cameronladd
Member
So I decided to start a saltwater aquarium last month, I bought a 55 gallon tank, 2 powerheads, a protein skimmer and a grounding probe as well as a heater. I put in 40 maybe 50 lbs of aragonite in and seeded it with 5lbs of live sand, roughly 40lbs of cured live rock and let it do its thing for about a week. Unfortunately I used tap water and salt mix to do my initial water input with tap water conditioner. So...I let it sit for a week and the LFS (after a water test) said it would be ok to add a clownfish, a crab and some snails. The fish did not do well, it died withing about 4 days(after many trips to the fish store as I was worried and they said it was normal). The fish was never very active, was starting to get pale, skin looked ragged, just kind of sat on the bottom, although the day that it died it started to be pretty active but then started swimming straight up. So I told the fish store my problems and said that they had a problem with their batch of clown fish, so they gave me a refund. I did a 35 gallon water change and did 10 gallon water changes every week. I proceeded to wait another week to be safe got my water tested and added a damsel as they are less expensive in case it was my fault...it did fine for about a week and a half in which case I added another clown. That day the damsel died and I rushed to the fish store wondering what is going on, they sold me a $50 dollar bottle of Rally Ruby Reef (for bacteria and parasites) and a few days later the 2nd clown died as well. Both exhibited the same symptoms of loosing color, skin looked ragged. I found the damsel floating with the current and moving one fin...all this was quite sad. I have probably had at least a dozen water tests throughout all this and went to other aquarium stores to get my water tested all come back fine. The weird thing is that throughout all of this ordeal my snails and crab have been fine. What should I do from here? Not sure if I should start over? It has been a 2 weeks since then, haven't added anything...just worried, I don't want to kill any more fish...HELP! I don't know what to do or if I should just do more and more water changes...any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated
It is about a month and a half old, the Aquarium store guy said it was ok to add a clown and the other stuff at that early point bc they were so hardy. The second occurrence of this happened when the aquarium was a month old (as I remember reading that a month was good cycling time)
I have a test kit and they all read 0ppm for everything. pH is fine 8.2 something to 8.3 last I checked, salinity is around 1.023 and everything else is seemingly good. I didn't trust my own tests so I have had it tested at stores over a dozen times. Temp is always set at 78, thermometer on other side of aquarium from heater.
It is about a month and a half old, the Aquarium store guy said it was ok to add a clown and the other stuff at that early point bc they were so hardy. The second occurrence of this happened when the aquarium was a month old (as I remember reading that a month was good cycling time)
I have a test kit and they all read 0ppm for everything. pH is fine 8.2 something to 8.3 last I checked, salinity is around 1.023 and everything else is seemingly good. I didn't trust my own tests so I have had it tested at stores over a dozen times. Temp is always set at 78, thermometer on other side of aquarium from heater.