Fish ‘N’ Chips

By Elliot Dulberger, June 24, 2002, edited by Elizabeth M. Lukan.

This week I thought we would do a series on the Boxfish (which as you all know by now is one of my least favorite SW fish, due to the damage they can do to your tank).

These fish have a rigid body made up of bony plates covered with a sensitive skin that may be damaged by cleaner fishes. They are slow moving fish - and some have described them as hovercraft fishes - and they do have an interesting way of moving, making rapid movements of the dorsal, anal and pectoral fins. If buying one of these fish, avoid any that have concave sides as these fish never recover from this probable semi-starved state.

Most are poisonous, releasing a toxin into the water when threatened. In the confines of a tank, or in the transportation container, this often proves fatal both to the Boxfish and to other fishes. Introduce these fish into the tank first in order to reduce the chances of fatal consequences should the Boxfish become frightened.

These fish will eat anything, but appear to relish worm foods.

Some of the more common Boxfishes are as follows:

1. Long-Horned Cowfish, Lactoria cornuta - 16 inches in tank (20 wild)
2. Blue-Spotted Boxfish, Ostracion lentiginosum - 4 inches in tank (8 wild)
3. White-spotted Boxfish, Ostracion meleagris - 4 inches in tank (6 wild)
4. Blue-spotted Boxfish, Ostracion tuberculaturn - 12 inches in tank (18 wild)

As I have said before, unless you keep these fish in their own tanks the odds are at some point you will have a problem with them. Not only do they release the toxin when scared, they do it when they die. If not that then if they die and another fish nibbles on the body they get a mouthful of poison for their efforts. I guess for the daring hobbyist these fish are an interesting one to have, but for me I’ll pass - thank you very much lol.

Liz’s Notes: Editing was limited to spelling and grammar corrections and formatting. The above article was part of a series of posts called “Let’s talk” found on Elliot Dulberger’s pufferlovers.com site. Elliot gave me permission to republish the series. Sadly, the pufferlovers.com web site is no more.

Photo Credits: The Ostracion cubicus image was obtained at the Animal-World web site (http://animal-world.com/). According to David Brough, he obtained the image from a book called “Creating Your Own Netscape webpages” by Andy Shafran and published by QUE Corp. 1995. The book noted permission given to use the photo for “internet publications.” Thanks go to David for helping me get a great photo to go with my article!

By Reefs UK, edited by Elizabeth M. Lukan.

Introduction

Following on from our last article describing the concept of a reef garden (please refer to the previous editions of these articles) we will now start to explain the type of aquarium we will use for our reef garden and some of the reasoning behind its set up. To help hobbyists who are new to reef gardening and setting up marine aquariums, we have provided a good deal of information on the equipment we will use and how we will install it. This will demonstrate some of the problems we and many other hobbyists encounter and how we overcome them. It will also help new hobbyists understand what equipment is considered essential and what is not. Although we touch on some of the technologies and theories behind the equipment and the methods of running a marine aquarium, these articles do not provide an in depth look into information in this area.

What type of aquarium?

One of the first things hobbyists obviously consider when deciding on a new marine aquarium is the type and design of the aquarium. With the many designs and different manufacturers out there, it can be quite a battle deciding which type to purchase. Reefs UK had already decided that our reef garden should be glass as opposed to acrylic and that the water capacity should be about 100 to 150 UK gallons. We also wanted enough room from front to back to build up a good amount of rock work and so eventually decided on an aquarium size of 5 feet (154.4cm) in length by 30 inches (76.2cm) tall (24 inches of water) and 24 inches (61cm) from front to back. This size aquarium would provide us with approximately 125 UK gallons (566 liters).

When setting up any new aquarium we, like most other people, want an aquarium to be well built and put together professionally by a reputable supplier. Although we decided to use a Seabray manufactured aquarium we would recommend hobbyists have a good look around at the different manufacturers as there are a lot of different designs to choose from. When ordering the aquarium we asked for a few modifications. The first was to ensure that there was a gap between the back of the hood and the back of the glass. Most aquarium manufacturers leave a little gap at the back of their aquariums so that pipes and electrical cables can be fed through. However, we wanted this gap to be quite big and run all along the back of the tank. This would allow us to feed larger pipes to and from the external skimmer and to also allow for maximum airflow within the hood. The airflow is important as it allows for the heat of the lights to escape from the hood rather than building up inside the hood. The second modification was to allow for a larger gap on the top right hand side of the cover glass which faces downwards towards the surface of the water. The Seabray aquariums are built with cover glass and we needed to ensure that a large gap was cut into this to allow for our pipes from the external skimmer to enter the water within the aquarium. The cost of this aquarium was 450.00 UK pounds.

What is a sump?

Now the first thing most people will tell you when planning any new marine aquarium is that you must have a sump. For those of you who are new to marine aquariums, a sump is a separate tank which is generally located below the main display aquarium inside the cabinet and allows you to store such things as skimmers, calcium reactors, etc. Water overflows from the main display aquarium through a pipe (which is drilled and sealed into the aquarium) into the sump and then pumped back up to the main aquarium.

What no sump?

As you can see, a sump is useful for hiding away the equipment needed to run a marine aquarium however, we decided not to have a sump. Now this may sound strange to many of you but our decision was based on the following reasons:

• Our reef aquarium garden will be located in an office and needs to be as quiet as possible. Even though water noise flowing into a sump can be dampened considerably, we have never managed to find a sump system were there is no noise at all.
• Evaporation levels tend to be higher due to having 2 surface areas (the main aquarium and the sump). Although this is good for dripping kalkwasser, we wanted to ensure the humidity did not become a problem.
• Having a sump requires another tank that needs to be cleaned as detritus collects in the sump. This is a maintenance task we wanted to avoid.
• The only piece of equipment we set out to have which is traditionally located in a sump was a skimmer. Skimming from the main tank is as efficient as skimming from the sump.
• A sump requires addition pumps to return the water back to the display tank. This can introduce more heat and is something else to go wrong, e.g. water leak or pump failure. If a return pump in a sump fails, the main aquarium is no longer being cleaned or heated and you are left with skimming and heating the water in your sump while your main aquarium with the livestock in it receives no heat or skimming.
• We planned on using a battery backup (Un interruptible Power Supply or UPS) to provide power to essential equipment in the event the main power is off. This, unfortunately, is something that seems to happen on a regular basis in our office. To prevent cold water returning from the sump to the main aquarium after a long power cut, a UPS would need to power 2 heaters (one in the sump and one in the main aquarium). Removing the need of a sump allows us to keep our aquarium tank running longer during power failures as only one heater located in the main aquarium is using the batteries on our UPS.
• Last but by no means least, our office is regularly visited by a very inquisitive 1 year old baby (Mark Taber of Reefs UK’s daughter) and we would live in fear of her opening the doors of a cabinet and playing with the water in a sump. Even worse, climbing into the sump. For those hobbyists with children, this is a very important consideration and we would like to remind you that if you have a sump in an easy accessible area then this is a very real danger and it is time to buy those door locks for the aquarium cabinet.

Although some of these points may not be considered that important, we decided to remove the need for the sump and install the skimmer next to the main aquarium. The biggest obstacle we would have to overcome would be to disguise the skimmer in such a way that it does not look too unsightly.

Why a skimmer is needed for your reef garden?

One thing we do recommend you use on your reef garden is a protein skimmer. A protein skimmer is currently one of the most efficient ways of removing nutrients from saltwater and although some people run marine aquariums successfully without a skimmer, they are a good safety feature. For example, we have witnessed 2 coral spawnings in the past where without the skimmer working overtime to pull out the mass of eggs and sperm, these spawning events would have certainly caused massive pollution and killed some, if not all, of the livestock. There are many other benefits of using a skimmer, such as providing the hobbyist the ability to feed the tank a little more than they would normally as the skimmer will remove the excess food. Also, as most of us keep more livestock than was considered possible in the past, it ensures the water quality will not deteriorate with this extra overhead. Now having said all of that, some people will argue that skimmers take out important trace elements from saltwater and pull out too much microscopic plankton which is so important to our enclosed living systems. We believe both of these elements can be manually added back into a reef garden through regular water changes and culturing phytoplankton and zooplankton.

What type skimmer?

As many of you will know, choosing a skimmer is not exactly the easiest of tasks due to the costs of these items and that some manufactures making claims about their skimmers which are somewhat optimistic. When planning a skimmer for your reef garden, it is best to listen to other hobbyists recommendations and experiences. Also, it would be wise to be prepared to spend a good deal of money on this equipment or alternatively build your own. To ensure our reef garden was adequately skimmed, we decided to choose a model in the Deltec range as these skimmers have proven very efficient. As our reef garden would hold approximately 125 UK gallons (566 liters) we could have purchased a Deltec AP600 or an APF600 which are rated by the manufacturer as easily coping with the water volume our reef garden would hold. However, there is a school of thought that you cannot over-skim a marine aquarium so we opted for the Deltec AP850 which the manufacturer rates at 333 gallons (1500 liters) for normal stocking or 222 gallons (1000 liters) for aquariums heavily stocked. As we had not yet decided how heavily stocked our reef garden would be, this skimmer would be more than adequate for our needs.

Costs to-date (UK pounds):

1 x Seabray Aquarium (60″ x 30″ x 24″) including cabinet 450.00

1 x Deltec AP850 protein skimmer 300.00

Total : 750.00

Liz’s Notes: Editing was limited to spelling and grammar corrections and formatting. Please note that this article is at least two years old and while some of the information in it may dated (like the costs), the principles discussed are still viable and worthy of passing along. The images were provided by Reefs UK along with the article and are copyrighted to them. Thanks to Mark Taber of Reefs UK for his permission to use this article in Fish ‘N’ Chips. Don’t forget to visit Reefs UK for more information, articles, and forums.

By Reefs UK, edited by Elizabeth M. Lukan.

Introduction

Welcome to the first edition in a series of articles which will describe how we at Reefs UK have created our own reef aquarium garden and hopefully encourage you to create your own. The following articles will provide an in-depth look into:

• What a reef garden is and why it differs from a traditional marine aquarium.
• How we set up our reef garden, what equipment we will use, and the cost of our reef garden.
• What livestock we will introduce, the living requirements of this livestock, and the reasons for keeping this type of livestock.
• How we will maintain our reef garden, what tests we will perform, and the additives we will use.
• How we will trim the corals in our reef garden so they do not overgrow the aquarium and allows us to propagate these corals.
• How we will encourage the livestock to spawn and hopefully attempt to raise the fry of this livestock in the hope we can produce captive-raised specimens.

We hope that by providing this information on our own reef garden, people can learn from our success and mistakes. Most importantly, we hope to show how to properly care for the livestock that we have chosen to keep. We also hope people will learn how to nurture their reef aquariums to a stage where they propagate the corals and encourage the spawning of the fish they keep. Due to budget constraints, Reefs UK were not in a position to set up a reef garden with all the latest gizmos and gadgets. However, setting up the aquarium in this manner will represent the average budget most hobbyists may have when committing their finances to their own marine aquarium. At the end of each article in this series, you will find a section headed "Cost To Date" which will detail what we have purchased and the amount we have paid for each item. This will be updated when we purchase different items but will also provide newcomers with what equipment is needed and the cost of the equipment. We hope you enjoy this series of articles and more importantly we hope it helps you set up and run your own reef aquarium garden successfully.

Who Is Reefs UK?

First of all, we should explain who Reefs UK is for those people who may not have heard of our organization. The organization was originally created in 1998 with a mission to encourage all within the marine aquarium hobby to reduce the impact on the worlds reefs by using sustainable livestock. Reefs UK promotes the use of coral farms as sources of purchasing corals, we also promote propagating corals and producing captive breeding as a means to supplying the hobby with the livestock it uses. Reefs UK quickly became a well known marine aquarium organization providing hobbyists with free forums to discuss all their marine aquarium problems and more importantly find the answers to these problems. We also provide free articles on how hobbyists can propagate their own corals and encourage their livestock to spawn. Reefs UK is an organization promoting the use of aquaculture within the marine aquarium hobby and we are pleased to see many marine aquarium stores selling their own propagated corals and captive bred fish.

The Importance of a Reef Garden

Treating reef aquariums as reef gardens ensures that we all appreciate the importance and value of the corals and marine fish we keep. Although by removing corals, fish, sand, rock etc. from the natural reefs has little impact on the overall destruction of these coral reefs, the marine aquarium industry is an easy target for government policies to focus on. Creating a ban on certain species of corals or limiting the quantity of living rock being imported into the United Kingdom could be all too easy for a government in power to legislate. Even worse, as a collection of countries, Europe could come together and create a European ban on livestock. Where would the hobbyists buy their corals from? How would we continue in our hobby? The good news is that this does not need to be the case and such things as coral farms are being created on the shores of natural reefs and within captivity here in the UK. This provides our industry with a way to show these governments that we are becoming self sufficient in the livestock we use.

Keeping a reef aquarium garden not only properly cares for the corals we keep but over time will actually produce more corals than have been used to set up the aquarium. Producing fragments of corals (known as frags) as cuttings, hobbyists can feel happy in the knowledge that they are giving back something that they have taken. By trimming a coral it not only provides room for other corals to grow but also provides someone else with a coral taken from a reef aquarium and not a natural coral reef.

Reefs UK feels that it is now not only acceptable to keep corals in the best conditions possible but that each coral we keep should turn into 2 or more corals by propagation. Every coral we produce in captivity is one less coral taken from the natural reefs.

Summary

Hopefully we have now informed you of the benefits of a reef garden and wet your appetite to help the natural reefs. In the next article, we take delivery of our new aquarium and start to set up our new reef aquarium garden. We will provide you with the information on why we have decided to choose the aquarium we have and start to list the cost of our reef aquarium garden.

Liz’s Notes: Editing was limited to spelling and grammar corrections and formatting. Please note that this article is at least two years old and while some of the information in it may dated (like the costs mentioned to be coming in future parts), the principles discussed are still viable and worthy of passing along. The images were provided by Reefs UK along with the article and are copyrighted to them. Thanks to Mark Taber of Reefs UK for his permission to use this article in Fish ‘N’ Chips. Don’t forget to visit Reefs UK for more information, articles, and forums.