Saltwater aquariums?

flyingmonkeypoop

Crowing
12 Years
Apr 30, 2007
3,592
193
271
Deer Park Washington
As some of my Facebook friends know, I now have a saltwater tank. A few days ago it was still freshwater but then I decided to get a saltwater after seeing a whole setup at work for $80 (it was a 12 gallon with everything but the rock and fish) but then I couldnt think of where I would put it or anything. So since I work at a petstore I started asking questions about saltwater and found out its pretty easy when it comes down to it. I had 2 29 gallon tanks, one with firemouth cichlids and their babies plus bushynose pleco pairs and a marmokreb crayfish and tons of snails. The other tank had some dwarf gouramis, guppies, kuhli's, and some other stuff, nothing I was too attached to.
I decided to turn the second tank into a salt water tank so I sold the fish to the store and started that night. I got the live sand first from a coworker and some dirty water to get it going. Then the next night I bought some liverock and the salt to make the rest of the water and got that done Saturday night. The guy at work said it should be ready to add fish today so I bought an anemone, a firefish, feather duster, and a coral banded shrimp. Then went and got a neon goby and 2 classic clownfish (forgot the technical subspecies name, not the tomato, maroon, or clarkii but the other one).
They are all doing great but here is my question. The live rock came from a tank that has been set up for like 20 years, the guy tore down his tank so sold it to the store with tons of other stuff. The liverock looks awesome, its covered with glass anemones, zoanthids, mini feather dusters, and some other cool stuff. Well tonight I was watching the tank and saw something that looked like a slug, it had little prickly looking things on the side, then it went back into the rock. Then about an hour later I saw another, it stretched out about 8" and was eating the pellet food on the bottom. Then more came out, all of them larger and creepy looking. So if anyone has a saltwater tank and knows what they could be, can you tell me? Will they eat fish?

If anyone has any advice for me I would appreciate it.
 
It sounds like a bristle worm. What color was it?

With adding all those animals to your aquarium at once you should keep a close eye on your ammonia level. The live rock will help but there is a good chance that your ammonia will spike. A pH higher than 7 makes ammonia more deadly in fresh or saltwater. You won't have to worry to much about the nitrate because the chloride ions help prevent nitrate poisoning.
 
Sounds like either a bristle/fire worm which is BAD news, or.... ummmm, thats all I can think of now. We had a 55 reef tank for years. I loved it. Sounds like you got some cool live rock. But, unfortunetly, lots of times it comes with yuckies. And you probably have Percula clowns.
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Oh, and if they are bristle worms, do NOT reach in and grab them with your fingers. We had a pair of hemostats we used to pick big worms out.
 
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The clown is probably a Ocellaris clown. Often called a false Percula. Here is an article that shows the difference between the Percula and Ocellaris. http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/anemoneclownfishprofiles/ss/sbstruevsfalseperc.htm

If
they are run of the mill bristle worms they are good at helping you to clean your tank. Now if they are fireworms, then you need to trap them. The glass anemones are often considered a pest by most reefers. I mixed up a paste of Kalkwasser and a small amount of water and used a Popsicle stick to cover each one. Be careful if you decide to do this. It can burn your other animals. There are other chemicals that will get rid of them but they will harm your anemone.
 
I'm currently running to salts, 1 houses a snowflake eel, 2 clowns and 1 green carpet anemone. The other is my baby, my seahorse tank. When I'm having probs I research to find a natural way to correct whenever possible. I use peppermint shrimp to control glass/aiptasia anemones. I don't want these in the seahorse tank. In the eel tank I have a couple that I will later decide what I want to to with, but currently I'm allowing them to stay. I used to keep some 6 line wrasses in the eel tank to control the bristleworms. I didn't have any problems with them until the tank crashed (a sad combo of power outage and the eel unsettling the live rock)

Here's a pic of the tank before the crash. It's a 54 corner. Wow, so much cleaner looking then, now the live rock is totally covered and not so much white.

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I don't have a pic of the seahorse tank. I only have 1 filly left in there. The other one died after living quietly in there for almost 18 months. I have the fish store looking into ordering more for me. Just waiting on availability since I'm only getting tank raised horses.

At times, totally frustrating, but so totally worth it.

Smiles
Jul
 
We have a 55 gallon fresh water tank that we were thinking about converting to a salt water tank but the guy in the pet store told us that if we had ever treated any fish for ick ( I think that is what he said, it was some kind of medicine) then we could not use the same tank for salt water. We've had the tank for a while and could not remember so we didn t want to spend that much money on fish/rock that would just die. Has anyone else ever heard of this? Was the guy just trying to sell us a new tank?
 
Be tmoney it's bristle worms - crabs will help eat them, and other species but ask someone with good knowledge of salt water what the very best way to go about getting rid of them is. They are bad news - will overrun your tank if not taken care of. Just go on those suckers, in the safest way possible for the rest of your critters and of course the good bacteria and algea on the live rock.
 
I thought I posted a reply earlier, guess it didnt go through. The worms are kinda greenish, they are metalic looking, like the sea mushroom things where they change color when the light hits them different ways. I put the eclipse hood on it from my freshwater tank (cleaned it super well) and have a powerhead in there, the fish love it. I was noticing more featherduster worms, some bright green, some maroon, some white, all different colors. I love all the small snails, some are bright pink. So far I havent discovered anything else unwanted yet. I thought about a crab but then worried that they might try to grab a fish like the little goby. I will try to get a pic up of the tank before too long.
 
Metallic green...... Nothing specific comes to mind. Most creature you will find are detritivores. That means they eat up left overs in the tank. Which it sounds like he was doing. Personally I would leave him be, but if you want to remove him put a large piece of raw shrimp in a relatively clear area in the bottom of your tank. Watch closely and when you see it on the shrimp you can easily net it out. You have to be careful with crabs if you intend to get corals. They will sometimes disturb them.

19Dawn76- What they are talking about is copper. It is used to treat parasites in both fresh and salt water. However if you plan to have any invertebrates than you need to make sure you don't have any copper in your tank. You can get a good copper test kit and test your level. Make sure you get one that has a sensitive low range.

I have 3 salt water tanks which have been up for 5+ years. I worked as tech support for a large Aquarium product manufacturer for 3 years.
 
Was the whole thing out or just an arm? Brittle star fish come in greenish colors. It could have sent an arm out to bring back a piece of food. That really has DH and I stumped. We co-owned a pet store that had a large salt department that he and I were in charge of. Neither one of us can think of anything that is green.
 

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