Mephys
09-19-2007, 04:28 PM
Alright, where to start... Sorry for the long post.
First of I have been into fresh water for many years already, but had a little break from the hobby. Me and my husband started a new project with Cichlids in December 2006 in a 30 gallons. We started looking for a bigger tank for them on Craigslist 2 months ago and ended up with a good deal on a 75 ga Oceanic tank with stand.
He had a saltwater 75 ga himself few years ago before we met ( Marron clown, Lionfish, Powder blue Tang, a Starfish and few corals I can't remember) that he lost due to cyano red algae, and while shopping for our cichlids thak we saw a lot of people getting rid of their SW. He found it hard to pass on those because he was missing it now. I never had a SW tank myself before, but when I was a teenager I worked in a petstore and fell in love with the Flame Angel ( a classic) and the Fire shrimp.
So here I was, 1 month ago, looking at Craigslist again. I found an awesome deal for a 50 ga Oceanic Reef Ready tank with approx 75 lbs of LR, 3 damsels, 3 Mature Turbo snails, Oceanic Sump, Protein Skimmer, 3VHO (1 white and 2 actinic), coral line all over the tank, etc, etc. This was all for 200$. Only problem, this tank had been started in 1993, then given to friends in 2001 ( the people we bought it from) and these people knew nothing about SW. They did water changes but NEVER, EVER vaccumed the bottom of the tank, and there was about 1 In of salt all around all the edges,etc. It was an awesome deal for 200$, but a lot of work to do on it. There was about 1/2 in of algea in the overflow.
So anyways, from the best of my husband's knowledge and me being a noob we brought back all this stuff home and set it up 1 month ago.
Here's all of our mistakes:
The gravel was so nasty the water was pitch black. There was an overload of snails shells all over. We bought new substrate, Caribean Aragonite, but figure it would be good ot keep a little little tiny bit of the old one ( mistake) and after rinsing it about 30 times the water finally became clear so we thought it would be ok. Meanwhile, we thought since the tank had been set for a long time that the cycle would be just fine with the LR and there was a 40% off anniversary sale at the fish store and they had a perfect baby Flame angel. I bought it the night we got the substrate to go pick it up the next day and brought a yellow tail blue damsel home for the tank to make sure everything was fine ( we didn't keep their fish they were in poor condition and/or old).
The equipment was so nasty we had to rinse everything with water to remove all the big chunks of salt and I had to scrape most of the algae because it was so think and smelly and also it had dried during transportation. So we set up the tank with about 20 ga from their water that we kept for transportation of the LR, the new substrate, the LR, the 3 Turbos snails, and the 3 hermits ( 2 blue leg and 1 scarlet) that came with it and the damsel I just got ( we acclimated all of the live stock). A huge Bristlewom about 2 feet long came out of the LR when moving it and we took him out. The next day I went to pick up the Flame angel ( yeah I know now he should have been added last due to having a chance to be the bully)
The water being nice in parameters, we ended up adding fish to the tank. There is a nice reef store in the area and they had a nice selection. My husband always wanted a True percula and they had a baby so we snatched him. Got a Frogspawn too so that he could feel a little more homey even thought its not an anemone. We also got a baby Blue hippo tang ( I love tangs), a Pearscale Butterfly and a Cleaner wrasse. For the inverts we added 2 cleaner shrimps, 1 fire shrimp, 4 blue leg and 2 zebra hermits, 2 queen conch snails and 1 moonlight orange snail. We also a bunch of soft corals frags from few people.
So I know, everybody is gonna say :eek: OMG all at once ? Yes....
Of course, the major Nitrates break out came up from all the stuff that died during the moving and the old substrate that never got moved for prolly 10 years plus that we kept even if we cleaned it.....We also had a diatom break out along with it. We did many water changes and were able to bring the 40 ppm down to 5 ppm in 2 weeks, doing water changes everyday for few days then every 3 days and adding nitrate sponge to the sump. We also took all the bioballs out of it. The fish I must admit are doing awesome and the Flame angel and Hippo Tang seems to be best friends ( my avatar). We feed them spectrum pellets and mysis shrimps and they are devoring everything.
The only issue we have been having other than the Nitrates was the mysterious death of our new snails. First was one Conch and we found our scarlet hermit digging in it (along with bristleworms) with appetite. Then the moonlight orange snail ( which was always climbing to the top and waiting and falling like 10 times a day, I suspect it was an intertidal snail after reading here :) ) Then we got 2 Nerita snails and the same thing happened to 1 of them. So we suspect the Scarlet was attacking them while they were on their back trying to turn over, but never had the chance to do so...The scarlet is well fed let me tell you. We havent seen the other Conch for a while either. But I knew we were missing some members in the cleaning crew and we added 5 Astreas snails, 3 Blue leg and 3 Zebra hermits and took the scarlet out ( after reading that they can kill snails when hungry)
So here's the listing for the tank as of today:
1 Flame angel
1 True Percula
1 Blue hippo tang
1 Pearscale butterfly
1 Cleaner wrasse
2 Cleaner shrimp, 1 Fire shrimp
9 Blue leg hermits, 5 Zebra hermits
3 Turbos snails, 1 Nerita, 5 Astreas
about 80 lbs of Fiji LR, 5 lbs of Wau LR, a 3 lbs Tonga branch, and few soft coral frags.
And we found this website 3 days ago.
So ok don't be mean to me, we didn't quarantine, we used tap water ( going to be changed for RO/DI) and we populated our tank too fast but the nitrates are being controlled. We assume all the silly things we did with it, but luckily right now everything is doing fine.
I just wanted to share the weird start of our SW and we are now looking to make progress in our way of taking care of it.
Mephys
First of I have been into fresh water for many years already, but had a little break from the hobby. Me and my husband started a new project with Cichlids in December 2006 in a 30 gallons. We started looking for a bigger tank for them on Craigslist 2 months ago and ended up with a good deal on a 75 ga Oceanic tank with stand.
He had a saltwater 75 ga himself few years ago before we met ( Marron clown, Lionfish, Powder blue Tang, a Starfish and few corals I can't remember) that he lost due to cyano red algae, and while shopping for our cichlids thak we saw a lot of people getting rid of their SW. He found it hard to pass on those because he was missing it now. I never had a SW tank myself before, but when I was a teenager I worked in a petstore and fell in love with the Flame Angel ( a classic) and the Fire shrimp.
So here I was, 1 month ago, looking at Craigslist again. I found an awesome deal for a 50 ga Oceanic Reef Ready tank with approx 75 lbs of LR, 3 damsels, 3 Mature Turbo snails, Oceanic Sump, Protein Skimmer, 3VHO (1 white and 2 actinic), coral line all over the tank, etc, etc. This was all for 200$. Only problem, this tank had been started in 1993, then given to friends in 2001 ( the people we bought it from) and these people knew nothing about SW. They did water changes but NEVER, EVER vaccumed the bottom of the tank, and there was about 1 In of salt all around all the edges,etc. It was an awesome deal for 200$, but a lot of work to do on it. There was about 1/2 in of algea in the overflow.
So anyways, from the best of my husband's knowledge and me being a noob we brought back all this stuff home and set it up 1 month ago.
Here's all of our mistakes:
The gravel was so nasty the water was pitch black. There was an overload of snails shells all over. We bought new substrate, Caribean Aragonite, but figure it would be good ot keep a little little tiny bit of the old one ( mistake) and after rinsing it about 30 times the water finally became clear so we thought it would be ok. Meanwhile, we thought since the tank had been set for a long time that the cycle would be just fine with the LR and there was a 40% off anniversary sale at the fish store and they had a perfect baby Flame angel. I bought it the night we got the substrate to go pick it up the next day and brought a yellow tail blue damsel home for the tank to make sure everything was fine ( we didn't keep their fish they were in poor condition and/or old).
The equipment was so nasty we had to rinse everything with water to remove all the big chunks of salt and I had to scrape most of the algae because it was so think and smelly and also it had dried during transportation. So we set up the tank with about 20 ga from their water that we kept for transportation of the LR, the new substrate, the LR, the 3 Turbos snails, and the 3 hermits ( 2 blue leg and 1 scarlet) that came with it and the damsel I just got ( we acclimated all of the live stock). A huge Bristlewom about 2 feet long came out of the LR when moving it and we took him out. The next day I went to pick up the Flame angel ( yeah I know now he should have been added last due to having a chance to be the bully)
The water being nice in parameters, we ended up adding fish to the tank. There is a nice reef store in the area and they had a nice selection. My husband always wanted a True percula and they had a baby so we snatched him. Got a Frogspawn too so that he could feel a little more homey even thought its not an anemone. We also got a baby Blue hippo tang ( I love tangs), a Pearscale Butterfly and a Cleaner wrasse. For the inverts we added 2 cleaner shrimps, 1 fire shrimp, 4 blue leg and 2 zebra hermits, 2 queen conch snails and 1 moonlight orange snail. We also a bunch of soft corals frags from few people.
So I know, everybody is gonna say :eek: OMG all at once ? Yes....
Of course, the major Nitrates break out came up from all the stuff that died during the moving and the old substrate that never got moved for prolly 10 years plus that we kept even if we cleaned it.....We also had a diatom break out along with it. We did many water changes and were able to bring the 40 ppm down to 5 ppm in 2 weeks, doing water changes everyday for few days then every 3 days and adding nitrate sponge to the sump. We also took all the bioballs out of it. The fish I must admit are doing awesome and the Flame angel and Hippo Tang seems to be best friends ( my avatar). We feed them spectrum pellets and mysis shrimps and they are devoring everything.
The only issue we have been having other than the Nitrates was the mysterious death of our new snails. First was one Conch and we found our scarlet hermit digging in it (along with bristleworms) with appetite. Then the moonlight orange snail ( which was always climbing to the top and waiting and falling like 10 times a day, I suspect it was an intertidal snail after reading here :) ) Then we got 2 Nerita snails and the same thing happened to 1 of them. So we suspect the Scarlet was attacking them while they were on their back trying to turn over, but never had the chance to do so...The scarlet is well fed let me tell you. We havent seen the other Conch for a while either. But I knew we were missing some members in the cleaning crew and we added 5 Astreas snails, 3 Blue leg and 3 Zebra hermits and took the scarlet out ( after reading that they can kill snails when hungry)
So here's the listing for the tank as of today:
1 Flame angel
1 True Percula
1 Blue hippo tang
1 Pearscale butterfly
1 Cleaner wrasse
2 Cleaner shrimp, 1 Fire shrimp
9 Blue leg hermits, 5 Zebra hermits
3 Turbos snails, 1 Nerita, 5 Astreas
about 80 lbs of Fiji LR, 5 lbs of Wau LR, a 3 lbs Tonga branch, and few soft coral frags.
And we found this website 3 days ago.
So ok don't be mean to me, we didn't quarantine, we used tap water ( going to be changed for RO/DI) and we populated our tank too fast but the nitrates are being controlled. We assume all the silly things we did with it, but luckily right now everything is doing fine.
I just wanted to share the weird start of our SW and we are now looking to make progress in our way of taking care of it.
Mephys