water question

[CarmieJo]

What brand is the kit? Maybe one of us has the instructions.

[tim]

Originally Posted by kodocat

it was a bankholiday this weekend .so shop was shut! unable to order the LR. and back to work today :-( . the dock says foot okay ! if not he has threatend me with phisio.

on thursday before the BH weekend. i did by an ammonia test kit but it was void of the instructions. so imposible to use. so no idea what the reading is , but will keep u posted as soon as i know.

try to get it before adding anything.

[CarmieJo]

Since you have nitrite you know that you have had ammonia. What you don't know is if the ammonia spike has come and gone. Keep monitoring the nitrites and nitrates and watch to see nitrite peak and recede. If nitrite starts to recede that means that you hape passed the ammonia spike.

[kodocat]

live rock orderd and on its way for tommorow.

listened to the early pod casts on nitrite cycle, and deep sand beds. from them it clearly says that you need live rock to establish an anerobic bacteria as it takes so long for it to establish in a deep sand bed.

still havent had time to get the amonia kit. but it is the weekend and a payday, so looking good.

found a new product for aclimatizing fish, it a big pot that slowly sinks over a one hour period , taking on board water from your own tank, they strongly say to do this with the lights of the tank and room off! and keep them off for anouther hour after you have removed the pot.
it is sugested that this should remove stress and make for a smother transision?

was going to get some miliput to make a cave and a stack with the rock, but got no shopping time ? so will get it after delivery and introduction to tank. and the sizes of the peices will dictate what i want to do.

[CarmieJo]

The sinking pot sounds convenient but I NEVER put the water from the LFS into my tank. Many LFS use copper and other meds in their tanks and these are not things you want in your display tank. So if it is going to just dump the water into your tank I would not use it. Leaving the lights off in your tank makes for a more gentle transition and may help reduce aggression from tank mates.

[kodocat]

live rock arrived 5 good sizes lots of coraline. very nice! thanks reef store .

looking good will probably rearange when the sand has settled again. but one stack and the opposite corner looks like the final arangement. and should allow room for growth off corals later in the tanks life. as well as giving shade for the anenomies foot.

first in will be , snails money coweries for the alge, and some scavengers for the deep sand bed. pluss hermits for my kids! they have been collecting small spiral shells, some of them absolutly miniture i think they are hoping for babys? i'll start surfing to see how to or if you can breed them?

but as that is why they want the clown fish, knowing my luck you cant do both!

thanks carmie just the rock makes all the diff.

[CarmieJo]

It can happen but hermits are not likely to reproduce in your tank. Clownfish can be bred and reared in captivity. They aren't guppies but they aren't impossible. You need a separate tank to raise the fry. Were you able to get the clownfish podcasts?

[kodocat]

pod casts all working now .
down loaded the instructions of the net for the test kit.

the clown fish and anenomie were great pod casts i know its robs thing but his pashion is contagious.
hermits hatch as very small plancton size, so i imagine that all the preditors will goble them up before any mature. as they will have nowhere to hide.

since the live rock went in worm trails have apeared in the sand, found one very small anenomie the size of a biro tip. and a feather worm? some nice coraline as well.

my little yellow freind dashing in and out of his hole is fasinating, cant wait for the bigger stuff, but as every body tells us , patients it takes time.

[CarmieJo]

Make sure the anemone isn't aiptasia.

[kodocat]

carmi the one i spoted wasnt, but the tube my wife found was and as it was only one ive pulled it off! so i hope that will be the end of it? though there is allways the chance that i might of made it stronger! i hope not.

i have a dusting of green alge over the sand bed and all my readings say go ahead.

in the back of my head there is a note about puting in a small bit of food to test the population ,so ill go surfing to see if i remember right or not?

then its time to tell the kids the good news, and shop for some snails/ hermits.

i was thinking about what you said carmine about the worrie of shop water, and the sinking pot. and what i might try is to stop just short of full sinking and then scoup out what ever ive bought? though this has the worrie of a suden shock, from the big mit of god plucking them from the water. and giving them stress any way! cant see away round this, especialy with inverts that are very susceptable to this.

may be a bucket of water from the tank to sink the pot into? then it can be throwen away as long as ive set myself up for a small water change first.

any thoughts?

[CarmieJo]

What I do is put the fish in its bag into a bucket or if there is enough water in the bag I gently put the fish and water into the bucket. Then I start a siphon in a tube like this http://www.kentmarine.com/assets/005/8758.pdf because it is easy to control the drip rate. You can also use airline tubing with a valve. Here is an article Reefreaders - Acclimating Fish that will help and has pictures of the airline/valve setup. Over the course of an hour or more I triple the amount of water. When the water level reaches about double I remove about half so that by the end there is mostly my tank water with the fish. Here is an article Reefreaders - Acclimating Fish that will help.

I NEVER introduce new critters directly into my display tank. I have a cheap 10 gallon tank with NO florescent lights for my QT (quarantine tank) tank. It is kept empty on the shelf in the garage unless I have something in QT. Here is an article on QT. Reefreaders - Quarantine Now!.

[salt-rookie]

BEWARE if you "Ordered" live rock and it was shipped to you...DO NOT put it directly in your tank! There is a lengthy process for curing live rock. The die off will cause ammonia spikes that will NUKE your tank!

[kodocat]

thanx for both of your replies.

phil i bought the rock direct from the suppliers to lfs , it is fully cured. that was the sad point as it is very hard to get uncured rock strait from sea/outlet/home. this is my first tank so i was hopeing to use uncured. and have some suprises along the way iether good or bad!( though maybe more good.) how ever i am very happy with the rock i got good shapes and coulor.

to reasure you both i will be waiting another week to ensure that the tank is balenced, but i was asking do i feed the nitrogen cycle?our just add live stock ( invertrabates)to keep it ticking over untill im ready for fish anenomie or whatever!

lots of info on hermits, the one that suprised me was how few you should add( one or two for my 45gal tank)! as most stores offer them in packs? that was a thread on this site thanx for just being here for me. makes keeping koi look like...........well when i had them all i did was feed them and they bread like rabbits.

qt tank will come later when i have somethink to protect! and ive built the shed at the bottom of the garden to hid it.

[CarmieJo]

You will want to add a tiny bit of food to keep your tank's cycle going. What are your parameters now? Once you have zero ammonia and nitrite and the nitrate has fallen off you can go ahead and add a couple of hermits or snails. Watch your parameters carefully to see if any of them move. If they stay the same you could add a small fish or two the next week. Otherwise wait for them to return to their previous level. Clowns are quite hardy. Anemones are sensitive and you should not add them for 6 months to a year.