Talked to the manager at the LFS and...

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blazeyreef

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Oct 15, 2006
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Location
Nashville TN
He said my Ph is to high... he say's it needs to come down... ugg and my salinity he said was at 1.028, said it was to high and it needed to come down, and my nitrite was at .25...so I guess I have some things to work on. I dont curently have a nitrite test kit because I am not paying $15.99 for one, I will go to petsmart and get one for $4.99 thank you very much LOL. BUT he did say when I get everything in order he would give me 1/2 off the next cleaner shrimp I get :D
 
PH is high due to the high sg. Taking out half a gal of SW and replacing with FW daily will lower it slowly and safely. PH will come down as soon as you get your sg down. What do you use to measure SG? If you don't have a refractometer I'd get one.

nitrite at .25 is very harmful to stock and you need to do a pwc asap to get that to 0 ppm.

What is your no3 level at?

I wouldn't add any more stock without the test kits for all the major water parameters i.e. ph/sg/nh3/no2/no3/alk/ca.
 
no2 at .5 is worse then .25 and you still need to do a pwc asap. no2 (nitrite) should always be at 0 ppm.

Your no3 level is fine.
 
Any nitrites in the system is not a good thing. They must be at 0. I agree with Micah on the salinity just replace a 1/2 gallon of salt water with a 1/2 gallon of Fw and in a while you should be at where you need to be. What is your goal of where you want your salinity? Is this in your 29 or your 75 reef?
 
If your my info page is correct, I believe alot of your problems are due to the fact you have 7 fish in a 29 gallon tank.

The salinity and such is out of whack, but IMO you are overstocked. I don't think your filtration can keep up with it.
 
I know my tank is overstocked, and their is nothing I can do about it until I get my 75 gall. (melosue, the 75 is not up yet ) I am going to buy a canister here soon for the 75, and go ahead and put it on the 29 for help on the filtration. I will get my nitrite, ph and sg all down to appropriate levels.
thank you all. I know it must be a pain for you all to keep dealing with me, I still feel like such a newbie and I have been in this hobby for 5 years....ahhh
 
Actually, there is stuff you can do..you need to be doing water changes daily or every other day to keep the nitrites at zero. Long term exposure of nitrites, even at low amounts, can be very detrimental, even fatal, to your fish. Inverts stand even less of a chance, which your shrimp was witness to. The filter won't be much help until the media in it gets kicked into gear. So keep monitoring the water chemistry and do water changes accordingly.
 
I was wondering the same :| I hope so because even with as many fish as you have I would think you would have trouble keeping no3 low but not so much with nh3/no2 since those bacteria are very efficient.
 
Blazey,

I think you need to take two steps back here and not make any forward for awhile. First and foremost that NO2 reading needs to be zero. Any nitrite is bad news and signals major imbalance in the aquarium.

Also, saltwater cycling is a rather slow methodical process. Most salties allow their tanks to cycle only adding one or two small fish after about one month of cycling. Then adding a few smaller fish after several more months making inverts some of the last animals added only after the aquarist is certain the cycle is complete. Inverts are even more intolerant to unclean water then fish.

Also adding a canister filter on your new 75 gallon aquarium may just create a nitrate factory. I think you would have far better results using only live rock and an above average protein skimmer.
 
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