cycling, algae and clown fish depression

[bulletmagnet1337]

I have a 125 rio juwel tank with an extra motorhead for circulation I have had the tank for around 5 weeks. I introduced live sand thenlive rock first and after a week I introduced a couple of clowns I have slowly added more rock and fish. I now have two snails (green and purple stripes on body) Two blue hermit crabs, pacific cleaner shrimp, two clowns, pyschedelic gobi (mandarin i think) and two chromis.

I have had diatom growing on sand bed for 2 weeks and within the space of a day I noticed red green and dark threads growing from patches on the sand.

Maybe coincidence but Since my bigger clownfish looks very lethargic and looks liek he is struggling to see, one of his eyes doesnt seem as bright as the other, one of his fins doesn't move as much and he appears not happy at all.

One of my chromis i introduced last week was fitting and gettiong tossed around by the pumps but now he is fine. Please help me with your knowledge but I have already set up as I have so I would rather not hear I should of done this etc. as I am where I am.

p.s. I have noticed two bristle worms emerging from live rock, friend or foe?

[Geoff]

Welcome to TRT!!



bristle worms are friend.

do you have a link to the system that you purchased? how often have you been doing water changes?

SW aquariums are not like FW, where you can just get a bunch of equipment and you will most likely have a successful aquarium. it takes a fair amount of research before you even get started in order to get through the commercial hype and find what is really necessary to run a SW aquarium.

5 weeks is a bit to soon to be adding a mandarin to a tank. is the tank 125g or is that some other kind of descriptor. mandarin do best in very established tanks that are at least 75g, preferably closer to 150g. they feed primarily on pods, which are hard to keep in a decent population to support a mandarin. critters in SW tend to eat certain foods. they are not going to go for flake food like FW are. in fact flake food is probably the worst food you can feed a SW system. you would be better off feeding frozen cubes. i prefer cubes from the San Francisco Bay brand of foods.

G~

[chatterboxbaby82]

I would recogmend you search threw the internet on the care of each fish to make sure your offering everything they need. I can say that a mandrin is one of those fish that eats pods *copopods and such* so if you do not have these in your tank u should look into buying some but it can get expensive to feed him. Most from what ive seen wont take frozen type foods. I dont have alot of experience with them though.


I will ask what is your test results? Depending on that could be a reason for the trouble.

others could probably help u out more as i have only been in the hobby 10 months im still learning,

[bulletmagnet1337]

Thansk for replying I have been researching pretty much constantly since I got the tank, it is 125 litre. My ammonia and nitrate where around 0 when i took to the store to test. Im feeding marine flakes and frozen marine food, the gobi is eating something off the sand and seems fine, ill look into pods etc.

[jenglish]

125 liter is going to be too small for a mandarin unless he can be coaxed into eating prepared foods A mandarin, 2 clowns and 2 chromis is a lot of fish for a 125 liter

[bulletmagnet1337]

Im not sure uk litre is same as u.s. but it is around 33 gallon according to various webbies mandarin require 20 gallon so im well above that and he seems happy enough, any ideas about the depressed clown he has been fine for a month but now his eye is cloudy and hes lethargic.

thanks for private message from viewer, i tried to reply but site wouldnt let me yet.

cheers all.

[Doug1]

33g is no where near enough room to support a mandarin, any site that tells you otherwise is being less than honest. A 5 week old tank, even started with live sand and live rock that was kept wet all the time is too new for 5 fish and other critters. The tank needs time to stabilse and get the biofiltration to ramp up and meet the demand placed on it. The diatoms are normal and will pass in time, the algae is pretty normal at this point. How you address the issues you have going on at this point will set the tone for how well it will fare over time.
I know that's not what you wanted to hear but you need honest input to help you plan a course for the future, Good Luck and Welcome to TRT

[SoK]

Originally Posted by bulletmagnet1337

Im not sure uk litre is same as u.s. but it is around 33 gallon according to various webbies mandarin require 20 gallon so im well above that and he seems happy enough, any ideas about the depressed clown he has been fine for a month but now his eye is cloudy and hes lethargic.

thanks for private message from viewer, i tried to reply but site wouldnt let me yet.

cheers all.

u could prob keep one in a 33 but you'll b spending a lot of $$$$ feeding it copepods all the time...

[bulletmagnet1337]

I can get copepods for £17 per month supply in UK I dont mind spending it, He has been grazing on a new huge piece of live rock today, is it worth getting rotifiers and phytoplankton for my tank?

Thanks people.

[Geoff]

feel free to try any kinds of food and see exactly what the mandarin will eat. they are very picky eaters. make sure that the mandarin is actually eating and not picking. you will tell the difference when you see it. look to see how sunken the mandarin is just behind/below its pectoral fins.

phytoplankton will not feed the mandarin. it will however feed the pods, but i still do not recommend feeding it to the tank. the phyto is nothing but phosphates in a bottle. these phosphates will fill up in your sand bed causing hair algae and cyano problems down the road. work on finding a meaty food that the mandarin will eat besides pods.

G~

[bulletmagnet1337]

Doing 25% change every month am putting photos of tank and mandarin in few minutes on this thread.

[NewFishGirl]

With a newly established tank you will want to do more frequent water changes that once a month.

In the beginning, we did 10% every week. Now, a few years later, we do 10% every two weeks and it has worked well for us.

You have a lot of fish in a small tank, which will lead to some problems. I would suggest no more than three small fish in a tank that size.

Good luck wth your mandarin--they are extremely hard to keep, even in very large, established tanks. They often slowly starve to death.

Also, you mentioned that you have been slowly adding rock to your tank. Are you done adding at this point? Everytime you introduce new rock to the tank you will likely have die off, which can affect the fish and your algae situation.

[NewFishGirl]

Originally Posted by bulletmagnet1337

Doing 25% change every month am putting photos of tank and mandarin in few minutes on this thread.

I don't think you will be allowed to post pictures yet... you need a certain number of posts, but I am not sure exactly how many that is.

[Doug1]

should be able to attach them using advanced feature

[bulletmagnet1337]

yeah adding little bits of rock at a time and have been for 5 weeks since had apart form clown who was lethargic for a day he since has chirped up and all seems fine my ammonia and nite is 0