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| Posted | Introducing fish |
| 20-12-2006 23:42 by primus |
Hi
I am new to marine fishkeeping and I am just after some advice . I have a 40 gallon tank with 25kg of fiji live rock that has been running for about 3 weeks . The water params look ok but phosphate level is up a bit Therefore slight algae . When would it be ok to introduce my first fish to my set up ? |
| 21-12-2006 10:17 by Alan |
First step is getting some grazers in there.
Long term aim would be to either go for turbo snails and hermits or go for an all snail clean up crew. If you go for hermits and turbos you will need about 20 of each. If going for just snails you will need 10 turbos 10 cerith 10 nasarus I prefer the later but only decided this after adding hermits so I'm stuck with hermits and turbos unfortunately. What is your water turnover rate in the tank it should be around 3,600 litres per hour I would suggest you get this sorted before adding any stock. As far as first fish go when your tank is ready which it is not yet I would suggest adding a pyjama wrasse these are pretty harmless little fellows but once added are very hardy and very interesting to watch. I would follow this if all is okay with a hardy dwarf angel such as the coral beauty and then a few months later perhaps a pair of clown fish. I would probably leave the fish stock at about this level and then concentrate on building up the invert population such as true peppermint shrimpls cleaner shrimps starfish perhaps a blue linkia or go for the small red starfish I would also add a sand sifting starfish or 2. When adding any livestock you must take your time letting it adjust to the new salinity. This takes as long as it takes most fish shops run with a very low salinity so you need to raise the salinity in the bag very slowly to match that of the tank I normally add an egg cup full or quarter of a tumbler full of tank water to the bag every ten minutes sometimes in can take as much as 4 hours to aclimatise the fish. The benefit of this is minimal stress as stressed fish will become diseased and probably die I have never lost a fish with this technique. You must discard all of the water that is in the bag though the fish should be netted out of the bag and then placed in the tank as in many fish only systems in shops you will find traces of copper. I would suggest you run the tank fishless for 2 months and concentrate on the inverts within this time. Go for easy corals and polyp colonies cladiella sp. button polyps mushroom anemones and the like. Also add some shrimps I would go for the true peppermint shrimp these will battle any aiptasia that may appear I would suggest 4 of these and add 3 cleaner shrimp you will need to feed them half a cube of artemia twice a week once the shrimps are in after lights out. You should also have a bag of phosphate remover in the tank at all times I prefer rowaphos. |
| 21-12-2006 20:35 by primus |
Thanks for the advice Alan . My water turnover is about 2000 lph .
When intoducing crabs and snails I presume this then puts a bio load on the system as at the moment I have got my skimmer switched off . So would I need to then switch it on ? The other thing is at the momment I only have normal marine lighting would I need to upgrade to keep inverts ?  |
| 22-12-2006 09:45 by Alan |
You shouldn't need the skimmer until you start feeding you mentioned that you are getting algae now that says to me you would not immediately need to feed the tank as the grazers will have plenty of food once the algae has gone if you go for hermits you will need to put some food in there otherwise the hermits will go for the snails.
The other benefit of the skimmer is the gas exchange driving off co2 and helping to stabalise the ph. For this reason it may actually be better to put it on now I doubt you will get much skimmate at the moment. |
| 22-12-2006 23:05 by primus |
Cheers Alan I`ll get the grazers in and take it from there . It is a bit scary on your first marine set up as I don`t won`t to harm anything . Your advice is most appreciated . Merry Christmas . |
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