located in hawaii the shipping might not be too bad.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks CJ. Actually the only upside to the distinct lack of life and the small bits of rock might be the apparent complete lack of crabs and mantis shrimps. Who knows, one might surprise me by popping out of hiding at some point, but given how small the rocks are and devoid of other life, I'd be shocked.

I've high hopes for the other rock (yes, I know, I had high hopes for this lot as well...). Apparently it's shipped in water and really is plucked out of the ocean about 24 hours before it reaches you. As a result of being shipped in water, it's pretty expensive, which is one reason I decided to get some rock from the Okinawa Aquarium place first. Actually, it shouldn't be a bad combination of types of rock in the end. Here's a couple of pictures from their website of the sort of rock they ship.

If it's anything like this stuff, it should be rich enough in life to populate the other rocks. At this stage, I'm doubting the lot I got today even have any copepods living in them. :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

The good news is that I tried running the protein skimmer straight off the mains and it appears to working fine now. I'm not sure what it is about a step-up transformer that would stop it working, but that seemed to be the problem. Last time I ran a Euroreef without a transformer, but this time I wondered if the difference in voltage (Japan is 100v to the US' 120v) might mean a diminished performance. I hadn't been too worried about the 50hz/60hz thing, partly as I'd run a protein skimmer bought from the US here before and partly because I'd researched the issue on the internet prior to pulling the trigger on my purchase (from which I discovered that fluorescent lighting can sometimes be a problem - but the Giesemann unit is built to deal with different frequencies).

There's still a bit of time to go before it breaks in (2-3 weeks according to some people, but I hope it might not take quite so long), but I do at least have a skimmer running!

I've removed the filter wool again and it's clouded up again, but already clearing up (albeit slowly).

Now, do I hold off on ordering the next lot of live rock until the skimmer's broken in? Or can I get away with it, on the basis that it'll have had a week to break in by the time the rock arrives and that I plan to do a couple of small water changes before it does.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, before anyone had much chance to answer that question, I went ahead and ordered the live rock. Two pieces, one medium sized (roughly 8" x 6" x 5"), one large (10" x 8" x 6"), which they've told me that when shipped comes to 15kg, adding $25 to the price. Sounds heavy to me for two rocks, but that might mean they're shipping in water as I hoped. Here's hoping there's a bit more life on these rocks. They claim their rock is matured in high flow areas for longer than most aquacultured rock, so it should have some life on it.

Meanwhile, I've spotted two feather dusters on the barren rock. One is tiny, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile, I've spotted two feather dusters on the barren rock. One is tiny, but it's better than nothing.

It's a beginning 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Tracey. It is at that. Plus, it's turning my wife into a reef nerd, little bit by little bit. The sheer absence of any obvious life has made it even more of a challenge to spot little signs of less obvious critters as they start to emerge. She's turning out to be pretty good at it! :lol:

Little bits of macroalgae (minute right now, but looking to have structure, hence my thinking it's macro) also starting to show, which adds a nice (if tiny) bit of color. I'm playing with the idea of just letting whatever algae emerges grow, within reason. I don't plan to add a CUC for the first few weeks (or even month or more, depending), so that hopefully whatever grows will be a useful food source for a healthy crop of pods.

Of course, I'll probably crack and buy a CUC next week.

 

[Anonymous]

Also buy a good quality magnifying glass it makes watching the micro critters easier

 

[Anonymous]

Good idea. A lot cheaper than my expensive instinct, which is to go out and buy a second-hand digital SLR with snazzy macro lens. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Sooo, CJ has got me thinking about my CUC. I'm planning to add it quite late to the tank, probably a few weeks after the rocks go in at least. I want to let the macros grow a bit, to encourage a healthy growth of microcrustacea in there and also maybe help out the feather dusters etc that might be on the rock. I know this will mean that my tank is not heading towards being the ideal tank for SPS, but that's not the plan anyway.

So, onto my CUC choices. I can get Turbos, hermits and gold ringed cowries easily. A lot of places also sell nerites and I've found somewhere that sells nassarius snails, various other cowries, strombus snails and cukes. Given I've gone for the DSB approach (yes, I know), I want some burrowers as well as grazers. My questions would be, which of these would people recommend I get and in what numbers for a 36"x24"x18"H tank, with a 4-5" sandbed, which will have about 50lbs of live rock in it.

My plan is to choose from the following mix:

Gold-ringed cowries (4?)

Something called "mini-mini coil shells" (OK, that's a direct translation, not sure of the species). I assume they're smaller versions of Turbos - anyone got an ID? (5?)

[rimg]http://www.cpfarm.com/00upload/categoly/img/cleaner/minimini_makigai_l.jpg[/rimg]

A couple of Strombus

Maybe 5 Nassarius?

Also depending on what comes in with the live rock on Saturday, I might also think about getting a couple of these...

Alternatively, I could get one of these guys. But would the tank be big enough for one and which would be best?

 

[Anonymous]

I'd only go with 1-2 nassarius, they do a pretty good job and get to be thumbnail sized. I still have the original 2 that I started with lol.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Tracey! I've really no idea what number of each critter to go for. Maybe I would do better with only 1 Strombus as well?

 

[Anonymous]

Probably-you can always add more critters

 

[Anonymous]

Aren't cowries potential polyp predators? I've always wanted to keep some but have kept away from them for that reason.

On the mini-mini-coil-shells, check the color of the operculum when you get them. Whether it's yellow, brown or white helps tremendously in determining genus.

A 36"x24" footprint is absolutely enough for a sand-eating cuke, possibly even two. A 12"x48" footprint was enough to support a holothuria edulis for the entire lifetime of my old 60g tank in Los Angeles. I love h. edulis, I think it's a great addition and a real work horse. I don't recognize either species you have pictured, but as long as neither tops out with a max length of more than a foot or so I'd say either would likely be fine.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I've read, the gold-ringed cowries are one of the species you can trust. They're commonly sold here, but that doesn't guarantee they're reef safe mind you. I'm often surprised what's sold here as janitors.

Actually, looking at no.2 in that series of articles, it seems Nerites are more recommended than I thought. Maybe it might be an idea to buy couple of those as well, though the place I'm looking at right now doesn't sell them...

But also from some internet research, it seems that Anthony Calfo says Nassarius snails are no good for the sand bed's diversity, as they're carnivores. Still, they're good sand bed shifters, so maybe a couple won't hurt.

So maybe, in that case, five cowries, two small strombus, 10 of those mini turbos (if that's indeed what they are) and a couple of Nassarius. If I need to supplement, I can buy some nerites later locally.

From another look at the website, it looks like they do a plankton pack as well http://www.cpfarm.com/shop/original/plankton.shtml. Slightly bizarrely, what they do is filter out the plankton from a certain number of kilos of sand taken from the sea and then send it to you in water, carefully packed to keep the critters alive. It's an expensive way to do it. If you order the 10kg pack (not 10kg, but the life from 10kg of sand), it costs about $60, including delivery. Still, you can odd small items to the order without increasing the postage and I'd end up having to pay at least $15 for postage anyway, so maybe it's worth it. I just can't make out whether their technique is an interesting innovation or snake oil (they also sell live aragonite sand, but it's just bacterially active sand, not sand taken from the sea bed). Google translated plankton page:

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...//www.cpfarm.com/shop/original/plankton.shtml

The live rock in the tank is starting to look at bit golden and there are tufts of algae appearing. It's going to take real strength of will to not buy a CUC quicker than planned. But I really want to have the tank teeming with plankton before I start adding predators and to do that, I figure it makes sense to have plenty for the pods to feed on. :?

BTW, for info, here's the cleaner page of the website I'm looking at (translated via Google, hence the odd English).

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...m/shop/cleaner.shtml&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

 

[Anonymous]

From what I've read, the gold-ringed cowries are one of the species you can trust. They're commonly sold here, but that doesn't guarantee they're reef safe mind you. I'm often surprised what's sold here as janitors.

I've yet to see Ron be wrong on the subject of snails (he is the guy who first recommended abalones to me back in '96 before they were easy to get, so credit where it's due), so cool.

But also from some internet research, it seems that Anthony Calfo says Nassarius snails are no good for the sand bed's diversity, as they're carnivores. Still, they're good sand bed shifters, so maybe a couple won't hurt.

...and you can always feed them yourself. It's not like they're picky eaters

The live rock in the tank is starting to look at bit golden and there are tufts of algae appearing. It's going to take real strength of will to not buy a CUC quicker than planned. But I really want to have the tank teeming with plankton before I start adding predators and to do that, I figure it makes sense to have plenty for the pods to feed on. :?

Are you running a full photoperiod during the tank cycle? I don't usually recommend that. I prefer to go no lights at all till nitrites are gone, or at most an abbreviated photoperiod of just a few hours a day during that period.

 

[Anonymous]

Really? Ah, that might be the problem then.

What would you recommend? Running 4 hours maybe instead of 8 on the MH and 6 instead of 10 on the T5s? I was a bit worried that if there had been any hitchhiking corals on the live rock they might have needed the light to revive themselves (but no luck so far on the current rock anyway, though it hopefully might be tad more likely with the new lot). To be honest, I also kind of enjoyed looking at the tank for the whole time at weekends.

I'm in two minds now about this growing algae in the tank idea. Maybe I should just get a CUC soon anyway. I really liked this Eric Borneman/Anthony Calfo idea that you let the tank grow abundantly with macros first to create a tank teeming with micro life to begin with (with even hair algae being not such a terrible thing, given how much microcrustacea will thrive on it). Now I'm not so sure as the tank starts to look at little shaggy. God, I don't know what to think.

I might reassess my options once the new rock is in the tank and has been there for a few days. Depending on how much life is on it and what sort of life it is, might decide how I take this forward. :?

 

[Anonymous]

I run a minimal light period during cycling, like 4 hours FWIW.

 

[Anonymous]

OK, I'll probably start cutting it back from when the new lot of rock arrives tomorrow. Thanks for the input!