A sad start to a new tank

[Clown79]

Prime won't hurt anything. We all keep it on hand for emergencies.

 

I agree. Do a large water change, add carbon, filter floss, and start using prime.

[MrsPeet15]

10 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Prime won't hurt anything. We all keep it on hand for emergencies.

 

I agree. Do a large water change, add carbon, filter floss, and start using prime.

Hi guys just an update on what is going on this end.

Dosed prime last night. My zoas are still trying to open up, and about an hour after I dosed the prime, the snail that had lay on its back all day and I assumed was dead was back on the glass. I went to remove it and was shocked to see it on the move again. It literally hadn’t  moved for about 10 hours up until I dosed the prime.

I can confirm my Clown goby is dead, we spotted him far inside the rockwork this morning but despite my best efforts I cannot get him out.

I’m also pleased to see fan worms opening up on the rock, this surprised me as I thought all of that stuff had died off completely.

I tested Nitrate and Nitrite and they are at 0.

I’ve tested Ammonia again using the seachem ammonia test. Free ammonia is testing 0 but total ammonia is testing as off the chart which is unsurprising considering the amount of lives lost in the tank this week. Can I assume my tank is cycling again, and the prime I have dosed has prevented the free ammonia from going through the roof and killing the last few hangers on? 

I couldn’t add any filter floss or carbon as I have none and doubt I will get any here before the end of the week, but I added the Polyfilter pad as I assumed this additional filtration was better than nothing. It isn’t indicating with any colour and he stayed white. I have to admit the water clarity is phenomenal with this thing in. Supposedly it ‘polishes’ water as it works. 

 

[MrsPeet15]

Hi everyone. Sorry I’ve taken a while to update on here, We have started entirely from scratch and we are currently cycling. The seed rock has a healthy mat of hair algae, and is COVERED in fan worms. The rest of the rock has a good dusting of diatoms and this has now spread to the substrate.

one of the little jewel anemones I had in my old tank has made a reappearance. Amazed it’s survided the last few weeks, incredible to see what survives such a hostile environment! I’ve included a couple of pics just because. Hopefully soon I can add some pictures of some new Little lives in my tank.

for now we are waiting patiently and sort of enjoying watching our first proper cycle take place, even if it did happen under sad circumstances.

[Grom]

Looking good! Take it slow and be easy 

Good luck 

[MrsPeet15]

On 25/04/2018 at 12:53 AM, Grom said:

Looking good! Take it slow and be easy 

Good luck 

Thanks Grom! Learned a lesson and I’m being as patient as can be. It’s kind of fun coming home every day and seeing an extra square inch of diatoms ?

[MrsPeet15]

Hi guys, Little tank update for those who are interested. My cycle observations are as follows so far:

18/4/2018 - diatoms appear, fan worms appear on seed rock, hair algae and cyano appears on seed rock

23/4/2018 - diatoms reach substrate and glass, jewel anemone reappears, spionid worms reappear

8/5/2018 - some diatoms turn grey and appear to be dying off, zoas reappear, red fan worm reappears, diatoms on new rock appears to be growing strings - assume this is the start of hair algae but will keep an eye to see what happens. 

There’s life in the little box of death after all. I am now convinced that the following caused all of the die off:

- seed rock was not sufficient enough to ‘seed’ the new tank, therefore and entirely new cycle began

- everything I added to the tank died as the result of the ammonia 

My params are as follows (all salifert)

ammonia <0.15

Nitrite 0

Nitrate 25

were going to do our first water change at the weekend and see where that leaves the params at. We will the test every day for a week, if we’re seeing stable params then we will have a look at getting some clean up crew in there.

Have added some pictures just because.

[MrsPeet15]

Hi everyone, another little update for anyone who’s still interested/uses this thread for reference.

cycle is finished. My acans, Zoas and Candy canes have miraculously survived the cycle (the Acans have grown about 4 new heads), and my yellow sponge is slowly but surely making a reappearance.

I’ll be doing my 50% post cycle water change cycle on Thursday. All being well, if the Params look good after that there’ll be clean up crew going in a week later.

Current params are (salifert):

salinity 1025

ammonia <0.15

nitrite 0

nitrate 10

I might start a new thread once the crew goes in and link this one to it.

Hope everyone is well and thanks again to everyone who left kind, useful and non-judgemental opinions and advice over the last few months

🙂 

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

That's great that everything is going much better Keep up with the updates

[MrsPeet15]

15 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

That's great that everything is going much better Keep up with the updates

Thanks! I will do 🙂

[MrsPeet15]

So I thought I’d post a final update on this thread just to let everyone know how my upgrade is going so far.

last Saturday after a month of stable water parameters I added my clean up crew:

1x blood shrimp

2x Mithrax crabs

3x gold ring cowries

3x turbo snails

1x strawberry conch

I’m pleased to say everything is roaming around the tank doing its thing (the shrimp only comes out at night obviously) cleaning up a healthy hair algae population. I’m helping them out by manually removing some every water change every Sunday. 

Today I’ve also added 2x bags of Copepods to get a population boosted and help the clean up crew, and I’ve also seen amphipods roaming around too.

I also added a Jasmin coral last Saturday which is so beautiful, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one and it seems to be happily swaying in the flow, after opening a few hours after adding. It loves reef roids and watching it feed is fascinating.

My acans, candy canes, Zoa’s and yellow sponge all survived the crash and subsequent cycle which is so astonishing, not only have they survived but they have grown in recent weeks.

For now, peace seems to have returned to my tank. I’m going to keep monitoring Params and CUC over the next month and all being well I’m going to try a royal gramma.

Hopefully my next thread on here will be to share some pictures of him/her.

Again I’d like to thank everyone who offered support and advice, you guys are all superstars.

 

 

 

[RayWhisperer]

Welcome back.

Good to hear the cycle is done and everything survived/recovered. Only one question. What’s a jasmine coral? It’s probably something everybody knows. I just don’t know any coral by that common name. Is there another common name it goes by over there? Just thinking of what the actual jasmine flower looks like, I can think of about a dozen corals that could be named jasmine.

[Nano Nano Boo Boo]

No way we’re accepting final update. Keep this thing rolling!!!

[Clown79]

9 hours ago, RayWhisperer said:

Welcome back.

Good to hear the cycle is done and everything survived/recovered. Only one question. What’s a jasmine coral? It’s probably something everybody knows. I just don’t know any coral by that common name. Is there another common name it goes by over there? Just thinking of what the actual jasmine flower looks like, I can think of about a dozen corals that could be named jasmine.

I looked it up, looks like Fox coral is also known as jasmin coral.

 

 

 

On 8/11/2018 at 8:56 AM, MrsPeet15 said:

So I thought I’d post a final update on this thread just to let everyone know how my upgrade is going so far.

last Saturday after a month of stable water parameters I added my clean up crew:

1x blood shrimp

2x Mithrax crabs

3x gold ring cowries

3x turbo snails

1x strawberry conch

I’m pleased to say everything is roaming around the tank doing its thing (the shrimp only comes out at night obviously) cleaning up a healthy hair algae population. I’m helping them out by manually removing some every water change every Sunday. 

Today I’ve also added 2x bags of Copepods to get a population boosted and help the clean up crew, and I’ve also seen amphipods roaming around too.

I also added a Jasmin coral last Saturday which is so beautiful, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one and it seems to be happily swaying in the flow, after opening a few hours after adding. It loves reef roids and watching it feed is fascinating.

My acans, candy canes, Zoa’s and yellow sponge all survived the crash and subsequent cycle which is so astonishing, not only have they survived but they have grown in recent weeks.

For now, peace seems to have returned to my tank. I’m going to keep monitoring Params and CUC over the next month and all being well I’m going to try a royal gramma.

Hopefully my next thread on here will be to share some pictures of him/her.

Again I’d like to thank everyone who offered support and advice, you guys are all superstars.

 

 

 

Great to hear things are going well and doing better.

 

Keep up the good work 

[RayWhisperer]

Well that’s stupid. A fox coral looks nothing like a jasmine flower. I’d think daisy polyps, anthelia, pipe organ, encrusting gorgonians, they all look superficially like a jasmine flower. Who names these things?

[MrsPeet15]

On 8/13/2018 at 8:03 PM, RayWhisperer said:

Well that’s stupid. A fox coral looks nothing like a jasmine flower. I’d think daisy polyps, anthelia, pipe organ, encrusting gorgonians, they all look superficially like a jasmine flower. Who names these things?

Hey Ray, a photo for your reference:

On 8/13/2018 at 1:58 PM, Clown79 said:

I looked it up, looks like Fox coral is also known as jasmin coral.

 

 

 

Great to hear things are going well and doing better.

 

Keep up the good work 

Thanks Clown! 😊

[MrsPeet15]

On 8/13/2018 at 5:16 AM, Nano Nano Boo Boo said:

No way we’re accepting final update. Keep this thing rolling!!!

Haha well I was going to start a new thread but I guess I could keep documenting my journey on this one! Maybe I should rename it though? Any suggestions? 

[MrsPeet15]

Do excuse the GHA that’s a work in progress. I was so hesitant to put CUC in until everything was stable it kind of took over 😕 here’s a couple more pics for those of you who are interested: 

[RayWhisperer]

See! That looks more like jasmine flowers than a fox coral ever could. Well, now we know clove polyps are called jasmine coral in the UK.

 

You are are going to have your hands full dealing with all that hair algae. Good luck! 

[Aurortpa]

While your pumps are off, rubber band a stiff bristled toothbrush very well onto a smaller diameter siphon, then you can brush up the GHA and suck it up simultaneously as you clean without risking the majority being blown back into the system.   

[vegasgundog]

1 hour ago, Aurortpa said:

While your pumps are off, rubber band a stiff bristled toothbrush very well onto a smaller diameter siphon, then you can brush up the GHA and suck it up simultaneously as you clean without risking the majority being blown back into the system.   

FREAKING GENIUS! 

[Oldsalt01]

9 hours ago, Aurortpa said:

While your pumps are off, rubber band a stiff bristled toothbrush very well onto a smaller diameter siphon, then you can brush up the GHA and suck it up simultaneously as you clean without risking the majority being blown back into the system.   

This works REALLY well! I use a grey 1/4” plastic faucet connector tube, available at any hardware store, attach 1/4” vinyl siphon to this and attach the toothbrush to that with a rubber band. I had originally superglued it on, but I also use the tube to siphon tight places in my AIO, so rebuilt it to do double duty.

[MrsPeet15]

Well that is just a genius idea, water change tomorrow I’ll give it a good go!

I think manual removal is going to be my best bet clearing the worst of it up! 

[MrsPeet15]

18 hours ago, RayWhisperer said:

See! That looks more like jasmine flowers than a fox coral ever could. Well, now we know clove polyps are called jasmine coral in the UK.

 

You are are going to have your hands full dealing with all that hair algae. Good luck! 

Well, we call them Clove polyps too but that seems to be the more ridgid star shaped polyps as opposed to these ones that are ‘wispy’. I guess in thisbhobby there’s a fair few different names for the same thing anyways, Mithrax crab/emerald crab, blood/fire/red cleaner shrimp etc 

[Oldsalt01]

From ur pics it looks like you could use a “Lawnmower Blenny (Salarius Fasciatus) or a Starry Blenny (Salarius Ramosus) to help clean up your vegetation. Either will generally eradicate GHA in short order. The down side is they can attain 14 cm so do well as young in a small tank, but can quickly out-grow it. I had great luck with my Starry when my youngish 14g (63.56 liters with respect to your U.K. gallon) when GHA reared it’s ugly head. I had to swap him out after about half a year, as he got too big for the tank... probably too well fed, lol, but he solved the problem and ultimately found a forever home in a 140g (635.6l) system. Tuxedo Urchins will work too, but tend to be bulldozers. Seems your nutrients may have gotten ahead of you.

[MrsPeet15]

On 8/16/2018 at 11:32 PM, Oldsalt01 said:

From ur pics it looks like you could use a “Lawnmower Blenny (Salarius Fasciatus) or a Starry Blenny (Salarius Ramosus) to help clean up your vegetation. Either will generally eradicate GHA in short order. The down side is they can attain 14 cm so do well as young in a small tank, but can quickly out-grow it. I had great luck with my Starry when my youngish 14g (63.56 liters with respect to your U.K. gallon) when GHA reared it’s ugly head. I had to swap him out after about half a year, as he got too big for the tank... probably too well fed, lol, but he solved the problem and ultimately found a forever home in a 140g (635.6l) system. Tuxedo Urchins will work too, but tend to be bulldozers. Seems your nutrients may have gotten ahead of you.

I think you’re probably right! I was probably too cautious and left it too long for clean up crew to be honest. I looked into a lawnmower blenny but I’m worried if he gets too big I’ll struggle to re-home him? Mind you if yours took half a year to out-grow your tank I suppose that’s plenty of time to start putting feelers out? Yeah my rockscape doesn’t leave much room for a clumsy urchin, they creep my husband out too so he refuses to have one in the living room 🤣

I did a waterchnage this morning and used the toothbrush/siphon hose tool, it had cleared a lot of it up..... for now haha.