# j3tang's Saltwater Tank



## j3tang

*j3tang's FOWLR Tank*

Hello everyone,

I've been lurking and reading for some time and finally started my tank up. I had a 20 gallon tank with stand sitting round the house that was used probably 12 years ago by my parents for freshwater fish.

I'll use this thread as a log as well as a place for me to ask questions as the tank progresses. I'll keep the log here in the OP, and then maybe make comments and ask questions in subsequent postings. My intention at this point is to keep a FOWLR setup with just 2 clowns.

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Mid-October, 2010
Saw that J&L Aquatics had a sale on Koralia powerheads, bought 2 Koralia 425: 1 for the tank, and 1 for water prep. bucket. Bought a 100W Ebo Jager heater off Kijiji for the tank, still in need of another for the bucket. Tank slowly filled with salt water made from RO at home and tempered to about 26 degC.

October 25, 2010
Added (dumped!) 20 lbs of CaribSea Ocean Direct (original grade) live sand, and boy was that a mistake. Apparently I haven't read enough online, but a smart thing would have been to put the sand in the tank first and then put a cup in the tank and then pour water into the cup to let it overflow into the tank of sand. Oh well, live and learn. The tank is super cloudy and I can't see a thing (not that there are things in the tank to see yet ).

October 27, 2010
Found a decent deal on Kijiji for live rock some time ago and arranged to meet with seller to purchase all of it (25 lbs). He wanted $4/lb which was fine by me. He threw in for free 2 heaters (1x50W Eheim Jager & 1x100W Marineland Visi-Therm) and a AquaClear 402 powerhead (that has no accessories what-so-ever: nothing to connect to the input/output ports, no tank rim hanger), and an electrical timer. Left the live rock in a bucket with heater and salt water and powerhead until the tank cleared.

October 29, 2010
Put all my live rock into the tank and have it all arranged. The seller said there were 2 blue hermit crabs in the live rock when he sold it to me, after looking at the rock for two days and putting them into the tank today, I've only seen 1, which is fine by me 

October 30, 2010
Where I had previously found my parent's tank, there were also 2 AquaClear HOB filters! Only one of them has a powerhead though. I cleaned it out and started using that with just a sponge for mechanical filtration. For anyone interested, the HOB filter is called an AquaClear Junior  The funny thing is, while I've been reading online about the more recent AquaClear filters, I come across people with DIY mods cutting up the basket it comes with to create baffles to compartmentalize filtration media. My "Junior" just comes this way with 3 separate compartments!

November 3, 2010
Bought Kent SuperBuffer and Alkalinity tester. Tested the hardness and got 9 dKH which doesn't seem all that bad. I added a small amount into the tank and some into the new salt water mix.

November 5, 2010
Picked up 5 dwarf zebra hermit crabs and 2 nassarius snails. I got home and tested the tank water and the pH is up to about 8.3. I then drip acclimated them with my tank water and removed some more water from the tank to do a water change. The snails are pretty interesting to watch!

November 12, 2010
Picked up the two ocellaris clownfish that I've been meaning to keep yesterday and acclimatized them with the drip method for 4 hours.

While they were in the bucket being acclimatized, they would not swim anywhere around the bucket, they just flapped their fins and stayed on the side opposite of where the water was dripping from. I thought, maybe the dripping is causing the water to ripple and scaring them so I submersed the tip to avoid the rippling effect. However, they still wouldn't move around at all and as the bucket got filled the water level rose but they still only stayed at the bottom (still moving around though).

At the end of it all after the 4 hours, I put the two into my tank and one of them landed in a cave area and the other one landed closer to the end of the tank where the powerhead was. The one by the cave just swam/floated around in that one area for the whole evening and the other one by the powerhead started to move around in that half of the tank.

I went and watched a movie upstairs, came back down and the two clowns found each other and were swimming/exploring that same end where the power head was. But the one that was hiding earlier looked like, for a lack of better terminology, was ramming its head into a small cave area. Silly fish.

November 13, 2010
I woke super early up like it was Christmas morning all excited to come downstairs to unwrap presents but I only saw one fish and it was the same fish that was cowering inside the first cave area it was in when it first came into the tank. I thought, oh great silly fish is at it again ... wait, was it doing this all night?!?! Then I start looking for the other fish that seemed like it was coping better and I couldn't find it and I started panicking. I eventually found it in the back corner and there were 2 zebra hermit crabs and 1 blue legged hermit crab and 1 nassarius snail eating it  I'm not too sure about the snail, but it was stuck to the side of the fish, so I assume it joined in as well.

I immediately checked the water parameters and nothing was out of the norm.

November 15, 2010
My other clown fish still seems timid and I can accept that. It's still hiding behind rocks when the lights are on and will only swim out when it's totally dark. I sprinkle some pellets on the water surface and hope he eats them as I can't confirm that he eats since it's dark when he comes out. I hope it doesn't stay this shy 

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Water Conditions
----- Date ----- SG | pH | Ammonia | Nitrite | Nitrate | dKH
2010.10.30 - 1.025 | 7.8 | .25 ppm | 0 ppm | 10-20 ppm | --n/a--
2010.11.03 - 1.025 | 7.8 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 9
2010.11.07 - 1.025 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 11
2010.11.09 - 1.025 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 11
2010.11.13 - 1.025 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 11
2010.11.25 - 1.026 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 10
2010.12.03 - 1.026 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 10 ppm | 10
2010.12.05 - 1.025 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 10 ppm | 11


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## j3tang

I was originally thinking to myself, a Koralia 425 should be able to provide enough flow for a 20 gallon tank, but after I had put it into the tank with no rocks, it didn't feel like it moved much water. With the added rock, it looks like there were areas with no flow. I was thinking of using this AquaClear powerhead for surface agitation and also repositioning the Koralia a bit for more water movement. And here's the brilliant part, when needed after a water change, I could use the AquaClear to pump new water back into the tank, without having to remove it from the tank .. LoL

I tested things out and it felt like the AquaClear pushed more water than the Koralia. I'm wonder if it's because the AquaClear actually has a 1/2" port so it feels like water jetting out of it makes it feel like it moves more water than the more open / wider wake of the Koralia. Anyhow, the 425 (Koralia) + 206 (AquaClear) gph looks like too much movement for a 20 gallon after I tested it out. Since I've got no accessories for the AquaClear at all, I'll just toss it into a bucket and connect tubing to the output port and let it pump new water into the tank (when it's time to do water changes). It should have enough head since my water change bucket and tank will be at about the same height. But does anyone have any ideas about what else the AquaClear could be used for? I thought about getting the quick filter for it and using it for mechanical filtration since I don't have any, but then the amount of water movement in the tank would be a little much, no?

I'm tempted to try using 2 Koralia 425 in there to get rid of dead spots. Is that not a good idea, will my (future) fish get blown away? 

I've yet to test for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and will probably do so a little later in the day. Since the live rock was fully cured from the seller, and when I bought it from him I had a bucket of salt water with me too, so I'm assuming there may not have been much die-off if any at all. I know the key to this hobby is patience, but I'm kinda excited that I could put in CUC soon  Would it be too soon to add a cleaner shrimp?

What's crazy is that all there is in the tank is sand, rock and 1 lonely hermit crab and I find myself walking over to the tank to stare at it all the time.

This is what the tank looks like today.
























It actually looks to me like there's a lot of tiny fuzz/hair on the live rock, is that hair algae?!?! or is it just harmless microalgae? also, it appears as if there were a few dead white worms(?) plastered to a piece of the live rock, should I have removed it before putting it into the tank?

OMG! WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?!?!?! I frequently stick my head into the tank and never noticed this until just now! I'm bug-aphobic, so something like that scares the crap out of me! Is that a bristleworm?









I googled it and it looks somewhat like it, but I'm not 100% sure. If that's the case, this recommendation I found seems like sound advice:



> Word of warning when working in a fish tank, bristleworm 'stings' can be quite painful if you suffer from an acute allergic reaction to the venom, however there are many many reasons to wear gloves in your tank and i would always advocate wearing some latex gloves when handling any rock or corals etc


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## gucci17

Nice, what are you planning to do with filtration?

You are probably better off with another koralia. Or ditch it all and get a mp10 lol

The koralia probably feels week compared to the aquaclear because it's not a direct stream. I guess you can use the AC to blast behind of the rocks or something. Or like you said, keep it in the bucket.


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## j3tang

I'm not planning on a HOB or cannister filter or anything like that if that's what you meant.
I've got to stick to my tight budget, that was a compromise I had to make in order to be allowed a tank 

However, I'm leaning towards the quick filter attachment for the AquaClear powerhead to help with the mechanical filtration and provide some extra bit of flow so that the rock can do its thing.

Anyone have a filter attachment they want to let go? I'll need the aquarium rim mount too .. funny how this free powerhead is going to cost me $15 (or more) in parts


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## 50seven

Yeah, I made that mistake too when I started up my tank too, I should have rinsed the sand first, so I ended up having murky water for days afterwards. Still makes clouds of dust when I stir it around...


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## KeMo

Looking good. Take it slow.
Ammonia is normal just wait for it and the Nitrites to die off. For the rocks I had abit of something like that when I first started as well. I just took a toothbrush to it and never looked back. Looks like a bristle worm to me. This is a good Id page to have for Worm hitchHikers.Also has alot of other really good info on alot of stuff in the main directory. 
http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchworms.html


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## j3tang

I've been worried about my pH being so low (7.8) and I tested it again today but it's still the same. I'm hoping this could get better with water changes so I started preparing some new water.

Out of curiousity, I tested the new water that was mixed and found that this water is only measuring between 7.8 - 8.0. So my salt water mix ain't that great to begin with.

What could be the reason for this? The water comes from an RO system, so is the salt to be blamed? I saw some talk somewhere through googling that mentioned something about the salt taking in some moisture while it was stored on the store shelves and that could be the cause. In that discussion the pH also happened to be 7.8.

Should I stick it out with this bag of salt and purchase reef buffer and hope that the next bag of salt doesn't have this problem?


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## KeMo

What salt mix are you using? I would get a new bag instead of buying buffer to raise it. Gona need good salt anyway. Also pick up some buffer anyways as it is something good to have on hand. I use instant ocean reef crystals to make my saltwater. My Ro/Di comes out at around 6.7 ph if i remember correct. They salt mix has no prob buffering it up to 8.2 
With such a low ph , this is something you want to get a handle one before you start to place livestock in the DT.
What about your alk are you testing that ?
I find in my tank that I dont need to watch the ph as much more the alk and if that starts to move I know its going to through off my other parameters. 
Hope Dat helps


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## j3tang

I've not tested for alkalinity at all actually. Should I have bought the bottle of tester for that too? I've only got the API salt water master test kit.

I'm using the same brand, but it's the sea salt version, not the reef crystals. Should I replace it with that instead, even though I've just got a FOWLR? I've not thought about testing the pH just on the water without the salt, I'll try that out tonight when I get home. 

Any chance I could bring my bag of salt back to BigAl's and ... I dunno, get them to do something about it, partial credit? or will it just be a mini money-pit in the grand scheme of things where the money has gone to waste?


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## KeMo

I find thats its good to test for alk yes. Pick one up.. Also try to get the Salifert brand of test kits. I find Api are to close in color and sometimes they don't even match any color.. Hmm thats strange as I used instant ocean salt on my 29 long before I changed over to crystals and never had a problem. 
How often are you doing water changes ? If you are doing say weekly water changes I dont think you should have that much of a ph prob. Your saltmix should keep the levels good as long as you keep up with the water changes..
What you can do is get something like Kent SuperBuffer DKH to stabilizes and raise your ph. But I would try to figure why it is off if you are doing water changes like i said..


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## Big Ray

PH is a function of ALK, temp, salinity and co2 and altitude .. so as long as you have flow in aquarium, all you need is to measure ALK.

chemical tests for PH are all inaccurate, dont waste your time.

PH of RO/DI water is 7.0, no way of measuring it though ...

IO should yield 11 DKH in KH, so make sure you are mixing the salt correctly.

lastly, what do you measure your salinity with ?


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## j3tang

KeMo said:


> I find thats its good to test for alk yes. Pick one up.. Also try to get the Salifert brand of test kits. I find Api are to close in color and sometimes they don't even match any color.. Hmm thats strange as I used instant ocean salt on my 29 long before I changed over to crystals and never had a problem.
> How often are you doing water changes ? If you are doing say weekly water changes I dont think you should have that much of a ph prob. Your saltmix should keep the levels good as long as you keep up with the water changes..
> What you can do is get something like Kent SuperBuffer DKH to stabilizes and raise your ph. But I would try to figure why it is off if you are doing water changes like i said..


Thanks for the recommendations for the products. I have yet to do a water change as the tank was just setup last week and I was planning on doing one this week. So I've got the salt water mix prepared, but that's when I decided to test the salt water mix to see if that has proper pH reading, which I now find that it does not.



Big Ray said:


> PH is a function of ALK, temp, salinity and co2 and altitude .. so as long as you have flow in aquarium, all you need is to measure ALK.
> 
> chemical tests for PH are all inaccurate, dont waste your time.
> 
> PH of RO/DI water is 7.0, no way of measuring it though ...
> 
> IO should yield 11 DKH in KH, so make sure you are mixing the salt correctly.
> 
> lastly, what do you measure your salinity with ?


Right, forgot that the API test kit for pH would obviously not be in the right range 
I'm measuring my salinity with a refractometer, calibrated with the RO water before each measure. Temperature is steadily at 26 deg C (78 F).

I'll try to get my hands on a Salifert KH/Alkalinity test kit and see how my salt is doing. What would cause my salt mix to be mixed "incorrectly", if I don't get 11 DKH? My procedure is to add water to a bucket, put in a powerhead and heater, then add the appropriate amount of the salt into the bucket. I've heard people say that it would be wrong to add the water to the salt, is that what you mean be not mixing the salt correctly?

edit: I suddenly remembered, our home is equipped with a soft water system! The water to the entire house runs off of this and thus the RO system gets this soft water to begin with too. Soft water by definition lowers the water's hardness, thus lowering KH. By lowering KH the water can't retain a high pH. Hope I got all that correct, can anyone comment on this?


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## Kweli

I would love to follow this thread but none of your pictures seem to work for me... not sure why


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> Thanks for the recommendations for the products. I have yet to do a water change as the tank was just setup last week and I was planning on doing one this week. So I've got the salt water mix prepared, but that's when I decided to test the salt water mix to see if that has proper pH reading, which I now find that it does not.
> 
> Right, forgot that the API test kit for pH would obviously not be in the right range
> I'm measuring my salinity with a refractometer, calibrated with the RO water before each measure. Temperature is steadily at 26 deg C (78 F).
> 
> I'll try to get my hands on a Salifert KH/Alkalinity test kit and see how my salt is doing. What would cause my salt mix to be mixed "incorrectly", if I don't get 11 DKH? My procedure is to add water to a bucket, put in a powerhead and heater, then add the appropriate amount of the salt into the bucket. I've heard people say that it would be wrong to add the water to the salt, is that what you mean be not mixing the salt correctly?
> 
> edit: I suddenly remembered, our home is equipped with a soft water system! The water to the entire house runs off of this and thus the RO system gets this soft water to begin with too. Soft water by definition lowers the water's hardness, thus lowering KH. By lowering KH the water can't retain a high pH. Hope I got all that correct, can anyone comment on this?


Hello,
RO/DI water is nothing but H2O
no KH, no Calcium, no MG ....
and that is why its PH is at 7.0 100% neutralized. no acids nor base in it.

the reason you can not meausre it, is that the slightest imurity will trow the reading off ! meaning the time it takes to test, the PH can change and something can enter it ... . so your starting water has nothing to do.

now it is possible that you got a bad salt batch (which I doubt) or that the salt is not fully mixed.

PH is a function of CO2 and KH, so even if your KH is right, if the new salt water does not have enough flow in it, excess CO2 can build up/enter from room and lower its PH !. also, the air inside our homes contains more co2 than outside air, so lower PH . ...


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## j3tang

Kweli said:


> I would love to follow this thread but none of your pictures seem to work for me... not sure why


hmm, I don't seem to have any problems loading the pics up from home and also from work office. Anyone else having problems? I'm using Apple's mobilme hosting, in case that means anything (like maybe your work place may have blocked it?)



Big Ray said:


> Hello,
> RO/DI water is nothing but H2O
> no KH, no Calcium, no MG ....
> and that is why its PH is at 7.0 100% neutralized. no acids nor base in it.
> 
> the reason you can not meausre it, is that the slightest imurity will trow the reading off ! meaning the time it takes to test, the PH can change and something can enter it ... . so your starting water has nothing to do.
> 
> now it is possible that you got a bad salt batch (which I doubt) or that the salt is not fully mixed.
> 
> PH is a function of CO2 and KH, so even if your KH is right, if the new salt water does not have enough flow in it, excess CO2 can build up/enter from room and lower its PH !. also, the air inside our homes contains more co2 than outside air, so lower PH . ...


oh, so much for my theory then 

I'll probably head to the store to pickup the the alkalinity tester tomorrow and post my results shortly after.

What else would you suggest i try doing? Would leaving my bucket of new water outdoors help(while keeping the heater and powerhead inside)? I'm weary of stuff blowing around outside (as it's getting quite cold and windy now) and getting into the water. Putting the lid on would sort of defeat the purpose as there wouldn't be much air exchange .. hehe

Maybe somehow I could check to see whether our home's CO2 level is high?


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> hmm, I don't seem to have any problems loading the pics up from home and also from work office. Anyone else having problems? I'm using Apple's mobilme hosting, in case that means anything (like maybe your work place may have blocked it?)
> 
> oh, so much for my theory then
> 
> I'll probably head to the store to pickup the the alkalinity tester tomorrow and post my results shortly after.
> 
> What else would you suggest i try doing? Would leaving my bucket of new water outdoors help(while keeping the heater and powerhead inside)? I'm weary of stuff blowing around outside (as it's getting quite cold and windy now) and getting into the water. Putting the lid on would sort of defeat the purpose as there wouldn't be much air exchange .. hehe
> 
> Maybe somehow I could check to see whether our home's CO2 level is high?


there sure are products to check the co2 contents and if you also know the CA (carbonate ALKALINITY) you can work out the PH yourself.

$ ~ $120

Indoor Air Quality Monitor Temperature RH CO2 Meter - eBay (item 190459066012 end time Nov-19-10 22:48:01 PST)

No price yet

ZyAura -- products -- ZG106; ZG106A-M; ZG106A-H

~$183

Wall Mount Indoor Air Quality Monitor - Temp, Rh, CO2 - eBay (item 350408310508 end time Nov-27-10 08:01:52 PST)

now since your tank, as well as new bucket are both inside, if you match the alkalinity, their PH will match too. (equilibrium PH, your tank might have animals dying and therefore lower PH, but that's the point of water change  )

so as long as you measure the alkalinity and it is in range, and keep the new saltwater flowing, with surface aggitation, you are fine ...

I used to run a air line from my skimmer to balcony and from the salt waterbucket to the balcony as well. just an air line to pull air from outside, but I stopped cause I dont see any negative effects of lower PH.

anyways, with all this said, new salt water you shuold check salinity, KH and ca, and temp, and that's about it. dont worry about PH that much, as all the CO2 changes and testing errors and .. wont give you the right reading, chemical tests for PH are unreliable, the probes are a bit better.

you can use this for formula for natural PH lol 
pH ( as tank pH / pH nbs) = [ pCO2 pK1 s Ѓ ( pCO2^2 pK1^2 s^2 + 8 CA pCO2 pK1 s pK2 ) ] / 2 CA

or use this calculator Equilibrium pH Calculator

forgot the link :http://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EquilibriumPh.php


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## j3tang

ok, so i don't think i'll be getting my hands on any of that equipment in the short term 

But I did manage to get my hands on an alkalinity tester. Regrettably, it wasn't a Salifert, but API yet again. I tested my tank water and it shows 9dKH, which ain't that bad if I was aiming for 11, but the 9 certainly would be ok for reefs, right?

Last night I also took a cup of my tank water and sat it outside on the front porch for the entire night and I tested my pH before I left to go to work in the morning and it looks pretty much exactly like my previous tests. So the aerating thing doesn't seem to help much.

The color chart for the pH scale is just so stupidly colored I wonder if it's a combination of what you say that it's hard to be accurate with these type of tests and also me incapable of matching the correct color.

Anyways, more tests show that i get immeasurable amounts of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate as well.
I did purchase the Kent SuperBuffer today too. I've yet to test my new salt water mix, but my guess is it shouldn't be lower than the tank water. I'm considering adding a tiny bit to the new salt water mixes every week to help keep the alkalinity up or should I avoid trying the balancing act and just leave it at a steady 7.8?


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## Big Ray

"Last night I also took a cup of my tank water and sat it outside on the front porch for the entire night and I tested my pH before I left to go to work in the morning and it looks pretty much exactly like my previous tests. So the aerating thing doesn't seem to help much.
"

you need to put an air stone in for at least an hour, boiling water to get normal PH. 


you can add a little bit of KH buffer every morning, and test till you get to the value you want. dont add too much at once.


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## j3tang

I've been told we do have an air pump somewhere at home, so I'm still looking around for it to see if I can test it out on some new salt water mix. Meanwhile, I've added slowly some Kent SuperBuffer and everything seems very stable and all is well. 5 hermit crabs and 2 snails were added 5 days ago and they seem to be doing alright too. 

I'd like to pick up a cleaner shrimp and add it in this weekend but since there really ain't much in the tank other than the above inhabitants, should I be worried they (the existing CUC or even the new shrimp) may starve? I mean the tank looks real clean and there are no fish creating waste. Would there be any problems adding in a pair of clowns at this point or should I do the shrimp first? I'm not expecting to add much more CUC aside from the shrimp in the near future (will add a bit here and there until the tank is a bit more mature).

I've also been wondering if it would be worthwhile to add chaeto to my aquaclear filter? I don't foresee there being much nutrient for it to absorb, but then again, anything that goes wrong usually isn't anticipated. All I have is a sponge in the filter and I've got 2 more spots to fill it with media. Anyone have some chaeto to donate? I see this happening quite often


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## Big Ray

how much nitrates are in the tank ? if less than 10PPM you can get the clowns, 
shrimps need a bit of feeding, so its best to get it after your clowns, so the shrimp can be in charge of food that the clowns miss eating 

cheato in AC is a good Idea, remove the sponge, put something on the output to stop the cheato from dropping out and put a light on it. be sure to trim it as it grows. even better if you get this going before introducing the clowns 

Im sure someone in your area will be happy to give you some cheato, or goto any LFS, they usually have it too.


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## j3tang

Thanks for all the responses you've been providing, I definitely appreciate you keeping an eye out on my tank (albeit virtually, if not physically) 

The nitrates started out below 20 ppm after I put the live rock in and have been steadily undetectable for about 7-10 days.

I've seen people say that the cheato needs to have a lighting schedule opposite of the tank, what is the reason for this? and what would happen if it received lighting at the same time as the tank?

Lastly, where can I, locally, get my hands on the Coralife 20W 50/50 PC fluorescent screw-in light bulbs? BigAl's is charging $26 a piece for them whereas ebay and other US stores are in the range of about $14-$17 a piece. Should I just get them from the US? Currently I'm using 2x15W Philips daylight 6400K PC in the canopy light.


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> Thanks for all the responses you've been providing, I definitely appreciate you keeping an eye out on my tank (albeit virtually, if not physically)
> 
> The nitrates started out below 20 ppm after I put the live rock in and have been steadily undetectable for about 7-10 days.
> 
> I've seen people say that the cheato needs to have a lighting schedule opposite of the tank, what is the reason for this? and what would happen if it received lighting at the same time as the tank?


not a problem I enjoy it 

PH is a function of KH, co2 and some other stuff, during light hours, plants uptake co2 from water and give out O2, therefore lowering CO2 inside the tank and raising the PH a bit. so you have your lowest PH at morning right before the lights come on, and highest at night just before the lights go out, and a steady drop from then to morning. many choose to run the lights on the cheato at nights, opposite to the tank lighting, to try to minimize the shift in PH, so when the plants in tank stop taking up co2, the cheato can start and keep PH steady more.


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## j3tang

Picked up the two ocellaris clownfish that I've been meaning to keep yesterday and acclimatized them with the drip method for 4 hours. 

While they were in the bucket being acclimatized, they would not swim anywhere around the bucket, they just flapped their fins and stayed on the side opposite of where the water was dripping from. I thought, maybe the dripping is causing the water to ripple and scaring them so I submersed the tip to avoid the rippling effect. However, they still wouldn't move around at all and as the bucket got filled the water level rose but they still only stayed at the bottom (still moving around though). 

At the end of it all after the 4 hours, I put the two into my tank and one of them landed in a cave area and the other one landed closer to the end of the tank where the powerhead was. The one by the cave just swam/floated around in that one area for the whole evening and the other one by the powerhead started to move around in that half of the tank.

I went and watched a movie upstairs, came back down and the two clowns found each other and were swimming/exploring that same end where the power head was. But the one that was hiding earlier looked like, for a lack of better terminology, was ramming its head into a small cave area. Silly fish.

I woke super early up like it was Christmas morning all excited to come downstairs to unwrap presents but I only saw one fish and it was the same fish that was cowering inside the first cave area it was in when it first came into the tank. I thought, oh great silly fish is at it again ... wait, was it doing this all night?!?! Then I start looking for the other fish that seemed like it was coping better and I couldn't find it and I started panicking. I eventually found it in the back corner and there were 2 zebra hermit crabs and 1 blue legged hermit crab and 1 nassarius snail eating it  I'm not too sure about the snail, but it was stuck to the side of the fish, so I assume it joined in as well. There weren't chunks missing out of it or it didn't look very damaged .. so I assume this had JUST happened??

I immediately checked the water parameters and nothing was out of the norm.

1) I did my research and the CUC were all supposed to be fine together, so I think I would rule out them killing my clown. I'm going to assume that even though water parameters have been ok for the past 3 weeks, because the tank is only about 1 month old it probably wasn't a good idea to throw in 2 clowns at once? Should I have separately added the fish a couple weeks apart?

2) My other clown fish still seems timid and I can accept that. It's still hiding behind rocks when the lights are on and will only swim out when it's totally dark. I sprinkle some pellets on the water surface and hope he eats them as I can't confirm that he eats since it's dark when he comes out. I hope it doesn't stay this shy


----------



## j3tang

oh god, my remaining clown didn't make it either 
Just got home to my second dead clown fish!!

Ok, I really need some help here .. the only thing I can think of is that the tank isn't ready yet, and that's a timing issue. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing incorrectly?

edit: I also notice a chunk of ... stuff ... sitting on the sand bed. I can make out that those were parts of the legs of my dwarf zebra hermit crabs. I'm still trying to count how many I've got left in the tank.


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## Sunstar

perhaps somethihng like a mantis shrimp? or that god aweful huge worm-thing?


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## Kweli

What are all your parameters?
Temp, Salinity, PH, ALK, AMM, NI, NA

If it was a mantis I would think that it would have killed the fish and ate it in its burrow... not left it to float away

4 hour acclimation is good, but was the temp matched before adding the clowns to the tank?


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## j3tang

most of the parameters are listed in my first post, I keep track of everything there. 
I've had undetectable ammonia/nitrite/nitrate for a few weeks. pH was originally a problem, but with the addition of Kent Superbuffer, it keeps my dKH and pH in check.
Temperature isn't listed there, but it is consistantly at 25 degC / 77 F.


Maybe the Temp was my undoing? I did not put a heater into the bucket where I was doing the drip acclimation! I've got a 50 W heater I could use. Would the heater have to be set at a temperature a tad bit lower than my tank to let it go from low temp (bag water) to medium temp (bucket water heated to medium temp) then to high temp (tank water)?

But the second clown was still hanging on by the 3rd day. And it was actually swimming around and exploring.


Does anyone think there is anything to do with my tank being 12 yrs old sitting in the basement and I didn't do a thorough job cleaning it?


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## Holidays

Salt water fishes are amazing! Here are some pictures that I took from Georgia aquarium, hopefully they give you some fresh new ideas.



















weird little thing:









This one is just out of this world, I went through a glass tunnel to view the sharks swimming over you:


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> most of the parameters are listed in my first post, I keep track of everything there.
> I've had undetectable ammonia/nitrite/nitrate for a few weeks. pH was originally a problem, but with the addition of Kent Superbuffer, it keeps my dKH and pH in check.
> Temperature isn't listed there, but it is consistantly at 25 degC / 77 F.
> 
> Maybe the Temp was my undoing? I did not put a heater into the bucket where I was doing the drip acclimation! I've got a 50 W heater I could use. Would the heater have to be set at a temperature a tad bit lower than my tank to let it go from low temp (bag water) to medium temp (bucket water heated to medium temp) then to high temp (tank water)?
> 
> But the second clown was still hanging on by the 3rd day. And it was actually swimming around and exploring.
> 
> Does anyone think there is anything to do with my tank being 12 yrs old sitting in the basement and I didn't do a thorough job cleaning it?


can you post a pic of the setup ? not sure if all info are posted here.
water parameters and what can be tested for is one thing, overall of the system is another


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## Big Ray

Holidays said:


> Salt water fishes are amazing! Here are some pictures that I took from Georgia aquarium, hopefully they give you some fresh new ideas.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> weird little thing:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This one is just out of this world, I went through a glass tunnel to view the sharks swimming over you:


wOW ! beautiful pics !!

the weird thing is a leafy sea dragon  Im trying REALLY hard to import 2 here lol


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## j3tang

Thanks for posting those pics, but I'd really like to keep things simple with a fowlr for now with just 2 clownfish and possibly 1 other small fish in the future.



Big Ray said:


> can you post a pic of the setup ? not sure if all info are posted here.
> water parameters and what can be tested for is one thing, overall of the system is another


I've also got a pic of the tank on the first page as well. The rock formation has changed slightly with a small shift of the rocks on the right side closer to the middle. There are a lot of small caves/crevices for stuff to hide in. I can take some more updated photos when I get off work tonight.

The tank is a standard 20 gallon tank, 24x12x16 with 20 lb. Aragonite sand (new) and approximately 25 lb. of live rock (not sure what type it's called) from a 2-yr old tank.

I've got an old Aquaclear HOB filter in the back left (it's so old, it's called Aquaclear Junior!) with just a sponge doing mechanical filtration and water movement. The 1 Koralia 425 powerhead on the left wall in the photo has been moved to the right wall. I'm using a 100 W heater attached to the back wall. The tank lid has 2 x 15W Philips 6700K fluorescent bulbs in it. But I've refrained from turning the light on since the clown would not come out when it's bright.

There were 5 dwarf zebra hermit crabs, 2 nassarius snails, and 1 blue legged hermit crab in the tank (along with that nasty looking bristle worm). I found the remains of 1 dwarf zebra hermit crab last night so now I'm down to 4 dwarf zebra hermit crabs. I was given extra shells for the hermit crabs, but all the shells seem a little large for them at this point.

Hmm ... I don't think I'm missing anything else. Anything you might be curious about?
I think it might have just been too soon to add the fish even if the live rock was already cured. I will refrain from adding anything for the next 4-8 weeks. I'm just wondering now what I should do with the CUC that's already in there. Should I remove them, will they starve?


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## Holidays

Big Ray said:


> wOW ! beautiful pics !!
> 
> the weird thing is a leafy sea dragon  Im trying REALLY hard to import 2 here lol


They look so fragile, they better fly first class...heh


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## j3tang

what's with these random posts going off-topic?

Anyways, this is FTS of the setup currently.


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## j3tang

I'm getting the feeling that maybe there is the chance that the tank hasn't cycled at all. I've seen stories where people can't get ammonia up above .25 ppm so there isn't enough of it to get the tank cycle started. I think I'm going to attempt to add ammonia myself.


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## conix67

j3tang said:


> I'm getting the feeling that maybe there is the chance that the tank hasn't cycled at all. I've seen stories where people can't get ammonia up above .25 ppm so there isn't enough of it to get the tank cycle started. I think I'm going to attempt to add ammonia myself.


I'm sure if started off with live rock and ammonia is not detected, your tank is cycled. Just add livestock slowly and gradually, and test for ammonia/nitrites/nitrates regularly.


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## j3tang

hmm ... then would this simply be a case of not giving the tank enough time?


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## conix67

j3tang said:


> hmm ... then would this simply be a case of not giving the tank enough time?


What are you waiting to happen?


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## j3tang

To be honest, I don't know anymore what it is I'm waiting for if I'm not looking for the nitrogen cycle. I've had undetectable ammonia/nitrite/nitrate for some time and so I put in 2 clownfishes but neither of them survived. The first one didn't make it through the first night. The second one died on the third day.

I was planning on just playing the waiting game for another month or so, but I would just be blindly waiting as I'm not really waiting for anything to happen with the water parameters.


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## Kweli

Did you notice any life in your tank? Ie, pods?

You can take your water to a friend, or fish store to get them to test for amm, ni, and na... Maybe your tests are bad?


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## j3tang

I'm not sure what I'm looking for when I'm looking for pods, but after googling the copepods and such, I don't think I see that sort of stuff. If you've not noticed, I do have a giant worm though 

I've started adding ammonia a couple days ago and I have no problems picking up the ammonia when I do my water tests. I don't see a date on my API test kit though.


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## j3tang

I talked to LFS dude and he says to me:

1) RO water that I'm using comes out at a pH of 6 (which can't be true, that would make my water acidic! Maybe he meant to say 7? which would be correct.)

2) pH of 7.8 is low (I concur), so use the Kent Superbuffer I have to bring it to 8.3. He disagrees with the fact that having a fluctuating pH at 8.3 is worse than a consistent 7.8 pH (and I can accept that that is his opinion).

3) he thinks I drip acclimated my 2 clowns that died for too long (4hrs), he thinks I should have dripped quickly to achieve double the volume of water in approx. 20 minutes to avoid the temperature of the bucket's water dropping. Should I have put in a heater into the bucket if i dripped for 4hrs? or should I do what he says and do it quickly (which seems kinda counter intuitive to me)?

I don't think I'll continue dosing the buffer, but can anyone else chime in? Any other advice at this point? this is getting a little discouraging for a newb :s


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## Big Ray

Hey,

you can not measure the PH of RO/DI water, as its 7 and neutralize and anything will shift it, not even probes can measure it correctly.

PH is REALLY not that important. KH is !! if your KH and CA and MG are fine, your PH will follow, so I advice you to stop caring or testing for PH and just test KH and keep that constant. do not add buffers unless you are testing and KNOW you need to add it., buffers are NOT good additives anyways, to raise the KH you should dose KH additives . (arm and hammer baking soda added to RO/DI water, and this should be dosed in the AM to avoide PH overshock.

PH stability is more important that its value, and this is not my opinion, this is a fact. I have kept stingrays which need PH of 5.5 at PH of 8.0 for years with no ISsues along with arowanas and more. PH LOWER than 7.4 in marine tank COULD start desolving some sand or rocks though.


I personally never take that long for fish, I put the bag in the sump, 10 min later open the bag and add 1 cup of tank water to it. 10 min later add another cup full, and 10 min after just take the fish out and place it in .... I take a bit longer with starfish and snails as they are sensitive, never take the bag out of ure tank so the temp doesnt change. I personally do not belive in 4 hours.


PSS> do not go by what LFS guy sais, listen to them, and remember the keywords, and do a google search on those for yourself,


Edit : here is a nice PH calculator. as you can see, if you keep the salinity and DKH stable, then your PH will follow given you have good water circulation and no excess co2 in room.


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## j3tang

Thanks Big Ray, I did heed your advice in the earlier pages about pH and KH and to make sure the KH is at a good level and keep pH constant.

The only reason why this came up at the LFS was when the guy asked about my parameters. I figured I'd trust forum members more so than the LFS if there's anything contradictory.

Alright, I will keep the drip acclimation method for sensitive stuff and attempt the floating bag method next time I add fish then.


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## Kweli

I typically keep the bag in the water for 10-20 minutes, Then drip acclimated them (will cost you like 3 dollars for the hose and the drip control nob) for about 20-30 minutes.

Typically ill empty out some of the bag water and drip until my water is more then double what it started... then i transfer fish and try to minimize the amount of fish store water that goes into the tank


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## j3tang

I already have the equipment to do the drip acclimation (DIY) as I've already done it 

Another thing about adding the fish to the tank, the previous clown kept hiding under rocks when the light came on. Should I turn the lights off and then add the fish (after acclimating) and let them explore in the dark and hopefully they would have adapted to the tank by the morning when it gets bright again?


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> I already have the equipment to do the drip acclimation (DIY) as I've already done it
> 
> Another thing about adding the fish to the tank, the previous clown kept hiding under rocks when the light came on. Should I turn the lights off and then add the fish (after acclimating) and let them explore in the dark and hopefully they would have adapted to the tank by the morning when it gets bright again?


yes turning lights off is a good Idea, but not the reason for the death of last clowns.

what are your parameters like ? what do you test for ?


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## j3tang

oh, yeah, i just figured the lights-out time might help them to adapt to their new environment 

I keep a check on basically what's in the API saltwater master test kit (ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, pH ) plus additionally the KH (titration point), salinity (refracto) and temperature, I go through and test for everything every few days. 

I do regular top off with RO water to keep the salinity in check as it seems water evaporates rather quickly (all I have on is the heater and the powerhead).

Last weekend I started to manually add ammonia to ensure a peak and it's slowly leveling off again. I'll slowly add a bit of the buffer to get the KH back up as well as I stopped dosing it when I added the ammonia.


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## Big Ray

sorry j3tang but there are some stuff you are missing,

most importantly, post your values. value and unit. 
once again, adding buffer blindly, IS NOT A GOOD IDEA ! you need to post your KH value and the unit first. what makes u think its low ? 

secondly, why are you adding ammonia ? 

lastly, if you are following what LFS guy sais, you should follow him 100% or not at all ! mixing different Ideas will not work !


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## Kweli

J3, Similar to what big is saying..

Ammonia, if your adding, is done at the beggining to cycle a tank, once that phase is done you no longer want to do that. If your at the "fish" adding stage then you should be FAR away from the Ammonia... This is toxic to fish and may be the cause of the death.

It is recommended to always add fish with the lights out, its just one less thing to stress them out about. Ill normally call an early lights out if something new goes in the tank, and give them a whole 12-16 hours before the lights come on again

Ammonia should read 0 before anything is added to tank


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## j3tang

No, I wasn't going to follow what the LFS was saying ...

When I first bought my live rock from someone who had his tank for 2 yrs, there was a small peak from the transfer of the live rock into my tank. 0.25 ppm ammonia registered but everything had quickly become undetectable after. That's when weeks later I added the fish.

Because the fish did not do well after they were added and I wanted to make sure the 0.25 ppm ammonia reading I got when I first added the live rock wasn't a false reading, I added ammonia manually to get it up higher and make sure it peaked and went through the cycle. During that time, there was obviously no fish 

Yes, I realize ammonia is not good for fish, so no worries, I was not adding ammonia to the tank while fish were in there.

The water was regularly tested the whole time. I quickly did a test as soon as I found one of the clowns did not make it because I was afraid something out of the norm had happened to the water, but the parameters were fine.

The parameters while the fish were in the tank and after the first one died were steady as below:
Salinity 1.025 
pH 8.3 
ammonia/nitrite/nitrate 0 ppm / 0 ppm / 0 ppm (undetectable traces)
11 dKH

I wasn't adding buffer blindly. Not sure if you still remember, Big Ray, you were giving me advice on that before the fish went in. KH was reading around 9 and that's when you recommended to slowly buffer it up.


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## Big Ray

hmm interesting how you dont get any no3 (nitrate) readings. but not abnormal, as API test kits start at 5PPm so you may have 4.9 PPM of no3  
and remember, the test kits, specially API is just an approximate, at best.


regarding buffer. dont add anymore, and test KH daily. when it drops to 10DKH, dose a BIT the next morning, and test again 2-3 hours after that to see the effect. (so you can get a good grip of how much DKH increases with each ml you dose lets say  (you can do this every 2 days since no corals.) the usage changes, so be sure to test it every once n a while 

to be very honest, I cant understand why the clowns died ! are you doing water changes ? ok I gotta re read this thread again.


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## j3tang

I don't have the test kit in front of me, but I think the nitrates start at 10 ppm as the "first" color after 0 ppm.

the buffer i was using, it's the powder version, which in hindsight I think i probably should have picked up the liquid version instead since it's easier to measure.

while waiting for the tank to cycle I didn't do any water changes. I did 1 water change, approx. 20%, and then waited a couple weeks before I put in my fish. When I did the drip acclimation of the clowns, using up the tank water, I replenished the tank with water I had previously prepared. That came out to less than 10%. Since then, I have not done another water change yet.


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> I don't have the test kit in front of me, but I think the nitrates start at 10 ppm as the "first" color after 0 ppm.
> 
> the buffer i was using, it's the powder version, which in hindsight I think i probably should have picked up the liquid version instead since it's easier to measure.
> 
> while waiting for the tank to cycle I didn't do any water changes. I did 1 water change, approx. 20%, and then waited a couple weeks before I put in my fish. When I did the drip acclimation of the clowns, using up the tank water, I replenished the tank with water I had previously prepared. That came out to less than 10%. Since then, I have not done another water change yet.


powder ? what does it say on the bottle ?

http://www.bigalsonline.ca/Fish_Add...Super-Buffer-dKH_10028545_102.html?tc=default ??

or something else ?

you need to mix these with Ro/DI water and dose.
here is a good calculator which may help.

so after the clowns didnt make it and you dosed ammonia, you havent done any water changes yet and no3 is still reading zero ? ammonia zero as well !?!its the little details that make the difference.


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## j3tang

I stand corrected, the next level up from 0 ppm nitrates is in fact 5 ppm 

Yup, that's the Kent buffer I'm using. Like you said, it requires to be mixed before adding to the tank. The instructions indicate that 1 tablespoon of it must be mixed with 1 cup of water. One tablespoon is sufficient for 20 gallons of water. I have to estimate every time I add it because I only add a fraction of a tablespoon to a small portion of new salt water mix.

After the clowns died, i did not do any water changes and during this time is when I added ammonia. While ammonia was being added I monitored the water parameters and they went something like this:

ammonia | nitrite | nitrate
0.25 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm
1.0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm
2.0 ppm | 0.25 ppm | 10 ppm
0.25 ppm | 0 ppm | 0-5 ppm
0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm

After everything has disappeared, I have not changed the water yet still. Would this be a good time to do another 20% water change?

I tested my water out just now and these are the results:
SG | pH | Ammonia | Nitrite | Nitrate | dKH
1.026 | 8.3 | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm | 10


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## Big Ray

you should keep KH stable, and retest no3 

0.25 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm
1.0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm
2.0 ppm | 0.25 ppm | 10 ppm
0.25 ppm | 0 ppm | 0-5 ppm
0 ppm | 0 ppm | 0 ppm
happening in 5 days seems strange to me, cant be.

yap API is not a good test kit and starts at 5ppm, been using it since I was a little kid


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## j3tang

are you thinking the cycle was too short? The original mini peak I had when I put in the live rock didn't last very long either.

When buying uncured live rock, what sort of numbers is one supposed to see in terms of ammonia? Is it expected to be beyond 10 ppm? I mean my ammonia level was only at 0.25 ppm the original peak and then 2 ppm when i manually added it.


Maybe my rock is just doing a fantastic job


----------



## Kweli

Rock does play one of the biggest roles of the tank. I think the majority of my success comes from the live rock I got....

I never noticed any ammonia, or NI/NA since starting the tank 3-6 months ago


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## Big Ray

j3tang said:


> are you thinking the cycle was too short? The original mini peak I had when I put in the live rock didn't last very long either.
> 
> When buying uncured live rock, what sort of numbers is one supposed to see in terms of ammonia? Is it expected to be beyond 10 ppm? I mean my ammonia level was only at 0.25 ppm the original peak and then 2 ppm when i manually added it.
> 
> Maybe my rock is just doing a fantastic job


as I have said earlier, you are concentrating on the wrong stuff.

Please dont mind my comment, really just trying to help. ammonia and PH are not something u need to concentrate on in reefs.

Hobby grade test kits are NOT reliable, so waiting there looking for a ammmonia spike is... u put live rock in, it contains dead and alive bacteria and they colonize your tank, and that's it.

what I said is hard to believe is the amount of no3 ! cant be zero if you were adding ammonia and didnt do water changes ...

anyways ...


----------



## Big Ray

Kweli said:


> Rock does play one of the biggest roles of the tank. I think the majority of my success comes from the live rock I got....
> 
> I never noticed any ammonia, or NI/NA since starting the tank 3-6 months ago


test your no3 with salifert  it goes low range to 0.1 PPM


----------



## BettaBeats

Excellent thread! This is going to help me prepare for my 10gal nano!


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## j3tang

Big Ray said:


> what I said is hard to believe is the amount of no3 ! cant be zero if you were adding ammonia and didnt do water changes ...


So i've kept a closer eye on this over the past few days but instead of pouring out the test tubes after the test, I keep them 

I've done a couple water changes and then later in the day I'd test and keep the nitrate tube and I do notice a change in the color, otherwise not noticeable if just looking at them alone. So I think there were errors in me reading the colors (I swear I'm not colorblind!). I think I may do another water change just to make sure it is in fact at a low enough reading.

I've got the API test kit, and rather than just tossing it and getting a new one, i'll just have to be more careful with reading the results. Afterall, I was only allowed to get into this hobby if I could keep the budget down 

Thanks Big Ray for continually doubting and making me triple check; wouldn't have caught it if you didn't


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## aquanutt

Poor you man and sorry to hear about your clown fish... thanks god my setup went much smoother... thanks for all the help I got here.

I aclimate my fish for no longer then 1 hour. I just keep adding my tank water to the bag water bit by bit every few minutes. It worked great so far on all my fish and other animals! I lost only lost one fish but I'm havinng a feeling it was attacked by my BCS...

cheers
sly


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## j3tang

Well, I'm glad my experience has helped others ... somehow ...
I think it is coming to approximately 3 months since I had this tank going and I've not had any updates in a while, so here's a huge update! Grab a coffee as this will be a bit of a long read. And hopefully it can continue to help others from my mistakes. Yes, and the obligatory FTS photos to follow.

*Added new Clowns*
I've replaced the two ocellaris clowns that didn't make it with two tank bred true percula clowns. The addition of these guys went much more smoothly and they were on sale at the LFS too.

I purchased only one on the Sunday, put him in to the tank and everything was well for a few days. I then went back during the week (probably Wednesday or Thursday??) and purchased a second one and put him into the tank. I know it's best to put the two clowns in at the same time, but because of my reluctance to kill two more clowns, I felt that adding them in within the week was still very acceptable. However, it did make selecting 1 larger and 1 smaller clown a bit more difficult as they were not both physically there together in the tank at the LFS. I was lucky to have picked a slightly larger one than the first when I went the second time.

It was about 5 days before I noticed the larger one being a little intimidating to the smaller one and within 3 weeks it looks like they are paired? They don't go anywhere in the tank without each other and sleep in at night in the same corner next to a rock.

*My First Coral*
Shortly after I picked up the two clowns, a nice (but it appears to be infrequent) board member here was getting out of the hobby and I went over to his place and picked up a pair of arm length aquarium gloves at a great price. He showed me his tank and offered to give away some freebies. I went on my merry way and within a week I was back at his place because I wanted the torch coral he had (also at a great price).

You know how this goes, you start off with a FOWLR tank and see all the really nice reef setups other people have and you just can't stop yourself 
So that was my first piece of coral and it looks like it has acclimated well.

*With the Good also comes some bad*
So there's been a good bit of "success" if you could call it that, and with success there's always some not so good bits to go along with it usually.
I soon noticed that I had some red/brown stuff growing in a few places around the tank (on the glass, in the corners, surface of the sand bed, some on the rocks). I started to scrub the stuff and catch it with during a water change, or just net it if it wasn't on a water change day. I seemed to be keeping it at bay though, which made me quite happy as I see all sorts of battles people have with it that last for months! All the while, there was a lot of green HA growing on my rocks too. I try to scrape, cut and suck/net it but the HA was still getting out of control.

I would think for a new aquarist, it is normal to be anxious to get small fish to grow, so there's a tendency to overfeed, but ...
1) The two clownfish I have, the smaller of the two is only about 3/4" and the larger one is probably 1-1/4" so yeah, they're tiny! So tiny in fact that even the small pellets I feed them is too big for them! I crush them with pliers and sprinkle. Even the flakes it have to pinch them into smaller pieces.
2) I don't overfeed my fish because I'm out of the house at 6:30am to go to work and I don't get home 'till 7pm. Lights out are around 9:30pm. I don't use an automatic feeder either. I feed them once a day only, and I wouldn't say that I feed them excessively for that one time  This is probably also why they haven't been growing too much. I don't notice them growing maybe because I'm looking at them every day, but others who don't see them every day tell me they look like they've grown a bit.

I have noticed though that the glass where the water output of my HOB filter hits, there's always the red stuff accumulating and the only thing I use that HOB filter for is mechanical filtration with a sponge. I took that sponge out just recently and don't notice the red there anymore. I do clean out the sponge twice a week but I guess that's not enough? Either way, the sponge is out now and the HOB filter just adds to water movement I guess (for now).

*Christmas Shopping*
Christmas comes along, and you know what that means right?
Yup, boxing day the next day and there's a massive crowd at SeaUMarine. You'd think that most people would be out at the malls/futurecrap/stooples/etc. Who would have thought boxing day meant deal hunting at an aquarium store??

Anyhow, I was in and out of SUM in about 2 hrs, LoL. The longer I was in there, the greater the urge to spend stupid amounts of money. Alas, my sanity prevailed and I purchased, amongst other dry goods, a skunk cleaner shrimp and a coral beauty (yeah, I know, sanity was overrated in the heat of the moment and I probably shouldn't have bought the coral beauty for my size of a tank). I was even thinking about getting a lawnmower blenny to clean up my HA issue. Like I said, sanity was overrated in that moment and I thought, as interesting as that fish may be, why would I want an ugly thing like that with my clowns? I went for the coral beauty and my excuse was that this would be the last fish to go into the tank and at the rate that my clowns are growing, the coral beauty would take 5 years before it reached full size  Hopefully by then, I'd have my own place and a larger tank.

*Aftermath of Boxing Day Shopping*
Anyhow, remember all that HA I had? the next morning, it was virtually all gone. My coral beauty had cleaned that out in one day! Good thing I didn't get the blenny! It probably would be starving, if not dead by now! I had done my research for a couple weeks before deciding on the coral beauty, but I didn't have my head on straight and thought the coral beauty was a herbivore. It is not. I must have gotten myself confused with a tang or something and thought they liked seaweed, etc. I was worried the CB was getting hungry so I kept feeding it veggie flakes and seaweed clamped to the glass. It didn't like it too much and I eventually snapped out of the coma thinking it was a herbivore because I don't think it ate any of it. Several days passed and it still wasn't all that interested in eating. I had tried all the foods my clowns ate, put in some garlic dipped seaweed, and garlic dipped PE mysis shrimp. It didn't like any of it.

I haven't mentioned anything about the skunk shrimp because .. well, there was nothing wrong with it all this time. Other than the fact that it's a hoarder (or just starving). Every time I feed the tank, it would flip over on it's back and swim across the surface of the tank and eat everything. The shrimp's body size is larger than my clowns, and the addition of it's feelers/antennae made the thing even more intimidating to the clowns. Not to mention, they are scaredy fish. Any small movements outside of the tank could make the clowns dart and move about. They get scared as soon as I put my hand/net/tweezers into the tank. Anyways, the shrimp was hogging the food and I'd have to wait for the shrimp to finish eating before adding some more for the clowns. Not exactly how I wanted it. The clowns are my baby, not the shrimp! Shrimp, do your job to clean up and stop scaring my baby clowns!

So what I do then is I grab one pellet/flake at a time with tweezers and bring it down to the shrimp which gobbles it up. I feed it two or three things before I sprinkle anything else into the tank so that the shrimp doesn't bother the fishies. The shrimp molted 3 days ago. It was standing pretty much right next to the shell, so I didn't think it died (like a lot of other people who had not seen shrimps/crabs molt).

About a week passed since the CB was introduced into the tank and very likely just grazing off the rocks, it must have been starving but one time as I was trying to feed the shrimp, I held a flake in the tweezers and the CB darted at the tweezers and snatched the flake from it before the shrimp could get to it. That was hilarious as the shrimp looked annoyed .. haha

Ever since that incident, the CB had started eating the stuff I sprinkled into the tank. I don't know if that's the proper way to do it, starve the fish and they'll eventually eat whatever you put into the tank, or if it was just the fact that it was stressed being in a new environment and it just needed a bit of time before being willing to eat. Thing is, it helped eat all my HA when it was first introduced *shrugs*

*Upgrade*
The upgrade bug bit me a lot sooner than I thought. I ordered a 150 W fishneedit MH light before the Christmas holidays and received it just before the new year. I set it up over the tank with a ghetto clothes rack on wheels  yea you gotta see it to believe it! Anyone have a fishneedit T5HO light they want to unload? I might be interested.

*Coral #2 ...... and #3*
Just this past week, I met with another aquarist and purchased a frag of purple xenia and GSP. He threw in some chaeto for me as well. That HOB filter that did nothing but water movement (since the sponge was taken out) now housed a bit of chaeto  I'm still trying to figure out how to put it on a reverse lighting schedule.


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## j3tang

I've exceeded the amount of text in the previous post 

*Coral Update*
I found something weird about the first coral I had picked up, the torch coral. Only just recently did I find that there seems to be some white fluffy stuff like cotton that's coming out of the sides of the stem/base. The coral is Y-shaped. The base I've stuck into a hole in my rockscape, and only 1 of those branches at the top of the Y was alive and well. The second branch had nothing on it. The fluffy stuff was coming off of the dead branch that never had anything on it to begin with. I picked it up and then further noticed that the white fluff was coming out from underneath the base of the Y-shape! What the heck!? The news through research/google was not good, and it pointed towards brown jelly. But all instances of it was that the fluff came from around the area of where the torch was growing. My fluff comes off of areas where the area is not actually live. Anyone know what the heck I'm talking about? What's going on?

*Warzone*
Currently, I'm battling some red decoration. Felt festive for a while, but it's really not the sort of red decoration I want in my tank. The cyanobacteria is in a lot of areas of my tank and I'm trying to regularly scrub and remove. I'm reluctant to add any chemicals to the tank to clean it up and want to fight this battle as naturally as possible. I've reduced the lighting schedule, 2pm to 8pm during the week, and 11am to 9pm on the weekends. I used to feed a bit at a time when I get off work and leave the leftover uneaten food to float to the bottom for the CUC to eat up. Now, I am extra careful not to leave any uneaten food in the tank.

When there's cyano on the sandbed, I vacuum and stir things up. I've added a second Koralia 425 to the tank for extra water movement. There is 2 x 425gph + 106gph from the HOB filter for a 20 gallon which seems kinda excessive, but when physically looking at the tank, it's not turbulent 

I've got the chaeto in the HOB right now to see if that helps. Next step would be a skimmer. I almost pulled the trigger on a Deltec MCE600. I was hoping to get it for slightly less than $250, but the seller was pretty firm on it. I'm still contemplating ... someone on these forums said they found a good deal for one at $180???!?!! I wouldn't mind paying $200 for one 

*Water Change*
I'm finding that my water change bucket is inadequate. The bucket I use to mix my fresh salt water mix is approx. 11"-12" diameter, 5 gallon capacity. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes and have never missed one over the time the tank has been setup with livestock. I'm looking for a bucket thats the same footprint but taller, to store 8-10 gallons instead. The smallest rubbermaid brute ones are 20 gallon i think, which is a bit big. I realize I don't have to fill it up entirely if I only want 10 gallons, but it's footprint is hogging up too much room.

*DIY*
Right now the ghetto clothes rack works ok for the MH light fixture, but almost too often when I stick my hand into the tank, my forearm/elbow/etc. touches the light and I jump at the resulting burn! Even if it doesn't touch, I can feel my skin drying up because of the intense heat. I don't want to make it permanent by anchoring it into the ceiling so I did some research and found a rack/stand that I could buy at a LFS for $40. But heck, who would want to spend that much on bent tubing? A bit more searching online and I found people bending EMT to their liking to make their own stand. I don't have a pipe bender and it'll cost me about $50 to buy one, plus the tubing and whatnot. I thought about renting one from Home Depot, not sure how much it would cost, but knowing me. It probably won't be a one day thing and the rental cost could easily amount to purchasing one. I've seen debates over moral dilemmas about people "buying" one and using it and then returning it. I don't want to get into the debate, nor the actual buying/returning, so just leave it at that.

So instead of spending the $40 for a pre-fabricated stand, I've embarked on a DIY journey to make myself a stand that will support the light and hopefully be less unsightly. The goal was to be able to raise and lower the light through the use of pulleys and a preliminary design bounced around in my head. As I started to sketch things out on paper, I realized that it could even pivot and swing out of the way too. I've started to pick up some parts here and there but nothing to show for as of yet. Hopefully this isn't one of those "worked in my head" designs 

The main component, a vertical floor-to-ceiling post, cost me $50 up front LoL. Way to blow the budget, eh?


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## j3tang

And photos as promised below.
The GSP puck was moved just before the photo was taken as I was just finished cleaning. It didn't like it and retracted. I realize it grows like weed -- I was thinking of letting it spread all across the back glass.
I think it is currently epoxy'd/glued to the puck. Is it not a good idea to scrape it off and glue it to the back glass?


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## carmenh

It you go to a brew-it-yourself beer place, they have food-safe 10 gallon buckets...same footprint as a salt bucket but taller. It may be used and smell beery but will be fine once you soak it for a while. A friend just picked one up, they charged him $15...



j3tang said:


> *Water Change*
> I'm finding that my water change bucket is inadequate. The bucket I use to mix my fresh salt water mix is approx. 11"-12" diameter, 5 gallon capacity. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes and have never missed one over the time the tank has been setup with livestock. I'm looking for a bucket thats the same footprint but taller, to store 8-10 gallons instead. The smallest rubbermaid brute ones are 20 gallon i think, which is a bit big. I realize I don't have to fill it up entirely if I only want 10 gallons, but it's footprint is hogging up too much room.


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## Dax

Nice read. You were right, should have grabbed a coffee first.


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## Kweli

Cute little clowns, one of my first corals was also a frogspawn. Started with 1 head and it recently split into 2 (about 4 months)

My only advice is not to impluse buy corals... Im not selling off stuff that I bought on a whim.... and while they are all nice, they dont fit my long-term plans


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## j3tang

j3tang said:


> ... So instead of spending the $40 for a pre-fabricated stand, I've embarked on a DIY journey to make myself a stand that will support the light and hopefully be less unsightly. The goal was to be able to raise and lower the light through the use of pulleys and a preliminary design bounced around in my head. As I started to sketch things out on paper, I realized that it could even pivot and swing out of the way too. I've started to pick up some parts here and there but nothing to show for as of yet. Hopefully this isn't one of those "worked in my head" designs
> 
> The main component, a vertical floor-to-ceiling post, cost me $50 up front LoL. Way to blow the budget, eh?


So I got all the parts over the weekend and set part of it up and last night I finished it off. This Home Depot / Ikea mashup seems to work ok. Unfortunately, I didn't get the pulleys into the design, but the light just hangs at a set height and arm swings out for now to get it out of the way. Eventually I will work the pulleys into the design as I already purchased them from Home Depot. No photos yet either. I'll post some photos of it if there's any interest, otherwise I'll just get a shot of it next time I do photos of the tank 



carmenh said:


> It you go to a brew-it-yourself beer place, they have food-safe 10 gallon buckets...same footprint as a salt bucket but taller. It may be used and smell beery but will be fine once you soak it for a while. A friend just picked one up, they charged him $15...


hmm, if I don't find one locally, I may have to find out from your friend which s/he used. Thanks for the tip!



Dax said:


> Nice read. You were right, should have grabbed a coffee first.


took me quite a few edits and about an hour's time to write up 



Kweli said:


> Cute little clowns, one of my first corals was also a frogspawn. Started with 1 head and it recently split into 2 (about 4 months)
> 
> My only advice is not to impluse buy corals... Im not selling off stuff that I bought on a whim.... and while they are all nice, they dont fit my long-term plans


yes, they're quite cute. I wonder if as time passes and they grow larger, will they be less timid?

Lately, I'm even noticing air bubbles around algae prone areas (sand and rocks). It's red and brown algae  I think I'm in need of a skimmer, yeah?

Questions:
1) I try to scrub the stuff off the glass/rocks but I'm not able to catch it with a net most of the time. That really just means it comes off in one area and just replants itself somewhere else, right? I try to suck it up during water changes, but that's just once a week. I try to scrub every day.

2) If it's on the sand, I just scoop up the sand and dump it. Is it possible to rinse off the sand and put back? or should I just continue removing the sand as well? It's just from the surface, but I guess eventually (if this battle draws out longer) I could be losing a considerable amount of sand.


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## Kweli

Sounds like it may be cyano, can you take a picture of it?

Typically you want to siphon that stuff out, not scratch it off (and have it move around)

Siphon close enough to the sand to take the algae off, but not too much sand


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## j3tang

Kweli said:


> Sounds like it may be cyano, can you take a picture of it?
> 
> Typically you want to siphon that stuff out, not scratch it off (and have it move around)
> 
> Siphon close enough to the sand to take the algae off, but not too much sand


Yup, it is. I've seen other people's experiences with it and some have even battled it for months!

The thing is, when there's just a bit of red I scrub it with a toothbrush, but you don't see any loose pieces float around. I'm contemplating putting back in a sponge in the HOB filter for mechanical filtration for the bits I don't/can't net but this time replacing it with a new dish washing sponge. My old sponge was rinsed twice a week but I could still see the cyano buildup on the glass right by the output of the HOB filter.

How does filter floss (or polyester fibrefill) work? Better than a sponge?


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## Kweli

Im not sure, Water travels through this order in my tank..

Sponge, skimmer, filter floss, some live rock, chemipure

My first little outbreaks with cyano were fixed by siphoning it and increasing the flow in the tank (and specifically in the area it was growing)

Are you using frozen food.... are you using RO/DI water?


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## j3tang

Kweli said:


> Im not sure, Water travels through this order in my tank..
> 
> Sponge, skimmer, filter floss, some live rock, chemipure
> 
> My first little outbreaks with cyano were fixed by siphoning it and increasing the flow in the tank (and specifically in the area it was growing)
> 
> Are you using frozen food.... are you using RO/DI water?


I rarely feed frozen food, maybe once every 2 weeks I feed 1/3 of a cube of frozen mysis. And yup, I'm using RO water.

I left the lights off for the day today as well.

There's a piece of rock in the back right corner that butts up against the glass and forms a small dead area. That piece of rock has been the piece I've been trying to get rid of. I had it in the tank for a while, took it out and kept it live in my salt mix bucket and now it's back in the tank again. Might just take it out and let it die as it seems to be more headache than it's worth


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## Kweli

you can put it in the back of your chamber if theres room... the live bacteria doesnt need light to survive


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## j3tang

Kweli said:


> you can put it in the back of your chamber if theres room... the live bacteria doesnt need light to survive


I assume you mean chamber as in one of the filter's chambers right?
the problem is the rock is huge and I don't have a sump


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## carmenh

It was Better Bitters in Burlington. If you can't find one, let me know...perhaps I can grab it and bring it next time we hit Sea U 



j3tang said:


> hmm, if I don't find one locally, I may have to find out from your friend which s/he used. Thanks for the tip!


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## Fish_Man

I like the creativity on the hanging light.


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## j3tang

Fish_Man said:


> I like the creativity on the hanging light.


well there's plenty more of where that came from! I've removed the clothes hanger and I'll post pics of my new light hanger ....... shortly ..... within the next few days. For my first DIY, I think the Ikea/HomeDepot mashup worked pretty well 



carmenh said:


> It was Better Bitters in Burlington. If you can't find one, let me know...perhaps I can grab it and bring it next time we hit Sea U


Found one local in Markham, will call them to see if they've got anything for me. It'll be a bit of a weird inquiry and to add to it I'll probably stutter while trying to explain to them what I'm doing with it. If it doesn't work out, I'd be glad to "Sea U". All the more reason to head to the LFS


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## ameekplec.

For dealing with cyano in my nano I did three things: increase water flow, decrease light, decrease nutrients, and skim wetter. Dunno which options you have, but these are general things that help most out when battling cyano.


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## j3tang

ameekplec. said:


> For dealing with cyano in my nano I did three things: increase water flow, decrease light, decrease nutrients, and skim wetter. Dunno which options you have, but these are general things that help most out when battling cyano.


I've added in another powerhead just before the weekend and was hoping it would help. I now have 950gph for my 20 gallon tank  I do realize though that it's not so much the amount/rating but more so the placement so I've been trying to move powerheads and rocks around to get rid of dead spots.

I've also decreased the photo period. My new 150W MH was on about 12 hrs, down to 8 hrs, and just these 2 days I've not turned the MH on at all. I just leave a 9W actinic bulb on for about 8 hrs.

My poor fishies are malnutrition as they are with only 1 feeding a day 
I don't have a phosphor test kit, but nitrates are in the 5-10ppm range. Chaeto is in the HOB filter and just figuring out how to light it at night (I've come up with an idea this morning, so I'll get that light up and running tonight when I get home!)

No skimmer at the moment, but still contemplating the $250 Deltec MCE600 though 

I guess most newbs go through this stage and I'm doing everything I can for the time being. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Thanks everyone for all the comments.


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## ajdelosr

j3tang said:


> I've added in another powerhead just before the weekend and was hoping it would help. I now have 950gph for my 20 gallon tank  I do realize though that it's not so much the amount/rating but more so the placement so I've been trying to move powerheads and rocks around to get rid of dead spots.
> 
> I've also decreased the photo period. My new 150W MH was on about 12 hrs, down to 8 hrs, and just these 2 days I've not turned the MH on at all. I just leave a 9W actinic bulb on for about 8 hrs.
> 
> My poor fishies are malnutrition as they are with only 1 feeding a day
> I don't have a phosphor test kit, but nitrates are in the 5-10ppm range. Chaeto is in the HOB filter and just figuring out how to light it at night (I've come up with an idea this morning, so I'll get that light up and running tonight when I get home!)
> 
> No skimmer at the moment, but still contemplating the $250 Deltec MCE600 though
> 
> I guess most newbs go through this stage and I'm doing everything I can for the time being. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Thanks everyone for all the comments.


I don't know if you may remember our conversation from my house, but I went through a similar experience and mine went away after 6 weeks or so. I tried everyone's suggestions that they are giving you as well, reducing the time that my lights are on, feeding less, changing the powerhead direction, etc. Just remember there's no quick fix, and it will kinda need to grow itself out. I've even heard that every tank needs to go through some sort of algae bloom, call it puberty for marine tanks.


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## Fish_Man

j3tang said:


> well there's plenty more of where that came from! I've removed the clothes hanger and I'll post pics of my new light hanger ....... shortly ..... within the next few days. For my first DIY, I think the Ikea/HomeDepot mashup worked pretty well


I really like it cause I've never figured out a way to have a hanging light without making holes in the ceiling.

I can't wait to see what the new light hanger looks like.


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## j3tang

Fish_Man said:


> I really like it cause I've never figured out a way to have a hanging light without making holes in the ceiling.
> 
> I can't wait to see what the new light hanger looks like.


i was going to totally finish up the stand first before posting and so I went and bought the rest of the parts to put the pulleys in. Got around to doing everything on the weekend until I hit a snag with the sizing of some aluminum sleeves for the wire holding up the light. Gonna have to go back to HD again to find the right sized stuff. The unveiling will have to wait a bit more 

I sure hope after all this build up, you (or anyone else), after seeing the stand don't think it's a dud! LOL

Anyhow, can anyone tell me if there's something wrong with my Torch coral? I posted earlier about white cotton/fluff coming out of my torch coral. It is in the shape of a Y, only one branch is alive, the other branch never had anything on it. The white fluff is coming out of the branch that doesn't have anything and also the base of the Y. There's some coming out the sides of the stem as well.

The coral looks nice and swollen and is extended all the time. Does it look too swollen or too brown? Nothing I've read online had anything good to say about white cotton/fluff ... I really hope this isn't the beginning of brown jelly. And is the white-ish color on the stem what is known as "bleaching"?


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## conix67

j3tang said:


> Anyhow, can anyone tell me if there's something wrong with my Torch coral? I posted earlier about white cotton/fluff coming out of my torch coral. It is in the shape of a Y, only one branch is alive, the other branch never had anything on it. The white fluff is coming out of the branch that doesn't have anything and also the base of the Y. There's some coming out the sides of the stem as well.
> 
> The coral looks nice and swollen and is extended all the time. Does it look too swollen or too brown? Nothing I've read online had anything good to say about white cotton/fluff ... I really hope this isn't the beginning of brown jelly. And is the white-ish color on the stem what is known as "bleaching"?


Doesn't look like anything's wrong with your torch coral. Brown jelly will cover the polyps of your torch coral tentacles, not the dead skeletons.

Something will grow on any part of coral that doesn't have living tissues, so the white stuff could be some sort of sponge or other living things. I believe I had similar stuff on my hammer when it was a single head frag.


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## j3tang

conix67 said:


> Doesn't look like anything's wrong with your torch coral. Brown jelly will cover the polyps of your torch coral tentacles, not the dead skeletons.
> 
> Something will grow on any part of coral that doesn't have living tissues, so the white stuff could be some sort of sponge or other living things. I believe I had similar stuff on my hammer when it was a single head frag.


Thanks! That's good to know. Any ideas about the "bleaching", if it is or not?

Another question about my clown fish. Ever since they've been brought into the tank, they've enjoyed their stay in the lower left, front corner of the tank. Seems like they've made that little area their territory and "sleep" there at night. They also swim around the front of the tank and sometimes along the water surface. However, they NEVER, not even once, come close to the rocks or swim through holes in the rocks.

Is this just a personality thing specific to my clown, or will it outgrow it? If I were it, I'd be pretty bored only swimming out in the open waters.


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## conix67

j3tang said:


> Thanks! That's good to know. Any ideas about the "bleaching", if it is or not?
> 
> Another question about my clown fish. Ever since they've been brought into the tank, they've enjoyed their stay in the lower left, front corner of the tank. Seems like they've made that little area their territory and "sleep" there at night. They also swim around the front of the tank and sometimes along the water surface. However, they NEVER, not even once, come close to the rocks or swim through holes in the rocks.
> 
> Is this just a personality thing specific to my clown, or will it outgrow it? If I were it, I'd be pretty bored only swimming out in the open waters.


I think your clowns' behaviour is normal They do not swim around like other fishes. They need a protection because they are not good swimmers, like Anemone. My clown pair never leaves few inches away from their hosting Anemone, and they've been like that forever.


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## j3tang

conix67 said:


> I think your clowns' behaviour is normal They do not swim around like other fishes. They need a protection because they are not good swimmers, like Anemone. My clown pair never leaves few inches away from their hosting Anemone, and they've been like that forever.


Not only do they not go anywhere near rocks, they also don't go anywhere near the torch coral. I understand it's hard to get them to host something specific, but there's no "getting them to host" anything if they don't swim close enough to .... well .... anything 

Anyhow, I'm not worried, just thought I'd confirm that this is somewhat normal behaviour.

Thanks!


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## j3tang

And the pics promised for the light stand:


















It moves up and down via pulleys installed along the cantilevered piping. There are 2 sets of collars (depicted in the second picture) that set the height of where the lights will sit at, 1 at display height and the other higher up for when I want to do maintenance in the tank (such as when I need to pull out nasty stuff from the sand, see photos below).

The light also rotates out of the way, pivoting at the pole, for whatever reason. I don't know why I would want that, but it just happened to be a by-product of the design 

Ok, so I'm not winning this battle 
I constantly get this stuff growing on the sand bed and only around this one area. The rest of the sand just turns red. I'm pretty sure there's flow in the area of the hair algae as you can see it flowing/floating upwards.


















Maybe it's time for that skimmer ...


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## j3tang

ugh, i had nightmares last night, literally!

During the day, I was cleaning the tank. While I was brushing some stuff off of the rocks with a toothbrush, I accidentally toppled a rock over. Well, remember (probably not if you don't religiously read through this thread) that nasty bristle worm that freaked me out when I first setup this tank? The pic is still up on the first page. Underneath the rock that toppled over was the worm! It's grown so much fatter it scared the sh!t outta me! I was stunned for a moment holding a toothbrush and while it was scurrying away (quickly, too!) I tried to squeeze it in place with the toothbrush while I was reaching for my forceps to pick it up. In the process, the worm get split into two pieces and they both scurried off into different holes!

UGH!!! I'm so grossed out!! For months I've not been able to get it out of the tank, and now what's worse is that it's gotten fatter and I've helped duplicate the darned thing! I couldn't get the sight of it out of my mind to the extent I had trouble sleeping last night!


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