Finally put my tank together...

[KoNP]

chances are good,

biggest thing you need to do is stop fiddling with the tank and just do water changes and let it settle,

everytime you play around in there you stir $h!t up again.

i know its hard but just try and sit back and let everything go for the next 2 weeks with 10% water changes daily

Oh that's good, at least, lol.

Yeah I know the rule, every time you put your hand in there, etc Thing is I know how toxic dead sponges can be and I wanted to get him and the other dead guys out before they made a bad situation worse. Thankfully the fish and snails are ok, but I've lost somewhere around $150 in coral already and it's making me sad.

Knew there was a reason I bought the big box of salt. Besides it being a wise choice economically, that is heh.

 

[funkngroovy]

Trent is on the money.
Gaping mouths on LPS and anemone's are a sign of stress.

Zoas are not immune to a tank crash either. you need to keep an eye on them.

If you have time to head down to the Gold Coast Seaway, like this week.

Grab a heap of water on the approach to the high tide. The high will be at 3 in the arvo tomorrow, 4 on Thursday, and so on.

NSW will be your best bet at the moment considering the amount of water you will need to change.

If you can keep up 10% daily changes over the next couple of weeks you will sail through this but you need to make sure this is done.

If you could do 5% morning and night, it would be even better.

Keep the updates coming and stay away from the LFS!!!

You definately don't need to add ANYTHING except water. NO bacteria NO anything.

 

[KoNP]

Trent is on the money.
Gaping mouths on LPS and anemone's are a sign of stress.

Zoas are not immune to a tank crash either. you need to keep an eye on them.

If you have time to head down to the Gold Coast Seaway, like this week.

Grab a heap of water on the approach to the high tide. The high will be at 3 in the arvo tomorrow, 4 on Thursday, and so on.

NSW will be your best bet at the moment considering the amount of water you will need to change.

If you can keep up 10% daily changes over the next couple of weeks you will sail through this but you need to make sure this is done.

If you could do 5% morning and night, it would be even better.

Keep the updates coming and stay away from the LFS!!!

You definately don't need to add ANYTHING except water. NO bacteria NO anything.

Unfortunately I'm not going to get the chance to head down that way at all, especially not as far south as NSW. I do know where I can get some RO/DI water in a pinch though, that should help. Don't worry, I'll keep up with the changes, it was just a question of how much, how often. Now that I know it's going to get done.

And yes, I'm staying away from the LFS, unless I need to get more filter cartridges which is a distinct possibility.

 

[tmd77]

i'd actually head to nielsens but only to grab 20L of NSW... will cost you $6 but will be worthwhile

and NSW doesnt mean New South Wales.

it means natural salt water - water pumped from the ocean.

what geoff is saying is that water from the ocean is your best bet at the moment compared to the RO/salt mix.

 

[KoNP]

i'd actually head to nielsens but only to grab 20L of NSW... will cost you $6 but will be worthwhile

and NSW doesnt mean New South Wales.

it means natural salt water - water pumped from the ocean.

what geoff is saying is that water from the ocean is your best bet at the moment compared to the RO/salt mix.

Oh hahaha... I just figured seeing as he was mentioning the coast and all. At least I've learned a new marine acronym

I won't be able to get to nielsen's till Saturday afternoon at the earliest, sadly. Working full time kinda has those drawbacks. It's raining tonight so I'm trying to get some more rainwater, seems I missed the heaviest fall this afternoon though.

 

[TimSchmidt]

That's all I have

 

[KoNP]

So the water is no longer murky (it's practically crystal-clear) and things seemed to be much more settled down. The Zoas are happily showing their little red and orange... er... faces, I noticed the ricordea moving around a little too so he's still kicking. The sand is starting to look like it did way back when the tank had it's first cycle, but the blenny is going spastic eating all the algae, he's having a great time. The snails are also snailing along doing their bit.

Frogspawn seems a little reluctant to fully extend, but he's not hanging around all limp either. I'm keeping an eye on him for tissue death. The lone torch head seems to be fine, all there by himself, flapping in the liquid breeze. Might post pics if I decide the tank looks decent enough.

 

[funkngroovy]

should post pics anyway.

It will help others out on their journey.

 

[KoNP]

Here it is:

As you can see the blenny is doing a fantastic job keeping the algae under control. The Zoas are usually much more out than that, they must be curling up for the night. Note the crap all over the sand at the front.

Looks much better than it did. Monday morning, the water was MILKY. That's the only way to describe it - as if someone had poured a cup of milk into it. It smelt utterly awful too.

 

[KoNP]

Frogspawn's dead. One whole side of it was melting and coming apart, the other side wasn't looking healthy at all.

Ka-ching, add another $40 to the total cost of this.

And another $40. The torch decided to do the same thing.

This is bullcrap. Why the hell is everyone able to dump stuff in their tank at 1 month, have it look great, and I kill everything at 2 after it's well and truly cycled?

 

[TimSchmidt]

That looks like cyano bacteria. I feel for you but try to keep at the water changes and maintenance of the tank. For all the preparation sometimes things are just bound to happen. How you react will matter most. Clean water, increased flow, reduced feedings, and constant water changes (not HUGE ones though) should eventually clear out the issues.


:sad:

 

[funkngroovy]

I don't think that anyone else has had success after a 4 week cycle.

there is no such thing as a 4 week cycle.

 

[KoNP]

That looks like cyano bacteria. I feel for you but try to keep at the water changes and maintenance of the tank. For all the preparation sometimes things are just bound to happen. How you react will matter most. Clean water, increased flow, reduced feedings, and constant water changes (not HUGE ones though) should eventually clear out the issues.


:sad:

Yay, cyano bacteria. :cryinga:

Actually after looking here: http://www.chucksaddiction.com/conditions.html

It looks a lot more like diatoms than cyano - it's smooth and doesn't have the sludgy bubbly look.

I bought a digital thermometer because I was sick and tired of guesstimating the temperature on the ana|ogue one (it won't let me spell that properly - the filter is overzealous, neh?). Also, my $128.70 order with Guppy's online still hasn't turned up, after nearly a week. Really great service, especially considering I paid for a 1-day courier. And they won't respond to my emails either. I'm about this close to doing a chargeback on my credit card.

 

[Boo]

More water movement in the affected area will help as well. That stuff likes to start up in areas of low current.

 

[KoNP]

More water movement in the affected area will help as well. That stuff likes to start up in areas of low current.

Might shift the powerhead toward the front a bit then, stir it up. Thanks for the advice.

-EDIT-

Hahaha I'm so crap at this I even kill non-living things. My hydrometer was getting impossible to read due to algae, so I figured I'd do what I'd heard of people doing and put it through a light boil with a shot of algaecide in a pot of tank water. Already done it once with no issues. This time it warped. Yep. It changed shape, and the needle couldn't move past this new bulge in the plastic.

At least I did this AFTER making a new lot of saltwater for the next few changes. Oh well, guess I'll grab a new one tomorrow.

Also, the digital thermometer was a much-needed addition. My tank seems to like roughly 28.5° Celcius. I'm expecting that to drop overnight of course, and I have my heater set as close to 25°C as I can get it (it goes from 24° to 26°).

Mr Cowrie snail was sadly a casualty - I uncovered his empty shell while siphoning some of the crap off the sand. Shame too, I really liked that guy. R.I.P. Mr Cowrie, enjoy the giant aquarium in the sky.

 

[KoNP]

OK so I bought some seachem stability to assist with the cycle process after doing some reading up on coping with tank crashe, and some seachem aquavitro alpha, as my need for fresh water does not fit my schedule of being able to get rain/sea water. Here are my levels a day after I started dosing with stability:

To correct the labelling - the Nitrate is closer to 5 ppm, and the ammonia is actually closer to 0 than to 0.25 - the camera darkens the green and lightens the yellow for some reason. Nitrite is sitting at nice and 0 which is great.

 

[KoNP]

My two clowns decided to carpetsurf for no good reason. Woke up thismorning to find one of them dried up on the countertop and the other one conspicuoulsy absent, possible residing in the stomach of one of my two cats.

I'm going to find the person who told me this was a relatively easy hobby and punch them.

 

[TimSchmidt]

Ouch. Take all the lessons in stride and try again, but with a wiser out take. I don't mean to harp on this but I'm *thinking* the water quality is the main culprit. Have you ran a full test on your water your using for the tank (both rain and NSW)?

 

[KoNP]

yeah i've run tests for everything - it all comes up negative or at low enough levels to be dealt with by filtering ie purigen, cuprisorb etc. And as you can see above, the 3 *main* ones seem ok. Obviously there's things i can't test for but i have to assume they're unimportant otherwise test kits would exist. If it was the water quality they would have died sooner. Apparently occelaris clowns only jump if they're being bullied, and i did see one of them sorta bumping the other kinda forcefully last night. It could also be the stress of the re-cycle all that coral death went through.

Honestly i could test the water until there's nothing left to test and still turn up negligible results. I've spent a retarded amount of money on this tank, partially in livestock but mostly in stuff like hardware and filte aids to keep things running smooth. If i don't see some kind of positive return sooo i WILL give up and take a sledgehammer to the tank. I don't have the patience to keep throwing money at this unless it is going to go up instead of down, i might as well be burning my money instead. At least it would provide heat.

 

[tmd77]

KoNP,

stop doing anything, just do basic water changes for the time being.

then, send me a PM with where you live and if you want i'll bring round my salifert test kits and we can test your water.

also in the meantime take about 100mL of water to nielsens and get them to test it for all parameters. Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate, Calcium, Alkilinity.

ask for ben or karl to do them, they will look after you.

will also reply to your PM with my mobile number where you can give me a call tomorrow to discuss everything.

we'll make sure you don't lost faith and get back on top.