Help!!!!! Overstocked - now what?

[Moorahs]

Sister just showed up with an ice cream container full of life ... her pump failed and seems I'm the emergency plan. 

 

I've "found" room for her coral... but... now there is a pair of clowns and an angry little blue damsel in my previously fishless, 2 month old, 10 gallon tank. 

 

Now what? Apart from not feeding much, obsessively checking ammonia and nitrate levels and upping the water change frequency, is there anything I can be doing to help my system cope with a sudden and huge bioload?

 

Already running purigen, phosguard and carbon. Should I increase how much or just change out more often? 

[MainelyReefer]

Dr. Tims one and only may help if there was little to no bioload to begin with, lots of people talk about using prime to take ammonia out of the water I believe, feed lightly.  Buy a bag of fluval bio max(maybe different name) and put it in your media rack, it's the ceramic things that increase surface area for bacteria I use them when I set up my QT and can't use live rock.  Have water changes prepared and maybe a seachem ammonia alert badge.  Buy her a new pump? 

[Moorahs]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

 

I'll see what the fish stores in town have tomorrow (including a new pump for her lol). I have Prime - I've only used it to condition tap water for my FW tank. Searching now for info on using it in tank as an ammonia binder. Not sure whether to dose it prophylactically? 

 

I know the tank has a good biofilter but just not sure how far it can be pushed all at once  

[Tamberav]

I would probably just add prime and microbacter and monitor. 

[Moorahs]

Alrighty so added 1ml of prime this morning and angled the return line outlets so there's a bit more surface agitation - I read that prime can lower oxygenation of the tank water? 

 

I'm relaxing. A little. Found on another site, a link to an article that said reef fish generate approx 0.5ml/g/hr of ammonia. Found something else that said a 4 inch fish would weigh approx 250g. So that works out to about 1ppm of ammonia being created in my tank over 24hrs, and I know (via post cycle ammonia challenge) that it can drop 2ppm to 0 in 24 hrs.

 

So with prime in there for insurance, I think it'll be ok. Now I've just gotta make myself stay at work today instead of going home to check on the tank...

[Clown79]

You should be fine.

 

Learning experience for everyone. Always have an extra pump or hob filter lying around.

[Moorahs]

Update: 0 ppm ammonia reading, everyone alive and well. Clowns acting like they are *starving to death* but it’s the same performance I routinely ignore in my dogs .

Angry Damsel has picked out a cave and it’s far enough away from the CBS that all is well so far. 

Thanks to everyone!!! Side note - learning experience indeed. Made me realize that I actually didn’t have a plan for what I’d do if my pump failed. 

[Lula_Mae]

3 hours ago, Moorahs said:

Update: 0 ppm ammonia reading, everyone alive and well. Clowns acting like they are *starving to death* but it’s the same performance I routinely ignore in my dogs .

Angry Damsel has picked out a cave and it’s far enough away from the CBS that all is well so far. 

Thanks to everyone!!! Side note - learning experience indeed. Made me realize that I actually didn’t have a plan for what I’d do if my pump failed. 

You can get a battery operated air pump on Amazon for about $8 bucks, great to have if the power goes out or something.  Also good to have a cheap spare HOB or powerhead on hand.  If nothing else, you can use the powerhead to mix fresh saltwater.

[Moorahs]

So “pump broken” morphed into “I’m over it” and seems I’m inheriting this today. Equal parts excited and terrified! 

[dling]

That looks like a real nice set up. Once you have it up and running it will be great. Have fun with  all of ur new toys.

[Moorahs]

Overwhelmed. It’s now sitting in my garage and I’ve been eyeballing it since yesterday. Big jump from a 36 litre all in one to a 120 litre with a 36 litre sump 

 

It’ll be a slow, thought through move - helped by seeing how other people have done it (I’m watching you @Clown79!!!)

 

[Lula_Mae]

16 hours ago, Moorahs said:

Overwhelmed. It’s now sitting in my garage and I’ve been eyeballing it since yesterday. Big jump from a 36 litre all in one to a 120 litre with a 36 litre sump 

 

It’ll be a slow, thought through move - helped by seeing how other people have done it (I’m watching you @Clown79!!!)

 

Giving it a wide berth? You can do it!  It looks like a Red Sea?  If so you can look at how others have set it up also.

[Moorahs]

6 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Giving it a wide berth? You can do it!  It looks like a Red Sea?  If so you can look at how others have set it up also.

It’s an Aqua One, don’t see many outside Aus except for in the UK. I’m ok with the hardware, it’s mostly the same concepts as the AIO just on steroids... and I’m excited at being able to do some scaping again (and fit more corals lol).

 

I’m just nervous about how to actually move stuff in - order of events, whether my existing biofilter will cut it in the new tank till new stuff “seeds” vs whether to stabilize the new one with new live rock first and then move the old stuff over, blah blah... so it’s peoples’ tank move / upgrade threads I’m OCD reading for now  

[Clown79]

On 03/10/2017 at 3:29 AM, Moorahs said:

Update: 0 ppm ammonia reading, everyone alive and well. Clowns acting like they are *starving to death* but it’s the same performance I routinely ignore in my dogs .

Angry Damsel has picked out a cave and it’s far enough away from the CBS that all is well so far. 

Thanks to everyone!!! Side note - learning experience indeed. Made me realize that I actually didn’t have a plan for what I’d do if my pump failed. 

I went through the same issue with my planted FW. Stupid pump went and none locally were small enough.

I used my hob on the tank until I got another pump.

 

It's good to have a few extras lying around.

 

Heater, powerhead/pump, hob, air pump (plus hose, stone, batteries)

On 07/10/2017 at 5:39 PM, Moorahs said:

Overwhelmed. It’s now sitting in my garage and I’ve been eyeballing it since yesterday. Big jump from a 36 litre all in one to a 120 litre with a 36 litre sump 

 

It’ll be a slow, thought through move - helped by seeing how other people have done it (I’m watching you @Clown79!!!)

 

I just finished it. It went smoothly. Took all day and was exhausted but the result was worth it.

 

I detailed everything I did so hopefully it helps others.

[Moorahs]

6 hours ago, Clown79 said:

I detailed everything I did so hopefully it helps others.

Damn straight!!! I’m now comfortable (thanks largely to your post) that I’ve overthought enough... getting ready tonight and tomorrow, and Sunday is move day  

[Clown79]

6 hours ago, Moorahs said:

Damn straight!!! I’m now comfortable (thanks largely to your post) that I’ve overthought enough... getting ready tonight and tomorrow, and Sunday is move day  

That's great to hear. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

[Coral_chef]

Looks like a nice tank congrats

[Moorahs]

22 hours ago, Clown79 said:

That's great to hear. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Just one: how the ACTUAL does caribsea get away with selling branch rock based on pictures that look absolutely nothing like what’s in the box?????? 

I have seriously clocked up 10 hours this weekend just on attempted aquascaping. It still just looks like someone threw a bunch of sticks in there 

As far as the rest goes... all ready to go. Not expecting too much drama cause I managed to squeeze new tank in without needing to tear the old one down first. I didn’t think I’d be able to, so was gearing up every Tupperware container I own. Thankfully I didn’t follow you to the letter and start drilling holes in the lids for airlines 

[Clown79]

That's great.

 

 

I'd like to know how they get away with selling sand full of dust. I rinsed mine so much and it still never ran perfectly clear.

 

So are you cycling the tank first?

[Moorahs]

8 hours ago, Clown79 said:

So are you cycling the tank first?

I’d like to think I don’t need to - reusing existing live rock, and not increasing bioload. Move process so far and what’s left to do:

 

- new rock scape and new sand

- part filled tank

- corals into holding container

- old live rock scaped in new tank

- finished filling new tank

- corals in new tank

 

So for now I have the fish still in the old one,  (biofilter from what’s in the sand plus the marinepure in the rear chamber). It was a logical point to take a break coz it was 3am by that point .

 

Plan for today:

- fish in new tank

- marinepure into sump

- rinse old sand in old tank water and seed new sandbed

- pull the plug on old tank 

 

If it all goes south, the old tank’s there as an emergency holding tank - enough salt water ready to go, and I’ll chuck the marinepure balls back in for filtration.  

[Clown79]

Oh ok. 

You shouldn't see a cycle if the rocks weren't allowed to dry.

 

Keeping prime on hand is helpful in the event of anything.

[Moorahs]

And I present.... a bunch of sticks in a tank of saltwater!

 

Fiddling with coral placement can wait for another day, I’m saturated and exhausted and still have the clean up to go 

 

[Clown79]

Looks good...its an exhausting job?

[Moorahs]

Hearin ya! I didn’t end up reusing any of the old sand by the way, nothing short of horrifying how dirty it was.... and the tank was only up for 2 1/2 months and I was vacuuming the sand bed weekly 

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Moorahs said:

Hearin ya! I didn’t end up reusing any of the old sand by the way, nothing short of horrifying how dirty it was.... and the tank was only up for 2 1/2 months and I was vacuuming the sand bed weekly 

Yup. It's pretty gross. That's why I chose all new sand. I changed a sandbeds in my 10g after 7mnths, it was disgusting. Like you, I vacuum weekly too.

 

Poo Brown water. Yuck.