jhoelter
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Heya folks,
Thanks for the great forum here - I've already learned a lot.
Here's the deal:
A buddy who was moving gave me his fish tank. It's a 30 gal. SW tank - they've had it for years. Used to have more fish, but then their crab at all the fish. Then the crab died. Then they got two clownfish, which is what has been passed on to me. There was a bunch of LR as well, which I'm not so sure has anything living on it. That is, besides about a zillion bristle worms. Maybe not a zillion but a lot. I've read a lot in the forums about how people get one or two and they're really big - well this tank has a whole lot of small ones. And they're not shy about coming out when it's light - they'll crawl around and especially like to come out when it's dark or when I feed the clowns. From most of the posts on this forum, people seem to say they're ok to have and in the tank - but is having so many (they're in most of the live rocks and the gravel) OK? Should I get an arrow crab or some wrasse to try to "control" their population? (and would the crab go after the clowns??)
Tank water seems to be pretty stable with just a "regular" filter - pH, ammonia, and nitrite levels were all great...nitrate levels were pretty high though (160PPM!). Most suggestions for that seem to be partial water changes and maybe not feed so much? Any other ideas?? Is there some fish/invert I could get to help with this? The clowns seem to be ok with the nitrate levels but I worry about when I try to add something else to the tank that the new fish/invert wouldn't like it... This tank doesn't have anything fancy (no skimmers/powerheads/high powered lights/etc) just the filter and a bubble bar for the clowns to play in.
Thanks!
Jeff
Thanks for the great forum here - I've already learned a lot.
Here's the deal:
A buddy who was moving gave me his fish tank. It's a 30 gal. SW tank - they've had it for years. Used to have more fish, but then their crab at all the fish. Then the crab died. Then they got two clownfish, which is what has been passed on to me. There was a bunch of LR as well, which I'm not so sure has anything living on it. That is, besides about a zillion bristle worms. Maybe not a zillion but a lot. I've read a lot in the forums about how people get one or two and they're really big - well this tank has a whole lot of small ones. And they're not shy about coming out when it's light - they'll crawl around and especially like to come out when it's dark or when I feed the clowns. From most of the posts on this forum, people seem to say they're ok to have and in the tank - but is having so many (they're in most of the live rocks and the gravel) OK? Should I get an arrow crab or some wrasse to try to "control" their population? (and would the crab go after the clowns??)
Tank water seems to be pretty stable with just a "regular" filter - pH, ammonia, and nitrite levels were all great...nitrate levels were pretty high though (160PPM!). Most suggestions for that seem to be partial water changes and maybe not feed so much? Any other ideas?? Is there some fish/invert I could get to help with this? The clowns seem to be ok with the nitrate levels but I worry about when I try to add something else to the tank that the new fish/invert wouldn't like it... This tank doesn't have anything fancy (no skimmers/powerheads/high powered lights/etc) just the filter and a bubble bar for the clowns to play in.
Thanks!
Jeff