Giving up!

cam78

cam78

Active Member
Salinity is taken with the coralife deepsix plastic thing 1.025
I had one of those, here is the problem with them. They are inaccurate if you do not compensate for the temp. of your water. Those "deep six" are calibrated for 66 degrees or something stupid. When you test it with a deep six the salinity is actually a lot higher than its reading. Refractometer is the way to go. I found one on ---- $35.00 shipped to my house. It showed how much my salt was off. Compare it to your LFS's reading on a refracto. I bet your salt is off. Hope this helps somewhat.
 
teresaq

teresaq

Active Member
ok, looks like you need a good house cleaning. do you have a qt. If this were me, I would move all your live fish and inverts to qt. take your power heads out and clean them. drain some of your water into a rubbermaid tub, scrub the power heads. take your rock out, and rinse off good. filter your water good. Do you have a canister filter? run some heavy carbon or renew in it. do a good water change. let tank settle for a few days, and keep an eye on your levels.
What is your filter system. all i see is one power head. get another to help stir things up. it dosent look like you have enough flow. one on one end at the top to get good surface aggitaation, and one on the other end in the middle to get the bottom. this should also help stablize ph a little. how old are your bulbs?
 
jdennysgir

jdennysgir

Member
I do not have a qt. tank. Also, what media should I have in my Fluval? Just carbon or what? I just cleaned my Fluval about 2 weeks ago. I do have 2 powerheads. The bulbs are probably a year old. When you say rinse off the rock do you mean with the salt water in a rubbbermaid tub or right out of the faucet? I will be looking for a refract. and a skimmer now. I was looking for a skimmer before my fish died then when they died I just kinda gave up. Ok so give me a list of things I need and what all I need to do to get things straight. I know everyone has different opinions, but I welcome them all. I am talking as far as test kits, skimmers, and the likes. I have a huge bucket of IO that I am now using. Should I be using this? Also, for the ones of you that may have this size tank, how often and how much water should I be changing? If I take some of the water out of the tank and put in a bucket with an aerator in it would my 2 fish and snails and hermits be ok while I clean the rocks since I don't have a qt. tank. Keep the replies coming and I thank you so much.
 
ridomart

ridomart

Member
Salifert makes greate test kits, vary accurate.thease & a good refractomeater are sold on this site. I've got a Aqua c EV skimmer for my 120 & love it. Rock should be scrubed in tank water that you take out for water change. Lights should be changed I would think, should last for 9 mo to a year. Can get a mag float & epoxy it to the back of your maxi jets to keep them in place.Good luck
 
andy51632

andy51632

Member
You need to get some better test kits and a refractometer first of all. We cannot help u that much until u do. I would not buy from your lfs anymore. Find somewhere on the internet to order from saltwaterfish.com is a great company.
I would get a refractometer that already adjusts to tempature. These are more expensive but at least u will know your sg.
Ditch the nutrafin test kit. Get a better company Salifert/Seachem/Red Sea. Also get a phosphate test kit. Alkalinity test kit too if u don't have one.
Okay, I have heard bad things about instant ocean. You can add baking soda to raise alk. I believe someone stated this in above post 1 tsp. per day. Your going to have to test ph and alk everyday until u get it up to 8.1-8.2. When u run out of instant ocean buy a different brand and keep your eye on ph and alk when switching.
Don't rinse off anything with tap water big no no.
Okay I will give u more u just got to keep checking back. Might take me a while
 
andy51632

andy51632

Member
Get a NEW toothbrush and start cleaning your equiptment. What brand and how big are your powerheads? Do you still have the accessories for them?
Your going to have algae growth on all over your tank because you have so much light. You will want to keep your equiptment clean first and foremost. Then try to use the toothbrush on your live rock.
 
mandarin w

mandarin w

Member
I use Instant Ocean, I've never had a problem with it, it is great salt. The baking soda is good to raise alk, but she would need to figure out the correct about for her size tank,
As for the fuval, right now just run carbon and filter pads to catch any debre that is going to get stirred up. Clean the powerheads and the roads as stated, not in tap water from the fauset. Just use the water from the tank that you take out to do water changes with. and a new never used soft toothbrush.
Change out your light bulb, It looks like you have a hamilton bell pendant, maybe a 175 watt. You can check on your ballast box, it should have the wattage on there somewhere, I would replace it with a 13K or 14K bulb, You will want the mogul (screw in) type of bulb. Bulbs are only good for up to a year, after they get so old the "PAR" shifts and the light that is produced is no good.
After you get everything cleaned up, Do a water change every week, and replace your filter pads in your fuval, filter pads are great, but if not kept up with they can become your worse enemy, they will start to release everything the've collected and with even more bad bacteria. This is a hobby that you can not get lazy or lax with. If you let things go, you will greatly increase the work load to get it all back in order.
 
jdennysgir

jdennysgir

Member
Ok Again, thanks to everyone for taking the time to try and help me. You don't know how much I appreciate it. I will be working on all of your suggestions within the week. I will probably be back with more questions.
Also, I will still be checking this thread for more replies. Thanks again.
 
mandarin w

mandarin w

Member
unfortantly we can not post other sites, even if they are not a site that sells any thing, Randy Farley (sp) has a site, anyone who has been in the hobby for a while know of him. He is a very big guy in the salt water hobby. Anyway on his site, there is a table you can go to. You put your info in, you cal, alk, ph, levels. You put how much water volume your tank contains. the tank plus the sump if you have one. Then this calculator will figure out just how much of anything you should add to get your tank the level it should be. Whether you are using baking soda, B-ionics, Kalk two part. what ever. I guess the only thing I can suggest is do a google search for Randy and find his site. then look for his tank calculator.
 
gharner

gharner

Member
does baking soda help raise the ph? right now my ph is at 7.8 but i just did a 35% water change. i tested it a few days ago and it was at approx. 8.4. will the ph stabilize?
 
ridomart

ridomart

Member
Instant Ocean Reef Crystal or tropic Marine are good a choice, 10 % water change every 2 weeks, temp 79 deg , ph should take care of it self 8.4, 8.2. Buy a couple pieces of live rock & cure them before you put them in your tank to seed the rest of your rock.Not sure about your filter system, never had one.
 
fishfryer

fishfryer

Member
first temp to low keep at 82 f
saline 1.026
run carbon with filter (come together) change every 2 weeks or it will reverse and hurt tank.
change water 10 % every 2 weeks same time. make your own water. go to wallmart buy distill gallon water and mix 1/2 cup instant ocean done. this way you know you are getting pure not relying on fish store.(who could be cheating you and that is your proplem)
you will have nice clean clear tank.
simple steps dont get crazy with ph,alk etc. the water change will fix everything.... :joy:
 
threed240

threed240

Member
Originally Posted by jdennysgir
Yes, have a heater. Temp is 77 degrees.
As said above. I would raise your temp to at least 80*. Some heaters are very sensitive so I would just barely bump it up a degree or so. You dont want to raise the temp to fast, or too much. Anything above 30*c (which is about 84*f) is deadly.
 
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