Cycling...

[Sniperhank]

The one rock is nicely covered with some green algae. Looks almost like grass. I can take a pic if you'd like. But don't know if it would be enough to do the whole tank. And wouldn't it have absorbed the ammonia and nitrite at the same time? When it went in my ammonia finally spiked and proceeded along what you would expect out of a cycle.

 

[kurtyboh]

You wouldve had to add quite a bit of lr to complete a cycle that quickly

 

[Sniperhank]

I have over 50the lbs of lr in my 36 gal tank

 

[kurtyboh]

yeah certainly could move that quickly then

 

[Sniperhank]

Did my first 10% water change today!
78 degrees
Ph 8.0
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate

 

[kurtyboh]

Is that afteR?

 

[Sniperhank]

Indeed, after the water change.

 

[kurtyboh]

Xcellent! How are the clowns doinG?

 

[Sniperhank]

They are doing great. Sadly, the damsel didn't make the cycle beginning...I think helped it along. This was followed by yesterdays death of the hermit crab who ate before mentioned damsel.

 

[BallinCrew10]

Clowns can withstand very poor water conditions. They stand the best chance of survival. Just keep up with your water changes.

 

[Sniperhank]

Indeed. But now my water is not very poor.

OH, and my T5 lighting system is coming tomorrow.

 

[kurtyboh]

i wouldnt put a clown as hardier than wthe typical damsel. (clowns are damsels yes, but different than the other breeds)

 

[Sniperhank]

Well, I think my damsel being introduced during the ammonia spike and the addition of more LR and sand stressed it out to much. My clowns had a blast the whole time.

 

[Sniperhank]

Nooo....I know what happened now.

I was about to go to bed and turned on my light to see if my large snail had come out. I looked at my one clown, since it has picked one of the caves as a "home" at night. White spots all over him. Looked all over for my other clown, found him and not as many, but still there. Ich. I can't believe I didn't notice. I had freshwater tanks for years.

Thought I was going to find one of my old tanks to treat...but I think I'm going to have to treat the main tank, even with the tons of snails I have. Chance it came in on the LR I believe...the damsel never showed signs. Going to set up a QT tank tomorrow to try to avoid this in the future...what a noob move on my part. It's even in the sand...I have a lot of work ahead of me now...

 

[BallinCrew10]

If you're going to treat the DT, DO NOT use copper treatment. It will kill all the inverts in your tank and your LR will absorb the copper and you'll likely never be able to keep inverts again. If you're going to treat the DT I'd go with the hyposalinity treatment. I have no experience with ich so unfortunately that's about where my advice ends. Others have had to treat it and I'm sure they'll be along to help you through it.

 

[Sniperhank]

Yeah, I have been calming down some. Going to get a QT up tomorrow for my clowns once I dig out my old FW equipment. So in my above post, I made alot of statements that were more about FW ich, which is what I have experience with. I was a fool for thinking my UV would fix this. But I'm going to work on this tomorrow. Going to clean up my sand, get my clowns in QT and go from there.

I let my temp drop, probably the only reason I noticed...

 

[Sniperhank]

Just an update if anyone hasn't seen my other thread. Woke up today to all my inverts dead but my peppermint shrimp and 2 hermits. Unknown as to why, only test I don't have is copper. Work in progress. Will keep updated.

 

[Sniperhank]

Well, besides the clowns, hermits, and kenya tree, everything else is dead. Did a total cleaning of the tank today. Moved the rocks to make sure I wasn't missing any snail bodies. Had a drop in pH.

For better news, gave me a reason to rearrange my LR and now have as perfect flow as I could expect. I had a dead spot before. Have my UV, carbon filter, and protein skimmer going. Yet to see the skimmer do anything at all...