Fetherduster lighting

[captnpatsg3f]

Hey everyone, new member here. I'm 16 and live in Michigan. I'm starting to look around and tally up the requirements and things for reef tanks. Right now I have alot of freshwater tanks and have built a 110 and 165 wooden tank. For my first salt I know I dont want to go too big, probably in the 29-55 range. I also don't want to have to deal with alot of maintanence(my mom will have to take care of it for a week sometimes and she isnt a big fish person

I'm thinking a 29 gallon with CF lighting probably about 110-165 watts. Is this going to be enough for featherdusters and/or mushrooms? What addatives would I need? Fish load I was thinking 2 firefish and 2-3 banggai or pyjama cardinals. Filtration: I'm looking at CPR backpac and 2-3 maxijets 400-600's probably on a wavemaker. I would like for this to be a low tech/low maintanence tank. It will be set up for about a year then moved to my apartment or dorm at college (marine/aquatic biology ps. anyone in that field I'd like to talk to them. Any advice to my setup would be apreciated. thanks
Capt'n PATS

 

[Anonymous]

Feather dusters require very little as far as lighting.

What you have is more than enough for shrooms and feather dusters.

The only additive you will need from the start is to drip Kalkwasser for calcium. I use Balls pickling lime instead of kalkwasser, about ten times less expensive for the same thing. also people use Mrs Wages pickling Lime.

Make sure you have all the test kits you need and do not add anything you can not check the level of.

If you are unfamiliar with driping kalkwasser do a search on this board upper right hand corner of the page. I would highly recommend doing as many searches on as many subjects as you can on this board. There is a lot of info in the archives.

I would suggest the following search topics.

Kalkwasser

Water changes

Live rock

test kits

cyanobacteria

hair algae

fish compatibility

lighting

etc., etc.,

Anyway welcome and good luck.

[ September 17, 2001: Message edited by: Fishaholic ]

 

[Mouse]

A 55 gallon tank will present more maintenance than a larger tank in my opinion. I can see how you may be confused by expirience drawn from freshwater systems, but i can assure you that more water does not mean more work in the case of a reef tank. This is because the reef itself does not require any direct intervention from yourself. The equipment however is were the difference is made, cleaning a skimmer will take as long as cleaning a skimmer does irespective of how big it is. Infact the contrary is probably true becase the larger pieces of equipment tend to be more accesable to your hands. Not to mention that a larger system will provide more stability because the fuluctuation in tank parameters would be represented as an overall percentage of water volume. The only difference in maintenance required by a larger system would be the water changes. And to be honest with you mixing a small bucket of SW is probably more difficult than mixing a large bucket. I currently have a 25 gallon tank and because of the way the equipment is crammed in it takes me ages to do anything, i cant wait till i have a sump. I would really consider going for something about 100 gallons, if you cant afford to light it just light up one end, or only half fill it with rocks to start with. But i think you will find that you will save yourself alot of frustration by going for a large serviceable system. The only thing i would add is that animal husbandry is an incredibly important factor in creating the right environment. Read and read, ask questions and wait for the answers and think twice about any advice offered to you by your LFS, at the end of the day there just salesman.

Just a few rough parameters to work to.

Lighting should be roughly about 5w per gallon

Circulatory total should be 10 x the total volume of the aquarium per hour

Water changes are 30% once a month

DSB work best at a depth of 4" and 3" in the case of oolitic sand

Once you have these basics worked out you can start to see any areas you would like to improve upon. With regards to live rock just get as much as you can, there is a minimum lb/gallon calculation but its very rough and with a DSB fairly irelevent.

Good luck!!!

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: Mouse ]

 

[kjb]

I always suggest visiting the Aquarium Frontiers article index at http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_frontiers/index.html
You will find some good introductory stuff at the Reefkeeping 101 link, and if you can quickly skim the table of contents to the other columns then you will know where to look for more info when you need it.
Also - hanging out on this board and reading what everyone has to say is a fantastic way to keep abreast of things.

 

[davelin315]

Feather dusters are non-photosynthetic, and don't need any light (I think) at all. As far as mushrooms, they do need lighting, but the amount of lighting you are going to put on there is fine for them. As far as additives, etc., go simple. Don't add any in my opinion. My first reef tank was a 29 with regular flourescent bulbs over it (6 20Watt bulbs by the time I was done, started with 2 20Watt bulbs) which housed polyps, mushrooms, a few inverts and fish, and a couple of soft corals. They all did fine. I also didn't add any additives, I just did a weekly water change to replenish the trace elements that were used up. I did have a lot of flow, though, with 6 powerheads either pumping water back up to the tank from the sump or being used to create current in the tank. Don't know much of anything about CPR Backpacks, but other than this setup, I didn't have anything else, not even a skimmer. By the way, the sump was very simple. It consisted of a 10 gallon tank with an UG filter which was halfway full of crushed coral, and served no other purpose but to add some biological filtration to my water. Also, I don't think the concept of live rock had occurred yet, or at least it hadn't made it's way to where I shopped.

 

[captnpatsg3f]

I realize that a larger tank will be less frustration, but as of now (1.5 yrs left at this house) Its imposible for me to have that large of tank. If someone would inform me of a way to take my 165 and turn it into a semi-reef, I would try and do it. Its probably a misconception but wouldn't think that a 20-29 gallon aquarium with feather dusters and maybe one little fish or just inverts wouldnt be that hard to care for, but maybe I am wrong. I do have a 35 I could use, its drilled. Maybe 45lb rock, 250 metal hailide, DBS, dont know what skimmer. I know I'm basicly going to be keeping feather dusters and PJ's or Bangais. The main thing I'm worried about is dosing kalk and addatives. I just dont want to spend alot of money of a tank to have to tear it down for 4 yrs while i go to college. I'm sure i could get at most a 29 into a dorm.

 

[Yellowboy]

don't dose anything if there are just dusters and fish. The dusters don't need kalk they just need microscopic foods in the water. You could add some kind of mixture for that but i think they will be able to find what they need in the water.

 

[danmhippo]

Uhh....Yes, they need the Calcium to build up the skeleton. However minute amount of calcium they used up, they still needed it. But, yellowboy is right, there should be plenty of calcium in the salt mix for them to use. Dripping may not be beneficial in this case. You may just want to stick with regular water change schedule.

 

[Anonymous]

You may want to consider he is planning on Live rock and deep sand bed. the critters that inhabit both would benifit from the calcium also.

 

[captnpatsg3f]

first I would like to thank yellowboy, danmhippo, fishaholic, mouse, davelin315, and kjb for replying. If any of you were setting up a 35 gal feather duster/shroom tank what equipment would you use and what maintanence would you do?

 

[danmhippo]

Since you are not dealing with high level of ammonia (no fish or very few fish), if it were I, just go natural with DSB, LR, and regular water changes. You may even skip the skimmer in your case. I would put 1 or 2 maxijets in the tank, heater, and adequate lighting. That's about it. HTH

 

[davelin315]

Just a clarification on hippos post about needing calcium to build a skeleton. A featherduster is a worm and therefore has no backbone, it is an invertebrate. As far as feather dusters go, there are calcerous tube worms with a crown that are referred to as feather dusters, and there are worms which use mucous and waste and particulate matter to build a "sheath". These animals don't use calcium to build skeletons, although I can't say what they build their crowns from for sure, don't know if it utilizes calcium for that or not. As far as adding any supplements, I would say you don't have to do it. Like I said before, I had a very successful 29G reef tank with 120W normal flourescent lighting and kept it going by eventually doing water changes. I never added anything and I kept a variety of different corals and fish in there. You should be okay with whatever you do by keeping it simple. Also, live rock is kind of expensive, and really, the only pieces of live rock I added to my initial setup were the pieces that came with my mushrooms, and were not really live rock at all because they were not porous like what you typically see sold as live rock.

 

[captnpatsg3f]

So in the 35 i could go with 20-25 #s of LR with a skimmer or 35-45 with no skimmer? I've read the Natrual Marine Aquarium and have thought about having a tank covered with shrooms. I also found the reefkeeping 101 articles very interesting. I've been reading and looking around for about a year on reef tanks but I just dont know what my first experience should consist of.

 

[danmhippo]

If you were up to it and can reframe from buying fish, then I would go for no skimmer. (provided you have quality fully cured liverock)

If you think that you may not resist the temptation and end up adding quite a few fish in it, Then plan on a skimmer from the start to deal with the waste fish will generate in the future.