10) Because no matter how much Cyclop-eeze looks like a frozen fruit bar, it just doesn’t taste the same!
If you’re up for a great laugh, read more here at reefkeeping.com
Archive for the ‘Fishy Fishy Fishy’ Category
Top Ten Reasons Why Fish Food Should Be Labeled Clearly…
Sunday, June 10th, 2007Fish Words!
Monday, June 4th, 2007Ever try to read the aquatic forms and not understand a damned thing in them? Here’s some words that i’ve had to go through the torture of asking people, thought i’d share and save you the heartache.
LFS = Local Fish Store
FOWLR = Fish Only With Live Rock (Basically means, no corals)
“Reef Tank” = Corals and whatever else, but normally focused on corals
Stupid Aquarium Tricks - Part 1
Monday, June 4th, 2007Welcome to Stupid Aquarium Tricks! This will be an ongoing series as I make my way from a true aquarium novice to someone who can keep a fish alive longer than 90 days. (This could take a while)
These posts will contain tricks on how to do the “silly” things in your aquarium. You know, all of those little things they don’t tell you when you spend over a grand for a tank, some sand, and some rocks. *sigh* Then you get to feel like a jackass when you walk back into the store and ask and they all laugh at you. I’m sure they’ve all made the same damned mistakes too, but it’s some sort of a right of passage or some other sick cult deal.
Without further ado… here we go!
Q) I’m starting a new tank… what order should I put things into the tank?
A) Backgrounds (if you’re using one) first, Substrate (Sand, Gravel, Crushed Coral, etc) next, Rocks / Scenery, then the Water.
Q) How do I pour water on the sand w/o the sand going everywhere?!?!?
A) Use some clean plastic to stop the impact of the water from hitting the sand directly and POUR SLOWLY initially, don’t get all crazy and pour like a madman unless you want a sand cloud in there! You’ll probably get the cloud anyway, but oh well, I think everyone does. The plastic helps though.
Q) Speaking of backgrounds… how do I get that background on the tank? This tape SUCKS, looks like crap, and the background keeps wanting to bow up.
A) If you’ve already set up the tank, this is going to be harder, but you can still do it. (I did this the hard way too) Either way, lay the background on the side of the tank where it will be mounted. (note : they go on the OUTSIDE of the tank) Cut the background down to size… leave an inch or so on the sides, you can trim it easily with a razor once it’s attached. Now… get out your plastic scraper and some cooking oil! Yeah, that’s right… cooking oil. Pour a few SMALL areas on the surface that will be touching the tank, set the background on the tank and line it up, then use the scraper to push the air bubbles out and spread the oil. It’ll stick like glue and you can peel it off later with no harm done to the background or the tank. Messy at first, but neat. Once it’s firmly attached, use a razor to trim the edges so everything is nice and neat… then wipe all the damned cooking oil off of everything in that room!
Q) Okay, I put in everything, but I think I need more substrate… now i’m sitting here with a bag of sand and no idea how to get it into the tank without dumping it all over my beautiful live rock display!
A) Use a measuring cup or something to help get the sand into the tank SLOWLY. Do it a little at a time, it IS going to cloud up… not much you can do about it. If you can, kill the pumps for a bit so the sand settles faster and doesn’t get all in your sump. Trust me here folks… it sucks ass to clean all of your filtration systems b/c they’re coated with sand. And next time, when you set up a new aquarium, don’t make the same mistake I did… get enough sand… if it’s not enough, go back to the store and get more… don’t pour the water in there until the sand is right… you’ll be pissed later when you’re brushing sand off of EVERYTHING in your tank because it got in the stream of your pump. 
Q) I set up the tank first, then realized that I needed/wanted more sand, and now there’s sand everywhere in the tank. Any hints here? It’s covering my beautiful plastic model of Poseidon!
A) Step one, ditch the model! Seriously though, you have a few options. Numero Uno on the “easy to do” scale is grab a big ass turkey baster and go to town. Just blast the water right off of there and rock! (Use the tank water, not faucet water) If you have a powerhead in there that’s easy to unmount like a Hydor Koralia, then just pop the magnet off and use the powerhead… I don’t recommend this though b/c you have the cord and such to deal with… and it’s probably not a good idea in general. Not to mention that if you accidentally fire it at one of your fish, you’ll probably blow him across the tank with the close range current blast. Although it’s funny as hell to watch, it’s just not nice. Go with the turkey baster for the easy win.
Q) Great, now i’ve got all of this sand and it’s really starting to look nasty! How do I clean sand?
A) Don’t clean the sand! Get something to clean it for you! Nassarius Snails clean sand for you, and they’re a hoot to watch around feeding time. There are also Sea Cucumbers and lots of different fish that clean sand. Got to your local fish store, they’ll help you. If you’re buying your crap from a big chain with a bunch of high school kids running it… stop buying it there and go to a respectable fish store. Describe to them what you have in your tank. Better yet, take some pictures so they can see exactly what’s going on in there! They’ll get you some snails, crabs, etc to get rid of it! Most fish stores will know about how many cleaners you need for different size tanks and different amounts of live rock, etc… You’re likely to lose a few crabs in the process, maybe a snail or two. It’s okay… it’ll balance itself out.
Q) My fish are ugly? What can I do to make them look better?
A) Get a better lighting system so you can see them better. Good lights bring out the colors in your aquarium. If you get good lighting and your fish are still ugly… STOP BUYING UGLY FISH! 
Q) I got a better lighting system… now there is algae all over my tank!
A) Cool eh? Seriously, more clean up crew. Don’t get crazy, just add a few more to keep up with the increased load. Again, talk to the people at your local fish store.
Q) Does this quest ever end? When do I stop buying stuff and just get to look at my fish?
A) I don’t know… maybe I can answer that by the time i’m writing Stupid Aquarium Tricks - Part 20.
That does it for SAT 1. Tune in next time as I attempt to re-arrange my live rock for the 87 millionth time this month! (My poor fish must HATE me by now)
And now they’re killing each other.
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007So, we had just put in what we thought was going to be our last fish… the Royal Gramma. Overall, we were happy with our tank. 1 Coral Beauty angel, 1 Royal Gramma, and 2 True Percula clowns. Nice variety and fun to watch.
Last night, we came home to an almost dead clown fish. He was new to the tank so we thought maybe we had a water problem. We’ve been testing regularly and just did a water change a while back, so we just had to assume he was sick when we got him. True Percula Clownfish are notorious for not acclimating well. It just happens sometimes. Needless to say, he didn’t make it.
This morning, I awake to find my other clown in the top right hand corner of my tank… swimming slowly like his friend was the night before. I wondered what was happening but knew that they go through a lot of stress when they lose a friend. Well, it wasn’t stress from his loss that was getting him… it was the fact that the Coral Beauty attacked him! I went to perform the morning water level checks and the clown was under the lid. When I lifted it, he ran away to the top center of the tank. Less than a minute later, that coral beauty emerged from the rocks and went after him… repeatedly attacking him until he went back into that top right hand corner.
So now, Clownfish #2 is not doing well, I doubt he’ll make it through the day. I also saw the CB attack my Royal Gramma, but the Gramma is faster than him and runs away quickly so I think he’ll be okay. The Gramma also hides in the small holes of the live rock that the CB can’t fit in. It’s just a shame though because i’m sure he’s stressed out big time.
So much for the “generally compatible” thing that everyone has told me. I guess sometimes you just get a mean one and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Fishtank 3.0?
Saturday, May 26th, 2007Yes kids… fishtank 2.0 is already gone. Just a heads up for all of you who are thinking of getting into the aquarium world… little fast fish are HARD to catch when you’ve got 30lbs of live rock in a 46-gallon tank. Get ready for an adventure. Needless to say, we had to remove ALL of the live rock out of the tank to catch those 3 damsels and get them out of there. It was not fun at all.
The moral of this story is this, if you want a salt water aquarium, use the live rock to cycle it. It WILL cycle… be patient. Test the water often and watch it. It WILL cycle… be patient. Don’t attempt to use “starter” fish unless you’re okay with redoing all of your aquascaping work.
Anyway, check out the new coral beauty, the pictures of Fishtank 3.0 are here.
Fishtank 2.0
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007Okay… the fishtank has officially had a makeover….
- More live rock to increase surface area, and this time it’s arranged so the fish have some neat little caves to play in.
- 10 Astraea Snails for help with algae control / glass cleaning.
- 3 Nassarius Snails for old food control, and they burrow in the sand and help clean that up.
- 30 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs for algae control on the live rock and sand
- 1 Emerald Crab… just because he’s cool and he eats algae too!
- Hydor Koralia 600 gallon per hour pump to fix some circulation problems
- 20% water change to get the nitrate levels down
I think i’ve officially jilted my fish for a while, but they’re slowly getting over it and the tank looks 10 times better than the first attempt. Check out the photos!
In the beginning, there was rock.
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007Well, we’ve done it. We are now the proud owners of a salt water aquarium! 46-gallons of salt water… sitting in my living room next to all of my expensive electronics. In all seriousness… it’s neat. Expensive and time consuming, but neat. At first I was very skeptical of the whole thing, but it was better than a 150lb Bull Mastiff in my house!
On to the meat of the story. We purchased a 46-gallon bow-front aquarium, hood, and stand. Nothing too fancy, but a decent All-Glass setup.
Here are some pictures of the initial setup. (And my snazzy new entertainment center)
The new tank sat in the living room for about 2 weeks with nothing in it but a funny note I put there. Finally, even I couldn’t stand it anymore so we ventured down to the LFS (Local Fish Store) and bought the setup. Now, i’m all excited, ready to go down and grab some chemicals and a pick out what fish we want… you know… like you do with most small freshwater setups. (Day 1 : Chemicals, A few days later : Fish!) This is when I got the first hard lesson of saltwater. No fish for a month unless you want to sacrifice them to the ecosystem of the tank.
Yes yes, that’s right sports fans… no fish for at least a month! Let’s take a tally.
This was almost a month ago. We just added some fish in there… just some “starter fish”, all Damsels. We’ll probably have to pull then out in a few more weeks but, they’re neat to watch and MUCH better than staring at an empty tank. We ended up with a Blue Devil, a Yellow Tailed Blue Devil, and a “Jailbird”. Here are some pictures….
Yellow Tailed Blue Devil and Blue Devil are here
Jailbird, or Four-striped Damsel
Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering what the tank looks like now, here are a few pictures, i’ll put more up later. You can’t see the fish in this one because it was late and we had already killed the lights in the aquarium. Needless to say, the fish were resting in the rocks.
A word to the wise, if you want to do saltwater… start reading now. It expensive, but the end result is much cooler than anything you can do in freshwater. (At least I think it is) The fish are more exotic and you can do more interesting combinations, but you have to know a lot about it before you start.