new 65gallon tank.

[veriann]

volume peoples, pure volume. Turn it off & see what falls, thats cheating. you know what your pipework diameter is & the length, so perform your 10th grade maths. & negate the first 3 inchs from the top of your sump to know what level your aiming for.

back siphon without getting scientific & without a check system will always be the lowest entry point, however with Donuts modular tubing, i wouldn't have thought it would penetrate the water to great depth, hence a few gal absolute max.

[pvtdonut]

well...yesterday was a tragic day.... my baby puffr died unexpectedly...the night before, i fed him...he accepted about 2 small pieces of chopped calamari, and then later that night he took another 2 bay scallops. he was fine, still swimming around, still begging for food, acting completley normal. then at around 5 AM, i woke up, still saw him swimming normally under the moonlight of my tank, and then when i got up at 630, i noticed him just laying on the floor, still breathing and then all of a sudden he stopped breathing. =[

latley i have been noticing my tank has been getting foggy and i could never figurre out why..... like a.t.m. its really bad, i have a 16g bowfront, and im sure u all kow that really isnt that wide of a tank....well...looking thru the frot of it, i cant even see to the back wall, i cant see the heater that is suction cupped to the back, or the filter.....the water is greeeeeeeeeen. bleh. so im guessing its contaminated..

i took the other puffer, the eel and the blenny and xfered them to my bigger tank, as much as i didnt want to, and i know you are all going to hate me for it....but i dont really have any monet to fix this tank, and i was going to take it down anyway...so i dont see the point in spending the money for nothing. the only thing i have to do is clean off the liverock (and i mean scrub the hey outta it) and the sand so i can put that in there....right now i was only able to put like 2 cups of sand in....just enough for my blenny to forage for some algae until u get my rock in there...and i have a ton and a half of faith in my guys to make it thru the cycle cause they all have survived high nitrates and high nitrites in the smaller tank...and the eel has survived everything so far with no problem....including jumping out of my acclimation bucket last night and slithering around my room. that was creepy.....lol

but anyway... yesterday was a horrible day. =\

and the puffer looks so tiny in this tank....i swear he shrunk....lol

[pvtdonut]

heres a quick question for whoever can answer it.....i have my wisper filter still going in my 16g tank....if i take the little black spongey piece out of it, (for anyone who knows wisper filters, the sponge that goes infront of the filter pad....)if i take that and put t in my sump will it benefit at all? since it has that beneficial bacteria on it...or is that not a good idea since it is coming from contaminated water..... please get bak to me asap on that.

thanks =]

[Psychojam]

pvtdonut, sorry to hear about your loss.

Honestly, I think having two puffers and an eel in such a small tank was a recipe for disaster. I think what you're seeing is what happens when a tank is overstocked. The water gets all gunky and the fish get stressed out.

As far as your other fish surviving the cycle, perhaps they will. But health and wellness encompass more than whether a creature is dead or alive. You could live if I put you in a closet and shoved the minmum amount of food in daily. There is a difference between living and existence.

I notice that a lot of your concerns and decisions are based on the amount of money that you have available to spend. If money is tight for you, then you really can't afford to not do the requsite research and planning to set up a saltwater tank properly.

Part of the fun of all this is watching you plans develop slowly over time and being successful.

[pvtdonut]

yea. i know. i would have had more of a chance at saving him but my job cut my hrs from like 35 down to 14..and has been doing so for the past couple of weeks....

i just got done cleaning all of the live rock and everything and put it in there...i am going to clean the sand tomorrow and put that in there...i have it sitting in the old tank in about 3in of the salrwatre....so it should be alright till then...i was more concerned about my eel today and having him a place to go in and out of...i put my rock in about 5 mins ago..and i already cant find him..lol and the puffer ate a fish no problem today when i fed him. so hes doin good in this tank....so far...and he doesnt have ich..so thts a really good thing,....when i first got him and put him in my tank he got ich within about 5 mins....and ythis time he didnt get it at all.....so thats good... =]

ill post some pics tomorro after the sand..

[pvtdonut]

so today i went to my lfs and i bought somethin neat for my tank.....

a giant hermit crab...about 5" when hees stretched out...and also it has a lil anemone on his shell...which is pretty niftay. so far hees been scuttling back and forth in the rear side of the tank....and he dug a hole and is now chillin in it...and the anemone opened up a few min ago...pretty cool. =]

[Skurvey Dog]

Hello PVT. Sorry about your puffer passing on. It is good that they will be moving into a larger tank. I just wish that the tank had already completed it's initial cycle as I'm afraid that the friends that survived are stressed and perhaps are not at their best health. The hermit crab sounds neat also. I just hope you are not adding him to this tank that is going to be cycling as he would be a "Dead Crab Walking" if you get my meaning. Invertabrates can not tolerate any toxic levels of amonia, nitrate and nitrite as those will be associated with a cycle in your tank being started. They are very sensitive to these things. Hopefully you will have a quick initial cycle and not much die off moving the live rock and sand. You will have to start over with the bateria built up in the sand tho as when it is exposed to the open air, those colonies will die. Please hold off on adding any more friends to your tank until your cycle completes as fish get stressed by newcomers until they get use to their presence. Look forward to seeing some new pics of the tank set up that you've been working on. Keep us posted. Stay out of the candy store until you get your check up at the dentist.

[pvtdonut]

...man i knew those sweets were a bad idea! =P

yea i know what u mean..on the live rock, i dont think i had any die-off cause i completley took evreything off of it...and the sad also...i bought one bag of live sand so far...and i got some of thaat bio-spira....which i hope is helping the least bit....im gonna get a couple more pouches of it when i have a chance....


and this hermit crab was eating a huge piece of salmon a minute ago....and i dont even see it in my tank anymore.....lol ::runs away in fear::

anyone know where i can get some big enough shells for this guy to move around from?
am i gonna have to take the conch shell off my living room table and put it in here for him? haha

[Skurvey Dog]

PVT make sure you have your skimmer running. You will have some die off on your live rock, perhaps not much. Just make sure you don't overfeed and/or leave any uneaten food in your tank. Hmmmmmmm? Do you have a little QT set up? If you did, you could put the hermit in there until your tank did the initial cycle. The anenome hitchiker will not make it through a cycle I'm afraid. He'll need good lighting, great water quality and a happy compadre to stay with you for any period of time. I bet he's pretty cool looking and I'd hate to see you lose him. Especially since you just got him. How does the puffer and eel look this morning? Please use your test kits every day from today on, if you haven't already started doing so. This way you can see for yourself, exactly what your tank is doing and where it is at in it's cycle. It will help you determine if you need to do any emergency actions in regards to your livestock. Also, please monitor your tank temp at least 3 times a day and make sure that it is stable and not fluctuating. All of these things add up to the volume of stress in there. I really don't know much about eels, but they are pretty cool. I thought they ate invertabrates? I guess I'll have to look at some charts and check on compatability. I'm still in the learning process myself.

[pvtdonut]

hehe yea.the eel does eat inverts..but i never had a problem with him eating any....he attempted to creep up to the hermit and eat him but the hermits claw alone is like 2ce the size of the eels head...lmao...so he retreated when he saw him coming out of his shell.

this morning i woke up to the puffer laying on the floor. idk if it was actually stress or not...i think it was a depression thing..kinda like seahorses..cause i had the other puffer with him. and he was happy...latley after the other puffer died, he wasnt out much, just lounged around in a rock all day...wouldnt really eat...and didnt really eat anything for the past week...since i had him in the tank and since the other fish died...i have a bottle of DT that im gonna feed the anemone today...since i dont have much free floating microalgae in my tank at the moment....and i also dont have a skimmer yet...that is going to be my next investment...as soon as i get my car insurance payed...im goin to buy one...im going to get the coralife super skimmer 65......anyone know about this one? i read reviews that people like its performance and its inexpensive.

[pvtdonut]

i just got bak fro my lfs....with some of that chaeto stuff...i bought 3 nice softball sized clumps of it for 15$ total..to try and suck up some of my nitrates..at the moment i have it in my main tank only because i dont have a light in my sump... =[ but i heard this should help with some of my cycling problems. so ill check my water tomorrow and see. also it seems like these clumps have coralline growing on the strands...pretty cool. may help me grow some in my tank.. and ill post pics too here...

i also did a 5g. water change to try to get rid of some of the nitrites and nitrates..........its not much but its all i wanted to put in therre at the moment.....im still trying to get my salt right....its at like...1.028...i put some R/O-uv sterilyzed water in for the water...and if i notice my salt balancing out to where its supposed to be then ill change another 5 gallons....



heres some pics. =]

heres the hermit crab.....nxt to him, on the left is a turbo snail shell....just for comparison for you guys.....it was my last hermit crabs home...after a conch shell...that hermit is somewhere in my sump now..lol



heres the 3 clumps of chaeto..



and my tank...currently.



i have to get legs for the light on the left. lol

comments are always welcome. =]

[pvtdonut]

and ill also try to get a pic of the hermit crab when hees stretched out of his shell.....when hees waving to me like he was when i woke up this morning...lol hees def. a good 5-6 inches :O

[Skurvey Dog]

PVT, Thanks for the pics. Please be very careful bringing down your salinity. Do it over a span of several days in increments. Drastic changes in salinity kills, especially for Mr Hermit. He's pretty cool looking. What exactly is the readings on your water? (Amonia, Nitrite, Nitrate) I don't know what else to tell you as I am limited in my knowledge base and experience. Perhaps others can access your tank at the present moment and give you helpful ideas on how to proceed from here.

[pvtdonut]

i have been slowly bringng down the salinity....i been putting a gallon or so of R/O water in about 2ce a week only....im letting it go down somewhat naturally...

my ph is 8.4 (i had put 2 of those balance blocks in my tank...i wasnt sure if one would be good enough, so i put one in my tank and one in my sump.)
Alk - im not sure. ill test it for you after i eat dinner.
Ammonia- between 0-.25 (its not exactly off-white color, but its not that lime green color at .25.
nitrates- 160.
nitrites- 5

yea..my nitrites and nitrates are way up there...im in the middle of my cycle...but thats good....cause i know its doing its job..and should go away hopefully in the next day...im going to test my water tomorrow and ill let you know if the chaeto did its job and brought down the nitrates like it was supposed to.