Help - long post please help

[sean spendley]

Hey-
Some of you may remember me from when I posted about the 180 gallon, well I decided to try my luck on a 45 before investing all the time and money into things. I had a few questions:
1) The smaller Prizm skimmer, is it enough for a 45 gallon small aggressive tank with only a few fish,I have 25 lbs of live rock and 60 lbs of live sand? Also, it seems to sometimes leak out of the back even though I've assembled and reassembled it over and over again. I dunno why it does this still? It makes a lot of noise, how loud are they supposed to be and should the collection cup start to fill up when I first start it?
2) Should I run a skimmer during my cycle?
3) This is my big question, the 45 was leftover from freshwater and the light was kind of old. Well, something happened....and it filled all of my water with electricity for prolly 10 minutes last night. I put my hand in and zap, I got a nice jolt. Did that kill all my live rock and sand??????? There is a rather pungent odor now and my nitrites are skkkkkkyyyyy high, with ammonica reading between 1 and 1.5 ppm. I don't really care about this right now since I'm trying to cycle anyways, but do you think the electricity completely killed the live rock?
Here are all my water parameters:
Ammonica 1-1.5 ppm
Nitrite 4+
Nitrate 20
salinity 1.023
pH 8.4 ---- I was so worried about how it stayed up and now I can't get it back down!!! Any suggestions?
Also, sorry so long a post but, what fish should I put in here. I realize Im very limited in the aggressive section but is there any possibility? If not I will just do community
Sorry such a looong post, any help is appreciated.
Sean

 

[sean spendley]

oh and just to clear something up before i get completely flamed....when i asked what fish to put in, i meant evenually......definately not now

 

[bluegoose972]

Here are a few comments.
Yes, you definitely want to run a protein skimmer during the cycling. You will be amazed at the amount of waste that will be pulled out of your water.
Since your ammonia is so high and your getting a strong smell, I will assume that your rock has not been cured previously. Therefore, you've probably got a 30-45 cycling period in front of you. And the smell will stay around for most of that time, unfortunately. I actually cycled my live rock in the garage to avoid the smell.
I would not think that you have hurt anything in the tank. Most likely, unless the tank was grounded in some way, the electricity was not actively flowing out of the tank. When you stuck your hand in the tank, you completed the circuit to the ground and therefore were shocked. The smell is coming from your cycling process which has already started, but has a way to go.

 

[bluegoose972]

Oh, and for fish...Well, I will probably get flamed on this, but I would put a small Huma trigger and a dwarf lionfish. It will take a couple of years for the trigger to outgrow the tank, but their max size is still limited to about 10". If you start with a 2-3" juv, you will have a few years before he gets big and beligerant. The dwarf will be fun to watch when he goes hunting for food, but will not be very active the rest of the time. That will give the trigger more swimming space.

 

[kris]

First I would try and get your money back for that skimmer-I hope you are not still trying to use it.
Based on another post I read skimmers won't start working for a little while-like a break in period of sorts.
i wouln't be surprised at all if this did cause some die-off of your lr/ls. Luckily you didn't have any fish in it, and even more lucky is you didn't get yourself killed.
anyway whatever was lost on your stuff should regenerate I would think over time-just as though it were uncured.
I personally don't think the average trigger would ever outgrow a 180.

 

[bluegoose972]

Were you asking about stocking the 45 or the 180? Two different animals there. The 180 would give you unlimited options....Would be an awesome tank!

 

[sean spendley]

oh no kris, the skimmer isnt what shocked me....it was the light, and i meant stocking for the 45. when i set up the 180 i am hoping to make it a trigger tank for sure, but the 45 im leaning more towards community. how do snowflake eels do with tankmates, do they mess with all smaller fish?
thanks for the responces

 

[rto 29]

As far as your skimmer is concerned I think you may just have to adjust the water level with the knob that sits right under the collection chamber.
I have two prism skimmers and I think they work like a charm. Just adjust the level so that the bubbles are comming just between the two plastic o-rings. It sounds to me like the way it is adjusted it's just getting a very wet skim. Just back it off a little bit and it should stop overflowing. Empty the collection chamber first, and that way you should be able to keep a close eye on it to make sure it's not filling up to fast. You should be seeing a good concentration of bubbles that builds up and then flows over into the collection chamber. If all your getting is water flowing up into the cup and its begining to leak it's set to high.
Also check your instructions but there is a primer tube that connects to one opening when your primming, and another when you're up and running.
I had a little trouble figuring mine out too, but since I got the hang of it I really think it's a great skimmer. It is a little loud though...
Hope this helped

 

[njtrooper]

Sean,
When my shark was hatching i had that skimmer in a smaller tank. After you prime it the collection cup my fill with clear water. You have to empty that and make sure you switch the air hose properly. Start it back up again and adjust the air flow, don't crank it. The skimmer is rated for 90 gallons so open her up abut half way and be patient if foam doesn't start coming out right away don't worry it will give it time for the bubbles to collect the waste. You'll start to see a yellowish/brown water collect in the cup if your flow is adjusted correctly you should only have to empty once a day at the most. It's not the best skimmer but it works and for the size of you tank and $ it's pretty good. Good luck
Steve