Frustrated waiting for shipping...

[fijiwigi]

Ok I have been waiting months to order stuff and weeks for it to arrive. I finally got some powerheadsI was excited 2hydor koralia 2's and 2 maxi-jet 900's. I put the 2 koralia's in each side of the tank. I went to adjust one and the ceramic shaft that holds the pump to the magnet snapped in half. I then went to plug the other koralia in and when I pulled on the cord that one snapped off at the shaft all within 5 min of being in my tank. I also put a maxi-jet in the rear center the flow director fell off and the air flow control tube fell off. Either I have bad luck I am an idiot or something is defective. Dr Fosters and Smith is sending me 2 new koralia power heads hopefully this wont happen again now I have to wait 7 more days for them to arrive.

 

[lando]

Sorry to hear of the frustration. It is nice to see the good Dr's take care of their customers. THey have always had great customer service. Good luck with the new order.

 

[thebradybunch]

Don't feel bad. I got a Koralia 3 for Christmas and the next day was moving it and my ceramic stem also broke. Luckily I was able to pull the piece out of the powerhead and had enough left on the mount to reinsert it into the powerhead.

 

[fijiwigi]

It gets better. The next day my 3-year old decided to feed the fish. She dumped an entire bottle of flake food into the tank. I noticed as I was already late for work so the tank full of flake food had to stay that way all day while I was at work. My 2 clownfish were eating all day. When I got home I did a 75% water change and vaccummed the sand after removing my rocks from the tank. It still was green and smelled like rotten eggs. So I did a 100% water change stirred up my sand the best I could and put my rocks back in the tank. During the process I somehow lost 1 of my clownfish. Now I only have 1 fish. Very frustrating I am now going to keep the food locked up so my daughter can't do that. I am just greatfull that i have not put any corals or clean up crew in the tank yet.

 

[melosu58]

I`m sorry for what happened. more than 50% PWC`s are not a good idea as it changes the tank stability and that might have been the reason the fish died. Next time try to siphon up as much as possible and do daily 30% PWC`s. Frequent smaller PWC`s will help better.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Keep an eye on your ammonia and nitrite levels even if you did a 100% water change - especially the nitrite levels. Although I'm not an expert on the bacteria at work in your tank, if they started "processing" the high ammonia levels, it seems like there still could be a nitrite spike even though the ammonia is gone.

 

[fijiwigi]

I`m sorry for what happened. more than 50% PWC`s are not a good idea as it changes the tank stability and that might have been the reason the fish died. Next time try to siphon up as much as possible and do daily 30% PWC`s. Frequent smaller PWC`s will help better.

I am not sure the fish died It is just missing. At first I did a 70% water change and the tank still had levels threw the roof and was dark green and rotten all of the left over food had settled on the sand behind and under the rocks. The sand absorbed the flake food sludge and every time I stirred it the water turned to a rotten egg smelling mud. I figure the live rock I had will still have the bacteria needed to survive the tank and was a better risk than leaving the rotten sludge water inside the tank. And to top it off I did not have enough RO/DI water to so I had to use tap water So now I may see another algae bloom. My RO/DI unit came in the mail today Hopefully I can set it up soon. I am planning to set it up so that it dispenses into 1 20 trash can for fresh RO/DI water and then flows from that can into another 20gal trash can where I can mix the salt in so I will have Saltwater and just basic RO/DI water for top offs.

 

[fijiwigi]

I am pretty much starting from scratch. All Of my stuff that is needed is starting to arrive this week I will be setup and doing things right this time around. All the life alive in my tank as of now is 1 clownfish and 1 hermit crab that has somehow survived since the very first day I put saltwater in my tank and threw every single mistake I have made tough crab. I have bought every piece of equipment I have learned about on this site. I even bought a new aquarium stand that will fit a sump underneath. More rocks arrive tommorrow to add 30 pounds to my 55 pounds that I will cycle in a garbage can for 2weeks. I still do need to buy a quarantine tank setup but as of now I am not even thinking about adding livestock only getting things setup the right way.

 

[Ziggy953]

I would say that your readings went through the roof from stirring the sand more then the food in the tank. Stirring the sand like that is not a good idea. It releases stored nasties and causes major issues. As Mike said doing more then a 50% water change can be dangerous. Also from what I'm reading it sounds like you mixed your SW up and used it right away without letting it stablize, temp, ph ect. Allowing the SW to mix for at least 24 hours is always a good idea. I know that certain situations come up that don't allow for that. From what I'm reading it sounds like too many things changed too quickly in your tank. I hope things work out better for you as you get your new equipment in!

 

[fijiwigi]

Yeah I know I definately did not follow protocol here I was focused on getting the rotten water out so my 1 clownfish was not swimming around in sludge I figured it would be better to have freshly made water for the clownfishes sake than water with extremely high levels of phospates and nitrates. My clownfish is pretty happy as of now 5 days later but I think his friend jumped ship maybe flew out of the tank and into the cats mouth who knows? I have everything I need now I plumbed my RO/DI unit last night behind my washer draining into the drain line and the good water tube runs threw my laundry room wall into the garage and straight into a saltwater mixing tub. From now on I will have at least 15 gallons of RO/DI water and 15 gallons of pre-mixed RO/DI saltwater on hand in case I ever have another emergency like this one. So In an emergency I will do a 3 day recovery 15 gallons per day on my 46g will be 33% PWC X 3

 

[fijiwigi]

And the hits just keep on coming. I came home from work just now and heard a loud noise turns out it was my maxijet running dry. I had the maxijet pointed up at the waters surface and I left the lid open the maxi-jet shot about half of my tanks water out of the tank and onto my diningroom floor bowing my hardwood laminate and ruining my kitchen floor. ya gotta love this hobby. I am determined to do this right even if that means it ruins my house and puts me in bankruptcy.