Tanked Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 Here are my stats. My Eclipse 12 gallon tank has been running for 6 weeks. There's 15 lbs of live rock I bought cured and 20 lbs of live sand in it. There's a Custom Sea Life 32 watt retrofit light installed in an ugly-ass canopy I built set on a timer. Ditched the original canopy and biowheel filter. A Tronic 50 watt heater. A Powersweep 212 (sans the sweep) and a Minijet 404 creating the current. I used Instant Ocean salt mix and distilled bottled water. After about 2 weeks of watching worms and copepods doing what they do, 5 brave warriors (3 Astrea snails and 2 Blue legged hermits) were added to the tank. A week later, 2 Zebra hermits and an Emerald crab were added to the party. Sadly, one of the Blue legs didn't make it but my lfs assured me that if it was a water quality issue, everything in the tank would have perished. After 10 days of snail/crab excitement, I added 1 Coral Banded Shrimp. 3 days ago I added my 1st fish, a Royal Gramma, and everything seemed fine. On day 2 at 10 pm, I found the poor thing on it's side barely breathing at the bottom of the tank. Assuming that there was too much ammonia for the liverock to handle, I performed a 20% water change. As I write this thread the following morning, the RG seems fine again. I bought TetraMarineColor marine flakes to feed him but have yet to see him eat them. They float and he never swims higher than mid-level. Does anyone know if grammas feed on copepods? I'd also be interested in learning other feeding techniques/options as I've read that they can be finicky. In closing, my lfs never mentioned anything to me about water test kits. I did read the beginners articles several times and don't recall seeing any mention of the topic. Any newb friendly yet accurate kit recommendations would be appreciated. I wrote a better thread than this one moments before but it didn't post so this is the "condensed" version. Anyways, I would hate to see the Gramma join the blue leg in that big reef in the sky... Link to comment
alexmsw Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 Yeah you are going to need tests kits. Basics would be Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and PH. Some companies sell these together as a starter kit. Just make sure that they are for saltwater. Your tank is cycled when ammonia and nitrite levels are 0 and nitrate is low under 20ppm. Weekly water changes will get rid of your elevated nitrates. I wouldn't add any more creatures for awhile just to make sure your tank stabilizes. You were very patient in your stocking, just keep track of your water parameters, especially when adding new critters. Welcome and post some pictures!! Link to comment
Bikelock Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 get a test kit. How would you know wat is going on in there with out one. I am also a newbie but I do believe that every time people ask questions they either reveal the parameters or the group asks to see the parameters. You can base alot of your tanks actions on this when lurking on this board. Link to comment
Elation Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 Hey there, Definitely get a test kit to make sure that you don't do a water change if your tank is still in the process of cycling (it will only slow down the cycling process). It also helps you determine if your water levels are off in your tank when something goes wrong, and to know when you need to do a water change. I use fasTest, a kit that includes ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and PH tests by Aquarium Systems, and I like it. It does the job to test the basics, and it's affordable ($26.95 @ marinedepot.com). To see more reviews and information on test kits, check out http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/prtestkits/. It also has a lot of other good info on cycling a tank, when to do a water change when cycling, etc. Make sure that your ammonia and nitrite levels are zero before you do a water change in case your tank is still cycling. Six weeks is still very young. Hopefully you cured your live rock again when you got home although it was "pre-cured," as recommended by articles I have read http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general...eral_pagesid=59. It greatly reduces the ammonia levels in your tank. I cured about 10 lbs. of "uncured" live rock for a week before putting it into my tank, and it still threw the heck off of my ammonia levels after a day. Needless to say that wasn't long enough, or I could have added a little rock at a time instead of all at once to let my system slowly build up to handling all the stuff still dieing off the rock (sponges, etc.). So I just waited it out to let the tank cycle until my ammonia and nitrite levels reached zero again, and then did a water change. Hope this helps! -Elation Link to comment
Tanked Posted October 2, 2003 Author Share Posted October 2, 2003 Thanks for the reponses everyone. I ordered A FasTest kit online today along with some other goodies and am having them overnighted to me. If in fact my tank has not fully cycled, what is to become of the Royal Gramma residing in it? Should I remove him or hope that he rides out the storm? I fear that if the answer is the former, it may be too late as I am posting this thread in the evening and would not be able to get him into another tank for another 14 hours or so. I'm sure any of the more experienced aquarists on this site who have lost fish can relate...it's a pretty awful feeling watching a beautiful fish waste away. Link to comment
jasontatro Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 I'd be surprised if your tank has not finished it's cycle by now. If the problem was nitrates... your inverts would be suffering more than the fish. Fish can handle surprisingly high nitrate levels. Possibly the fish was sick when you got it from the LFS. What was your acclimation process? Just my $.02 Link to comment
mattie Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 tanked if your tanks been running with LR in from the LFS for 6 weeks it should be cycled the hermit some times they get killed becouse another hermit was jelous of his shell. for the gramma try another water change and upgrade the food by some live brine and frozen brine. feed the live brine sparingly with a straw, just what he will eat. store in the fridge and it should last a week or two and toss it out when there all dead and start feeding the frozen. if he wont eat the live brine its not gonna have ahappy ending another $.02 Link to comment
Tanked Posted October 2, 2003 Author Share Posted October 2, 2003 Great responses everyone! The Gramma is eating the TetraMarineColor flakes as I write this post. Starting to dart up to the surface to get them. I'm getting another kind of food that's supposed to sink slowly for mid water dwelling fish and will use live brine shrimp as an occasional treat. I too had felt that the inverts would have been a good indicator of poor water quality. As for the Gramma's introduction to the tank, I brought him home with the bag placed in a cardboard box to shield him from the sunlight. It's only a 7 minute drive from the lfs to my house. I took him out of the bag and poured him into a small plastic container. I then gradually displaced water from my tank to the container over a period of 35 minutes. Then fishy was added to the tank with the lights off for several hours. Still puzzled by what rattled him so. Anyone ever heard of a fish so close to it's demise only to bounce back so quickly? I'm still pretty concerned for him as I have no idea what happened and thus, don't know how to avoid whatever it was that stressed him. Link to comment
birdman204 Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 Was the plastic container in the water. I mean I know you were pouring it in the container, but if its not in the water, the temperature wont get stabilized. I hope everything works out! Is he breathing rapidly or arer things still on the up and up? Link to comment
Bikelock Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 I have had a similar experience and some people on another board chalked it up to new tank syndrome. Search for this and you will learn alot about how the whole ammonia to nitrite to nitrate happens and how the bacteria levels in your tank play a big part in this. It really helped me understand the need for patience in stocking and the maturing process of a new tank. Also, glad you got the test kit. It is interesting to watch the levels and you can tell when you need a water change. I am learning that keeping everything in balance is an incredibly finiky process. Good Luck Link to comment
Elation Posted October 2, 2003 Share Posted October 2, 2003 Yeah, definitely a good sign that he's still eating =) That's pretty good if he went from laying on the bottom of the tank on his side (usually means point of no return) to eating. Just keep a close eye on him, and check your water. When acclimating I usually float the sealed bag in the tank for 15 minutes to let the temperatures equalize, and then start adding your own water, etc. Not sure if you did this or not, but that may help. At least if you check your water, you can rule out whether or not it's the water or the fish. Could be a sick fish like the other person was saying. When buying a fish, just some basic tips are checking for parasites like ich and other diseases (anything funky looking on his skin that doesn't look like it should be there), heavy breathing, you can even ask them to feed the fish to make sure he's healthy and eating, go only to fish stores that take good care of their fish, have good water quality, etc. Even then, some fish are just more difficult to care for than others. We once bought a really pretty fire angel fish that died the next day in a well established tank =( So now we do not name fish until at least a week. Good luck and keep us posted! I'm sure all your patience and hard work will reward you.. hang in there! =) Link to comment
tylernt Posted October 3, 2003 Share Posted October 3, 2003 A NitrIte kit is a waste of money for a beginner. Ammonia, NitrAte, and pH is whatcha want to start out with. Link to comment
Tanked Posted October 4, 2003 Author Share Posted October 4, 2003 My test kit arrived the other day. The very first test I performed was for ammonia. Seeing as I had added my first fish about 6 days ago, I was fully expecting my ammonia reading to be a little high. The Royal Gramma had survived a rather unusual episode and now seems to be thriving, having excavated a nice little home in the live rock and darting all about throughout the day. Surprisingly to me, my reading was very positive with very low levels of ammonia detected. With this knowledge, I did a bit more searching on this site and have come to the conclusion (IMO) that my tank had not cycled due to the cured live rock. There must have been very little, if any, die-off and so all of that beneficial bacteria had nothing to feed and grow upon. Once the Gramma was added, there must have been an ammonia spike which led to his incapacitation. Because I was fortunate enough to be present at the time, the water change may have saved his life. That was 4 days ago and I have not witnessed any other scary episodes since then. So I guess I cycled the tank with the Gramma. If my conclusion is wrong, please feel free to correct me. I am a newb afterall. So my next question is, even though my water stability tests were all stable, is it still okay to perform a water change? I do have some blotches of algae growth here and there and would like to scrape it off. It's a little unsightly and I figured the acrylic would look cleaner if I performed the change right after scraping. Link to comment
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