hatebreed
New Member
Mt first salt tank, 55 gallons. I have been running for about two months now. Started off with 50 pounds of good live rock from the LFS. I've been maintaining a salinity of 1.023 to 1.0235 and a PH of 8.3. Lighting is a set of power compacts, 260 watts total.
I'm running a bakpak2 skimmer/filter, a couple smaller power heads and a digital probe thermometer. Temperature has been a consistant 77-79 degrees.
About a month ago I checked all my levels...had right around 30ppm nitrate, 0 on both nitrites and ammonia. So I added a royal gramma and a pajama cardinal fish as well as a sebae anemone and a few hermit crabs.
After another week, levels were maintaining so I added two urchins, a fire shrimp, a sally lightfoot, 4 snails and a pink cucumber. Also a little clump of live plant to help nitrates.
Performed my first (5 gallon) water change, nitrates dropped to 25ppm. So now we're at week three. I added a blue tang (2.5 inch?) and a green brittle star, as well as 3 new snails.
Today marks week four. Nitrates have now dropped to 12.5ppm with the help of the plant. (i assume..) I now have 23 critters total....just added a pom pom crab, sexy shrimp and an electric flame scallop today.
A few days ago I noticed some ich on my tang. Of course, being the classic new guy....I have no quarantine tank. Luckily...my fire shrimp has cleaned pretty much all ich from the tang and on reccomendation from the LFS guy I added some "coral vital" to the tank. He claims this will help combat the ich without adding any negatives to the tank. I have no idea how....but the dude does have a 4 year biology degree and is probably the wisest fish guy I've ever met in person. Anybody know if this may actually help? Is it possible my shrimp can contain this little outbreak on his own?
Problem number two:
With the addition of the Tang, my royal Gramma has gone into hiding. The Tang took his house. So he has moved into a new house....out of sight. I have seen him for a total of about 15 seconds a day for the last two days and no sighting him at all today. His color has darkened...and he hasn't eaten in three days. Anything I can do here other than hope for the best and does anybody have any predictions as to what may happen here?
Alright, well that's all I can think of....let me know what y'all think. I appreciate any pointers!
I'm running a bakpak2 skimmer/filter, a couple smaller power heads and a digital probe thermometer. Temperature has been a consistant 77-79 degrees.
About a month ago I checked all my levels...had right around 30ppm nitrate, 0 on both nitrites and ammonia. So I added a royal gramma and a pajama cardinal fish as well as a sebae anemone and a few hermit crabs.
After another week, levels were maintaining so I added two urchins, a fire shrimp, a sally lightfoot, 4 snails and a pink cucumber. Also a little clump of live plant to help nitrates.
Performed my first (5 gallon) water change, nitrates dropped to 25ppm. So now we're at week three. I added a blue tang (2.5 inch?) and a green brittle star, as well as 3 new snails.
Today marks week four. Nitrates have now dropped to 12.5ppm with the help of the plant. (i assume..) I now have 23 critters total....just added a pom pom crab, sexy shrimp and an electric flame scallop today.
A few days ago I noticed some ich on my tang. Of course, being the classic new guy....I have no quarantine tank. Luckily...my fire shrimp has cleaned pretty much all ich from the tang and on reccomendation from the LFS guy I added some "coral vital" to the tank. He claims this will help combat the ich without adding any negatives to the tank. I have no idea how....but the dude does have a 4 year biology degree and is probably the wisest fish guy I've ever met in person. Anybody know if this may actually help? Is it possible my shrimp can contain this little outbreak on his own?
Problem number two:
With the addition of the Tang, my royal Gramma has gone into hiding. The Tang took his house. So he has moved into a new house....out of sight. I have seen him for a total of about 15 seconds a day for the last two days and no sighting him at all today. His color has darkened...and he hasn't eaten in three days. Anything I can do here other than hope for the best and does anybody have any predictions as to what may happen here?
Alright, well that's all I can think of....let me know what y'all think. I appreciate any pointers!