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Lunch as a pet?

went out and paid for about 14 kg. I got about 18 kg though. A couple times he forgot how much I had... and some other times he gave me"service", which means free, rocks. total ended up being 135,000

so. 18 x 2.2 = 39.6 lbs. and 135,000 won is about 108 US$.

which would be about $2.73 per pound... how does that sound?

He said it was cycled already.. and I could just put it in my tank... which I did.

I assume I will end up having my own little cycle in my tank anyways... correct?

what about lighting?... I have read that lighting is bad when cycling. what do you think?

anything I could add at this point that can survive a cycle? like a hermit crab or something. or do I need to let the sucker wait a month?

here's some pics of what it looks like now... there's also a pic that has the net over my skimmer. I'll probably buy a new skimmer later on, as u think this will be to small for my tank.

maybe two of my pieces have what looks like puddy or something on them used to hold them in place from a previous tank... you think this is okay?

Thanks again.
 

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Looks beautiful! I'm not sure that 18kg is enough, though. I suppose it ought to be if you have a good filter and skimmer running. You got a pretty good deal, I think. My lfs sells live rock for $7 a lb...and they use copper.

Yes, your tank will continue to cycle. You'll need to put a hardy fish in the tank to produce ammonia to keep the biological filter going. I think several hermit crabs would do. If you had a good population of hermit crabs going by the time your ceph arrived that would be convenient.

The skimmer and other equipment will be best moved out of the tank. Most people here would probably suggest setting up a sump.

I don't know about the lighting concern or the putty...probably the putty is reef glue or something similar.
 
don't I need a skimmer for the curing?


Ya. my wife won't let me fork out for a sump right now. my tanks not drilled, so I don't know how I would set one up without that.

My wife's not too thrilled on how much the total cost has come up to... so I'll have to wait to grab an outside skimmer.

what kind of skimmer would you recommed?
 
Your tank is coming along nicely. That is an excellent price for good looking live rock. I have to order mine as what the LFS here is rock and not live rock no matter what they call it. I have only purchased two pieces from an LFS and after 3 years the two were finally supporting small critters.

Your light cycle is fine. If you start seeing too much algae, you can cut back to reduce growth but you have very low wattage bulbs and some light is helpful to grow the bacteria.

Below is my recommended schedule for cycling the tank. You will read many different successful cycle schemes but this one works for me.

Let the tank cycle as is (skimmer off, no water changes) for a month (stir your sand weekly). With precycled rock you can test for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates in about 2 weeks (if you can find them, the strips are very good to have for both water quality and acclimation but otherwise take a small amount to your pet store and have them test it - this is usually a free service here). If you show no ammonia or nitrites and some nitrate, you can start adding and feeding a clean up crew with small frozen shrimp or tiny pieces of larger shrimp. Feeding is necessary, not so much for the clean up crew but to create small amounts of ammonia to grow the bacteria. At two weeks hermits and snails should be fine. In a month (again test your water and only add critters if you show zeros on the ammonia and nitrites) you might consider adding a serpent or brittle star (two will work nicely in that sized tank and avoid the green serpents and common starfish, the greens eventually become too agressive and the commons will starve) and a couple of mithrax crabs (they help with hair algae and may or may not be eaten by an octo).

After a month (again only if you have good water readings), do your first water change (I recommend 10 gallons for this one and 5 gallons a week after you have an octopus), change your carbon and turn on your skimmer consider adding a pair (but no more) of peppermint shrimp. These will eat small aptasia (not larger ones) if you happen to have them and may survive an octo if well established in the tank in advance (adding afterwards is guaranteed expensive food). Increase your feeding of meaty foods (frozen shrimp are high ammonia generators so they are my choice but you can also add marine flake or pellets that contain fish or shrimp). If your nitrates exceed 20 ppm, start weekly water changes.

After two months, you can try mushrooms, replace any clean-up crew that died and consider some octo safe polyps. Generally speaking, polyps with very short feeding tenticles will have low stinging potential but read about any that you consider. Attach any polyps to loose rock so that if you see an octo react, you can remove them and trade the polyps for an alternate (not necessary for mushrooms but don't plant them where they will cover opening between the rocks or the octo will dislodge them). Tree sponges (avoid ball sponge) and gorgonians can be placed in an octo tank but should not be tried until the tank is established for about a year and then need more water flow than your current setup provides (photosynthetic gorgonians will need a brighter light source but there are some that can survive your lighting with more waterflow). Check your nitrates, if they exceed 20 ppm, increase your water changes.

If everything checks out at the end of three months (I like to wait 4 for a new tank) you should be ready to try your first octopus. I would suggest you wait until the three month mark and then go shopping without buying a couple of times and just look at the octopuses in the tanks. Try to get a feel for health. Unfortunately, size is not a good indicator of age. Do you see it changing color when you move toward it? Does the entire body react or is the change splotchy (one side reacting and not the other is OK but not patchy color). Does it look "grey" rather than a clear white? IMO Males are preferable to females because of the time lost when they brood (and then die). Try to be able to identify a male by looking at the third arm to the right (clockwise from the eyes). This arm will be kept curled and not used when climbing around. It will take some study to get a feel for finding your best chance in a poor environment but will be worth the time and you will learn something of their nature. I recommend doing this ONLY after your tank is ready as the temtation is likely to be too strong to buy one before the tank is ready. :hmm:.

A few newbie notes, as your tank water evaporates, you need to replace it with fresh, preferably RO/DI water, DEFINITELY water with no chlorine (letting water stand in an open container for 48 hours will eliminate chlorine). Only use saltwater to replace water that you have removed.

Keep your glass clean through out the cycle, algae build up is much harder to remove and cleaning the glass will have no negative effect.

Do not add fish for any reason. Your live rock and feeding your clean up crew will produce a proper cycle. Fish are not good food for an octopus (not harmful in small quantity though) and some will attack or at least pester an octo. You will read about successes with fish and octos but not in this sized tank and not in a newly established tank.

Keep your sand stirred and use a turkey baster to clean your rocks weekly. After cycling be consistent with your water changes (I recommend 5 gallons a week, 5 gallons every two weeks if there is no octo present).

The "putty" is likely to be epoxy and harmless. It does mean it was in someone elses tank though. With a little effort, it will peel off.

If the bar on the left back is an air stone, I would move it to the bottom of the tank. If it is your return from the canister, I would do the same. EIther way it will provide more benefit to the water quality.
 
dwhatley;139389 said:
If the bar on the left back is an air stone, I would move it to the bottom of the tank. If it is your return from the canister, I would do the same. EIther way it will provide more benefit to the water quality.

bar?... There's a wooden air piece that air flows through for the skimmer. Do you mean that? just take that out and put it on the bottom of my tank?

the other equipment is my intake on the right... and a rain output on the top left.
 
I saw a bristle worm last night... only one...

what do you recommend...

I read one way was to take the rock out. put it in a bucket... and cover it with newspaper for an hour... then check and pull them off. ?

also I read something about nylon... and bait ... but what do you bait it with?

should I stick with the rock in the bucket? or try nylon bait? or something else?

thanks
 
No, leave the skimmer air supply where it is, my mistake.


I am assuming you are talking about the small pink and brown bristles and not the more dangerous kind.If you take your rock out, you will be killing much of what you are trying to build. You are going to have bristle worms and for the most part they are not a concern for an octo tank and will help keep your substrate clean. Unfortunately they populate faster than we would like and there is no particular method to keep them controlled (other than not feeding a tank and that will only slow down the population growth). My best method of control has been to vacuum the sand with a small vacuum that filters the water and returns it to the tank (recently defunct) or to change out the substrate every two years or so when the population becomes excessive. I have tried the stocking (nylon) idea - any fish or shrimp pieces work for bait - without much success as well as the tube type traps. You can catch a few this way but "only one" is not happening, you have lots of them in the rock and catching one or two a night doesn't do much.
 
So skimmer on then?

I did move the skimmer out like you suggested earlier, and then put the wood air piece close to thew bottom at full...

Can't remember the color of the bristle worm... it was little though. less than an inch.

so the consensus is to leave the sucker then?

I put the rock back in the tank. couldn't find a worm. but I took some hairy algae off it while I had it out.

What exactly am I looking for on my live rock to know how good it is... I have a few covered in purple (which looks basically like it was dipped in chocolate)...

a couple are mostly dead looking, with some red/pink on them here and there.

others look dusted brown here and there... the brown doesn't really look like growth though.
 
Skimmer off for the first month but leave the air bar at the top.

Check your blue light and see if it is a plant light or an actinic. The actinic blue will make the purple show up much more attactively. You might want to change out the pink for a white as well as the combination of actinic blue and soft white tend to display saltwater colors most effectively (this is an esthetic suggestion and had no bearing on cycling the tank). I suspect the lights you have are designed for fresh water aquariums. For an octopus tank, this is not important but it will not show off colors as nicely as the spectrum designed for saltwater tanks. I have a brown common star in my reef that is navy blue under the actinics. I also have some brown polyps in a large nano that have florescent green centers that glow only under actinic lighting. If you decide to change out your lighting, be sure you match wattage.

Unfortunately the important function of LR is the microscopic bacteria but you already have a clue that it is alive because of the bristle worm. Another visible creature that you should start seeing (if you will leave it IN the water :razz:) are tiny shrimp like creatures that will be either amphapods or copapods. Often new tanks will have a bloom of these and you will see little "bugs" everywhere for a week or more. If you see some toothpick diameter white tubes, watch to see if small feathery pink or white tops pop out and retreat when shadowed. These will be little feather dusters (they get longer but not bigger and are not the same species as the large, soft shelled kind you see for sale). Splotches of pink and orange will likely be sponge. The purple is coraline algae and is considered desirable by most but it can get overwhelming and needs to be scraped off the glass. If you see red that wipes off with your fingers or feels slimy, that will be cyno bacteria and needs to be removed. It can be difficult to deal with but there is one product I have found that works well and I have never lost a critter using it. The non-chemical solution is scrubbing the rock in saltwater, outside the tank, doing water changes and minimizing your lighting.
 
opps...

My salt level jumped... not sure when or how... Maybe I added too much in too soon with out waiting for it to settle.

I am taking some out... saving it for later... and going to add in more water (after it sits for a while of course) salt free. try to dilute the salt.

my poor rocks. :frown:

my reading was 1.029... 2 points more than it should be....

how bad you think that is?
 
You are fine. Should your salt get too high or low when you have critters, make the adjustment slowly with smaller daily changes but without animals you will not impact much (if anything) now. You should be targeting a specific gravity of 1.026 and allow your water to mix for a minimum of 24 hours (a small pump or air stone in the mixing bucket recommended - I use both and 48 hours - some people use a heater as well) once you are fully up and running.

What PH are you targeting?
 
right now I haven't been doing any checking for PH, Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates. No tester to do the testing.

I did notice that the salinity, or specific gravity, differs in my tank by each reading. I tried a couple in the middle and a couple on the top. It seems like the top has a higher salt concentration than the middle... Is that normal?

Is that because I have the bubble rock at the bottom?

What Ph should I be aiming for? I know 7's neutral.

Also... How hard is it to do copper testing then copper removal if copper is found? I don't have a reverse Osmosis machine or anything, so I don't really know how to get water other than straight from the tap and treat it for the chlorine.

My wife read the two bottles I had for me... she said that they did a combination of things... clean the water, help the fish against bacteria/getting sick , stop ammonia, promote healthy bacteria.
One is blue-is purple and one is red. The smelly one is red. She said the blue one was to treat the water for poisons etc.
 
When you say blue, purple and red are we talking bottle colors or chemical colors? Can you give a name in typable characters?

If the chemical itself is colored:

The blue is likely methyblu (it should stain your finger and anything else that touches it, have your wife look for ), an antifungal and not something to be putting in your tank. It is use to aid breathing in fish with parasites. Fortunately what you have put in won't hurt much but don't add any more. In the future if you need to treat fish, it can be useful in a quarentine tank. Carbon will remove it.

Not sure about the purple (if it is another product), can you give a name? It may be equivalent to Purple Up and us useless at best and designed to encourage the growth of that purple color on some of your "chocolate dipped" rock.

The smelly one, if clear would likely be a chlorine and ammonia remover (equivalent to Kordon's Amquel). It would be better to get only a chlorine remover without the ammonia remover but I am not sure how long the ammonia remover is active. If it stays active after it initially enters the water, it will slow down your cycle. There are mixed feelings about using it after a tank is cycled. Kordon will claim it can be used during a cycle but the purpose of cycling the tank is to build ammonia have it converted to nitrites and then to nitrates through a natural cycle. It claims not to kill the ultimately desired bacteria but removing any of the ammonia slows the process. I do not know what would cause it to be red and that is worrisome.

If you are referring to bottle color, the colors are useless and we need to start over.

Unfortunately, copper tests are not considered accurate enough to be helpful.

You will want your water at a ph of about 8.4 (it will flucturate some) the test strips I mentioned make it quick and easy to test nitrite, nitrate and PH. Ammonia test strips are also available (here anyway) but need to test water first removed from the aquarium. There IS an in-tank constant monitor (it a little piece of plastic with a test strip and scale that stays inside the tank). You really don't need to worry about testing anything for a month but eventually you will want to check how things are doing and then later to ensure your tank is stable.

When you test your salt content, it is important to rinse the unit in FRESH water before taking a water sample and then setting the unit on a flat surface and wait at least 30 seconds. Rinse before each test and then a final rinse when you are done. You should be seeing a much more consistent reading this way. If not, you need more circulation in your tank.

Whew ...
 
I read that some hermit crabs can be an issue in a tank... eating fish and coral etc... do you think that's going to be an issue for me?

I was thinking of just grabbing what's cheap... especially if the octo is just gonna eat 'em anyways.
 

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