Tank ready for Live Rock, but water is cloudy

[DarthPadre]

Temp at 79, Grav. at 1.023, pH at 8.2. The salt has been mixed for 48 hours. But the tank is still a bit cloudy (I rinsed the sand, but maybe not good enough, or is it still salt after 48 hrs?). Is it okay to get Live Rock and put it in, or should I wait for it to clear. I just don't want to screw this up so am taking every precaution.

Thanks

 

[Lotus]

It will be fine to put the live rock in now. It's probably some sand/fine particles floating around. It won't affect the rock or the cycle.

 

[DarthPadre]

Thank you Lotus.

 

[Joeyb1731]

It will clear up in 5 hours after u put the rock in

 

[DarthPadre]

I have an update and a few questions.

The water did indeed clear hours after putting the LR in. Cool.

Now it's been a week, and no pods to be seen. In fact, besides the snail that hitched a ride, there's no life to be found. There is algie dieing off, and possibly some new pink and green, but it's hard to tell. The rocks were partially cured. Here are the "vitals" for my tank:

78-80 deg. (78 in the morning, 80 by late afternoon)
1.023 grav.
8.2 pH
Very little Amonia (I lost the salt water card with my API test - the water looks like lemon juice)
1.0 ppm Nitrites
30 ppm Nitrates

I spent over an hour staring at my tank today. Should I be seeing pods by now? I'm not worried, but do have a 14 day guarentee on these rocks and have no problem starting over if anything is suspect.

Your thoughts?

 

[Joeyb1731]

i didnt notice the pods at first. My ammonia went up and there was nothing. When I got my nitrite spike, I noticed a few, but i was looking really hard. Sometimes if you shut the tank light off and put an outside light on and look at different angles you will see them. Every day closer to the end of my cycle I saw more and more, by the time my tank finished cycling,(last week) I saw them all over the rocks, sand and glass. I think your nitrate is kind of high for so early in your cycle. Before I put my LR in I had almost none, after the LR was in it went up slightly but not much. Once I finished cycling I saw more but not that high, I have done 1 1gallon water change and have somewhere between 10-20 ppm of nitrate closer to 10.

 

[Lotus]

It was several weeks before I saw my first pod. They're on there, but it may take a while for them to show up.

 

[DarthPadre]

Thank you. I will test Nitrates again tomorrow to make sure my reading was correct.

 

[DarthPadre]

I guess I should have read the directions to the API Nitrate test and not ASSUMED that it was the same as the API Amonia test. Lots more shaking going on. Anyways, Nitrates are around 5 ppm. All seems good. Temp reaching 83-84 in the afternoon (so does the 50 gal. - I live in San Diego) so I need to vent a lot better and am now leaving the hood open. Joey - I know you are about two weeks ahead of me. Have you stressed out about your tank as much as me?

 

[Newwithfish]

20 Gallon tank:
-28 lbs. Live Rock
-2 Clown Fish

Age of tank 3 weeks.

I added the fish on Saturday (4 days ago) because all my levels were great for so long. I think the fish started a "for real" cycle because my Ammonia went from being 0.0 to .50 from yesterday morning to last night. So I did a 20% water change. Tonight I checked and the level was 1.0. I did a 10% water change. Tested afterward, and the level of Ammonia is still 1.0 and looks like it is creeping up. Do I do another 10% change in the morning? Will the fish be okay overnight? I am testing now twice a day because I don't want the ammonia level to get out of control and kills my Clown Fish. Please help. I don't want to sleep and wake up to dead fishes.

 

[DarthPadre]

I'm going to try to help, but am not an expert. Yes, sounds like your tank is cycling again. Those water changes are better for the fish, but will prolong the time for your tank to cycle. I don't believe a 1.0 ppm will kill the fish overnight on it's own. Maybe if the fish's health was previously compromised, the high amonia will affect it more, but I don't think they will be dead tomorrow. I do suggest you take the fish back tomorrow for their own good.

I don't know if you've read the sticky at the top of this forum, but I also think you missed the clean-up crew. This seems to be a very important part of the process and you may have rushed into buying the fish, but I may be wrong.

Very good luck to you and your clowns.

 

[Joeyb1731]

haha trust me it doesnt get much better from you to me. Its more frustrating as you go. I got my clean up crew on friday finally. I did not read up on properly acclimating inverts, and now i Keep finding my hermits dead out of the shell. Im trying not to let it get me down. There is alot of good stuff going on, and the rock looks cool, and theres pods all over. I ordered my lights because now i need to have corals, the FOWLR thing didnt even last a month. So this weekend im gonna go pick up a few more cleaners and acclimate them properly. Then hopefully fish in 2 weeks. The only thing i can say being 2 weeks ahead of you. I thought i read everything I could possibly read. And i found more, haha keep reading learn from my bad invert mistake. Good Luck

 

[DarthPadre]

I fortunately read about the invert acclimation. Float for 15. Add 6 oz. of tank water every 3 min. until water is doubled. Dump half water and add 6 oz. of tank water every 3 min. again. Net critters out and discard water. Is that what you're doing?

 

[Joeyb1731]

well actually i did it kinda the same. I floated the bag for 30, added a dixie cup every 15 minutes 5 times, then dumped half, did the dixie cup twice more, and then netted them in. Not a good idea. Turns out, I need to do the drip method with the airline tube. The worst part is that they were good for a few days. I then found out the not acclimating properly could affect them for up to a week and a half. The LFS told me to do it the way you said, I thought i took it a step further, but im still wrong

 

[DarthPadre]

Ohhhhhh. Damn good thing I asked. So treat them like coral, basically? I guess that has to be the safest method for any living matter. Even for our freshwater. Maybe a drip device is a good investment. Well, please let me know how it turns out and I will do the same.

 

[Joeyb1731]

thanks yea i ordered the acclimation device just now. From what ive read all saltwater creatures should be acclimated the same way. Only because of the salinity, thats why its different for FW. I will definitely keep you posted.

 

[Newwithfish]

Good Morning! Well, the fish are find, the ammonia is now between .50 and 1.0. I will keep an eye on it this morning. The store doesn't take back fish. I read on the clean up crew, but asked around and was told it really isn't necessary. I think today I will keep an extremely close watch. If it creeps up more, I will stay with changing out 2 gallons, OR set up a side tank for the fish with water from the Fish store that is already establish until this cycles. How long does the cycle take through the Ammonia stage. I ask because Friday night I have to head out of town until Tuesday. I have someone feeding the fish, but am trying to figure out how detailed they need to learn the testing etc....

 

[AlleyKatt]

Hey guys first post here! Fortunately for me when I used to keep discus and other sensitive FW fish I learned about the drip method, and have used it ever since. You really don't need to buy anything to make this happen just a decent length of airline hose tied in a few knots to slow the flow to your liking. Allow to drip around 1 drop every 3 seconds or so. I tend to allow the water to double in volume at least twice removing half the amount when it does so.

As far as New2 fishes problem, (first you should start your own thread) this would give the pro's more access to your questions about your tank. I wouldn't have anyone feed or even so much as touch the tank if your only gone for the weekend. Actually if your concerned about ammo, stop feeding all together for a few days and test again. Whomever is "fish sitting" will have much less of an interest in the hobby thus not have the desire to learn the necessary procedures to maintain your tank. I've left home for as long as 10 days to come home to happy fish all still in semi decent water parameters without so much as a single pellet over this period being fed.

Good luck with your tanks guys sounds like most of you are on the same page as me with the whole SW thing, I'm new to it as well. I'll be posting my lil 10 gallon in a thread with its progress. Looking forward to learning and sharing info here.

 

[Joeyb1731]

The clean up crew I think is very nessasary. The produce a small bioload so you can tell if your tank has enough bacteria to handle it. I'd rather loose inverts then fish. Not to mention they clean the sand and glass.

 

[DarthPadre]

Update - The cycle finished today. Nitrites were .25 yesterday and 0 today. So I picked up my clean up crew. 2 hermits, a turbo, 3 nas., 10 marg. and 1 big snail that burried himself (forgot the name). I used the drip method and what was suggested was that I start the drip slowly, say one drop every 2 seconds, then slowly increase the rate over 1/2 - 1 hour until the water level was 4x the original level. Makes sense because they are more sensative to the adjustment at the start. Anyways I will check my levels daily and will keep my fingers crossed.

Joey - I've ready your post, but don't know if I can offer any help other than to let you know what's going on with my tank for a benchmark. So far, I cycled for only 9 days with partially cured fiji rock (22 lbs.). I don't believe I ever really saw any amonia, but I didn't test until the third day after adding the LR. Just so you have some background.