doc308
Member
I have a new nanocube 24 that I got from a friend a few weeks ago. I tried to leave everything in it as it was already well-established. Lots of coralline, live rock, peppermint shrimp, nessaria snails, a few tiny polyps, several tiny tubeworms (3-4 mm), tons of bristle worms, etc. Overall, looked really healthy.
Last week after making sure the tank water parameters remained normal (testing done by a great local fish store), we decided to introduce a yellow watchman goby to the tank. He did great with the transition and he's doing just fine still. We started feeding him once a day a little bit of frozen brine shrimp. Everything seemed to be doing good for about a week. Went to the fish store and one of the salesmen told me about something called "Reef Bugs" that he said would be good for the coral and inverts. So we added one dose of that to the tank.
Last week we went back to the fish store and he said my water test that day showed a very strong elevation of nitrates (160). He said the problem could be the brine shrimp that they are a dirty food sometimes. So he sold me "Seachem de-nitrate", "Seachem marine buffer" and "Tropical Performance Nitromax" and told me how to dose them all. He also told me how to rinse the filter sponges if they are dirty as well as to remove the bioballs in the protein skimmer and to replace them with the de-nitrate gravel. He also recommended turning the filter off while feeding brine shrimp, and also sold me some sinking pellet food for the goby to help control nitrates. Overall, I thought things were okay and that his recommendations were probably correct.
Two days later the nitrates had not fallen much so he recommended 10% water changes daily as well as a water conditioner called "Aqualife complete". That seemed to work great and in two days the nitrates fell to 60 but the pH dropped from 8.0 to 7.8, so he recommended adding "Seachem Marine Buffer" along with instructions. He said the other water parameters tested well and that it would be fine to add a clownfish that we'd been eyeing. He did give us detailed instructions on how to very slowly acclimate the fish to the tank.
When we got home, we acclimated the clown slowly as instructed over the course of about 1.5 hours, slowly adding tank water to the bag. However, as soon as we finished and eased him out of the bag, within 5 minutes he was dead. We then began to examine the rest of the tank, inspecting the other animals, and that's when we saw the peppermint shrimp dead also. The goby was still alive although a little more stressed than usual (rapid gill breathing) and pretty still. So we were pretty crushed by all this happening so soon.
In checking carefully all the dosages and products, I then saw where the NitroMax product had in small print "freshwater". I called the pet store and they said that it was in fact for freshwater only and that there was another product that looked like it that was for saltwater. They said it was not their salesman's fault for recommending the wrong thing, that he may have just been confused. I agreed and said that I would do my own research next time to double check all recommendations. So I know that this was my fault.
Okay...long story....thanks for reading this far! It's almost done!
Finally, over the past few days the water parameters appear to be back to normal and the goby and other remaining wildlife appears healthy....except for the coralline! There are a few spots on the coral that appear to be bleaching and turning white. Our lighting is 72watts flurorescent and the lights are on probably close to 14 hours a day. That's a big increase in the lighting timing from before we bought it (maybe a couple of hours a day before). Yesterday I got a timer and it's set for about 10 hours now.
So I have several questions:
--is the nitromax freshwater product going to throw off the water chemistry bad enough to kill fish and coral?
--is the coral dying normal when lighting increases?
--or both?
Should I consider my tank in the middle of a cycle?
Thanks and sorry for the novel.
Last week after making sure the tank water parameters remained normal (testing done by a great local fish store), we decided to introduce a yellow watchman goby to the tank. He did great with the transition and he's doing just fine still. We started feeding him once a day a little bit of frozen brine shrimp. Everything seemed to be doing good for about a week. Went to the fish store and one of the salesmen told me about something called "Reef Bugs" that he said would be good for the coral and inverts. So we added one dose of that to the tank.
Last week we went back to the fish store and he said my water test that day showed a very strong elevation of nitrates (160). He said the problem could be the brine shrimp that they are a dirty food sometimes. So he sold me "Seachem de-nitrate", "Seachem marine buffer" and "Tropical Performance Nitromax" and told me how to dose them all. He also told me how to rinse the filter sponges if they are dirty as well as to remove the bioballs in the protein skimmer and to replace them with the de-nitrate gravel. He also recommended turning the filter off while feeding brine shrimp, and also sold me some sinking pellet food for the goby to help control nitrates. Overall, I thought things were okay and that his recommendations were probably correct.
Two days later the nitrates had not fallen much so he recommended 10% water changes daily as well as a water conditioner called "Aqualife complete". That seemed to work great and in two days the nitrates fell to 60 but the pH dropped from 8.0 to 7.8, so he recommended adding "Seachem Marine Buffer" along with instructions. He said the other water parameters tested well and that it would be fine to add a clownfish that we'd been eyeing. He did give us detailed instructions on how to very slowly acclimate the fish to the tank.
When we got home, we acclimated the clown slowly as instructed over the course of about 1.5 hours, slowly adding tank water to the bag. However, as soon as we finished and eased him out of the bag, within 5 minutes he was dead. We then began to examine the rest of the tank, inspecting the other animals, and that's when we saw the peppermint shrimp dead also. The goby was still alive although a little more stressed than usual (rapid gill breathing) and pretty still. So we were pretty crushed by all this happening so soon.
In checking carefully all the dosages and products, I then saw where the NitroMax product had in small print "freshwater". I called the pet store and they said that it was in fact for freshwater only and that there was another product that looked like it that was for saltwater. They said it was not their salesman's fault for recommending the wrong thing, that he may have just been confused. I agreed and said that I would do my own research next time to double check all recommendations. So I know that this was my fault.
Okay...long story....thanks for reading this far! It's almost done!
Finally, over the past few days the water parameters appear to be back to normal and the goby and other remaining wildlife appears healthy....except for the coralline! There are a few spots on the coral that appear to be bleaching and turning white. Our lighting is 72watts flurorescent and the lights are on probably close to 14 hours a day. That's a big increase in the lighting timing from before we bought it (maybe a couple of hours a day before). Yesterday I got a timer and it's set for about 10 hours now.
So I have several questions:
--is the nitromax freshwater product going to throw off the water chemistry bad enough to kill fish and coral?
--is the coral dying normal when lighting increases?
--or both?
Should I consider my tank in the middle of a cycle?
Thanks and sorry for the novel.