Building my 56 gallon Column reef tank

[meowzer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by spanko http:///forum/thread/380344/building-my-56-gallon-column-reef-tank/580#post_3337938
For the most part you can "wiggle" the rock down into the sand and the sand will displace from underneath it. You are gonna want to be careful here so you don't do a lot of mixing up of the sand and causing the nastiness in it to be released into the water column and cause any large spike in ammonia.
Yeah....it's a good thing you don;t have a lot in there yet

 

[monsinour]

wiggle it eh? awesomesauce. This is going to be a nightmare eh?
Just in case things take a turn for the worse, how long can the 6 remaining fish + skunk shrimp survive in the 10 gallon QT that i have? I would imagine it would depend on how often and how much i change the water.

 

[monsinour]

still need to know how long the fish and shrimp could live in the 10 gall if i mess up the 56.
At 9:30 PM i started mixing the bucket and the tub for tomorrows fun. Since I wont really be using this water for a water change or whatnot, how long does it really need to mix? I know water change water needs to be agitated by a pump or PH for atleast 24 hours before you can use it. But this is bath water for rocks, how long will it actually need to mix?

 

[meowzer]

Make sure you have plenty of fresh SW made up.....they can not stay in a 10G too long, BUT.....as long as you are prepared with w/c's that can prolong your time.....
do you have a large tub????? (rubbermaid) you can keep them in there

 

[monsinour]

Quote:
Originally Posted by meowzer http:///forum/thread/380344/building-my-56-gallon-column-reef-tank/600#post_3338136
Make sure you have plenty of fresh SW made up.....they can not stay in a 10G too long, BUT.....as long as you are prepared with w/c's that can prolong your time.....
do you have a large tub????? (rubbermaid) you can keep them in there
The large tub will be used for holding the rocks after their super salty bath before they are placed back into the tank. So it will have water in it at the proper SG and pH. I could leave a rock or 2 in it if I mess up the DT.
If I do mess up the DT, how soon would it show up in ammonia or nitrite or nitrate?

 

[monsinour]

so I really dont know if this is doing anything or not. So far i have killed 2 bristle worms and that chiton snail. I have also noticed that a limpet didnt want to come off the rock as well as a few bristle worms didnt want to come off the rocks. I have seen some amphipods in the bucket but nothing else of note. Before I go on, and kill more beneficial things, is this working? is this worth it?
When i measure the SG, my hydrometer only goes to 1.032 and there is a peg that stops the needle at 12 o'clock. my needle is pegged.

 

[btldreef]

It may have been your starfish all along....

 

[monsinour]

Quote:
Originally Posted by BTLDreef http:///forum/thread/380344/building-my-56-gallon-column-reef-tank/600#post_3338536
It may have been your starfish all along....
Is what my wife told me not too long ago. I havent had the opportunity to return it to the LFS yet. Hectic day with the little one's recital at school and all this other stuff.
I stopped working on the rocks as I felt i was just killing good things and making a mess of the tank. I am pissed and frazzled and just not happy with what happened this evening. I am also very scared about starting a second cycle in the tank, so I just placed the rocks back into the tank for now. I havent really stirred up the sand as of yet. How soon can I test for ammonia and get a reading IF i effed something up? Should I test now?
Since it will be a chore to catch the starfish, it hides in the most rock populated part in the tank, if there is a shrimp or crab in there, I am sure to find it tomorrow, maybe, as I will probably have to remove almost all of the rock to get the damn starfish out.
So what color brittle star doesnt eat fish?

 

[spanko]

Mini brittle stars.
You are stressing too much here me thinks.
If I were you and I thought that there is something other the the starfish that is a predator in the tank I would continue on with the hypersalilinty gig. However I would dip the rocks in the hyper solution watch for the

action form the critters, take the rock out and rinse it in the holding tank you had set up and then put it back into the display.
Tis your tank though and you have to go where you feel necessary. If you are now second guessing that there is another predator then stop the task, get rid of the star and see how things progress. Don't know if the question has been asked yet or not but have you stayed up or got up late in the evening or early morning when the lights have been off for some time and listened to the tank to see if you can hear any clicking? Or used a flashlight with a red filter over the light to look into the tank when dark to see the night creatures moving around?

 

[btldreef]

Mini brittles as Spanko said. The black and red ones seem to be a little safer, but in my opinion, all larger brittles and serpent stars are carnivores and scavengers, and if they find a sleeping fish and they're hungry, that sleeping fish is in trouble.
Test in the morning, if you stirred stuff up, you should see it by then. I don't think you'll have too much of a problem if you didn't stir up the sand, especially since you also have a refugium.

 

[monsinour]

There wasnt any runn for the hills on any of the rocks. I saw limpets on the rocks when they went into the bucket, and they didnt move at all in the bucket. The water was way salty in the bucket. Everyone asks about the clicking and the anwer is always no, i dont hear anything. I dont really need to wake up at night as my son usually has me up til 4 am. I havent seen anything in there.

 

[cranberry]

Good Lord! That's awesome rock. It's been a long time since I've seen it look like that. Once upon a time it's all you can get.... now-a-day everything looks like it's a hair away from being base rock.

 

[monsinour]

tested for ammonia this morning, around noon, and there wasnt any. I also havent replaced the rocks back where they should go so I really havent distrubed the sand all that much. I have yet to get the star out of there and I cant really do it now cuz i have to get the little one from school soon. Then there is dinner and the missus has to work this evening. Good lord, this has been put off for a long time now.

 

[monsinour]

I remember reading somewhere that you shouldnt put into your tank something that you might want to get out of it due to the problem of getting it out. Well, that brittle starfish didnt want to come out at all. That effing POS that ate my fish gave me such a time getting out. I ended up moving almost all of the rock out of my tank, all by the 3 "pretty" pieces, and then I was able to catch him. The side effect to this is that I didnt find anything under the rocks and there wernt any cave like structures in the sand. So it is still a mystery as to where the shrimp have gone, but my wife and I believe the fish were eaten by the starfish. I have the star in the QT upstairs and will be making the drive to the LFS tomorrow. Now the question becomes, what to do with the credit ( I hope i get one ) that the starfish will bring to me. It was $35 and I won a $15 gift card from the local reefing club. Should I go ahead and get 2 pepps? I was thinking about ordering the replacement fish from this site as they would be cheaper and I can finagle the order to make it enough for discounted / free shipping. I will take another ammonia reading in a few hours to make sure I didn't eff up the tank.

 

[meowzer]

Shrimp sound good...LOL...as long as you are sure the water is stable

 

[monsinour]

well, i will test it tonight and then again in the morning. I should see something by morning right?
As a side note, WTF is up with the purple firefish? Like 2 months ago they were $20 and now a.) no one has any and b.) they are $35 ?????

 

[gemmy]

I don't know exactly about the firefish. I know that the prices of many fish fluctuate based on the seasons and when they are readily available.

 

[meowzer]

I think that if you were gonna see a fluctuation ...you would by then

 

[btldreef]

I know I asked this and maybe I missed it, but was the starfish added before shrimp went missing?
The prices on fish go up depending on the season. They seem to be cheaper in the fall/spring when temperatures are more stable and there is less risk with shipping. Winter always seems to have a shorter supply and higher prices on what is available.
I have a feeling the industry is going to see some changes in the very near future. I caught a little bit of what my LFS's owner was discussing with my husband, they're making rules harder, no one really knows what's going on, etc. Nightmare.

 

[monsinour]

If the starfish ate any shrimp, it would have been the little skunk. The pepps and fire shrimp all perished before the starfish was introduced.
The ammonia test from last night showed .25 and this morning i cant tell where it is. I would have to say somewhere in the middle of .25 and 0 so its going back down. Everything in the tank appears to be looking good except the xenia. It was reluctant to open up but it is trying to. In time, I am sure all will be well. Its going to be a "fun" day due to horrible schedues, I have no idea when I can get anything done.