Newbie Questions: Am I on the right track?

[dous]

Hi folks. I know there's a lot of experts here and I regret to inform everyone that I started the wrong way by not doing enough research first and trusting my LFS.

My tank is now 3 weeks old and I'm not sure if I'm doing it right at all.

I have a 55gal with 80 lbs of cured live rocks filled with life as they all came out the 2nd day. Bristleworms, Capepods, Amphipods and even a Bonellid Epicurian worm, oh and a few featherdusters. I'm planning on having a couple of clowns, a baby blue tang, 3 chromis, a goby, a blenny perhaps. Mostly colorful fish and a few corals.

My equipment is as follows, all recommended by my LFS:
CSS 65 (wished I have gotten the 125), Eheim 2215 (wished I had gone with a sump, but the tank is on the 2nd floor so may not be a good idea), Coralife Aqualight Deluxe 48" (wished I have gotten metal halides), Hydor inline heater 300W (this works very well), phosban reactor, 2 Maxijet 900s.

I also don't have an RO/DI unit and is in the process of shopping for one. Here's a link on what OI'm looking at. http://cgi.ebay.ca/AQUA-SAFE-100GPD-...QQcmdZViewItem

I also use AP's master test kit which I regret buying as it doesnt seem too accurate. I wish I had purchased Salifet kits...

With the readings I have these:
salinity: 1.023 (i'm trying to get it up to 1.026 as recommended by most of you)
ammonia: 0
ph: 8.1
nitrite: 0ppm
nitrate: 5ppm
calcium: 300
temp: 78ºF

Also, my LFS suggested I put 2 chromis in my tank to help it cycle after 2 weeks of my parameters being stable like this. They also suggested I do water changes every week. I put in 2 chromis and one died already. Also I'm seeing some brownish green algae on the skimmer pump and return as well as the sand and it looks dirty. Some suggested replacing my powerheads with 2 SEIO 620s. Do I vacuum the dirt out and scrape the algae off?

I know I'm doing something wrong. I already spent a ton of money and was wondering how I can correct this without spending so much more. Am I going the right direction or am I heading for failure? Please help as I don't want to fail. Thanks so much.

[dous]

I guess the questions are:
A) Should I be doing water changes now?
B) Should I be scrubbing down the rocks as they are turning more brown?
C) Should I be vacuuming the sand?
D) Should I be adding a clean up crew ?
E) Should I be upgrading or adding powerheads?
F) Should I be using a different test kit?
G) Should I be leaving the lights off for now?
H) Or should I just be just leaving it alone?

[Danfish]

I'm fairly new myself but...

Don't do water changes untill after the tank cycles, unless the ammonia/nitrites get way out of hand.
Honestly it sounds like it has already cycled, which is possible with the live rock, especialy if you bought the rock localy and kept it wet (avoiding any die off).

The chromis that died, where your nitrites/ammonia levels 0 at the time? If so, and you did a propper aclimation, then it might just have been a sick fish. Normaly people here reccomend not cycling with fish in the tank, its cruel. Every LFS I've been too except one has suggested cycling with fish (normaly damsels) and I hate it (hate damsels even more because of it) (long story there).

If the tank is done cycling, and you are starting to get diatoms (the rusty brown powder the forms on tank glass and low flow spots) then you will likely want to start looking into a cleaning crew. Start small and build it up to force, you don't want to throw 50 snails and crabs in at once because in a week they will all starve to death. I'd start with 4-5 large snails and a cleaner shrimp, then see how those do. If you still have more algae growing, or they aren't eating that type of algae, then do some reading as to what does eat it and then add a few more to the crew.

Not sure about powerheads. I was told to go with Maxijet 1200s instead of the lower maxi's, it was only a difrence of like $5 and makes a large jump in turnover. I've only had experience with the maxijets tho, so I can't really comment.

I'm not happy with my current test kit ether, its "saltwater master" or something like that, the low ranges of Ammonia and nitrate are near impossible to judge.

Think lights on a daily timer is a good idea at this point.


(sorry for jumping around)

[dous]

Thanks Danfish. I appreciate the comments.

yes, I did buy the cured rocks locally and they were only exposed to air for about half an hour max. They were cured live rocks and had coraline on them and teaming with life. One even had a black fingered mud crab in it.. I got rid of it though. Anyway, now the rocks are turning brown although some red coraline is still growing. Should I start scubbing the rocks and do a water change right after?

When the chromis was introduced, all parameters were 0 except for nitrate, which was 5ppm, according to my inaccurate test kit (same as yours), and when it died, everything was the same. I think that fish was sick or weaker, since it stayed in the same place the whole time unlike the other one, which was more active. The other one is still doing fine and eating/hunting for pods. Oh and acclimated them for an hour using drip method.

I guess the tank is done cycling (but only 2 weeks though) and yes, diatoms are starting to grow now. I'm posting some pics at the bottom. Is it because I have the lights on some times? I will also get some clean up crew tomorrow.. Do I acclimate them the same way as fish? Do I also vacuum the sand when I do water change or should I let the crew do the work?

As for the powerheads, I'm still not sure if I should replace them or I should add another one. I'm assuming I should add a couple SEIO 620s.. one at a time so it's not too expensive (at $90CDN each).

I actually have a light timer.. the Coralife digital one.. How long should I be leaving the lights on?

Thanks so much. I appreciate it! Here are the pics:

[Danfish]

Nice layout.

I would go ahead with a 12 hour lighting cycle. By the sound of it you may be losing some prettyness on the rocks due to lack of light.

I would also start a cleaning crew. Mexican Turbo Snails LOVE diatoms (so I'm told and mine seem to back that up). With Inverts its important to do a nice slow drip aclimation. I've seen it been said that 1 hour is enough, but I tend to think with snails a bit longer is better. Mexican Turbos have a history of just up and dieing soon after being added to a tank, I lost 2 of mine the day after I added them, I've seen some people lost 10 out of 12 or such numbers. No real idea why, but an extra long aclimation can't hurt.

I used 60 pounds live sand and about 20 pounds of live rock to cycle my tank, and it did so in 10 days. Ammonia only got up to 1ppm and nitrite barely even showed up at all. Since then I've added chromis and cleaners and more rock, all with no rise in Ammonia or Nitrite. I'm having a small issue with Nitrate right now, but I think its becasue of my sump. (have a thread on it here)

I'm still learning about pumps and flow.
I'm currently running a 650gph flow from my sump return and a maxijet 1200 (280gph) with a rotating wave maker (prolly cuts the head down to 250gph).
Once I start adding corals I'll be adding a second maxijet 1200 with the flo wavemaker thingy. Totaly turnover in the tank should be around 1150gph (65gal tank).


I don't think you'll need to scrub the rocks.
Thats only done when you cure it yourself, to scrub off anything that has died on the rock. Since I cured my own rock it had a ton of black nasty on it that needed to come off, including a few dead sponges (stinky).
Since your rock was already cured and never really had any die off from transport, you don't need to scrub it really I don't think.

I do like your rocks tho, great shape and size. Alot of mine are smaller and very very prous, so I more or less have a large rubble pile in my display. Won't matter in the end tho, once the corals are added and start growing you won't be able to tell whats underneath all that much.

As far as I understand things, your doing pretty well at this point.
Add a few cleaners, and get the lighting going regularly.
Good luck

[dous]

Thanks, Danfish.. I didn't like the idea of having a rock wall so I scaped it like this:


I checked my rocks and the ones at the back are blooming with dark red coraline and the rock surface are still light in color, from when I bought it. The ones in front (in open spaces) are turning brown. Maybe I left the lights on too long a first few times recently. Hopefully the clean up crew will clean it up.. I will get 5 snails and a cleaner shrimp tomorrow and get them to work.

Do you have pics of your set up?

[Danfish]

Will go take some now.

The snails will wipe out the diatoms before you know it.
The only exception is the glass, where they wipe it out but leave behind a light coating of it (they kind of chew it down, but not clean it totaly off).

I'd not worry about the diatom bloom much.
Just any algae.

[dous]

Thanks again, Danfish. Should I be doing a water change before I add the custodians? Can't wait to see some pics.

[povsan]

I like your aquascape, but you might want to consider the rocks on both sides of the glass...... when cleaning off the glass, your magnet might not be able to get good access and you might have some spots that you might not like (algae spots) just a thought. All in all I still like your rock work.

[Danfish]

Here are some pictures.
The two I'm directly showing are shrank to about 16% of what the full size images are.

My rock is is premium select Fiji from liveaquaria.com.
I cured it for about 2 weeks, had a ton of die off, particularly from sponges.

This is the left side of the tank.
You can see one of my turbo snails and the blur of my cleaner shrimp (all of these have a very long shutter speed).


This is the middle/right side of the tank, the right wall is about 3-4" out of view on the right.



I'm also trying to find a new file hosting site that will let me upload and share a picture larger than 800x600. I have a huge high res image of some coraline growth that is pretty. Was going to hot link it here with a warning on the file size, but photobucket keeps resizing it down to 180x800. (its around 800x4,000)
Will hotlink it when I setup the new webspace.

[Danfish]

FINALY found an image hosting service that doesn't resize large images.

This is a link to a very large image.
If you are on 56k you might want to skip it.
This image is ~750k, 2,500x550pix (had to get the filesize under 1meg so I shrunk it again).

Its a really cool close up.
You can see alot of coraline starting to grow and it shows some red things on that clam shell that I'm not positve what they are (thinking coraline, but its large and lumpy).


Enjoy.




http://imagedump.filefactory.com/full.php?id=11452

[dous]

Looks very nice, Danfish. Say, how old is your tank now? So far, what do you have in it, just shrimp and snails?

[Danfish]

Its been up (this time) for 2 months.

I've got 3 green chromis, 2 mexican turbos (started with 4 but 2 died the next day, even did a 3 hour acclimation), cleaner shrimp, and a sally lightfoot crab.

I'm tight on money so I've been taking it VERY slow. Next on my list is about 250 watts of T5 lighting. I also want to add another shrimp or two, possibly another crab, and a 6 line wrassle.

Have more livestock on my list, but it all going to have to wait till the lighting gets setup.

[kmgriff72]

Dous, if you do not want to spend a lot of money on this hobby you better get out now. I know from experience when bad things happen they happen fast and usually cost a good bit of money to fix it. Go slow and fix up a QT tank for when things go wrong (I wished I would have done that). Please do not cycle your tank with damsels. The fish stores tell you this to make money off of you. They know the fish will probably not make it but then they know that you will be back to buy more and try again. I made the same mistake you did and I was talked into buying damsels and 3 clowns and had to watch as they all died within minutes of each other from the ammonia. I also just lost a coral beauty from the same problem when my tank cycled again from a coral dying. Luckily I was able to save all of the other fish by putting them into a friends QT tank. From what I have understood, it takes at least 6 weeks to cycle a tank. Please take the fish back and cycle your tank another way.

[dreams]

danfish, your substate....is that nature's ocean live aragonite? (the little shells & stuff).....thinking about getting that for my jawfish

[dous]

Hi Kim, Thanks for your reply. It's not that I don't want to spend lots of money cause I already have , it's just I already have bought some wrong equipment to begin with and was just making sure I can still make use of them by adding to it as opposed to discarding them comletely.. My wife will kill me if that's the case I really wish I've been to this forum first before I even started. It's an awesome forum.

As for my Chromis, he seems to be doing fine as what some think that my tank has already cycled due to enough good cured live rocks... and that parameters hasn't had any major spikes at all. There was no die off at all from the rocks as the LFS was lierally 2 mins away from my house.

I will however plan on setting up a QT. Maybe I can use all my sh*tty equipment on it

Thanks again, Kim.

[kmgriff72]

I know what you mean about wrong equipment, I have some that I bought too. I wished I would have found these forums before I started too. My tank crashed (water paremeters) 2 weeks ago and right now I have decided to stop for the time being because of the expense. I was trying to sell my tank but I have since decided to keep the tank because I am going to get back into this hobby at the first of the year. I sold everything in the tank and have cleaned it out to store for now. If I would have known how much of an expence this was I might have done FW first and I still might do FW until I can save up and do the SW right the second time. Glad to hear your fish are doing good. Good luck in your hobby.

Kim

[Danfish]

Yup, this is the stuff.


I personaly love it, its beautifull.
I mixed 2 30 pound bags with a 25 pound bag of fine crushed coral.
I somewhat worry about food bits getting trapped in it and making nitrates, but so far my snails and crab love to pick things out of the "sand". My Sally will scavenge the shells and pick one up and pick off any bits of food inside or on the shells.
Thinking of getting another crab or two to help out, they seem to eat alot of any debris left around the tank. (I just worry about them getting a taste for fish or snail)

[dous]

Sorry to hear about your situation, Kim. Yes, it does help a bit to have FW first. I have 2 other tanks (well, my 3 yr old son does), both are FW. One 30 gal has orandas and a 10g with sunsets that woulkdnt stop breeding and eating each other.. circle of life in a box.

thanks for the best wishes and I wish you the same when you start again!!! We'll be here when you get back..hopefully

[kmgriff72]

Your welcome and thanks.

[dreams]

thanks for your thoughts, danfish.....i have a DSB....i have been adding cc for the jawfish, but was thinking the nature's ocean would be prettier...and from your pic it is:-)

and i know what you mean by worrying about the crabs...i do the same thing