Reef-to-be (warning: long post, lots of questions)

I've tried to post this twice in the last week and both times something happened before or when I clicked on submit new thread, so here goes #3. Let's hope 3 times is a charm tonight. I have things to update anyway, so no biggie.

I am cycling a 10g tank with the hopes of adding a few corals at some point in the future. My reason for starting the tank now, however, is because I also hope to use this tank to raise brine shrimp, so at the moment any questions I have will be related to that.

The tank has been set up for 2-3 weeks, with 16# of Reef Subtrate (http://http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=16765) mixed with enough regular aquarium sand to make a sand bed about 2" inches thick in the front and 3 - 3.5" in the back. It is currently running with an Aqueon QuietFlow holding a filter sponge from another tank as media, and an Azoo 11 sponge filter with a Whisper 10 pump, both rated for 10g. Initially I was only using the Azoo for additional water movement, without the sponge. In addition to the substrate, the tank has 4 fake corals that were in another tank for a month or so (but freshwater, so not helping to boost the salt water bacteria needed, unless there is a bit of an overlap of bacteria), a chunk of lava rock which has been in various tanks over the last few years, most recently in my brackish tank, and several other rocks with relatively rough surfaces. There has been no light on the tank, other than ambient room light, except for a few days when the tank had brine shrimp in it, and that wasn't much, just a 25w incandescent mini spotlight. I haven't yet decided what to do for lighting in the future.

I put my colony of brine shrimp in it after it had been running for 1-2 weeks, and unfortunately they all died within a few days. They were being pulled into the intake on the HOB filter, and adding a prefilter sponge didn't help, because it still pulled them up against the sponge. So I turned off that filter and added the sponge to the Azoo filter. Didn't help, because, as I said, they all died within a few days. I did get several nets of them to feed my other tanks over that few days, so not a total loss. The best thing about adding the brine shrimp, however, was the huge addition of ammonia produced by their waste products and then the bodies of the dead guys. The ammonia went off the chart high.

So now, after at least a week of no brine shrimp and with me feeding the tank with a pinch of brine shrimp food or fish food every day, here are my stats for last Tuesday, 3/31/14:

Temp (F): 80
SG: 1.024-1.025
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: .25 - .50 ppm
Nitrite: still off the chart
Nitrate: 5 - 10 ppm
Phosphate: 1 – 2.5
KH: 12

and today, 4/6/14:

Temp (F): 80
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: <.25
Nitrite: ≥6.0
Nitrate: 5 - 10 ppm
Phosphate: ≤ .25
KH: 10

As you can see, the ammonia is almost gone - still a tinge of color change in the test tube, but not as much as to reflect .25ppm, and the nitrite is still very high, measuring at 6 or more ppm. The contents of the water plus Nitrite reagent in the test tube is a noticeably lighter, more transparent color than it was, so it does seem to be coming down. Nitrate has stayed about the same, and pH seems to be pretty stable so far.

Questions: Should I expect nitrate to go up and then back down like the ammonia and nitrite? If so, how far back down does it need to come? Is it's current level of 5-10 ppm OK in the long run?

Phosphates - Not sure what caused the higher phosphate reading last week, but it has definitely come down since then. Tested the phosphates on my tap water tonight, and none showed up at all, which was good news. Should it be 0 eventually, and if so, how do I go about that other than using a phosphate lowering supplement? I have some liquid stuff that brings down phosphates in my other tanks, but don't know if it's good for salt water tank.

KH: I think it was 8 or 9 when I first tested it a couple of weeks ago, but not sure because I didn't write it down. Not sure why it was up to 12, or what has brought it down to 10. I know the final "OK" level will depend on stocking, and I'm not planning on doing any stocking yet, but should I be concerned that it went up and is heading back down? Is this normal for a cycling saltwater tank? KH on the tap water runs about 5-6, by the way.

I know I can't add any corals (or fish, but I'm not planning on adding fish anyway) until the nitrite is down to 0 and nitrate does whatever it's going to do before stabilizing. What about other things, like macroalgae and cleaner snails? Should I wait for the cycle to complete before adding those, or can they go in sooner? Since the substrate is pretty chunky rather than all sand, do I need/want sand sifting snails, or not?

Live rock/dry "live" rock/other rock: I will be building up my rockwork before adding corals. I've done lots of reading about live rock versus dry rock, and have found listings for "dry live rock" on various sites. It seems to me that I need at least some actual live rock that has the various coralline algaes, tiny crustaceans, etc., that tend to come with the live rock. I can get it locally (from the pet store that takes my young adult livebearers when they are big enough to sell) but they charge $7.99/# which seems high to me, based on what I've seen advertised on the internet. I live within a half-hour or so of the Puget Sound, which is, of course, salt water. Would it be good, bad, or neutral to go to the shore and pick up a few rocks from the water's edge? Would that rock have any of the good critters and/or coralline algae, even though the water is much colder here than around reefs? If I get some of the dry rock available from various places, that isn't going to lead to the development of the algaes and other critters without at least some live rock to seed it, right?

If I were to add live rock from whatever source to my tank now, would it restart the cycle? I know that it tends to have a die-off during shipping if obtained from farther away, but what if I got it from a local store or the beach itself and kept it in salt water until I get home with it, a matter of a half-hour or less?

And, last but not least, does anybody have any ideas how to filter a tank without killing a brine shrimp colony by sucking them up into the impeller or sucking them up against a sponge hard enough to damage them? I was wondering if mechanical filtration is necessary at all, and I know the live substrate/live rock is the biological filter, along with macros to keep other algae from growing and to help consume whatever remaining nitrates are in the tank after cycling. I have AquaClear HOB filters on several of my other tanks, and I always find multiple snails in every part of the filter when I do a water change; I've found live fish fry (guppies and platys) in the main body of the filters as well. I usually set the flow at the lower rate, thereby causing some of the water to bypass the impeller, and I assume that is why the snails and fry haven't been chopped up on the way through. This leads me to think that brine shrimp would also survive the trip. If I used an AquaClear filter without the filter sponge, and something inside the tank to give good water flow in other parts of the tank, would that be sufficient for filtering once I add macros and corals?

I'm sure I have lots more questions, but this is enough for now. Let's see if I can actually get this thing to post this time.

 

personally i think you're way over thinking this, raising brine shrimp is relatively simple. all you need is a source of water (I use my tap water even but this may not be a good idea if your water is particularly dirty) and a source of food an air pump and a source of light (optional). filters and what not will only hinder your culture, as you've witnessed. should you wish to keep your culture going indefinitely i would proceed with water changes rather than relying on filters.

the source of food i have had most success in raising brine is nannochloropsis, a type of micro algae phytoplankton. the air pump insures the algae remains in suspension in the water column for the brine to filter feed as they do. adding a source of light behind or above the culture vessels helps keep the phytoplankton alive and allows it to reproduce a little.

culturing phytoplankton however can be a PITA (trust me i know this) so if you have a more readily available source of food, such as the concentrated phytoplankton, a couple of drops a day of that should suffice to feed your brine, but iv never attempted this so dont take my word for it.

now in terms of your little aquarium, by adding live rock to a cycling tank you can expect die off from the rock with a possible spike in your parameters, this should not be problem in an established system however. back in the days when i set up my first system i used live rock to start my cycle (colossal waste of money but it got the job done).

if you plan on keeping corals in your little system you will also need a good source of light and i strongly recommend investing in an RODI unit to ensure you're not adding gunk to your water and ultimately poisoning your corals.


now about your values, the ideal parameters for a reef are as follows:

Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

an absolute value of zero phosphates can be detrimental, if im not mistaken coral tissue requiers a minimum of phosphates to regenerate:

Tissue and skeletal changes in the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata Esper 1797 under phosphate enrichment - Academic Commons

there is my little input for you, hope i answered at least a few of your questions. again i would not bother trying to raise brine in your reef, its simply incompatible due to filtration and eventual predation by corals and fish.

welcome to the adventure!

 

oh right i forgot to mention salinity, ideally brine should be cultured in salinity between 1.017-1.020 but they are quite forgiving.

 

Swisswiss,

Thanks for the quick response, and for the links. I'll check those out.

I guess a little more background is in order about my intentions, wishes, etc. I have been raising brine shrimp for several months in a 3.5g acrylic tank with just a sponge-less azoo 11 and a whisper air pump, a heater, and the clip-on mini spotlight that I mentioned in my first post. I have found them very easy to hatch, but much more difficult to raise, and since I'm using them for food for my bumblebee gobies, not for fry, I need more than just babies. At first I was only able to keep them going for 5 - 7 days without losing them, but I had a sponge on the azoo filter. Once I took the sponge off, I was able to keep them going for about 3-4 weeks. I was feeding them powdered algae packaged as brine shrimp food alternating with nutritional yeast, also powdered, and can continue to do so if they won't eat from macroalgae. They'd be fine one day, including lots of various ages, ranging from newly hatched babies to mating adults carrying egg sacks. Then, over the course of a day or two they would all die off and I'd be starting over, which was really frustrating. My biggest difficulty was in doing water changes without losing half the residents of the tank. I was doing partial changes a couple of times a week, literally spending a couple of hours using an eye dropper to remove sludge from the bottom of the tank into some small, clear container, letting the sludge settle, holding the container up to some light source at eye level so I could see who was moving independently of random water movement, and using the eye dropper to move brine shrimp of various sizes back into the tank. In additiion, at least once a week, sometimes twice, I would do a more or less 100% water change by setting up an identical 3.5g (they are actually 2 of the largest size Petco Pet Keepers) with new saltwater, moving as many brine shrimp from the old to the new water as I could with a looser-mesh net that would allow "stuff" in the water to flow through and stay in the old tank, then letting the water settle and trying to remove as many babies and juvies as I could with a finer-mesh net, without taking the gunk also. I would end the process with the eye dropper, as noted above. I would always find quite a few dead ones the next day despite my care, so I started thinking about ways to raise brine shrimp in a cycled tank.

I love corals, and have wanted to do a reef tank for a long time, but I don't have the room or the money to do it up big, as I also have 7 freshwater tanks ranging from 10g to 47g and a 29g brackish tank. I'm breeding mollies, guppies, and swordtails, so some of those tanks are grow-out tanks. I also have freshwater angels, neon and cardinal tetras, cories, otos, etc. I don't want to stop with the freshwater, but adding saltwater is a dream of mine.

I didn't know it was even possible to do a tiny reef in a small tank until I started hanging out more at the locally-owned lps that gives me store credit for my livebearers when they are big enough to sell. They often have small display tanks - 12g or less - sitting around with a few pieces of coral and/or a small fish or two, in addition to the huge reef display tank that's in my face as soon as I walk into the store, and they sell a lot of saltwater fish, corals, live rock, etc., in addition to freshwater. So I started thinking of doing something with one of my empty 10g tanks, hence the journey described in the original post.

I don't plan to ever have saltwater fish, so I don't have to worry about them eating my brine shrimp. I know some corals will eat baby brine shrimp, but like I said, hatching them is easy, and I can always hatch some more if I start running low. I still have some of the original package of eggs I purchased months ago. It's getting them to live longer than three or four weeks that has been my difficulty.

So, having explained all that, my original questions stand, especially in regard to a filtering system that won't kill the brine shrimp. I don't want to partition the tank, partly because it is so small to start with and partly for aesthetic reasons, but I am willing to set up another 10 or one of the 3.5s as a sump/refugium if necessary. Then hopefully I could partition it so I could keep the brine shrimp where they won't be sucked into the filter or the return pump or something else. I really want to make this work, and I'm pretty good with DIY stuff and thinking outside the box. I'm just so new to saltwater that I need guidance.

 

hmmm, i guess you could try placing some sort of mesh in front of the overflow and have a sump running below, if im not mistaken the overflow suction is directly correlated to the amount of water in the DT. im would think you wouldn't want to much water going down the overflow as that would increase suction and possibly trap your brine in a smiler manner than your filter would.

im thinking your mortality rate is probably due to the food you use going bad, hence why im more of a fan of live phytoplankton. iv never kept brine longer than 3-4 weeks i feed them all after that to my fish as they seem to enjoy the hunt. hopefully someone with a little more knowledge can give you better tips

 

Thanks again, Swisswiss.

 

No worries, sorry if i wasn't much help

 

Actually you did help. I hadn't thought about the force of the current through an overflow as being a factor in whether bring shrimp would be pulled into the sump/fuge. Definitely something to think about. Also, I appreciate that you took the time to answer me at all. No one else has, at least so far.

 

I'm wondering if it's worth all of the effort to get them to live longer than 3-4 weeks? Why are you wanting them to be larger? Just hatch and use then hatch some more?? I haven't answered because this doesn't help you but maybe spend the energy and time getting a saltwater tank going.

 

I am spending the time and energy getting a saltwater tank going. I'm just trying to figure out how to have a tank that will keep my brine shrimp going on an at least close to indefinite basis, as well as holding some pretty corals once I'm ready for them and some interesting cleaners. So, why am I bothering to try to keep the brine shrimp alive for more than 3 or 4 weeks? Here is my long answer to your short question:

I need a continuous supply of adult or at least near-adult-size live brine shrimp for my bumblebee gobies, and the only way I can do that reliably is to keep them alive long enough to breed at least once. It takes about 3 or 4 weeks for them to mature to breeding age, and then awhile longer before their eggs hatch. I've read that their normal lifespan is 2-3 months during which they breed several times, but I haven't experienced that. I wouldn't mind if only the adults who had already bred at least once died after three or four weeks, but if the babies and half-growns also die, as they have been, then I have to start over again and either wait for my hatchlings to grow up or go buy more adults to get my colony going again, in addition to hatching more.

My bumblebee gobies will eat frozen bloodworms and/or frozen brine shrimp, but there are a couple of them that will take in the frozen food (thawed, of course) and spit it back out or just ignore it until they are really hungry and showing signs of weight loss, which means a day or two of eating nothing. I know they are not eating unless they do it when I am standing right there, because they are in my brackish tank where they have not only each other for competition (there are 4 of them), but also 6 adult mollies and usually some molly fry. As is true for most livebearers, the mollies are little (or big) piggies who will hunt down and eat anything they can catch that will fit in their mouths (including their own fry at least sometimes), and the adult mollies are quite a few times larger than the gobies. Unfortunately the pickiest of the gobies is also the thinnest, even when being fed live food daily, so I really don't want him to go without food for a day or two a couple times a week. It's just not enough food for him to be healthy. They can, and do, eat baby brine shrimp if that is all that is available to them, but the babies have more fat and less protein - perfect for fish fry, but not so good for adult fish, especially as a dietary staple. There is one nearby store that sells live brine shrimp, but going and buying a new batch every week or so, so that I always have enough adults on hand as well as newly hatched and half-grown becomes difficult both because of $ (or lack thereof) and only one car shared with my partner.