My First Tank

[tiki]

Hello
I started a saltwater tank about a month ago I used the bottled natural sea water, live sand, and argonite purchased a wet,dry system and all the other necessity's had it all set up in about 8 hours went back to my LFS and purchased some live rock, the salesmen said it would be fine to put in a few fish and some inverts to get the tank cycled so I bought three clowns, a sand sifting star 1 fire shrimp and a sally lightfoot all of which are doing great I have been testing everything on a weekly basis since day one my nitrates have gone from 0 to 20 over time I just recently seen a slight change in the amonmia and the nitrites have stayed at 0 so I am not really sure if it has cycled or not. as of now theres 60+ lbs of live rock. I started out using a hyrdrometer since then I have stopped and I am now using a refractometer
a couple weeks after I went back to LFS and even though something seemed wrong about what the salesmen was telling me that damsels would be fine with what was in the tank and the royal gramma I was purchasing I went against my gut. For the first few days everything was ok then I started noticing white powdery stuff on the gramma and two days later she was on the bottom of the tank still alive I rushed her back to the store (she was my pride and joy with a great personality) another salesmen asked what else I had in the tank and I told him I just recently added her and the damsels and he said who told you to put the damsels in there so I told hm and he started showing me were they were going after her needless to say I took bad advice and she didnt come back home with me. we also have lost two cleaner shrimp one I have no idea why it died and the other I believe my fire shrimp my have been the cause. I was disgusted with the LFS so I looked for a new store and found this awesome store right across from the LFS thats a specialty shop called sea save we went to visit and brought home the most amazing live rock so far we have brain coral on the live rock aiptaisa and a new crab that I dont know what it is and quite a few serpent stars this store is great!!! But somehow I woulnd up back at the LFS and since my gramma died I bought a new one out of the same exact tank and she died this morning she also had ich or velvet I couldnt catch her to qt her so I used kick ich after the first treatment her whole tail was gone and she was only getting worse I finally managed to get her in the qt and treated her with copper but this morning she was lying on the bottom lifeless so I am very disappointed in myself because I should have done it right. I also have two anemones and after reading the anemone care post I am worried that I made another bad decision although both seem to be just fine I still worry one is a bubble tip the other is a pacific I have a red looking serpent star and a couple oysters that came on the live rock some snails and some hermits.
I will not be purchasing anything else from the LFS and will only be pruchasing from sea save they have the biggest sea horses I have ever seen the aquarium here has nothing on there sea horses and down the road in a year or so I hope to own some of them amazing creatures. I am now set on making sure I do my very best to keep the fish and inverts I have healthy and qt any thing that I buy from any place other then sea save cause there they do all of it for you so no worries

 

[TRe]

wow.... first of all that lfs has given you some very very bad advice... you dont wanna add any livestock until ammonia and nitrites are both at 0 for at least a week... all you needed was the 60+ lbs of liverock that u added... im suprised those are the only losses youve had so far.....that aptasia isnt a good thing and id remove it ASAP before they take over...damsels are always a bad idea but it sounds like youve found that out already...and how about some specs: tank size,lighting,protien skimmer,powerheads ect....

 

[Lorna]

Oh where oh where do I start..........

firstly, welcome to mft......

secondly, this is why we always tell newbies to do a very very thorough research the hobby prior to buying anything. Most lfs will sell you a system then pretty much wash their hands of you and you are left floundering (pun fully intended) around with a tank that is on the verge of crashing........as yours may well be if we don't intercede and get you on track.

Read all the stickies at the top of the page. You really don't need that wet/dry if you have sufficient live rock and sand to provide the biological filtration. You will need to ensure that your tank is fully cycled which I am not sure of though you probably jumpstarted it with the live rock. How big is your tank, you dont say. I would remove all your fish and place them in qt and treat them all with hyposalinity and leave your main tank fallow with only inverts in it for 6-8 weeks to ensure the eradication of the ich problem. During this time really really reconsider some of your livestock choices. Get rid of the damsels, they will harass to death anything you put in it. Lose the sand sifting stars as they are destined to starve to death. Take back the anemones for the same reason, the high nitrates alone may doom them as well as the other inverts. Reduce your feeding schedule and then once you have all this done do a 20-30% water change......test all your parameters and come back here and let us know the exact readings, along with temp, ph sg, etc. We will get you back on track and in a position to enjoy this hobby and to stop throwing money in the wrong direction......btw, do you have a skimmer, if so what kind is it.....you may want to give us a complete equipment list along with the water params including the lighting you have and the schedule.......sorry but we need to start from the beginning and rebuild your tank so you can sleep at night.....

Oh and forget the seahorses if you are intending on establishing a reef. You need to decide what type of sw tank you want.....fish only/predator/reef/seahorses etc.....

 

[tiki]

Thank you both for your advice I actually found out that it was not aptaisia and instead rock anemones so thats a good thing *BOUNCINGS *BOUNCINGS
My tank is 75 gallons with a
coral life super skimmer 125G
a 700 sump
a coral life deluxe lunar with 10,000k compact fl
true actinic 03
and blue moon glow leds
a visi therm deluxe heater
live sand
live rock 60 to 80 lbs
a temp of 77
salinity 1.022
ph 8.2
am sorry I put the wrong number on original post it is 0
trite 0
trate 20
the only thing that has gradually changed is the trates it has gone from day 1 of 0 4days later still 0 9days at 10and finally 10 days later at 20
The only chemicals I use is b ionic alkalinity and calcium besides the kick ich which will not be used anymore I think I covered it all

 

[tiki]

Ithink I leftout a few things I only have one damsel now and it has not picked on my clowns or anything else I watched the other two I did have pick on the other fish so that's why they were taken back. The fish are nowonly fed a very tiny bit of flake once a day and one cube of frozen mysis every other day which the shrimp and crab also eat the mysis and I do feed my filter feeders including the anemones kent micro vert twice a week and supplement with target feeding the anemones the mysis as well. I also have done several water changes using either distilled or RO water which probably equaled to about a 50% total water change since set up and I plan to do another water change over the weekend to reduce the nitrates I am now buying both my saltwater and freshwater from sea save and as I said will no longer be purchasing from any other place.

 

[Lorna]

Okay.....now I have a better idea of your set up. You are overfeeding which is contributing to the high nitrates, that and the wetdry. I would suggest that you feed every other day either a bit of flake or a half cube of mysis. Even then I would only feed the mysis every 4 or 5 days. The anemones are photosynthetic and need good light and should be target fed a small piece of shrimp/krill or preferably a small piece of silverside once every other week. Most die from overfeeding, poor light and poor water quality. You don't need to add any additives at all, so quit feeding the micro vert and adding the bionic as you do not have the demand to require supplements at this time. Try doing water changes that should replenish your calcium/alk levels without additives. Use r/o di water always. top off with fresh ro water only.
get rid of the damsel asap you may have to tear down to get it out but you will be thankful down the road. What is the wattage of the light you are using? On a 75 you should really contemplate metal halide lighting if you want to keep anemones and corals as it is hard for pcs to punch the depth.
Next you should remove the bioballs from your wet/dry by removing about 1/3every couple of days testing all the while to let your tank adjust and build the beneficial bacteria up to sustain the load without the bioballs. You can't remove them all at once as it could send your tank into a cycle as the bioballs should be populated with bacteria. You need the live rock to take up the slack and it will, you may want to consider adding more rock. I have 125lbs in my 75. Though you are probably okay with what you have. Just my preference.

Once you have done all this and you are testing zero for everything for over a week you will then look at adding a clean up crew. The star you have will probably not make it.....and will starve. You will no doubt start to see algae blooms due to the newness of your tank and you have not stated what you are using for powerheads and flow in your tank. Flow is almost as important as lighting to a reef tank. You should aim for 25-30 times tank volume per hour as a start..........

 

[tiki]

I have a magnetic drive 700 it turns the water over about 475 gl per hour based off the chart I know there is serious flow going through all the tank
I am not absolutely sure of the amount of light my other half does that stuff I do know we plan to get a metal halide in the very near future.
I also was thinking of doing a refugim but first I have to do some more research. Let me just say I have read though books and websites and I am more of the lets wait it out and not just go on impulse my other half is the opposite. I have not fed the fisj today and do not plan too.
and I know I didnt mention we added about 60 lbs of live sand and 20 lbs of argonite I believe give or take a couple lbs but mostly live sand was added
we have snails and hermits in there as well as one brab that I dont know what it is and the sally light foot and as I already said before I believe the fire shrimp and 2 oysters that came on rock and I didnt mention the feather dusters and the brain coral which there are 2 brains attached to a rock that sits up high and three feathers that are in the sand bed.
I do have to ask what is wrong with the bio balls?
we have had brown green and red algae and the only one that seems to pop up about once a week is the red algae which I am constantly cleaning the glass except the back do that about once a week so I guess that would be the reason for it only showing up there.
I think I already said that I had 2 cleaner shrimp and my fire shrimp killed one and the other one just died so I am not really in a rush to get more thanks for all the advice

 

[TRe]

the bioballs will contribute to your nitrate problem in the long run.....and between the blood/fire shrimp and the cleaners i dont belive the the fire shrimp killed the cleaner...it was just too early to have anything as far a live stock and they simply did not make it i have to agree with lorna to get that last damsel out now before its too late ...everything you add to the tank from this point on will no doubt be harrassed..and in addition to the mag drive u have id still add a couple powerheads as well...
btw how about some pics???

 

[tiki]

hope this works

 

[tiki]

oh and Tre your tank looks awesome!

 

[tiki]

exactly what will the extra powerheads do?
Make more current?

 

[IDunnoWhy]

exactly what will the extra powerheads do?
Make more current?

Exactly that...More current. (You'll need to spend time aiming them correctly, but it's worth it).

As Lorna suggested, you'd like to turn at least 25 times your tank volume per hour (More if you can), so in your case:

25 X 75 Gallons = 1875 Gallons per hour *thumbsups

On my 29g I'm running just shy of 1000 GPH

 

[TRe]

here i tried to blow up yur pic a little and yes more current (read the sticky at the top of the forum on "flow")

 

[tiki]

thanks not the clearest pic I am hoping to take some better ones tonight

 

[tiki]

so I am still wondering why the bio balls would be the cause of my high nitrate level its confusing me to know end I thought the more biological the better can someone please explain to me a little

 

[tiki]

oh and Tre there are actually more pics in my gallery that I added today and those arent so blurry

 

[tiki]

so does anyone have any good recomendations on another power head I should try to get

 

[spllouder]

is the magnetic drive 700 for your Wet/Dry ? What other Powerheads do you have ?

I would Recommend a Hydor Kornila #2 and #3 , I just bought a #2 for my 29G . The #2 is 600 gph . And the #3 is 850 . and its spread in a large stream of moving water so its not to powerful or forceful on the tank .

that will be a total of 2150 GPH = Your tank turn over rate would be 28 times per hours . Thats all your ever need .

 

[Lorna]

Tiki, I run 2 Koralia 4's on my 75g and it gives plenty of flow. This flow also creates turbulence on the water surface to increase the oxygen exchange thereby oxygenating the water, and cooling it. The bioballs will trap detritus which collects and rots instead of being consumed by your clean up crew and this in turn turns into nutrients in the water such as nitrate and phosphates which promotes algae as it loves to grow in nutrient rich water. Live rock in the tank is constantly (or should be) being blown by the water movement so it doesn't collect this detritus and with it being blown off the rock it is remains suspended in the water column and then taken out by skimming with the protein skimmer. Does this make sense. The bioballs never get the chance to be rinsed by the powerheads like rock does.......it collects junk and it rots......creating nitrate.

 

[TRe]

ive got a koralia #3 wich is 850gph and a koralia #4 wich is 1200gph two #3's or a 3 an a 4 would be good in your tank