# New tank!



## Guest (Oct 29, 2011)

So!! after weeks of cycling the marine tank and muchos money spent on equipment and getting it all ready....We have the starters of a cleanup crew in!

Its a 300L tank, with circa 100L sump and yesterday we introduced:

2 red-legged hermit crabs
4 normal hermits

1 blue cheeked goby
1 sunspotted goby

1 fire shrimp

Unfortunatley! I left the OH to go get a few crabs only, and he came back with the guppies and shrimp, and also reserved a blue fingered starfish - but having read up and seeing the blue fingered star is an impossibly difficult starfish to keep im hoping he will get a few sand sifting ones instead!

Also, the sunspotted guppy MAY eat the shrimp, which would be a bugger! But its a huge tank with little competition for food so fingers crossed he wont! He is a grumpy lil bugger though, compared to the blue cheeked who was swimming about and munching sand within an hr of being free to swim about!

Im hoping to keep good photographic evidence as it grows - sadly the photos are a bit dark atm as i didnt want to scare the new residents with the flash, as they are still settling in


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## magpie (Jan 3, 2009)

Oooh, how exciting! It's lovely getting new fish & watching them settle in 
Do you have a pic of the whole tank? Would love to see that


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## Lavenderb (Jan 27, 2009)

Marine tanks are stunning. I hope yours continues to thrive and stays well balanced. I love those little crabs.


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2011)

Im just at the vets gettin b-buts his boosters but will get a tank pic when i get back  we r doing it all very slow its taken a month just to get the clean up crew in and will be growing it equally slow so hopefully it will balance ok!!


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2011)

Tank.... we need to get more rock, they only had 12kg in the shop, plus the 10 that we had in the sump


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2011)

This week we finished the aquascaping with the liverock! and introduced 3 little yellowtail blue damsels. 

The water has remained stable which is jolly good! And if all stays well now we have a few more fish in there, we will introduce a school of green Chromis in the next week or 2! Its looking alot more active in there now - I think the extra competition for food has encouraged the gobys to come out to feed more actively, and we saw the shrimp grab hold of a HUGE armful of flake last night...first time we have seen that 

Will upload pics tonight if i can get some


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2011)

Imgs are a Bit big! Will repost as attachments


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## hawksport (Dec 27, 2009)

Looking good and a nice size too


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## Guest (Nov 28, 2011)

Have introduced a mated pair of maroon clowns, a yellow tang, silver bellied wrass and an urchin


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## Guest (Nov 28, 2011)

Also shows the chromis and clue cheeked goby are getting their colour


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## hawksport (Dec 27, 2009)

Looking good. Keep an eye out for the urchin dropping spines, they can be a bit delicate


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## Quinzell (Mar 14, 2011)

Welcome to the world of marines!! Highly addictive!

I love your tank and especially your cabinet! Did you have that custom made?

Avoid getting the sand sifting starfish if you haven't already got one. They require lots of food and more often than not starve in the home aquarium. Also keep an eye on the damsels as they get bigger they will often fight to establish territory. 

One thing that I like to encourage new keepers to do is QT all of their stock, especially if you are adding at different times and from different places. If any of your fish have ich, or another transferable disease, it can very easily infest your entire tank - just something to think about in the future


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## Guest (Nov 28, 2011)

LouiseH said:


> Welcome to the world of marines!! Highly addictive!
> 
> I love your tank and especially your cabinet! Did you have that custom made?
> 
> ...


Dont have any sifters and wasnt aware of that thanks! We are sticking the same supplier for our fish as we have a good rapour with them now, they supplied the tanks etc  They have been holding our fish in quarentine for us before we take them home! We have been reserving them about 2 weeks in advance, so fingers crossed we will have no problems!

Do you think its OK for the store to QT for us, or would you recommend we invest in our own QT tank and DIY it..

We did have a scare last week with the coral beauty, we thought was white spot...turned out the goby had just dumped aload of sand on its head!!

We did look at another supplier that is close by, but i didnt like the look of the place, the lads working there seemed most disinterested and the tanks and fish looked in pretty shoddy condition to be honest!

The tank wasnt custom made, It came as a unit with the sump included


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## hawksport (Dec 27, 2009)

In a mixed fish/invert system I would quaranteen all fish myself for 2 weeks


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## Guest (Nov 28, 2011)

hawksport said:


> In a mixed fish/invert system I would quaranteen all fish myself for 2 weeks


I will bare this in mind, I think we are done stocking the tank now, but will def do this in the future (plus gives me some time to save up for a quarentine tank + equipment)


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## hawksport (Dec 27, 2009)

Just keep it simple so you can strip it down when its not being used. All you need is a small tank, an internal power filterand a couple of plant pots or similar for hiding in then you can put the filter in the sump to keep it ticking over while you're not using the quarantine/hospital tank


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## Quinzell (Mar 14, 2011)

Quarantining is something that should really be done in your own system as some problems may not present themselves until they are living in your environment (some illnesses can present when the fish is stressed, in higher temperatures, different salinity, etc). QT is also great for making sure that the fish is eating properly before going into a system where you might not be able to see it eating. Its good to observe them for a while before they go into your DT so that you can check that behaviour is normal too


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2011)

hawksport said:


> Just keep it simple so you can strip it down when its not being used. All you need is a small tank, an internal power filterand a couple of plant pots or similar for hiding in then you can put the filter in the sump to keep it ticking over while you're not using the quarantine/hospital tank





LouiseH said:


> Quarantining is something that should really be done in your own system as some problems may not present themselves until they are living in your environment (some illnesses can present when the fish is stressed, in higher temperatures, different salinity, etc). QT is also great for making sure that the fish is eating properly before going into a system where you might not be able to see it eating. Its good to observe them for a while before they go into your DT so that you can check that behaviour is normal too


Thanks both, def something i will put to the OH! (its his baby)


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2011)

Update: We think the hermits are fighting amongst themselves! Doh! Have found 2 dead (shell-less) hermits in the last 2 weeks  Annoying as we did put in a variety of vacant shells in for them, but they seem to much prefer each others! 

Also lost the blue fingered sea star - I had read there were particularly fragile and despite the water quality being stable, We never saw him move from under his rock and dont think he was eating! Sad times!

Everything else is looking happy and healthy though, which is grande.. loving the maroon clown female and Yellow tang; they are so inquistive and friendly; the clown will come and stare at you if your close to the tank, and the tang is constantly rubbing up against the other fish and backing into them.... looks like hes doing the old bump n flirt the guys used to do in nightclubs 


Eta: there were no evidence of shells with the hermits, so now we may think they shed rather than died.... This is tbc lol


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2011)

Savahl said:


> ........
> *Eta: there were no evidence of shells with the hermits, so now we may think they shed rather than died.... This is tbc lol*


Hurrah, we counted 6 hermits yesterday, so they were sheds not deads! Its very hard to distinguish  At least now we know what to look for!!


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## Quinzell (Mar 14, 2011)

Yay! Glad that they are all now accounted for! We have had the same thing happen before too 

I know a lot of people don't like them, but I have a clownfish in with my seahorses and I love him to bits. I teach my seahorses to eat their food out of a dish, and now clownie eats from the dish with them


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## hawksport (Dec 27, 2009)

Good news on the hermit crabs. Not so good with the starfish but they are delicate. How is the urchin doing?


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2011)

hawksport said:


> Good news on the hermit crabs. Not so good with the starfish but they are delicate. How is the urchin doing?


We dont really know what happened to the star; the water was stable as anything - still is - he just didnt ever come out to feed, never seemed to move from his cave. The blue ones do seem overly delicate from what I read, bit of a bummer.

The urchin seems to be fine. Hasnt been dropping any spines, keeps stealing the spare shells for the hermits to wear as hats! Currently he is fashioning a lovely cone shell number, and a massive round one. 
We caught it trying to hoick up a shell with a hermit in it last week!! 
Other than that he seems pretty good - certainly moves about the tank alot.


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