Guess who has two thumbs and is getting their first salt tank.....this girl :D

I'm going to be asking plenty of questions lol. I was thinking about buying live rock from my lfs. Their tanks all look healthy as far as I can tell. But I'm not 100% sure what to look for. It's The Salty Critter in vermilion Ohio if anyone has any experience with them online or in person, or can look at the site and get a sence of their legitmacy.

Florida live rock (iirc) looked to be top of the line and full of critters. Maybe I'll cough up the $ for that.
 
If you have a local reef club, I would join and ask them what they think of the store and see if you can find local reviews online. My marine only LFS is a family owned store that has been in business for about 20 years and has a very good reputation. It's pretty easy as a fish person, to walk around and see if the fish look unhealthy, and if the corals look closed up or dead. Much of that is easy to see to anyone, but there are flatworms and other things that their stuff could be infested with, that you might not notice. (If I were you, I would google images of "flatworms" and "aptasia" since those are two things you DO NOT want in your tank.) Also, if you buy stuff that has little green plant vines on it, don't think it's cute and leave it. I did that in my first biocube and I'm having a heck of a time getting rid of it! It doesn't really damage anything, but it grows fast and its taking over my rock. I'm constantly pulling it out. After you get everything established, you'll want to have a 10 gallon for a quarantine tank, because it's even more expensive than freshwater if you bring in a sickness that wipes out your tank.
Ich will be your worst enemy. Any med that kills ich, will kill any inverts/ corals that you have. You can't increase the temp in saltwater, and it's resistant to salt (of course). I did have a new fish come down with ich, and it was starting to spread to my other fish. I fed frozen mysid shrimp cubes that I soaked for a day in fresh crushed garlic cloves. I continued to feed this for 7 days and did a lot of water changes. It never returned. I would highly recommend trying this as a first step if you spot anything that appears to be ich.
 
Aiptasia can be easy to locate. Check the store's display tanks. Look closely into the rocks. If you see Aiptasia (google and learn how to identify them quickly) then don't get LR or macro algae from there. It's the stores that don't bother to wipe it out in their tanks (usually connected through plumping or sumps to the macro/LR storage) that are most likely to spread it.

For me it stays in the sump and I just pull up the rock/macro it is growing on (I've never seen more then 2 at a time), but for many others they become a pest that is difficult to wipe out. I can't say from experience if they really are as bad as people say. Every display tank (including my own) I've seen with them in it has a rather reasonable population and in some cases coral without any obvious issues (granted the owners/managers of those stores arn't going to say "yeah, that stuff is horrible and gives us trouble all the time!" :rofl:). But it is probably best to avoid the risk whenever possible.
 
Fishfriend1 said:
Welcome to the dark side of fishkeeping, Bally! I'm not too good with the equipment and test kits (I just test salt-levels and basic parms once per month) so I can't help you yet :) When you get to stocking and finding stuff on your LR I can help you more. Again, welcome to Salt Water!
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Thanks FF!
shaynablizard said:
Congrats! I made the leap to saltwater in January and have been very successful, but also very cautious. I did have sleepless nights when I first set it up, worrying that I may have done something wrong. I'll share my experience and hope it helps you-
I bought an already fully set up 29 gallon biocube, but the seller kept the fish. I took home the established live rock, along with as much water as I could transport. I then went to a my local trusted LFS that specializes in saltwater only, and got reef water from a display tank to fill my tank. I bought a saltwater master test kit, and tracked my ammonia/nitrate/nitrite until the small cycle passed and I added hermits and snails for a cleanup crew. They did well so I started adding corals and fish slowly.
You don't have a lot of options for fish that size, but if you look around for nano fish, you'll find some ADORABLE gobies and blennies exist that max out at 1-2". Mushrooms and zoanthids are excellent corals to start out with, but you will definitely want new bulbs if you don't know if the ones you have are newer. Nanotuners is a pretty good place to get those. I really like dwarf feather dusters too. I continue to buy water weekly from my LFS to do water changes, since I know he's reliable, plus it's cheap, only 1.00/ gal plus it gives me an excuse to go to the fish store weekly! :) I did buy an RO/DI unit and I'll learn how to mix my own water when I'm feeling brave.... one step at a time.
If you have any way to do a modification to the type of nano you have to include a small refugium to pack in chaeto, I highly recommend it. I have done that with mine, plus I have a biocube skimmer - not the best, but it works pretty well actually, and much better than no skimmer. I have a chiller on my tank, watch yours closely and make sure it doesn't get too warm. You can prop open the lid and use a fan if heat becomes an issue on really warm days if air conditioning isn't available, but watch out because some fish jump. For filter media, I use Purigen, Chemi Pure Elite, and PhosGuard since that was what was recommended to me by other experienced reefkeepers. My corals are multiplying like crazy, and my fish are doing great. I've even recently added a second nano tank! :D
Here are vids of my tanks if you'd like to see them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksnzH-5Ah-E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNf3_wyzu30&NR=1
Hope this helps you and good luck!
Shayna
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Great looking tanks!
Khemul said:
Aiptasia can be easy to locate. Check the store's display tanks. Look closely into the rocks. If you see Aiptasia (google and learn how to identify them quickly) then don't get LR or macro algae from there. It's the stores that don't bother to wipe it out in their tanks (usually connected through plumping or sumps to the macro/LR storage) that are most likely to spread it.

For me it stays in the sump and I just pull up the rock/macro it is growing on (I've never seen more then 2 at a time), but for many others they become a pest that is difficult to wipe out. I can't say from experience if they really are as bad as people say. Every display tank (including my own) I've seen with them in it has a rather reasonable population and in some cases coral without any obvious issues (granted the owners/managers of those stores arn't going to say "yeah, that stuff is horrible and gives us trouble all the time!" :rofl:). But it is probably best to avoid the risk whenever possible.
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from what I saw aptasia is fairly common, and can be easily eradicated in small numbers. If there are one or two in the whole store is that acceptable? Im thinking its like having some algae in a freshwater display tank, sometimes it happens.
 
Honestly, you'll probably find one or two aiptasia in any stores tanks, but you want to make sure you aren't buying a rock that has it on it. And if you spot one in your tank that does pop up, which I've had, know what it looks like so you can quickly kill it. Lemon juice does the trick. If you don't know what it is, and you bring it home thinking it's some neat little coral, it can quickly take over your tank, so for that reason I wanted to make mention of it.
 
As shaynablizard said, some is acceptable. Best to avoid it where you can but that may not work. If you do end up getting some in the tank it isn't the end of the world. Just don't let it grow and thrive.

The thing with stores here (may be different around you) is that the LR is generally safe. It is kept in separate tubs to make sure you don't get anything they can charge you for in it (:swear:). It's the macroalgae you have to watch out for. It is often grown in sumps for the display tanks so if the display tank has a few aiptasia, check the macro best you can but isn't a huge problem. If it has dozens of aiptasia in it, consider getting the macro elsewhere.


edit: I didn't so much mean avoid the entire store. But if the plumbing for the LR/macro storage is connected to somewhere with a lot of bad hitchhikers, then avoid that LR/macro. It really depends how the individual stores plumb their tanks together. Some are very good about separating things, others tend to try to maximize efficiency by connecting everything they can together.
 
Aptaisia are everywhere really. Even the nicest DT has them and its more up to you to keep their numbers in check. A couple small aiptasia on a nice piece of LR would not prevent me from buying it but I would nuke them before it went in my tank. Actually I would ask my LFS to do that before they pulled the rock out of the water. As mentioned, I would not buy even what appeared to be a "clean" rock from a tank infested by aiptasia, bubble algae, bryopsis and other plauge alage, flat worms and the like. If you really want to reduce your risk, get dry rock and a few pounds of hand picked LR. A small bag of sand from a nice established system will also help to seed the tank.

Lots of people do everything they can to prevent bad things from getting into their systems and things still manage to slip through. The best defense is to quantine EVERYTHING including corals. Even if you dip corals there are things that may be resistent to the dip and therefore survive the process.
 
My LFS has the LR in large bins not in the tanks
 
I was looking at ordering tonga live rock 20lb for 100$+ shipping. I'm justifying it on I got the tank for cheap.
 
Ballyhoo said:
I was looking at ordering tonga live rock 20lb for 100$+ shipping. I'm justifying it on I got the tank for cheap.
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Before you do that, you might want to check around craiglist or a local marine hobbyist site to see if someone in your area is selling off their saltwater tank. If it was a well taken care of tank, that's a great way to get a lot of live rock cheap. Sometimes it'll even have some corals on it. (I don't mean actually buy the whole set up, but see if they'll sell off rock separately. Many people do.)
 
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