Saltwater Help

[micstarz]

certainly.. it's been joked that mantis shrimp could live in a sewer if they needed to

as long as you dont make any gigantic errors (putting bleach in the tank, set the salinity lik 1.050, etc) they should do fine

a ciliated mantis would be fine in that small a tank as would a smith's
stomatopods.com has some good info, a forum, and a store that you can paruse at yourt leasure..

the only thing i would say about keeping a matis as your first SW pet is be VERY careful

Thanks! I was attracted to them after I read another thread here about them. Then I found out that they are extremely hardy and that they sometimes come as hitchhikers in live rock and that petstores will sell them cheap...and if I have any trouble finding one, I'll just pop down to the seafood market...where they are always available!

as long as your careful as to what fish you add into a system thats less then 10 gallons you should be fine. Nano's are mainly for corals anyways. Watchman, clowns and other small species of gobies are fine, just be careful not to over crowd. A tank of softies and low light LPS will be a good looking setup, however if your introducing corals then id strongly suggest the use of RO water. If you intent is to avoid corals, then your going to be very hard pressed for a tank full of fish, as you will quickly overstock and see many issues down the road. Id go to your LFS and find some beginner corals that you like, and plan for those. if your able to add a light, id get a Compact flouresent light, they make small ones, otherwise you may not have any luck at corals either.

Thanks. I'll plan ahead for corals in the future but I don't think I'll get some just yet. I will just alter my livestock to suit corals should I ever want to try using them...however, I'm looking into keeping a mantis shrimp right now...I think I'm

Thanks for the input!!

 

[princess]

why would you need an RO unit or skimmer for a 10 gallon tank

a 20 gallon tank with appropriately sized fish.. what's the problem there?
if i recall you had/have a 12 gallon?

12gallon not anymore ..........RO unit/RO water should be used no matter what size tank.... and skimmers are just cool.......

20 US gallon is only like 15 UK gallon and i think it' to small to start out.....oreet. I know because my 12G was rubbish.

Also i don't understand why a reef genius like you would need telling by an amature why RO water is needed. 99% of problems of keeping saltwater fish are dirived from water qaulity isn't it just best to buy what £1 of RO water a month than kill £50 worth of fish/coral? I would of thought you of all people would agree that RO water is needed. Were suppose to keep fish so they thrive not just survive.

 

[skiptomyzoo]

Princess, he was talking about the unit, not the water itself, and at only ten gallons, I tend to agree your better off just buying the water, but any much larger, the RO unit. As far as what I pmed micstarz, it included good links to thread that talked all about that, skimmers, and cycling, so there was mention allready of it.

 

[BIGgourami]

indeed..

a $150 peice of equipment for a tank that would cost about the same seems a BIT excessive

at 50c a gallon and only needing 2-3 gallons a week, if that, a 50 gallon a day home size RO unit (plus filters and additional membranes etc) seems ridiculous

 

[micstarz]

Daymn I used dechlorinated tapwater.

Too bad I can't use the seatwater that's 50m from my house...or can I, if I keep the tank dark?

 

[princess]

Well i bought the RO unit because i'm such a pro ;-) i plan to upgrade next year and would save me time and money in the long run. RO water here is 50p per gallon ( almost double usa ) in my 22 uk gallon tank - 25 us gal it would cost £4 - £5 a month and the RO unit was £45 = around $90 60 gal perday. Was a good investment .......

I'm sure there's threads about using seawater mainly con's more than pro's. If i took water from my nearest beach i'd get toilet roll in with the bargain.

 

[skiptomyzoo]

Personally I wouldn't use saltwater. I'm sure there is a bunch of cons to it, which I never bothered reading because I never considered it, but one of the first things that comes to mind is all the diatoms present (hence the greenish color) in the water untill you get far out, so all I can picture is algae problems if you did, and I could as a result imagine the TDS really high and the salinity not where you want it. Also the sand is the oceans skimmer, so your going to get a lot of crap water close to the beach IMO.

 

[skene]

There are plenty of people out there that have easy access and collect SW for their tanks. One thing that you have to keep in mind is that you do not want to collect from areas where there are more public utilities.
You would need access directly to ocean water, and not out of lets say channels that route to the ocean. So collecting SW itself is a task.
Also you would not want to collect directly from the surface, like dipping a bucket into water by the beach as you may collect the unwanted crap that is at the surface of the water.
Greenish pigmentation to water would not have "diatoms". NSW that tends to be greenish would have more beneficial things like a higher count of plankton. There is plenty of information regarding all of this. If you search there are plenty of people that have more thriving reef tanks.
Keep in mind that cooler waters contain this. Water that tends to be cleaner or clearer looking has less plankton in the water.

 

[micstarz]

The water here is clearish green-blue...and now that i think about it, I don't trust the water quality...back to mixing salt!

 

[skiptomyzoo]

Greenish pigmentation to water would not have "diatoms". NSW that tends to be greenish would have more beneficial things like a higher count of plankton. Keep in mind that cooler waters contain this. Water that tends to be cleaner or clearer looking has less plankton in the water.

You must be completely unfamiliar with the term that you put it in quotes, and then spoke incorrectly about it.

Diatoms are plankton, and one of the most abundent forms of life on this earth, existing in mainly the upper surface of the ocean, and they "make up a large portion of the marine plankton and are an important food source for many aquatic animals" but furthermore and more importantly note that they are "any of numerous microscopic, unicellular, marine or freshwater algae of the phylum Chrysophyta, having cell walls containing silica" To think they wouldn't be there, especially in green water is completely ridiculous as a result, as plankton is "the collection of small or microscopic organisms, including algae and protozoans, that float or drift in great numbers in fresh or salt water, especially at or near the surface, and serve as food for fish and other larger organisms." Hence a diatom is a form of plankton. Why is the water green? because of the diatoms.
Both quotes are taken off of dictionary.com, I am not making this stuff up. If you still don't believe me, next time you take out DT (phyto)plankton to feed your corals, note the color.