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Tank crashed. What could be done better next time?


NaCl H2O

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I have an Ocean Free Nano Marine Tank (34L/9 gal) and all the inhabitants have just crashed and died :(


Wished I discovered this forum sooner rather than later as I suspect I have been given really bad advice and wrong methods to set up my first saltwater tank by our LFS, and wasted a few hundred dollars along the way. I hope to seek some advice on what could have been done better in retrospect.


So just some background of what was in my tank when it was thriving for the short 2.5-3 months:

5kg live rock

2x ocellaris clowns

1x bicolour blenny

Added 1x trochus snail after a month


Equipments: Heating unit, stock Ocean Free protein skimmer, Marine Pure spherical biofilter,


Test kit: API Saltwater Master test kit (pH, NO2-, NO3- and NH3)


The tank was cycled for 4 weeks in pre-made salt water from the LFS and live rock before adding the three fish at the same time. Water parameters were consistent at pH8.0-8.2, 0ppm NO2-, 10-20ppm NO3-, and 0ppm NH3. Never understood why nitrates won't go down and remained at 10-20ppm. Water changes were done at 10-20% every 5 days. Salinity was measured using floating hydrometer and remained consistently at the 1.024-1.026 mark. Didn't measure for phosphates, hardness, magnesium and calcium as LFS it was not necessary.


For topping up evaporated water, LFS sold me a bottle of chemical called "Fraction" from Continuum to add to tap water to "remove ammonia, nitrates and chlorine" before topping up the tank for evaporation.


For food, I was sold the "Marine-S" pellets made by Hikari. Fish were fed every other day and pellets were put on the water surface sparingly each time.


So for the first 1-1.5 month, the fish were fine, eating well, swimming around nicely. The larger ocellaris was starting to chase the smaller ocellaris around, which I was told was an assertion of dominance by a female towards the male. At the 1.5 month mark, I started to see the clowns having white stringy faeces and were not eating. They were just lingering on the bottom of the tank. Live rock was going brown and the purple coraline algae started turning white.


Went to the LFS and they said it could be parasites and sold me "Fluke and Tapeworm tablets" from Aqua Master. I followed the dosing instructions and the white stringy feces remained. At around the same time, there was an outbreak of diatoms/brown algae, so I decided to get a clean up crew and LFS recommended a trochus snail.


Fast forward another month, first clown died, followed by another a week later. Few weeks later, blenny started acting weird and died :( After a week, we decided to pull the plug and halt our tank. Tank has been sitting there ever since. We really want to get back into the hobby but couldn't trust our LFS anymore. We have gone to a few other LFS and got lots of contradicting advice. E.g. for the white stringy faeces, some said it was internal parasite, some said water parameters and some said diet (that LFS sold us some frozen shrimp brine to "supplement to the fishes' diet").


We really want to keep the tank and accessories as it costed quite a bit for beginners. I know I've later heard negative things about starting off with a "Nano" tank this small. But due to space constraints and we just want to start out small to see how we go and potentially upgrade along the way. Another thing is we might be relocating to a different house in the near future, so would it be advisable to hold off re-starting the tank until we have moved?

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Cencalfishguy56

 

I have an Ocean Free Nano Marine Tank (34L/9 gal) and all the inhabitants have just crashed and died :(

 

Wished I discovered this forum sooner rather than later as I suspect I have been given really bad advice and wrong methods to set up my first saltwater tank by our LFS, and wasted a few hundred dollars along the way. I hope to seek some advice on what could have been done better in retrospect.

 

So just some background of what was in my tank when it was thriving for the short 2.5-3 months:

5kg live rock

2x ocellaris clowns

1x bicolour blenny

Added 1x trochus snail after a month

 

Equipments: Heating unit, stock Ocean Free protein skimmer, Marine Pure spherical biofilter,

 

Test kit: API Saltwater Master test kit (pH, NO2-, NO3- and NH3)

 

The tank was cycled for 4 weeks in pre-made salt water from the LFS and live rock before adding the three fish at the same time. Water parameters were consistent at pH8.0-8.2, 0ppm NO2-, 10-20ppm NO3-, and 0ppm NH3. Never understood why nitrates won't go down and remained at 10-20ppm. Water changes were done at 10-20% every 5 days. Salinity was measured using floating hydrometer and remained consistently at the 1.024-1.026 mark. Didn't measure for phosphates, hardness, magnesium and calcium as LFS it was not necessary.

 

For topping up evaporated water, LFS sold me a bottle of chemical called "Fraction" from Continuum to add to tap water to "remove ammonia, nitrates and chlorine" before topping up the tank for evaporation.

 

For food, I was sold the "Marine-S" pellets made by Hikari. Fish were fed every other day and pellets were put on the water surface sparingly each time.

 

So for the first 1-1.5 month, the fish were fine, eating well, swimming around nicely. The larger ocellaris was starting to chase the smaller ocellaris around, which I was told was an assertion of dominance by a female towards the male. At the 1.5 month mark, I started to see the clowns having white stringy faeces and were not eating. They were just lingering on the bottom of the tank. Live rock was going brown and the purple coraline algae started turning white.

 

Went to the LFS and they said it could be parasites and sold me "Fluke and Tapeworm tablets" from Aqua Master. I followed the dosing instructions and the white stringy feces remained. At around the same time, there was an outbreak of diatoms/brown algae, so I decided to get a clean up crew and LFS recommended a trochus snail.

 

Fast forward another month, first clown died, followed by another a week later. Few weeks later, blenny started acting weird and died :( After a week, we decided to pull the plug and halt our tank. Tank has been sitting there ever since. We really want to get back into the hobby but couldn't trust our LFS anymore. We have gone to a few other LFS and got lots of contradicting advice. E.g. for the white stringy faeces, some said it was internal parasite, some said water parameters and some said diet (that LFS sold us some frozen shrimp brine to "supplement to the fishes' diet").

 

We really want to keep the tank and accessories as it costed quite a bit for beginners. I know I've later heard negative things about starting off with a "Nano" tank this small. But due to space constraints and we just want to start out small to see how we go and potentially upgrade along the way. Another thing is we might be relocating to a different house in the near future, so would it be advisable to hold off re-starting the tank until we have moved?

your nitrates were a bit high, saltwater creatures are really sensitive to any contaminates in water, so you should look into an RODI unit or finding an LFS that sells RODI water which is extremely clean water, pure h20. Also get a refractometer as hydro meters are a thing of the past and 90% of the time give you false readings, salinity could have played a role but by the sound of things sounds like your LFS screwed you. I've lost a few hundred dollars to this hobby in months, don't worry, I'd suggest rebooting your tank and dealing with fish, they would be easy to move also when you get your new house. They say harder is smaller and it is true because things can go bad quick in such a small tank, also your top off water should also be RODI or even at Walmart distilled water is fine! I had a 10 gallon that was trial and error, but upgraded to a 20 long with a 10 gallon sump and everything is thriving in my tank :) welcome to the forums plenty of great people here and knowledgeable hobbyists! Don't give up, this is a rewarding hobby
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vegasgundog

First off, welcome to NR. Sorry it isn't under better circumstances. One thing I've learned is to filter information from my lfs and I even plan on going to each one for something different. A good lfs with any knowledge would have told you not to use tap water in a reef tank. It is a must to the health of your aquarium to use distilled or as the majority of use our own RODI units in our homes. Lfs will sell rodi water as well and you want to top off evaporation with fresh water not salt water. Whether this caused the crash, who knows but it certainly didn't help. If you got all your fish from the same lfs and they weren't responsible to tell you about the rodi water, they probably aren't responsible enough to take care of the fish before you get them home.

 

I'd take a deep breath, step back and relax and just reset. Use this down time to learn everything you can from all these knowledgeable people on this forum and listen to them. I did and pay more attention here than most of the lfs employees. Good luck and hope everything goes better.

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your nitrates were a bit high, saltwater creatures are really sensitive to any contaminates in water

 

I've tested the ASW bought from the LFS before water changes and did not detect nitrates (API kit). It was only detectable (10-20ppm) in the tank. It dropped to 5ppm after a 25% water change, but seemed to go up and remained constant at 10-20ppm, not over 20 of course. What could have been causing this?

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squamptonbc

I am not convinced the nitrate was the issue, I've always ran tanks in the 10-20 range and never get below 10 according to API test kits, but I am not fully convinced they are accurate at the low end. But I haven't been able to obtain another brand test kit yet to compare.

 

I never add that many fish at once, so it could have been too much too soon, if the fish were not quarantined they may have brought something into the tank with them and it just took time to kill them, not every ailment kills quickly.

 

 

If you do start over, I would take it slow, I don't even considering adding fish until the 2.5-3 month mark, and first life I add is usually clean up crew after the tanked is cycled, then one fish at a time over several weeks, but I tend to be cautious.

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I have an Ocean Free Nano Marine Tank (34L/9 gal) and all the inhabitants have just crashed and died :(
Wished I discovered this forum sooner rather than later as I suspect I have been given really bad advice and wrong methods to set up my first saltwater tank by our LFS, and wasted a few hundred dollars along the way. I hope to seek some advice on what could have been done better in retrospect.
So just some background of what was in my tank when it was thriving for the short 2.5-3 months:
5kg live rock
2x ocellaris clowns
1x bicolour blenny
Added 1x trochus snail after a month
Equipments: Heating unit, stock Ocean Free protein skimmer, Marine Pure spherical biofilter,
Test kit: API Saltwater Master test kit (pH, NO2-, NO3- and NH3)
The tank was cycled for 4 weeks in pre-made salt water from the LFS and live rock before adding the three fish at the same time. Add fish slowly, adding them all at once, your biological filtration and de-nitrifying bacteria don't have time to adjust. Also those fish are a hefty bioload for a 9g. For long term success, fish need to be chosen carefully in terms of aggression, space needed, and bioload. Water parameters were consistent at pH8.0-8.2, 0ppm NO2-, 10-20ppm NO3-, and 0ppm NH3. Never understood why nitrates won't go down and remained at 10-20ppm. Water changes were done at 10-20% every 5 days. Salinity was measured using floating hydrometer and remained consistently at the 1.024-1.026 mark. Didn't measure for phosphates, hardness, magnesium and calcium as LFS it was not necessary.
For topping up evaporated water, LFS sold me a bottle of chemical called "Fraction" from Continuum to add to tap water to "remove ammonia, nitrates and chlorine" before topping up the tank for evaporation. You need RODI, or you can buy gallons of distilled/RO as the 2nd best choice, nothing in a bottle will replace the need for it. No tap! no no no!
For food, I was sold the "Marine-S" pellets made by Hikari. Fish were fed every other day and pellets were put on the water surface sparingly each time.
So for the first 1-1.5 month, the fish were fine, eating well, swimming around nicely. The larger ocellaris was starting to chase the smaller ocellaris around, which I was told was an assertion of dominance by a female towards the male. At the 1.5 month mark, I started to see the clowns having white stringy faeces and were not eating. Internal parasites. They were just lingering on the bottom of the tank. Live rock was going brown and the purple coraline algae started turning white.
Went to the LFS and they said it could be parasites and sold me "Fluke and Tapeworm tablets" from Aqua Master. I followed the dosing instructions and the white stringy feces remained. A product called Prazipro is what you needed. At around the same time, there was an outbreak of diatoms/brown algae, so I decided to get a clean up crew and LFS recommended a trochus snail. Cleanup crew should have went in before the fish.
Fast forward another month, first clown died, followed by another a week later. Few weeks later, blenny started acting weird and died :(Probably perished from disease/parasites that were not treated with the proper medication. After a week, we decided to pull the plug and halt our tank. Tank has been sitting there ever since. We really want to get back into the hobby but couldn't trust our LFS anymore. We have gone to a few other LFS and got lots of contradicting advice. E.g. for the white stringy faeces, some said it was internal parasite, some said water parameters and some said diet (that LFS sold us some frozen shrimp brine to "supplement to the fishes' diet").
We really want to keep the tank and accessories as it costed quite a bit for beginners. I know I've later heard negative things about starting off with a "Nano" tank this small. It's fine to start small, it's not more difficult per say, but just needs more attention to detail and the right steps. Your LFS did not give you the right information, they should have never sold you 3 fish at once for such a small tank or told you to use tap water. But due to space constraints and we just want to start out small to see how we go and potentially upgrade along the way. Another thing is we might be relocating to a different house in the near future, so would it be advisable to hold off re-starting the tank until we have moved? You can move tanks, but expect some losses, if you lose nothing, great! I just moved and had a few loses but most made it.

 

 

Nano-reef is an AMAZING forum with many people who will give you good advise and you can see many oustanding tanks here. Your 2nd try at a tank is already 100% on the right track by coming here.

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Cencalfishguy56

 

I've tested the ASW bought from the LFS before water changes and did not detect nitrates (API kit). It was only detectable (10-20ppm) in the tank. It dropped to 5ppm after a 25% water change, but seemed to go up and remained constant at 10-20ppm, not over 20 of course. What could have been causing this?

its tap water so it's hard to say, nitrates won't decimate a tank, I'm thinking something leeching in the water slowly killed everything but idk, tam is very resourceful, she knows her stuff!
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Welcome and sorry to hear the difficulties you have had. There are a few issues that could have lead to the crash. I believe its a combo of contributing factors.

 

1. LFS are there to make money and often the info they provide is sketchy, some of the employees have no clue what they are doing. Hence why we have blue hippos being kept in new 10g tanks.

 

2. Too many fish for 9g. You will never get the nitrates lowered with that bioload. 2 clowns is pushing it with 9g. Water quality is important for a successful sw. High bioloads in small tanks=water quality issues which leads to stress, ill health, and parasites.

 

3. Adding too many fish at one time in a new tank- the tank isn't mature enough to handle the load leading to poor water quality.

 

4. Treating disease in the dt isn't optimal, its best done in a seperate tank. Ex. hospital tanks

 

5. Using tap water. This is not advisable in sw. Ro/di or distilled only.

 

6. Salinity swings of 1.024-1.026 can lead to issues.

 

The best advice one can give is do a lot of research, don't trust lfs, go slow, and plan to dedicate most of your time to your tank.

 

To restart:

 

Research and for me personally, I'd start from scratch. I wouldn't reuse the current water in the tank and would consider cleaning the rocks/sand.

 

If you treated the tank with meds and used tap water, the rocks and sand could have absorbed the meds and whats in the tap water. You may need to clean them thoroughly to reuse so they don't leach anything into the water. This is definitely something you want to research.

 

Use ro/di or distilled only

 

Get a refractometer

 

Choose a small bioload and add it slowly. After a cycle a couple of hermits and snails is what should be added then after ensuring no cycle spikes occur a fish can be added.

 

In a 9g livestock choices is ltd. I have 1 dottyback in my 10g with crabs and snails. My 15g has 2 clowns only with cuc.

 

 

What is the fiteration in your tank? The liverock is biological filteration but do you run any carbon or floss?

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Glad you could make it here to this forums.

 

the advice that has been given is good. RODI for sure. I used to use tap water for the longest time and then I went RODI and my results have been fantastic.

 

I strongly suggest a use of a Quarantine system for your tank. Keep fish in there for at least a month prior to adding them to the display tank. It does not have to be fancy. Just a tank, with some PVC pipes for fish to hide in, heater, light. This Quarantine tank is where you would treat the sick fish. its inadvisable to add medicine to an established tank because it can upset the ecosystem of bacteria. If you use live rock it could damage or kill organisms living in that - which could cause a ammonia spike and crash. Put all new fish into it before adding to your tank. Use it to house sick fish for treatment as well.

 

There a number of nano fish that are great for small tanks. Just keep in mind: lids. The little bastards like to leap out.

 

Cleanup crew to add before fish. I love nassarius snails, small blue legged hermit crabs.

 

 

Ensure you have some test kits or can take water to someone competent to do the tests - I don't feel this with your LFS.

refractometer

You have a thermometer? I only bring this up because this summer has been brutally hot and I have needed fans to try to keep my tank cool - and that can cause problems.

 

glad you can join us. set up a thread about your tank, and we'll enjoy your new startup.

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I have a 9 gallon Aquastyle (eheim that looks like a clone of yours, minus the All-In-One rear section) that's been up & running since November 2011 - in hindsight something in the 12-16 gallon range would've offered me more varied livestock options while having about the same maintenance footprint. If starting over, that's something you may want to consider, too.

 

If you follow the advice you've been given above Take #2 will work out vastly better.

 

My 2 cent's?:

1. Avoid using tap water + water conditioners. I tried going the easier/cheaper route with purified tap (Zerowater) initially and eventually had a near tank crash at the 1.5/2 year mark due to a kind of brown fuzzy fungus growing out of control on everything. Went away completely & hasn't returned for about 2 years since switching over to distilled ($.38 a gallon at a local store). Not a fix-all, but it helps to remove variables wherever you can. Tap water is a complete lottery ;)

 

2. Don't medicate fish in-tank. A reef tank s a totally different environment than a fish-only setup and practically no medicine that actually works against a pathogen in question is truly "reef safe".

 

3. Stage your tank's biofilter - using something like Dr. Timm's + LIGHTLY dosing pure household ammonia can let you get the tank ready to handle the breakdown of food & fish waste cheaply & without risk to livestock (and your wallet). When the tank can chew through 2 ppm of ammonia into nitrate in a single day you should be good to add the first fish and/or a clean-up crew.

 

4. What were you using for filtration and how often were you replacing it? At over about 3 weeks just about anything you'd run in a nano tank will be exhausted/saturated or otherwise ineffective. I noticed a significant improvement in water clarity and general growth/activity when I started swapping out the carbon/purigen mix in my corner filter every 2 weeks as opposed to monthly in years prior.

 

5. Spend a few days looking around NR, especially in the Featured Reefs or Member's Tank sections & find one that kinda matches the size/style/stocking you're planning. No two are ever going to be EXACTLY the same or have the same issues/solutions 100% of the time but you can save yourself a load of heartache just by seeing what can be done.

 

EDIT: I was going to caution you about the number of fish based on your OP... then saw the current Tank Of the Month feature - wow. Words lightly breaded, saute'd with butter & garlic and eaten with a dram of Oban 18 as a digestif.

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What is the fiteration in your tank? The liverock is biological filteration but do you run any carbon or floss?

 

My LFS sold me these MarinePure spheres and suggested me to ditch the stock filter that came with pieces of cottom wool and some ceramic looking things (biofilter?). So to answer your question, I've been running MarinePure spheres as filtration. The back compartment of my tank had this water flow: inlet holes into first compartment (protein skimmer), then into second compartment filled with the MarinePure spheres. The last compartment only had the stock water pump that provided a water stream back into the tank.

Ensure you have some test kits or can take water to someone competent to do the tests - I don't feel this with your LFS.

refractometer

You have a thermometer?

 

Yes, I had been doing regular water testing (every 5 to 7 days). I used the API saltwater master test kit.

 

And yes, I did have a thermometer and my heater had a thermostat function set at 25'C. It was autumn/winter here in the southern hemisphere ;)

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4. What were you using for filtration and how often were you replacing it? At over about 3 weeks just about anything you'd run in a nano tank will be exhausted/saturated or otherwise ineffective. I noticed a significant improvement in water clarity and general growth/activity when I started swapping out the carbon/purigen mix in my corner filter every 2 weeks as opposed to monthly in years prior.

 

I answered this to the first quote above. I was using MarinePure spheres only and my LFS did not say anything about replacing or cleaning them on a routine basis. I'm not sure if the carbon/purigen mix was the stuff that came with the tank (ceramic looking things and sponge/cotton pad-like things).

 

EDIT: I was going to caution you about the number of fish based on your OP... then saw the current Tank Of the Month feature - wow. Words lightly breaded, saute'd with butter & garlic and eaten with a dram of Oban 18 as a digestif.

 

I saw that tank and it looks amazing. Also the amount of different livestock he has in there is mind boggling! 10 gal!

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Yes, I had been doing regular water testing (every 5 to 7 days). I used the API saltwater master test kit.

 

And yes, I did have a thermometer and my heater had a thermostat function set at 25'C. It was autumn/winter here in the southern hemisphere ;)

southern hem, okay. We're in drought in southern ontario right now. been in the +30°c around here.

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I'm actually a big fan of synthetic biomedia... especially in all-in-ones it frees you up from the pound-of-rock (ok, kilograms) to gallons (yeah, liters) of water "accepted" ratios and lets you focus on using the generally more expensive rock to make the scape you find appealing. In many cases it can even be superior to live rock once it's colonized because you CAN rinse it off in your changed out tank water periodically & unclog the pores in the media to some degree.

 

Carbon/purigen/absorbanite/whatever chemical filtration is run's completely a reefer's choice. Ideally the product(s) are selected because they correct a specific issue such as yellowed water, contaminants, secreted "stuff" from corals, phosphate etc. Or they're a complete and wild guess. My current mix is a bit of column A (carbon because otherwise the water looks like soup within a week) and a bit of column B (purigen as I'm not running a skimmer, keep a ruby mandarin and it may help with anything not grabbed by the carbon).

 

But yeah, fro time to time either baste the biomedia off a container of your used tank water or if using the smaller pebble sized stuff it might not be a bad idea to keep it in a mesh bag to allow easy removal & shaking. In larger systems the mulm that comes off it is regarded as a great coral food - in smaller tanks every bit of leftover gunk you can take out of play is usually a good thing.

 

There only a few stores around here that sell small tanks, and even fewer that display the skills to keep such small systems stable longer than the initial blush. Use NR as your primary resource - not to put down your creativity/ability in the slightest, but there's a good chance someone on here has been doing exactly what you are trying to do, want to do or dream of doing longer than you've even been aware you wanted a tank... and has posted what amounts to a blow-by-blow guide to how they achieved it. ;)

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