I have had my 12 gallon tank up and running with LR and LS for a week and plan to do a 10% water change tomorrow. Is that how often and how much I should change the water, once a week, 10%? Yesterday, I found some greenish mold around the tank walls, especially right below the light, behind the heater, and filter. accompanying the mold beneath the light are about 50 little (as in tiny, like 3mm in legnth) shrimp like things. What are all of these things, and what should I do to get rid of the mold? should I get rid of the mold?

Sounds like pods, probably gammarus amphipods (google that for pics). Are you sure the mold in question isn't algae or cyanobacteria or diatoms? It's common for a new tank to have a bloom of slime.

I have no idea what it is, I just use mold to describe it, it's a greenish color, how do i get rid of it?

I'm sure it's micro algae. You'll have to scrape it if it's on there too long. Generally snails will help keep it manageable. You might also shorten the light cycle. If you're seeing living pods already your doing a good job setting up your tank.

what cephs can you keep in a 12 gallon?

I dont have any snails yet, should I get some, and do I have to feed them, or do they just eat the algae? and I dont know if the white things are amphipods, they are smaller than the one AM told me to look up which said they are 1 inch, the BIGGEST are 3mm, most of them barely touch 1 or 2 mm, here's some pics, or as good pics as I could get. You'll probably have to maximize the first image to see the white things, and the algae is on the front tank wall in front of the heater in the second.

Those are pods too.

o is that your food tank?

Im not planning on putting cephs in it, or even getting cephs for right now, it's my "first time experimental tank" I also thought it was too small for any ceph. Does anyone know of a ceph that would go in it, and if not, whats the most personable fish that will go in it?

So now that I know I need to get a clean up crew, what should I get for this size tank?

sorry i didnt kow it was an experimental tank:old::sagrin:

Are you going to get any corals? Clown fish are always nice. I don't know of any cephs for that size. Has the tank cycled? If you are sure that it is cycled, test it out with a shrimp. If he lives, it is good to go.

Clean up crew:
brittle star(not sure of tanks size)
skunk srimp or blood shrimp
snails

those are just ideas, you don't have to trust me

good luck:eek:

I might get corals, not sure yet. The tank has been cycleing fo a week, but AM said I should get snails, are those the only things I should get? I dont care too much about the "jazz", I want a fish with personality.

I have heard that hawkfish have good personalities. Long nose hawkfish look cool. They have one at my LFS.

Damsels are super good begginer fish. They are also super territorial.

Firefish are awsome! Look into it.

Royal Grammas are nice.


I have not owned all of these but this what I have learned after hours of research.

so my list of things to do will be,-----1 week into cycling a 12 gallon tank

do I have to do a water change this weekend? When should I start? How often should I do it? How much should I do it(volume)?

now, get snails----What type?

When do I get shrimp or cheap fish to get the bacteria used to a bio load?

What test kits should I have? All I have right know is a salinity kit and Im going to get the others tomorrow, but I dont know what exactly the "others" are.

sorry about all the questions at once, I'll get this down....someday :roll: :banghead:

Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and Ph to start(and maybe copper).

Sart doing water changes after the tank is cycled. You will be able to tell that it is cycled when all of your paramaters
are in place. Get the liquid tests for what dreadhead told you. You could get a the quick dip test strips that are cheaper but not as good. I got my shrimp when I thought that it was done cycling. I got him to see if the tank was suitable for other living things. If it lives the tank is good. That is how I did it.

Water changes.
I used to do like 5% every two weaks.:goofysca: Not good. I learned to do them right even though it never seemed to effect my tank. I think that you are supposed to do 10% weekly or 20% biweekly.

I do 10% to 15% weekly.

Im not planning on putting cephs in it, or even getting cephs for right now, it's my "first time experimental tank" I also thought it was too small for any ceph. Does anyone know of a ceph that would go in it, and if not, whats the most personable fish that will go in it?

So now that I know I need to get a clean up crew, what should I get for this size tank?

This is a decent selection of small fish: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/scateg.cfm?pCatId=2124

You could keep just about any shrimp or crabs in it. For a clean up crew a dozen hermits and half a dozen turbo snails would probably do.

Aren't lettuce naudibranches considered clean up crew? Could I get one of them

Yes they are, but you should wait for your tank to mature. They need a constant supply of algae, and some of them are particular about which algaes they will and won't eat. They get sucked into powerheads and overflows real easy too.

Sorry to keep bothering you guys, but I found some sort of slug thing in my tank last night. It has a greenish-brown color and has a flat marble pattern shell on its back. It's not a shell it goes inside, it just kind of lays on its back

sorry again

Sometimes its fun just to see what comes off the live rock. I set up a 40 gal a while ago and got a pistol shrimp and a couple of interesting crabs that don't seem to bother anything in the tank. I wouldn't worry too much about what comes from the rock unless you notice it doing damage to something else you like, just enjoy the freebies. Also if you are looking for an interactive fish most types of blennies are very sociable they may end up watching you more than you watch them. There are many different kinds and are fairly easy to keep.

why don't you buy or check out from the library a book on tank setup like "The New Marine Aquarium" by Michael Paletta or "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" By Robert Fenner. These and other books about setting up a tank will tell you what you need to do, when and why. Also they have info about aquarium fish and inverts. And please don't use a living creature to test your water quality.

eriu

Sorry to keep bothering you guys, but I found some sort of slug thing in my tank last night. It has a greenish-brown color and has a flat marble pattern shell on its back. It's not a shell it goes inside, it just kind of lays on its back

sorry again

Sounds like a stomatella snail.
http://www.reefland.com/rho/0305/images/stomatella.jpg

Beneficial, and they reproduce rather quickly. Kalypso loves eating them.

I never get anything on my live rock:cry:

oh well, I guess that that is good:smile:

yup, sounds like it, but I only have one, so I guess it wont reproduce. :sad:

what type of live rock did those come in on?

I got it from an established tank, it is fiji and tonga rock

Most all live rock includes some sort of hitch-hiker(s). Some just go unnoticed for a while. It might be pods, mysis shrimp, mantis shrimp, snails, worms, micro feather duster worms, micro stars, micro or macro algae, corals... and occasionally octopuses.

yup, sounds like it, but I only have one, so I guess it wont reproduce. :sad:

Not always a safe assumption with gastropods...

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1415-47571998000400012&script=sci_arttext

Last question for a while, I promise (I followed esquids advice and got a book). I am getting my snails and hermits now, I know I need 6 turbo snails, and 12 hermits, but What hermits and how many of each type?

If you get dwarf hermits (blue-leg) I would get twice as many, they're teeny tiny. Whichever kind is available should be fine. The problem with the larger ones is that they will kill your snails for their shells when they outgrow the ones they have. The blue-legs seem to behave themselves pretty well. You can choose a variety or stick to one kind. I prefer having different kinds just so they don't all look the same.

I would suggest the ones that you know will stay relatively small (blue or red legged) if you plan to have any kind of serpent star. It seems the larger ones find serpent's arms an easy meal. Mr. Green Jean's problems began with one of my son's larger hermits. The crab took off one arm and was munching on a second (without having eaten the first) when we became aware of the situation.

I like the dwarf zebra HC. They don't seem to beat up on snails as much as scarlet HC. you may want to only get half your snails and crabs now as there is nobody to clean up after yet.

Prolly amphipods...although recently I had an outbreak of baby shrimp in my ocots tank. Theyre tiny, clear, and move in and out of holes extremely fast. I think they're from my peppermint shrimp. Oddly, my octo never touched the peppermint and its been there since his introduction?!? Sometimes LR can have baby shrimp eggs in it also. Either way nothing to worry about.

Prolly amphipods...although recently I had an outbreak of baby shrimp in my ocots tank. Theyre tiny, clear, and move in and out of holes extremely fast. I think they're from my peppermint shrimp. Oddly, my octo never touched the peppermint and its been there since his introduction?!? Sometimes LR can have baby shrimp eggs in it also. Either way nothing to worry about.

Sure they're not mysids?

As you all know, I have some sort of green growth thing on my tank glass (cyanobacteria?). Well we are doing a project on protists at school and I was wondering if "cyanobacteria" was a protist or what organisms that I could easily aquire in my aquarium are protists. Im just double checking with the experts because if I end up with something that's not a protist, I end up with a big flat (or should I say round) 0 on a major grade :banghead: :goofysca:

Cynobacteria is not an algae but is usually dark maroon and slimy, what I see in the picture looks more like green algae. The photo suggest that you are having an algae bloom (my nano has a constant algae bloom and is green 48 hours after my weekly cleaning). To grow more leave your lights on longer :hmm:, to minimize it reduce your lighting or lighting time and do a lot of water changes.

If my brief research is correct, this should qualify - see Algae, the plant-like protists here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist

It also mentions brown algae which is also common (and unavoidable) in reef tanks. However, I am not a science expert and hopefully some of our members with credentials will verify the identification.

I believe in modern taxonomy, protista doesn't include bacteria, including cyanobacteria, or archaea, only eukaryotic organisms... I'm just looking at wikipedia pages, like the table at the bottom of this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monera). You might want to ask your teacher exactly how protista is defined for the purpose of this assignment...

To be sure, I'd look for eukaryotic single-celled organisms, not cyanobacteria...

OK thanks, so if it's algae, it's a protist,

if it's cyanobacteria it's a bacteria :banghead: cyanobacteria

Monty's right, I'm taking microbio right now and the three domains based on RNA sequencing and membrane bound organelles is the current classification system. In that protists are eukarya not bacteria. What is the definition of protist that your teacher is using for class?