I am about to give up!!

[phishman1]

Ok, 35 gallon, 2 cycle damsels, 1 clown, 1 Hawaiian Wrasse, coral banded shrimp, very small horseshoe crab, chocolate chip starfish, clean up crew. Clown has a sort of fungus on sides now, clamped fins, but eating well. Peppermint shrimp found dead last night. Water checked immediately, Nitrite ok, ph ok, ammonia read a little high, so I did 20% water change immediately. Check water this am, and still a little high, so will do 40% to 50% change when I get home this afternoon. I seem to be doing way to much water maintenance on this tank. What am I doing wrong? I/ve read all kinds of books, articles on line, message boards etc., and tried to follow all things to the letter, and still having water problems. I run a prizm, have live rock, live sand, hermits, turbos... I will do a RO water dip on clown this afternoon and place him in a quar. tank (2 1/2 gallon) for a few days. But I am about ready to just give up this new found love and put cichlids and angels back into the tank.

 

[iechy]

Don't give up! I know it can be hard but let the experts around here guide you through. If your ammonia is up again after it had been down then you something may be dead in there decaying(you did remove the shrimp right?) Also your nitrites will be up again soon once the ammonia that you're seeing begins to be broken down. Stick with it and as someone's signature (can't remember whose) Your hard work will soon pay off.

 

[phishman1]

Anthem: Approximately 7 weeks, probably 12 pounds of live rock? Nitrates all checked last night and it was about 20, so a little high, like I said I will get home this afternoon and do about a 40% change, take the clown out, RO dip him and isolate him. Its frustrating, because everything was going well, with the exception of a Sally Lightfoot crap, that for some reason killed another peppermint shrimp, and tore up my first starfish. So I took him back to store immediately. Jim

 

[phishman1]

sorry, you questin was also filtration. I have just a prizm protein skimmer, and 3 air pumps for circulation (Rio 180 and RIO 600(2)), and the local expert here said the live rock and live sand, should rule out the need for any other kind of "filtration" such as a Penguin 330, which I replaced when I got the skimmer.

 

[cap'n pete]

Your LFS "expert" was correct, however if that is the route you want to take you will need a lot more rock than 12 pounds! Sand can only support aerobic (ammonia and nitrite reducing) bacteria in it's uppermost layers. Since you can't increase the surface area of the bottom of your tank (without getting a bigger tank), you will need to increase your LR. For a 35G I would suggest at least 50 lbs.. Get additional LR and allow the tank to cycle (up to 100 days), then add bioload slowly to allow the tank to adjust.

 

[saltyrich]

I agree. You need a lot more lr. I would have a total of about 50 lbs of lr in a 35 if it were mine. In the meantime, I would place a decent filter on the tank. It won't ever hurt you, even after you increase the lr total. Try an emperor 280; you'll love it. How much ls do you have? Shoot for between 4-5 inch depth.

 

[phishman1]

Ed, thank you, and to everyone else thanks to you also. I will go out this afternoon and get a few more pounds of live rock, and as you suggess cut down on the feeding. Should I put the 330 Penguin bio wheel back on in place of the skimmer, or run them both? And a final question, what percentage of water should I change today? Thanks for all of your assistance, I really appreciate. I have had cichlids for about 20 years and recently started getting the salt tank bug to try it. I have 16 cichlids tanks all over my fish room and also angels/guppies, a 150 gallon pond shell on screened in porch.. That reminds me, does anyone want cheap prices on cichlids here in the Daytona area, Frontosa, Marlieri, and more..
Again, thanks for help...Jim

 

[saltyrich]

Run both the skimmer and filter! And keep it like that. At the bare minimum, after your lr/ls take over as filtration, the filter will serve as a source of good circulation and provide needed gas exchange at the surface. I'd keep doing 10% changes. Also, use some Kent's detox. It will help nuetralize that ammonia until you can get things under control.

 

[anthony812]

phisman i agree you should get a little more live rock because right now your sand is not really live yet it takes a while for the bacteria to colonize your sand but you'll be glad once that happens because everything will stay at zero trust me Also add your bioload very slowley dont add like 4 animals at a time go one by slowley so that your tank can adjust thats probably y your tank's ammonia is so high when these animals crap or breathe they release amonia hope that helps and please dont give up i thought of giving up once but i met this person that helped me through it and made me love this hobby even more please dont give up i say again trust me you'll Be more happy if you stay in this hobby it will satisfy you at the end. Also i suggest you run both filters until everything is at zero and run your skimmer only and maybe sometimes use carbon in your hang on back filter to help you out a bit

 

[shadow678]

If you are having such immediate problems with ammonia, go to your lfs asap and get a bottle of nitrifying bacteria and a power filter and set it up when you get home. Add the recommended initial dosage of nitrifying bacteria and you may be able to save the rest of your animals. Also, go to your local hardware store and pick up a 50gal garbage can, rinse it out, and load it with some new live rock and a good powerhead and get it cycling. Good rule of thumb for rock is 1.25-1.75 lbs per gal., so for your 30 to go without a power filter, you're looking at needing 53 lbs of rock. Sand goes around 1-1.25 lbs per gal., or 38 lbs for your tank. As Iechy said, remove any dead animals to keep from adding any new ammonia to your tank. Keep your feeding down to only what they can eat in 3-4 minutes. Don't give up, whatever you do. The initial stresses are worth it later. We have all had some kind of hassle with our tanks at some point. Just think of how much we LFS owners have gone through.

 

[saltyrich]

Anthem's right. I forgot about the level of toxicity you've got.

 

[bammbamm74]

You can help seed your live rock with Stress-Zyme. That adds bacteria to your tank and helps get it started on the LR. Can get curing time down about a week. Don't cure the live rock in the tank, you'll add more ammonia.
Anthem's given you a lot of good advice. What I run on my 29 gallon is just a particle filter (And a lot of live rock). It's just a pump that drops water over some prefilter pads. I change them every 2 weeks to keep nitrates down. And I run a prizm skimmer. The Key is water movement. I have a Rio 600 in there and a Maxi-jet 700. Also, the particle filter is a pump like the 600, and then the prizm is a good water circulator. Don't have dead spots and I take a turkey baister once every other week and squirt any detritus out from the crevises of the rocks so it doesn't build up.

 

[phishman1]

Thanks for all the helpful advice so far. I did a 30% water change this afternoon. Gave the clown a RO bathing and removed it to a 5 gallon tank for treatment and monitoring. I could not use aged saltwater as I had none immediately available. I had to mix, and I bought some from my store as well. Salinity levels checked out equal, about 1.024. I searched all my snails as well to see if any of them had died and possibly that could be adding to my ammonia problem. Though didn't see any.
Problem with filtration and skimmer, I can only run one right now, either a Penguin 330 Bio Wheel or the Prizm Skimmer, my area in behind the tank (its an acrylic tank), only has an opening for one or the other. Maybe later on I can squeez and 170 bio wheel but not sure about that even. Which one should I be running. The bio wheel or the skimmer??
Thanks,
Jim

 

[phishman1]

Please refer to my last post, which one of the two should I run, I can only run one the way the hole cutout on my tank is right now. The 330 bio wheel or the prizm? Thanks.

 

[joe's reefer]

i have to agree with the majority u need to ncrease surface area with more live rock or at least good base rock.aslo choco chip stars arent reef safe and for the most part sallylight foots are either.get rid of the damsels because they are aggressive,the hawiian wrasse has a spare chance to live and the corals banded shrimp because they are aggressive and pick one peppermint shrimp(the more valuable of the 2 shrimps).also i have a 29 gallon with a emperor 400 and seaclone on the back i dont see how u cant fit a prism with a pengiun 330.also get some water movement in their they more the merrier(sp?) well more than 99.9% of the time and part of a reef tank is trial and error so try it and work with it.also if anything dead is still there after 6 hours take it out.

 

[jumpfrog]

You say due to the cut outs you only have room for either a filter or the Prizm. Others may disagree but I say run the filter for now. You need to get your nitrification cycle balanced. The skimmer helps for long term health but won't help your immediate problems as much as strong biological filtration.
Another option, a canister filter will allow you to add filtration without using any space on the back of your tank. After you've got your LR numbers up you could always use it for chemical filtration or the occasional polishing.
Just my .02
Good Luck!