can I ???
- Thread starter jaws2
- Start date
Why cycle the tank with fish when you can put a raw cocktail shrimp in and get a stronger bacteria population without harming any fish? 2 other points:
1) the starfish will most likely die during the cycle. Starfish are very sensitive to changes in water quality.
2) A 30 gallon tank is much too small for any tang. Look for other smaller fish for your tank.
Brian
1) the starfish will most likely die during the cycle. Starfish are very sensitive to changes in water quality.
2) A 30 gallon tank is much too small for any tang. Look for other smaller fish for your tank.
Brian
If you put 4 damsels you won't have to worry about removing all of them, as they will try to kill each other. I also would recommend the raw cocktail shrimp. If you are planning on buying live rock, you may also want to add that as well, especially if you plan on having it shipped (IE: ordering online)
Just put one cocktail shrimp in there. As it decays it will cycle the tank.
Even if you don't add any live rock, you will need some kind of decor so the fish feel secure and have places to hide, sleep, or graze off of.
Damsels can be very colorful and very interesting, but they can also be very, very mean! Be careful what you choose and make sure that if you do decide on damsels that they are the last ones in!!!
Good fish for a 30g: firefish gobies, small clownfish like perculas, or oscellaris (sp?), yellow-headed jawfish (these can be awesome but they need a deep sandbed to have their burrows in - like 6"), royal grammas, as far as damsels, maybe the yellow-tailed damsel or any of the chromis.......whatever you decide to get, just remember not to overstock the tank! And don't add the fish too quickly either. Maybe one fish every week or two.
Good luck!
Even if you don't add any live rock, you will need some kind of decor so the fish feel secure and have places to hide, sleep, or graze off of.
Damsels can be very colorful and very interesting, but they can also be very, very mean! Be careful what you choose and make sure that if you do decide on damsels that they are the last ones in!!!
Good fish for a 30g: firefish gobies, small clownfish like perculas, or oscellaris (sp?), yellow-headed jawfish (these can be awesome but they need a deep sandbed to have their burrows in - like 6"), royal grammas, as far as damsels, maybe the yellow-tailed damsel or any of the chromis.......whatever you decide to get, just remember not to overstock the tank! And don't add the fish too quickly either. Maybe one fish every week or two.
Good luck!
Jaws, the following will sound pretty harsh, but are you deliberately trying to make your life difficult? I know live rock is expensive but it can save you a lot of hassles in the long (and short term).
If you don't use live rock how are you going to filter the tank? Almost anything else is more complex and more maintenance. Plus by using liverock to bring in all the bacteria you need, at least part of your cycling is done in super quick time - do it well enough and you won't even need to cycle. Plus you get a whole bunch of other organisms, mostly helpful - how else are you going to get good algae into the tank? Want to keep a tang - well ignoring the fact a 30 is pretty smal for any tang, if they can't browse all day they are prone to sickness and malnutrition, and the only way you're going to get in enough browsable stuff effectively is live rock.
Using damsels to cycle sucks and is a waste of them - you can't justify killing them for your conveniance, and you don't want 4 in a 30 - too much aggro.
If live rock is pricey where you live, get a spilt like 50 :50 of live rock, base rock - base rock is some dead limestone like texas holey rock - it soon becomes seeded. I'd rather seed with good quality rock I could pick rather than get a bunch of mailorder stuff from someone I'd never dealt with before.
If your lfs is telling you that you can easy run a tank with an undergravel , cycle with damsels and so on... I advise you to do more research by yourself to save yourself money and heartbreak. To many lfs's are stuck in the dark ages of maintaining marines, years when pretty much most fish died and lots of aquarists were unhappy.
If you don't use live rock how are you going to filter the tank? Almost anything else is more complex and more maintenance. Plus by using liverock to bring in all the bacteria you need, at least part of your cycling is done in super quick time - do it well enough and you won't even need to cycle. Plus you get a whole bunch of other organisms, mostly helpful - how else are you going to get good algae into the tank? Want to keep a tang - well ignoring the fact a 30 is pretty smal for any tang, if they can't browse all day they are prone to sickness and malnutrition, and the only way you're going to get in enough browsable stuff effectively is live rock.
Using damsels to cycle sucks and is a waste of them - you can't justify killing them for your conveniance, and you don't want 4 in a 30 - too much aggro.
If live rock is pricey where you live, get a spilt like 50 :50 of live rock, base rock - base rock is some dead limestone like texas holey rock - it soon becomes seeded. I'd rather seed with good quality rock I could pick rather than get a bunch of mailorder stuff from someone I'd never dealt with before.
If your lfs is telling you that you can easy run a tank with an undergravel , cycle with damsels and so on... I advise you to do more research by yourself to save yourself money and heartbreak. To many lfs's are stuck in the dark ages of maintaining marines, years when pretty much most fish died and lots of aquarists were unhappy.
OK i will say it....
A 30 gallon is to small for a yellow tang.
My 30 gallon has a chocolate starfish and 2 hermet crabs, and 1 dwarf angel and yes i have a larger tank ready to go when needed for the angel. But thats it. remember the salt water fish/water ratio is ten times that of fresh water. 1" of fish for every 10 gallons of water.
A 30 gallon is to small for a yellow tang.
My 30 gallon has a chocolate starfish and 2 hermet crabs, and 1 dwarf angel and yes i have a larger tank ready to go when needed for the angel. But thats it. remember the salt water fish/water ratio is ten times that of fresh water. 1" of fish for every 10 gallons of water.
if you haven't gotten in this subject before you will find that it can go both ways.i tend to stand on the idea that it is bad to disrupt the ocean for live rock but there are now many reputable cultivators of live rock.there is no reason not to get live rock so long as it was farmed properly and the harvesting does not disturb the enviroment.
Try gulf-view.com
They sell florida aquacultured live rock. Basicly they have taken dry base rock and placed it in the gulf of mexico. It has sat there for a minimum of 5 years and now comes with amazing life. Covered in coraline algae, macro algae, bi-valves, sponges and somtimes corals. Check their website and call Dale, the owner, when your ready to order. Tell him what size tank you have and what type of structure you would like to make with the rock and he'll pick appropriate pieces for you.
Brian
They sell florida aquacultured live rock. Basicly they have taken dry base rock and placed it in the gulf of mexico. It has sat there for a minimum of 5 years and now comes with amazing life. Covered in coraline algae, macro algae, bi-valves, sponges and somtimes corals. Check their website and call Dale, the owner, when your ready to order. Tell him what size tank you have and what type of structure you would like to make with the rock and he'll pick appropriate pieces for you.
Brian
you can get aquacultured live rock from http://gulf-view.com or http://www.tbsaltwater.com/
Aquacultured rock is land rock that was dumped in the ocean years ago. They then fish it out and send it directly to you.
For what its worth, if you buy pacific rock, most of it Pacific rock is collected in the places where storms and tide have broken pieces from the reef and deposited them. Divers are NOT swimming to the reef with a hacksaw and getting your rock.
Also, not to put you down, but I've never read anything good about the skilter, and my friend has one, and swears it's a piece of crap.
My recommendation for fish would be 1 yellow tail blue damsel once your tank has cycled. Wait a month, and then add a clownfish, such as an Occellaris clown. After a couple months, I would then add either a Royal Gramma or a firefish, and that would probably be it.
Aquacultured rock is land rock that was dumped in the ocean years ago. They then fish it out and send it directly to you.
For what its worth, if you buy pacific rock, most of it Pacific rock is collected in the places where storms and tide have broken pieces from the reef and deposited them. Divers are NOT swimming to the reef with a hacksaw and getting your rock.
Also, not to put you down, but I've never read anything good about the skilter, and my friend has one, and swears it's a piece of crap.
My recommendation for fish would be 1 yellow tail blue damsel once your tank has cycled. Wait a month, and then add a clownfish, such as an Occellaris clown. After a couple months, I would then add either a Royal Gramma or a firefish, and that would probably be it.
I don't believe in the live rock removal argument - they use the stuff anyway for building, roadfill blah blah blah , the amount used is trivial to that wasted by other processes. Live rock should and could be a sustainable resource for these islands to stop them making money by much more unfriendly methods. When people talk about dynamiting the reef, well that stuff is used for building, it's no use for aquatic purposes.
Plus a lot of it is farmed anyway, and that's a very , very good thing.
Plus a lot of it is farmed anyway, and that's a very , very good thing.
Well it costs labour to hitch it in the ocean, much more labour to heave it out , costs of storing the stuff in good condition and then airfreight isn't cheap. Airlines from liverock exporting companies actually are often forced to discount the freight rate for this stuff by the local government, but it doesn't cost nothing.
Whats the DHL rate for next day delivery of 100 kilos of stuff, how much per hour do you pay your labour......
Whats the DHL rate for next day delivery of 100 kilos of stuff, how much per hour do you pay your labour......
Sorry - didn't see page 2. If you stick in the shrimp, it's a source of ammonia to start cycling. If you've no live rock, no live sand that will take much, much longer than a week to be finished so putting in the clownfish a week later = clownfish will die. Really, don't waste your money on the clownfish - use it to get some small, cheap , scrap pieces of live rock to add least seed your substrate and get the cycling going fast.