bues0022
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Posts posted by bues0022
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Is it also possible I don't feed enough to have nutrients available for the cheato to use? I feed about a dime sized piece of homemade frozen food per day. 4 fish and a pretty big CUC. I hardly have any algae anymore anywhere - in the tank or in the sump.
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I have a clamp-on fixture in my sump for my cheato. I've always been fine growing cheato with a spiral CLF bulb, but my "stock" just ran out, and the bulb I tossed in for a replacement isn't cutting it. The cheato is dark green, but breaks easily into little pieces that are now littering my display.
So, what bulb to use for my cheato? I'd rather not spend a ton on a new fixture (some recommend high-end Kessils, but I'm not going to put down $300 to grow cheato). Another forum had someone recommend a $7 Home Depot bulb, but failed to say which one. I found these two last night which others recommended, thoughts?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HPIPM70/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A2KUZVNQ9LP7N9&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N47QRHV/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3D0RI3DPRKVNK&psc=1
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I am not familiar with that light. However, I suspect you have both not enough light and not enough flow. Lack of light is likely worse than flow (short term that you are killing them that is). What kind of powerhead do you have? Picture of the tank?
Copper is another good idea for the problems, especially considering how quickly they die. Do you have any other inverts (snails, crabs?)
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Perhaps a silly question, but did you unwrap the filters from the plastic before putting them in the containers in the unit?
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One guy says some people just can't keep anemones.
Wrong.
What SHOULD have been stated: "Some people's tanks are not setup properly to provide the conditions necessary to keep anemones alive". Anyone can keep an anemone, if you know the species specific requirements and can meet those requirements.
While water quality is very important, what are your lights? What size of tank do you have? How much flow? How much rockwork? Can you post a picture of your tank?
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Supposedly the officials met to discuss their options. Not issuing any cites anytime soon.
I starting thinking last night that the rumor was exaggerated based on the complete lack of any official statement.
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At the moment it's a complete rumor (not corroborated through any press release that I can find), but the chatter that's reached my ears tonight is telling me the Indonesia coral ban is over!
Has anyone else heard something similar tonight, or am I falling for a rumor spreading like a wildfire in California? With everyone hoping it's over soon, I can definitely imagine something getting out of hand quickly with this, so hopefully someone else with better sources than me can help confirm.
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I've been watching the clowns really close since the goby died a week ago. So far nothing unusual about them. They are captive bred.
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I had the fish for about 3 months. No new additions to the tank (fish-wise) for about 2.5 months. Brook was on my list of differentials, but I think it moved too slow. My fish lasted 3-4 days after seeing the nasty stuff on it. Also, the things I've read about Brook say that the excess white "stuff" is excess mucus production. I picked this guy up in my fingers, and he wasn't excessively mucusy, but it was literally like his skin was falling off. I'm no expert with fish diseases, but I also assumed that if I'd have/get brook, my clowns would also be nailed as they seem to be more susceptible, right?
In any case, this coincided with an outbreak of red slime, so water quality also had (IMHO) a big factor to play with the fish getting sick with whatever it had. I've done two big water changes, and a third 50% is happening tonight (benefits of a small tank - big % water changes are only a couple buckets of water). Nothing else seems affected at this time.
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I'm not going to worry about ich - that one is usually manageable with keeping the rest healthy. I'm mostly concerned if I'm should be working to catch and treat them, or just keep up with good husbandry and let them be.
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Well, not good news. I tried doing a FW dip last night. It lasted about 10 seconds before it went belly up and stopped moving completely. I took it out and put it back in my makeshift QT (my wife doesn't know I took her big glass mixing bowl!). Heater, airstone, and copper in the SW. This morning I check on it and it was dead.
While I really hate losing fish, I have to keep in perspective that this was a less than $20 fish, and it was always "sickly" in my tank. It had ich breakouts probably 4 times in the past few months (nobody else had them), and came to me with lympho already too. I really liked how it did clean the other fish though, so I guess I'll have to keep my eyes open for another one.
For my remaining fish, are they at risk just because they shared the same water? I know ich is present, likely always will be in my tank, but is this event likely isolated to just this one fish or will it spread like the plague? I'll obviously be watching closely for the next few days.
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Neon goby. Started as what looked like ich about 3-4 days ago. Yesterday had one white lesion on it’s side looked like lymphocystis - which it’s had before. Tonight it looks BAD. Like it’s skin is shedding. I had a battle with it, got it out, and is now in my wife’s mixing bowl with an air stone and heater (no hospital tank).
I can’t post pics from my phone, but txt me at 612-208-5354 and I’ll send you a pic if you think you can help. I have copper, was thinking of starting hypo and copper tonight. Other fish seem fine (clowns, Hector’s goby, firefish).
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How much do you feed? Depending on your nutrient export (skimming, turf scrubber, manual algae removal etc), bi-weekly 14% water changes might not be enough. Also, if you're adding a lot of hermits (even if they end up food for a mantis/pistol), that's still a lot of nutrients in the tank that need to get out somehow. As another said, you won't be able to pickup much on test kids for nutrients because the algae is consuming it. However, I think you have solid evidence that nutrient problems exist. What about increasing your frequency and/or amount of water change? a 30% water change on a 40 gallon tank isn't a big deal as far as effort or salt cost is concerned.
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Not sure of WAMAS rules but maybe you can beg or bribe some people here to come out. If you need someone to move livestock certainly wouldn’t mind lending a free hand. Not good with heavy objects though.
^ In my last club, a promise of pizza and beer after the job went a LONG way to get a beefy crew pulled together.
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Stray current?
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I'm not sure what I'd do with the sand to be honest. Thinking on my feet here, I'd probably keep the sand. After the water is out of the tank, I'd scoop it into a couple rubbermaid bins, give it a rinse with RO water, drain, and put back into the tank. Again, that might be where I'd end up, I don't think have too many problems with the sand.
On the wife front - I've ALWAYS had much better luck with planning/preparation money spent than spending more to fix/replace what broke/died due to preventable errors that I was to dumb to do the first time. Another good reason to go slow - you won't spend/waste money as fast.
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Now the question is, do i dump the salt water in the tank and start over with RODI.
It's a 75 gallon tank, right? You said you used half a bucket of RC so far and haven't reached salinity? With sump water volume, you should be pretty close, but not quite at proper salinity.
A 160g bucket of RC on Amazon right now is $55 (ironically, the 200 gallon box is the exact same price). You've used $27.50 worth of salt right now. At most shops around town, that's a moderately cheap frag. Would you "pay" the price of a single frag to ensure that you have the best water quality possible? Or, if you end up with phosphate problems downstream, would you pay $27.50 to get yourself out of that jam? Test the TDS of your tap water. It's going to be in the hundreds. We want our RO/DI to be 0, or low single digits at the highest. We also know that high TDS leads to algae/diatoms/frustrations. I've heard of people starting tanks with tap, then switching to RO/DI, but I don't think they were too happy with the results.
This hobby is expensive and time consuming. You could easily spend an order of more magnitude money and time to fix problems like this down stream. IMO, the answer is VERY simple. Dump the tank and start over. Half a bucket of salt and a "free" workout lugging buckets (or buy a long stretch of RO tubing and run the output of your unit up the stairs to your tank) seems like a cheap price to pay to setup correct. Don't be cheap on $27.50 right at the start of your tank.
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I was about to start a new thread, but this one is at the top of the list so...
The 75g bit the bullet. It sprung a minor leak somewhere I think along the rim because water would pool between the glass and the bottom rim and comeback after I dried it out. I broke that all down, transferred what little I have to a 20g rimless and threw the 75g on the curb. But the carpet continued to get wet so I pulled out the 40g sump which showed pretty clear cracks.
My sand is still moist, but the rock has dried out. After I knock a few items off the honey do list, I am buying another 75g. I am in no rush to get fish/coral back into the new tank, so I ask:
What is I pulled water from my outdoor hose or seriously the sink? Please don't be aghast....
I do not relish carting 15+ buckets for RODI water from the basement. The above would be easy, but not sure if its sane.
Thanks for any opinions.
Eric
Using tap water to help save your back/time will ONLY cause even more problems later on. If your tap water has high levels of copper, that is extremely hard to get out. I've read before of someone who started a tank with tap water, and could never keep an invert alive (corals, shrimp, snails, you name it). If you don't want to cart that much water up the steps, maybe think about rigging up some kind of a pump/hose to pump your SW up the stairs? (highly dependent upon your situation, I know)
I've chased BIG issues in the past because I tried to save a few minutes or a few dollars.
Example: My first SW tank I cycled the tank at only 1.016 salinity because "it saves me money from running at full salinity". I added my first fish - she was a happy clown. Eating, swimming - so my tank is good, right? I added $100 of coral in a weekend. Everything crashed (fish included). Corals couldn't handle the low salinity, died, caused massive nutrient spike, killing my first fish. So, I wasted $100 in corals by trying to "save" $5 in salt. Neither myself or my wife were very happy with me.
DO NOT take shortcuts. Do not over-react. Do not dose what you cannot (or will not) test.
It's easy to want to go all-out, but very rarely does this work. I'm not sure what happened to your display and sump, but were they used? Did you inspect them before filling them? Did you fresh-water test them before going all-in? A little up-front prep in your next setup will aid you GREATLY. Try to think what might go wrong, and test/plan for it. If you're not sure, people on here will be more than helpful with making sure you set up correct. I can probably speak for a many when I say that designing/building a tank is WAY more fun than debugging once things have gone south.
Oh, and consider that you'll likely have to cook all of your rock. I've never had great luck re-using sand, so I'm not sure what you can do with it. Go slow, you'll have spikes when you get back going again.
BTW - how many fish (and what species) did you have in the tank before it went bad?
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Do you have a hood? I think you've already answered your own question about if it'll work (nope, it likely won't) with putting the LED's on the reflective surface. If it's hot enough to char wood, you have a HUGE fire risk from putting anything there. I think you're only hope is to have a secondary "fixture". You could mount the LED's on the wood strip like you did before, but don't mount that wood on the MH fixture - put it outside and not touching it.
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I’ve never owned any of the angelfish - are any of the dwarf species less risky than others for nipping at my corals? I love the idea of a big color fish, also one that has such a different body shape than the rest of the inhabitants.
I still like the idea of a blenny, but I’m seeing that the ones that would be suited for my tank have nearly the same shape as my gobies. I want more variety of shape and swimming (hence trying to talk myself into a tang or angel)
Wrasses are great reef inhabitants, but they done have much personality. I’ve had them before, so was hoping to find something a little different. But, I guess it’s not such a bad thing to have a peaceful nice neighbor in the tank, right?
So many choices - so little room. I think I have one or two fish max left.
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Can you attach some pictures of what you’re dealing with? Might help us come up with ideas.
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I forgot about tangs getting nasty in small spaces. Thanks for reminding me. While I don’t have expensive corals, I do have corals and inverts that I would rather not turn into food.
A flasher wrasse is an interesting thought.
Anyone else?
Indo coral ban over....perhaps?
in General Discussion
Woot Woot!!
Hopefully this means some better competition, coral prices come back down, and more options for corals too!
Where did you see the memo?