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Cultivated Reef

Dawn's pony garden.


vlangel

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I can really understand now why seahorse keepers have bare bottom tanks. I can see any debris on the floor of the tank and it is very easily syphoned up or basted into the water column to be filtered out. It should overall definitely be a cleaner system.

To make life easy, you can get a pump, put it on the bottom and put it on a timer. That way it'll keep detritus and crap in the column and its less time you have to spend siphoning. I did that in my 29 for some time.

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To make life easy, you can get a pump, put it on the bottom and put it on a timer. That way it'll keep detritus and crap in the column and its less time you have to spend siphoning. I did that in my 29 for some time.

That is an excellant idea. I still have all the rios that would work well for that.

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That is an excellant idea. I still have all the rios that would work well for that.

Should help you keep the tank cleaner for when u get the other horses. I have one in my sump right now because it accumulates a lot of detritus. Mostly just because I'm lazy and don't want to siphon out the sump lol...

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Right now I am fighting ammonia. I had anticipated a mini cycle since I had them with prior transfers but this one is more drastic. The ammonia was up to 1.0 ppm this morning and I never had it go that high before with the other transfers.

 

I know seahorses do not tolerate ammonia even as well as fish so I need to get this under control. I have done a 14 gallon WC and and will do 7 more gallon when the salt is mixed. If I have to I will use treated regular tap water since I may not be able to keep up with making enough RO/DI. I will deal with the elevated phosphate levels later since that is not as serious a problem as the presences of ammonia.

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Have you added any bottled bacteria? Might help kick the cycle.

Yes I added a whole bottle of biospira and also 2 doses of seachem stability. I did remove the sandbed and may have underestimated how much biological function it was contributing.

 

I thought just having a single seahorse and 1 royal gramma would be fairly light bioload wise. I am going to ease up on the food and just give Eve the minimal for the next day or so and hopefully the tank will be back at full strength soon.

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RIP Sebastian

Yes I added a whole bottle of biospira and also 2 doses of seachem stability. I did remove the sandbed and may have underestimated how much biological function it was contributing.

 

I thought just having a single seahorse and 1 royal gramma would be fairly light bioload wise. I am going to ease up on the food and just give Eve the minimal for the next day or so and hopefully the tank will be back at full strength soon.

 

Sorry to hear about the trouble! I hope everything turns out okay.

 

 

Nick

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Sorry to hear about the trouble! I hope everything turns out okay.

 

 

Nick

I think it will be ok, I just need to stay on top of it.

Seachem Prime or Aquavitro alpha.

Thanks Ben, I will look for prime at our Petco today.

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I can remove Eve and move her into a QT where quick WCs are very easy if I suspect that the ammonia could impact her health. That will lighten the bioload in the display as well. I wont do that unless I suspect her well being is in jeopardy.

 

The coral and KB don't appear impacted at all. Even Eve looks fine but she is staying hitched nearly all the time, probably to conserve oxygen.

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I went to Petco and bought Prime but decided to see where the tank is at after doing the 14 gallon WC so I tested again. It was back down to 0.25 which is acceptable in my mind. I am not going to add Prime yet but I will test tomorrow morning again. I will only feed Eve a small feeding tonight. I can do more WCs tomorrow morning if I need to. I know the tank will turn around quick once it gets through the mini cycle.

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jedimasterben

The problem with water changes is that they have to be done and they have to be very large to make an impact, and with making water and mixing it they can't happen fast enough in an emergency. A couple mils of Prime and ammonia will instantly be oxidized in the entire tank :)

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I missed the startup, looks great.

 

Hopefully you can get the ammonia under controls. Corals love it, easier to eat than Nitrate, so that explains their good health. .25 using an ATI kit may mean 0, mine never read below .25 for what it's worth.

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The problem with water changes is that they have to be done and they have to be very large to make an impact, and with making water and mixing it they can't happen fast enough in an emergency. A couple mils of Prime and ammonia will instantly be oxidized in the entire tank :)

I agree with Ben - Prime hurts nothing and guarantees there's no ammonia. Fingers crossed!

The only thing I am nervous about Prime is after I use it, can I still test to see if the ammonia is still going up? I thought I read a thread at one time that said when you are using Prime, you can not accurately test the water, is that true? I could not determine anything from the instructions on the bottle.

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The only thing I am nervous about Prime is after I use it, can I still test to see if the ammonia is still going up? I thought I read a thread at one time that said when you are using Prime, you can not accurately test the water, is that true? I could not determine anything from the instructions on the bottle.

 

No, it's not true, your ammonia test will still work. There are other ammonia binders that will fool tests but Prime is not one of them.

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I missed the startup, looks great.

 

Hopefully you can get the ammonia under controls. Corals love it, easier to eat than Nitrate, so that explains their good health. .25 using an ATI kit may mean 0, mine never read below .25 for what it's worth.

I feel better about it this evening than I did this afternoon. My test kit is ATI and its pretty old. I probably should have bought a new one but I almost never use an ammonia test kit.

 

I pulled up my download from the seahorse training program I took and seahorses affected by ammonia poisoning will start with lethargy and progress to increased respiration. I thought Eve was hitched a lot until dinner time and then she swam all over the tank trying to get my attention and begging for food. She definitely did not look oxygen deprived. So as long as the ammonia can be kept in the .25 range I am sure she will be ok at that.

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jedimasterben

The ammonia test will definitely still work, but you'll get a zero reading in the tank for a while because there simply won't be any in it to measure. :)

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No, it's not true, your ammonia test will still work. There are other ammonia binders that will fool tests but Prime is not one of them.

The ammonia test will definitely still work, but you'll get a zero reading in the tank for a while because there simply won't be any in it to measure. :)

Ok, that is good to know. I guess there is absolutely no reason not to use it so I will do that now. Thanks guys (and that includes teeny too since you also contributed).

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Dawn the tank looks fantastic! The mural is great. Love your new scape as well! Great job.

Thank you Sharbuckle. I am pretty happy with it myself. The new ponies will have lots of hitches and also courting space so I am excited to move to that phase. As soon as the mini cycle runs its course I will set about ordering a pair of seahorses.

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So glad everything is under control! Think it has to do with no sand bed? I haven't had any issue with ammonia with my transfer. If there was a cycle, I never saw it. I did have diatoms for a couple of days but they are gone now. I also use MB7. I'm wondering if the difference is sand? Well, either way, sounds like you got through it and now you don't have to worry about a sand bed :D.

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So glad everything is under control! Think it has to do with no sand bed? I haven't had any issue with ammonia with my transfer. If there was a cycle, I never saw it. I did have diatoms for a couple of days but they are gone now. I also use MB7. I'm wondering if the difference is sand? Well, either way, sounds like you got through it and now you don't have to worry about a sand bed :D.

Yes, I think that was the difference Gena. I had done 2 other transfers before this one but I moved the sand beds too. I guess I underestimated how much biological filtering the sand bed was doing. I added Biospira which should have been like your MB7.

 

Maybe another difference is I went significantly bigger, (about 1/3).. My other transfers were from a 90 gallon down to a 36 gallon and a 30 gallon to a 36 gallon. I saved pretty much all my water but still used a big part of a brute can of fresh made salt water to fill the new tank.

I think Eve is lonely or bored. She gets excited at meal times but the rest of the time she just stays hitched. I can't wait to get her some friends so she has someone to interact with.

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The tank is looking good! Glad you have things under control and are getting Eve some new friends soon. I think you definitely see more interactions when there are other ponies in the tank. Looking forward to it :)

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