SALTWATER SUX

[pufferfreak]

I have a 29 gallon tank and i had nothing but death. The only think that hasn't died is my hermits and my snails and one chromis. I have s 90 gallon freshwater and very rarely will I have a death. With my saltwater tank I bought the correct lights, I have a skimmer, have enough biological, add supplements c balance and iodine. And still lots of deaths I do a water change every 4 weeks. tank has cycled and it is 2 months old, I keep temp and 78. What do u think I am doing wrong. help please i love the look of saltwater but i just can't seem to win.

 

[corvettev12ttnos]

i think i can point out 1......i thought you're sposed to do water changes every WEEK not every 4 after the cycle that is and you need a wet/dry too for better bio and when you say you have enuf bio filteration what do you have?

 

[fishfood]

you do not necessarly need a wet dry. I was running my 55 with 65 lbs of lr cc and a small canister filter for a long time until i moved and had it drilled. Now i have a sump. I would say that 20 lbs ls and 25 lbs of lr may not be enough. Just remember that smaller tanks are not as easy to keep. Do you quarentine all of your fish? Plus just because the tank is 2 months old doesn't mean it is fully cycled. What fish or coral have you lost since setting up the tank?

 

[pufferfreak]

I have a millenium 3000 wet/dry filter, rated for 60 gallon tank, have 25 pounds healthy live rock, and 20 pounds live sand. So doing a water change every week should help.

 

[pufferfreak]

I have had my water checked and they lfs said it was cycled and the lfs is a good one. I have lost 2 percula clowns, yellow tang, bicolor dottyback, neon goby, and a sandsifting starfish.

 

[gary jensen]

Ok, first of all, a yellow tang is hard to keep...especially in that size tank. If you had two perculas together and they weren't a mated pair, you may have troubles with them.
Another thing you may want to consider is how you are acclimating the fish. I know when I was a beginner that I never acclimated the fish correctly and I lost a lot of fish due to this. Also, if you want your new fish to stay healthy, feed them with garlic the first few weeks you get them...they will flourish.
I doubt it has anything to do with your equipment.

 

[pufferfreak]

I acclimate the fish the correct way by letting them float 20-0 min to get the temp same then put them in a bucket carefully and every 20 minutes add a cup of the water from my tank. I ordered garlic extract yesterday from pw.

 

[jordan 150]

The problem might not be your water its probaly your choice fish. Tangs are kind of diffuclt to keep. stars some time die for no reason at all at least that has happen to me and as was stated above the clowns sometimes make doom for each other. Try a small trigger or puffer until it grows up they are actually in my opinion hard to kill they usually live through every thing

 

[pufferfreak]

would a small trigger kill every invertabrate in my tank like hermits and snails and corals?

 

[fishfood]

You should really quarentine them also. Yellow tangs are prone to ick and a 29 is really too small for one. The tank may not have been established enough for the sand sifter. They eat the pods and stuff in the substrate, but then again stars do not always acclimate well to new tanks. I've lost 2 myself. Dottybacks can be aggressive little fish also. I don't know what to say for the clowns. Just try to set up a quarentine tank before you get your next fish.

 

[fshhub]

tank cycled, and is now 2 months old???
i t may not have fully cycled, and even if it did, you should not have many fish at all at this point
stars are noteasy to keep to start with, especially in young unestablished tanks
even if your tank had cycled, are
that at this point it might not be be stable enought to handle thoes fishes, yet, after the dcycle, you need to stock slowly, especially with the bio you have, the larger the bio filter, the more drastic the changes it can hadle, but with what you describe, it seems rather light to me, sso hte changes(ie stocking) MUST be made slowly
hth