`Your Freshwater & Saltwater Community Aquarium

All about setting up and maintaining a home freshwater or saltwater aquarium.

Nano Salt Tank as it is Now

After posting the post with the tips, I thought I should share some photos and maybe a rundown of what all is in the tank.  I bought 5 pounds more of live rock, which brings the total up to 11 pounds of live rock now.  I also got a deal on some baby Kenya Tree Coral (Capnella sp.).  


This photo is of the entire tank with all of the live rock in place.  The tank looks more full now, but there is plenty of swimming room for my little fish. I left large "holes" between the stacked rock on the right, as the cleaner shrimp likes to hang upside down waiting for a fish that needs "cleaned" to wander by!  You can also see my skimmer in the rear right side of the tank.




Here is a picture of the Skunk Cleaner Shrimp who is a relatively new addition to the tank.  He is REALLY good at picking up leftover food that makes its way to the bottom that the fish dont get.  He's quick, and will have the bottom cleaned up in minutes!  When he's done eating, he goes in his favorite hole in the rocks, waiting to clean the fish too!  I got him cuz of his cleaning ability, but he's pretty, too!  He adds some color to the tank.  One of the goals of this tank is to make it as colorful as possible.  Saltwater life is very colorful.










This weekend, I thought I'd try my hand at keeping a coral.  This is the Brown Tree Coral, or Kenya Tree Coral I spoke of.  It's a baby off of a larger piece at the fish store.  I actually got 2 of these, one I "planted" in the sand, another I put on one of the rocks.  The one the store had was actually a little bit on the large size, and from what I read, these grow relatively fast, but they apparently cal also be "pruned" also.  Thought I'd try this as it's supposedly a very hardy variety.












Here is a nice picture of the cleaner shrimp, the damsel and Nemo, the Clownfish.  The other coral is visible on the top of the rock in the foreground.  My cardinalfish is partially visible behind the rock in the foreground.  He hides when I take pictures, I think he's a bit camera shy.  I have another shrimp, he is shy too, and comes out mostly at night or during feeding time, and even then, he stays partially hidden in the rocks.










Here is one of my little hermit crabs.  These cute little guys (I have 2) scour the bottom looking for old, leftover food that the shrimp dont get.  I also have two snails that feed on the algae and helps keep that under control.  I have a fair amount of green algae growing on the tank walls, but it gives the snails something to eat.  As long as the front glass is clear, I dont worry about the sides and back.














Well, there you have it, these are the major players in this little aquarium.  This is all in a 10 gallon!  Although most salt tanks are in massive tanks, dont let that stop you.  Saltwater is doable in a smaller tank too!










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Nano Reef Tips

Although I only had this tank for about a month now, I'd like to share with you a few things I've learned.  I feel that I have some things to share with the newcomer to the hobby, as I haven't lost a fish or any livestock since I started, and I also may have found out a trick or two that will help speed the setup somewhat.

When I started setting up, I put the sand in, then the water, then a couple pounds of live rock.  The first post I wrote has pictures of the tank that contains the sand, rock and one fish.  The first fish I put in, I had to return because it was very aggressive to the second fish I had added.  The Strawberry Basslet was absolutely ruthless towards my blue damsel, that I had to take him back.  First hint - dont use an aggressive fish as your first fish.

While I had that first fish, I tested the water daily.  The ammonia levels rose as expected, but the ammonia never peaked to a very high level like it did on my very first freshwater aquarium.  I believe that is because I used a filter I had been running on one of my freshwater tanks.  I wasnt certain at first if this would be a good idea or not, but it turned out to be so far.  In fact, it worked out so well, that the tank seems to have completely cycled in only 2 weeks with this approach, so...Second tip:  Use a "used" biological filter.

Speaking of water quality, and I've heard hobbyists say either way, that a skimmer is not absolutely necessary.  I cannot comment on whether one is nessary to maintain a tank, but add me to the list who believes in them!  I bought a skimmer, and I was dumping out brownish, yellow water from it daily.  I have since did a slight modification to the collection cup on mine.  I drilled a hole in the side to tightly fit a piece of airline tubing, and have the tubing going thru a larger tub where the cup can drain so I dont have to empty it so often.  I have it draining in a clear plastic box, and I can tell you, the water in it is like... "ewwww"...so the skimmer is definately doing something.  Now I did not go and get a very expensive model.  I got the little Oceanic nano skimmer that is used on their 14 nano cube.  It has suction cups so it can be used in a standard tank.  This skimmer fits inside the aquarium.  I put the drain tubing just below the reaction chamber, so the cup never fills all the way.  Third tip:  get a skimmer!  even a low cost one will help.

Brown algae:  I think every tank gets it when youre starting out.  I disregarded all the warnings regarding to using tap water in the tank.  I never saw it written as to WHY not to use it, so I wasnt sure if it was an old wives tale or what, so I went ahead and used tap water.  That was a mistake.  I later read that some tap water has minerals, mostly silicates that brown algae thrives on, and boy did I get a nice algae bloom!  The tank was covered with it, and it happened in just one day!  The next day, I went to one of those companies that install commercial water coolers with the big 5 gallon plastic bottles of water.  Culligan is one such place.  Check first, but the ones in my area use reverse osmosis water.  I bought 2- 5 gallon bottles.  The water is not that expensive and will keep the tank pretty.  I did only a 1/3 partial water change on my tank, and within a week, ALL of the brown ick was gone outta my tank.  Fourth tip: Use bottled water, and check to make sure its reverse osmosis water.  I'm told distilled water is ok too, but the problem that could arise is if they use a copper still to distill it.  Many  crustaceans are sensitive to copper.

I hope this helps you out.  Also, I welcome any comments on this and other stories I post here.  I'm not an authority on saltwater - I'm still learning, and sharing what has worked for me, SO FAR.  If you see something that I'm writing about that is not good practice, please leave a comment and discuss it.

About this blog

Welcome to my new blog.


This site is something that I wanted to create for "YOU", the aquarium enthusiast. Whether you are brand new, and considering setting up your first aquarium or someone who has been into the hobby for a long time, I want to make this YOUR favorite blog site. I welcome any comments you may have as this site is being built.
I have two contributors to the page
Please give a warm welcome to Lady Holiday and Alice, Alice has had an aquarium for awhile and Me and Lady Holiday have had ours
since the beginning of 2009.
Please check back often. We will be adding new material to the blog as quickly as we can, and I hope that you will find it to be informational and that you can use it in setting up "Your Freshwater or Saltwater Community Aquarium"!


Mike

Founder of
"Your Freshwater & Saltwater Community Aquarium"
About 3 weeks ago, I successfully bred Albino Corydora Catfish.
I ended up with about a dozen babies.
The above video shows these little guys at about 2-3 weeks old.

I hope you enjoy the video!
Above is a video I created during a spawn cycle of 3 Albino Cory Catfish.
This was taken live in real time.
This process occurs a number of times until they finish.

About Us

Your Freshwater & Saltwater Community Aquarium
is bought to you by two aquarium enthusiasts from Youngstown, Ohio (Mike ) and (Lady Holiday) and (Alice) from Florida
we hope that you enjoy the site and will return.



★ Fresh Water Fish Facts ★

The Arapaima is considered by many to be the largest strictly freshwater fish in the world! The Arapaima, also known as Pirarucu, are beautiful, but they are a fish that can get up to 15 feet long and weigh as much as 440 pounds. They are fast growers, powerful swimmers, and in the wild will jump out of the water to snatch small birds from low hanging tree branches. Because of its large size this is probably not really a good choice for a home pet, but is well suited for a public aquarium
For more information on the Arapaima click below.

Arapaima


Special Thanks To Alice
For Designing This Picture

★ Cory Babies By Mike ★

★ Cory Fish Spawning By Mike ★

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A CUTE VIDEO I RAN ACROSS ONLINE

Fish vs. Turtle

Lady Holiday

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