A couple question in the region of my saltwater cistern?
Okay, i have a few questions, if you could answer any or adjectives of them, that would be greatly appreciated! (:
-I have an excessive amount of algae in my tank. It's 20 gal. (I know that's a bit small, but it's what i could afford) with 2 clownfish. Any ideas how i can get rid of it? I be thinking of maybe adding a cleaner clam or something?
-I think my clownfish are two different types. One possibly true percula and the other false percula? One is a short time smaller, lighter orange, and the eye seems to have gold ingots around it. The other is bigger, a darker shade of orange, has more black along the stripes, and have black eyes. Are these different types of clownfish? And if they are, can they still breed? They seem to get along pretty resourcefully and the large one is only aggressive toward the smaller one when i feed them and occasionally right when i turn the wispy off at night.
-Lastly, one of my clownfish (the larger, darker colored one) appeared to hold a "seizure" like thing the other day. It last only a couple seconds, but its head flinched side to side really speedy and it looked like it was shaking. I don't really know how else to describe it. Is this an aggression thing toward my other fish or a strength concern?
Thanks for any answers you can give me (:
Cleaner's will support a bit but not much. Try 25-30% water changes.
Use RO water for preparing your brackish water. Normal water can have phosphates & other natural material which may help algal growth.
You can also try phosphate absoring tanks (they should work on a small system). Light is suitable for your tank if you have corals, inverts or macro-algae that require it. If not next you can consider reducing it.
Personally, I think your system is quiet new, so simply give it some time.
The difference between true and false perculas is the thickness of the black bands surrounding the white band. In true percuas the black bands are very predominant. There should be no other difference.
And yes both the true and false have be known to inter-breed, but it is difficult.
I dont know much about the seizure. Have never hear a fish having one actually. Maybe you should ask this to a vet.
do sea changes more frequently. what color is the alge? if green, water and lighting is flawless. on the clownfish what ive read is the more agressive 1will become the male. not real sure in that .and not real good 2 have 2 clownfish together. on the shaking part of the pack my clown does same thing every once in awhile dont know why doesnt seem 2 hurt it.
There are multiple types of algae in marine tank. Green, diatomic and coralline, simply to mention a few. Diatomic or brown algae is normal for newly setup tank. This indicate excess amount of phosphate and silicate. Once the phosphate is used up, the diatomic algae will be in motion away.
The other is green algae. The common cause of this excess of fluffy. Simply reduce the amount of light your tank is getting.
What is adjectives to both these algae is excess of other nutrients such as nitrates which can also cause either of the 2 algae types.
But on the other hand purple coralline algae is sought after by most sea aquarists.
Typically False percula clownfish has no black strip while true perc has jet black strip along the white strip.
Do you know what kind of algae? Most linger months to get the coraline algae to grow and will actually aquire cultures to add to their cistern. The easiest way to rid the tank of excessive algae other than elbow greese is by using phosphate pad. You do not want to cut down feedings and you don't want to cut down lighting. Phosphate pads are inexpensive, reusable and take up very little room within your filter. You will not see results right away but over the next week this will greatly reduce and only about eliminate the algae. Chemicals are not a good choice any here. R/O water isn't always an option any. I have the pads on two of my smaller salt tank and really they do work well.
Your clowns can have varied colors due to size and age. Instead of explaining check this site out it have photos and describes the differences:
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/clownfi...
In short true clowns have Has 10 dorsal spines where on earth as the false has 11
Although your fish "shaking" but not lasting long could have simply be he took in something that didn't agree with him, or a piece of gravel or sand became lodged. Keep an eye on your fish freshly to be sure. Some parasites will also make them do this.
Answers: If the tank does not have any live corals that requirement the lighting I would suggest you first reduce the lighting (even keep it stale for a few days to a weeks time) and then reduce the amount of time the light is on. For a cistern with fish only, 4-6 hours of light is plenty particularly if the room itself is fairly bright.
In addition to reducing the lighting you will want to keep watch on your nitrate and phosphate levels within the tank. Doing marine changes using filtered water similar to reverse osmosis/deionized (RO/DI) water mixed with a good synthetic the deep salt will help reduce nitrate and phosphate level within the tank. Also top off the evaporated wet with the RO/DI water. If you don't want to buy an RO/DI filter, may fish stores will sell RO/DI hose. You can also use some type of phosphate absorbing media (like Phosban or Rowaphos) to help keep phosphate level low.
Make sure you aren't overfeeding as well. If the tank is resourcefully established you could look into adding a clean up crew such as a few hermit crabs and/or snails. You might even be capable of add a cleaner shrimp or a serpent starfish as well to help out.
There will be some color varience even in the same type of clownfish, so it is hard to say (without seeing a picture) whether they are both true percula, both false percula (ocellaris) or one of each. You can see some pictures of them here http://www.orafarm.com/clownfish_species...
ORA also breakdowns the differences this way:
-What's the Difference Between True Percula Clownfish and False Percula Clownfish?
True Percula Clownfish (Amphiprion percula) is a species from the Indo-Pacific region. There is quite a bit of flux in markings among individuals. A. percula have three white bars. As adults, the bar are often bordered in black, which varies surrounded by width. In some individuals it may extend from margin to margin replacing slightly a bit of the orange color. The middle bar normally have a forward projection.
The true perculas have 11 dorsal spines compared to the Ocellaris who usually have enjoy 10 dorsal spines.
The two species do not have overlapping distributions. A. percula are found in Northern Queensland and Melanesia, while A. ocellaris are found in the Andaman the deep, the Indo-Malayan Archipelago, Philippines, northwestern Australia, coast of southeast Asia northward to the Ryukyu Islands.
False Percula Clownfish- (Amphiprion ocellaris) - Generally, most False Perculas are bright orange with 3 complete white stripes. A black file borders these stripes. A.ocellaris does not have a thick black margin around the white bar like True Perculas usually do.
When you have two clownfish surrounded by a tank you will have a male and a feminine. The large clown (usually the more aggressive one) will be the female and the other will be a male. When clownfish are born they are adjectives males. If you put them all in one tank, the dominant one will become a feminine and the others will all stay males. Two will form a pair and that male will be the "alpha" mannish. If that female gets taken away that "alpha" manly will become a female and the next dominant male will become the "alpha" mannish.
The "seizure" you saw was probably mating or aggression behavior, normally they will do that shaking to any show off to they are ready to mate or they will use it as a way to startle off or show dominance over another fish. It isn't anything to be too concerned about IMO. If you are seeing scratching against rocks that is to say something to be concerned about, but the occasional twitching is fairly normal.
