Tag: Salt Water

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First salt water aquarium

Fluval Spec V Aquarium

My first salt water aquarium was Fluval Spec V, 5 gal tank. It’s small but it was good to start the salt water tank.
It was small as it is only 5 gal tank, but I could have 2 small clown fish with anemone, and 1 cleaner shrimp. If you are about to start Reef tank with Fluval Spec V, I would recommend to pick small rock as much as you can. I had some small but one big rock, it was always touching to the glass and hard to keep the glass.
When you make layout, you don’t want the rock is touching to the glass. Preferably, there is enough space that magnet cleaner can go through between glass and rock.

Large vs Small Aquarium

Which would be better Large Aquarium or Small Aquarium?
Large Aquarium is more stable and less water change. Small aquarium is easy to get build up clutter in the water and tank, so there need more water change and cleaning up often.
Large Aquarium can hold more fish and corals, but small aquarium can hold only couple or few.
It sounds larger aquarium is fun….

But if you have no experience of salt water tank, you don’t know how the things are going to. And if anything go wrong, you loose less with smaller aquarium but loose a lot with larger aquarium.
For example, if one of the fish caught ick and spread to all other fish to die.
If your aquarium is small and had only 2 clownfish, you loose only $100 to $150.
But if you have 20 fish and the ick spread to all fish in the tank to die, you loose $1000-$1500.

Salt water aquarium is alive

For the fresh water aquarium, you can use decorations to make better look. However salt water aquarium must hold only organic in the tank. To keep marine fish and corals healthy, the tank must be same environment as actual ocean.
Tank needs waves, same level or temp and salinity, should not have clutter that tap water has, so the water quality is important.
The live rock has little creatures to keep the rock alive and clean.
When the tank is new, you need to wait for the cycle, however it is fun to watch the little creatures comes in and out from the rock until you can add fish and corals.

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New Addition – Alien Eye Chalice & Miyagi Tort

I got new addition to my fluval Evo today, Alien Eye Chalice and Miyagi Tort. I found them from local Facebook group and just added them to the tank!
It is fun to add colour to the aquarium, little bit at each time.

Alien Eye Chalice

Alien Eye Chalice is soft coral that is easy to care and grow. Placement is around medium to low in the aquarium, can live with many kind of light.
However Alien Eye Chalice may loose colour when it’s placed too close to the light, so it’s better to avoid strong or direct light.
Alien Eye Chalice could sting other corals, so make sure there are space around it.

For the feeding, Alien Eye Chalice eats small pieces of meaty marine foods. You can feed pellets or baby brine shrimp.
If you feed frozen cube of shrimp to your fish, you can put them in a small container or cup, add some water. Pick the meaty water with eye dropper and spray around the coral.

Miyagi Tort

Miyagi Tort is SPS coral.
Since Miyagi Tort is sensitive to environment change, so it is crutial to maintain stable water quality.
Keep the stable temperature and avoid sudden change with chemical. It could lead them to stress or death.
Miyagi Tort likes to be placed middle in the aquarium, but can be placed low.
Feeding 1-2 times a week would be ideal, you can feed brine shrimp and amino acids.

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Clown Fish and body language

I’ve been having a clown fish for last 3 years and I noticed that salt water fish are very mindful. If I put new Hermit crabs or snail in the aquarium, she come to see them and stop right in front of them, staring at them but looks like greeting, or communicating each other, asking ‘who are you?’.
If I come close to the tank, she come to me and dance, asking for FOOD!
As the feeding work comes every day, I also learned when she is full.
She starts making less effort to get the food when she is full, and that is the sign that I stop feeding each time.
She eats shrimps from frozen int he morning, and eat pellets afternoon.

Different behavior after water change

One day, when I finished regular water change. I looked at the tank as I usually do after the water change, and saw her hiding between wall and rock. I’d never seen that behavior, and scared me if she isn’t feeling well.
She was hiding and trying to not move, her top fin was down.
Good thing my daughter was taking video of the water change, so we could look at back what caused her the behaving.
It was the new powerhead, she jumped into there to hide as soon as I plugged in. So I unplugged it right away and waited, and then she came out from there.
I thought now it’s all good and I turned on the powerhead again, and she hides again.
So I turned it off again.
On that day, I eventually left the powerhead off for half day.

Here is the video of the water change and clown fish.

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Declutter Fluval Evo 13.5

Build up mess in aquarium

My Fluval Evo 13.5 is about 2.5 years now, and there were build up mess. Red slime algae, green algae, green hair algae grew up on the live rock, wall, and even on the sand. Green Star Polyps grew up 3 times bigger in 2 years, and clown fish grew up bigger than anemone! When I upgraded my aquarium from Fluval Spec V (5 gal) to my current Fluval Evo 13.5, there were lots of space. I had cleaner shrimp and one clown fish at that time and they had enough swim area.
However they grow and I had to declutter my Fluval Evo.

New Fluval Evo Set Up

Current issue of Fluval Evo

  • Red Slime Algae
  • Green Algae
  • Green Hair Algae
  • Aiptasia
  • Not enough swim space
  • Too much dust in the sand and on the rocks
  • Odd smell when I vacuum sand

Red Slime Algae

I worked on the Red Slime Algae first. It was making looks bad in the aquarium and not healthy for fish and corals there. I was sucking them up manually with dropper, however I acknowledged that it can not catch up!
So I decided to use Red Slime Algae Remover. I was concerned what if it affect fish and coral… however it was all fine and all Red Slime Algae was gone in 2 weeks!

Clean Up Crew

Now I know Clean Up Crew is crucial to keep the aquarium clean. The store I got all my salt water aquarium and fish didn’t have any snail or crabs, so I didn’t get them when I started. The store closed down after and I didn’t know anywhere to buy anything about salt water aquarium until a few months ago.
One day I found a store that has Snail and Hermit Crabs for salt water aquarium and I could finally add them! It worked like magic, the green algae was gone by snails and sand and rocks got cleaner by Hermit Crabs. Hermit Crabs even eat left over from fish, so the water quality can stay cleaner as well.
Currently I have 5 Hermit Crabs, 2 Turbo snails, and 1 bamboo bee snail in my Fluval Evo 13.5 gal aquarium.

Hermit crab cleaning up Snail’s shell

Remove a live rock and deep clean up

It was hard to decide but I decided to remove one of big rock from aquarium. It was the biggest and I had it since my fist aquarium, but it had most green algae and clatter on it. So I decided to take off.
In the same time, I removed all rock once and rinsed them in the fresh water quickly, and then deep clean the sand. The aquarium was like dust storm while cleaning up.
However it seems a lot better after, there are more space to swim.
Now I see the wave is too weak, I’m ordering new wavemaker to increase the flow.

soaking in Peroxide.

Aiptasia

Aiptasia started one day, it was only one when I noticed, however I didn’t know what that is at that time. I thought it’s pretty, I had no idea that was later spread whole my aquarium! I started seeing it stanging my clownfish, so I decided to get rid of them.
I used Aiptasia Rx, it works instant and kills the aiptasia. However I could not use some of them that was too close to anemone. So now I’m ordering peppermint shrimp to eat them!
Now it’s time to be patient….

Review my cleaning up routine

Beside all the work, I’m reviewing my cleaning up routine. It has been 5 gal water change every week, however it build up this mess.
So now I increased the water change to twice/week, and will do the deep clean up the sand monthly.
Hope it decrease all the issue.
I will update later.

After all the clean up!
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