My (long) n00b post

Hey all,

I've been lurking here awhile, and I thought I'd say hello.

I am not an experienced aquarium guy, and I'm completely new to saltwater, although I've learned quite a bit by reading here for the past few weeks (some things I wish I'd learned a bit sooner.) My 5yo son has shown an interest in getting a saltwater aquarium. I have obliged because I think it sounds like fun.

We have a 20 gallon aquarium. There's about 25# of "Arag-alive crushed Florida coral" (I think that's what it was called) as a substrate. It seems that many here prefer sand, but I think I'll just stick with this for now. It's been in for about 3.5 weeks.

Three weeks ago, I got 10 pounds of live rock from a LFS. There are large purple areas on these rocks that I believe might be coralline algae. There are a number of different creatures of various forms that I've observed over the past few weeks.

First I noticed the tiny thin worms(?) that were attached to the rocks. They are very thin, and they have alternating black and white/blue segments. I also found some snails. They were very active at first, but have since become less prevalent, and I think I've seen a couple dead ones. I wondered if they might have starved.

One day a crab carcass appeared in the sand. Sometime in the night, two days later, it was mysteriously dismantled. Another smaller but no less unfortunate crab joined it a couple days later. It was the same color purple as the algae. I finally saw the bigger crab last weekend. He's about twice the size of the nickle-sized first dead crab. I assume it was he who was dismantling the other crabs, and perhaps the snails too.

There's some kind of anemone-looking thing, but it's towards the back and I can't quite make it out fully. It's light purple, and it seems to have a ring-shaped base just larger than the diameter of a quarter.

Another notable specimen is a creature that is composed of a circle of filaments. They rise up and flare out from a small spot on a rock. When the filaments are fully extended they form a curved cone or funnel shape that is approximately 1 cm in diameter at the top, and 1.75 cm tall. The tip top part is light-colored and the rest is a bit darker. Once while observing it, we accidentally switched the lights off for a short moment, and it disappeared. It must have retracted into a tiny casing or something. My son and I watched for five minutes as we waited to see if anything would happen. Then, sure enough, we saw something growing, and we watched it bloom like a time-lapse flower. This was extremely cool for both of us.

As far as cycling goes, I have been adding small amounts of fish food, increasing in amount over time, beginning about 2 weeks ago. Up until that point, my ammonia had been near zero, and it's only barely above .25ppm just recently. I haven't seen a perceivable rise in Nitrates or Nitrites.

One other thing that's been happening is the substrate has turned lime green in some small areas. I can't see any filaments, and it doesn't look slimy. It almost looks like it was painted on. The last few days the green has turned brownish in some spots, and purplish in others.

My future plans are to get a bunch of dry rock to add pretty soon, fill out my CUC with whatever critters are necessary, and eventually add a clownfish, and 1 or two other fish down the line. I think a protein skimmer is in my future, and I'd also like to upgrade the cheesy low-grade florescent fixture to something more reef friendly, and eventually add some corals.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone to reply to the entirety of this post, but any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Brian

 

pictures will help a TON, but sounds like a cool start. Sounds like ya have some feather dusters kicking, if they retract super quick thats them. Also sounds like ya may have some aiptaisia, which isn't cool. But hard to say without seeing it. Welcome, glad you and your kid are enjoying.

 

hello and welcome!

my bets regarding your black and white "worms" is that they are are actually starfish who hide in small holes and use their arms to feed (the arms is what you actually see) if i am not mistaken they are called brittle starfish. for the death of you crabs it is normal to have die off during the initial period of the cycle, this will actually help create the ammonia spike we are looking for and the consecutive reproduction of good bacteria. For the snails if they have flat shells they are stomatella snails and are a hard part of your CUC, you will probably see astrea starfish as well, these are small starfish with irregular sized arms that are also part of your hard CUC. as cosmo said pictures would help ID your other critters and personally i would not add any CUC till about week 8 of your cycle.

goodluck!!

 

Depending on what you want to put in, you probably need more like 30-40 lbs.

It's possible the crabs molted.

Get a pic of this. If it's aiptasia you will want to get rid of it.

This is likely the diatom bloom.

Both of these are right on for next steps. What is your filtration now?

 

Congratulations! What a wonderful adventure to share with your son and I commend you welcome to the world of saltwater keeping!

 

Thanks for the kind and helpful replies. After some image searches I think I have: a feather duster of some kind, a diatom bloom, tiny brittle starfish, and an aiptasia (ugh, I guess I'll get some of that Joe's Juice.)

My filter is the one that came with the aquarium kit. I believe it is an HOB Aqueon Quietflow 20 or 30. I have been running this without the actual filter pouch, mainly just to get some circulation. One thing I haven't figured out yet from my reading is how much artificial filtration I'll need if I have a good amount of rock, and a reasonably small bio-load.

I was hoping to upgrade my lights first. I've been eying some 24" t5 fixtures w/ 2 10000k and 2 actinic blue bulbs and nighttime LEDs. Is that overkill/underkill? Or do I need to think about getting a skimmer and upgrading my filter first?

I'll try to get some pics going on this thread in the near future.

Brian