Noob Question

[sleeper417]

I started a 60 gallon salt water tank about 2 months back after initially starting with a 5 gallon nano. Currently I've 2x Tetra EX120 canister filters running with no protein skimmer. (I'm located in Beijing at the moment and can't get access to American/European products. Chinese ones are not good. Have a wave maker and a heater.

I'm experiencing very high fatality rates with my fish. So far I've bought 8x month old ocellaris, 3x blue tangs, 2x yellow tangs, 4x carberryi anthias, 1x lawnmower blenny, 1x yellowtail damsel, 1x ?damsel, 1x scarlet cleaner shrimp, 1x banded coral shrimp, 1x bloodred shrimp, 3x ?angels, 2x saddleback clownfish total. Didn't buy them all at the same time. When something died, I restocked.

Currently, the survivors are: 1x blue tang, 3x ocellaris, 2x saddleback clownfish, 2x damsels, 1x bloodred shrimp.

Can anyone tell me why they keep on dying? I change the water roughly 10% a week. I'm pretty sure the tank is finished cycling because I get the brown diatoms and the live rock purple things are spreading well.

I originally thought my problem was the banded coral shrimp which was bigger than everything except the tangs. He now resides in a bucket. I was thinking my clowns might of been eaten by my anemone because I can't find a body even after hours of searching. I don't see any aggression among the fish except the clownfish fighting for dominance and the damsels chasing each other away.

I've thrown too much time and money into this hobby to stop, but I need to stop the deaths.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[thincat]

Sure I can,...You are greatly overstocked for a 60g saltwater tank.One blue tang is pushing it as far as tangs go and the # of clowns you have, well as soon as they form a pair the other clowns will be history.
You say nothing about any LR so I am assuming that you can't get any in China.

 

[melosu58]

The only thing that can tell you if your tank is done cycling is a water test kit. I personnally think your stocking is the problem. Too many fish and some fish that dont belong in a 60 gallon tank. I also think you have too many clowns in the tank.

 

[Zer0]

I think this is kind of hilarious. Sorry.. but i do. Clearly you did not do any research at all, regarding buying the fish, or even how the fish can successfully survive in your tank. It has already been mentioned, but you were disgustingly overstocked. No wonder you had so little survivors. Not a single tang in the SW world should be put in anything less than 70 gallons... and you had 5. I know some huge tanks over 100 gallons that don't even have 5 tangs. And you said you have 3 angels? If they are not pygmy angels.. than you pretty much sealed your tanks fate as soon as you added the first one. Angels get gigantic.. well over a foot. Most of them anyways. And you had 3. You see where we are going with this? You are not going to be stopping any deaths in your tank for as long as you keep the tangs, the angels, and some of the damsels. The coral banded shrimp is also an aggressive invert, and usually kills for territory and dominance.

It burns my eyes to even read and wonder as to how much money you spent on these EXPENSIVE fish... just to have them die because you did not do proper research.

You say you have a heater and two canister filters..? Man.. it must have been **** itself inside that tank for your livestock.

Out of everything, you first need to get rid of the amount of fish that you have, and you need to get a skimmer. Any tanks over 40G should definitely have a skimmer.. even if it is a junky one. Also, get a test kit, and test your water. I think you will be astonished at how horrible your tank conditions will be.

Sorry to say, but unless you do something fast, and i mean FAST, your fish will absolutely die. Without question.

 

[sleeper417]

I wasn't clear enough. I didn't have all the fish in there at the same time. I read up on the gallons to inches of fish rules and did do my research.

At the most, I had 8 fish in there at the same time. Roughly 10 inches of fish.

Swimming space wise, I think I'm alright. The tank is 125 cms x 45 cms x 45 cms. The tangs seem very happy in there. They were always swimming around like what I see at my buddies' houses and their tanks are . . . massive monstrosities . . . basically almost the size of a average bedroom back home.

Now that I've cleared it up, any suggestions?

 

[thincat]

First, what substrate do you have?
Do you have any Live rock.
Buy a Test kit and give us some parameter readings so that we are on the same page.
Do you do Water changes? How much and How often.
Do you use RO/DI Water?
How often do you feed your fish?
What temp. do you keep your tank at?
Do you and How do you acclimate your fish before you put it in your tank?
Do you QT your fish or put them directly into your tank?

 

[sleeper417]

Tracking down some products such as a decent skimmer and test kits are challenging right now since I'm in Beijing. The ones I've seen are dirt old and looks like rejects from a factory.

I've roughly 40lbs of live rock, no live sand (no store carries it), I feed my guys once in the morning and once at night, 10-15% water change per week, water is about 70 degrees, and I acclimate my guys by adding 25% of tank water into the fish's bag, let it sit for 10-20 minutes and then into the tank he goes. No quarantine.

I just got my old man to buy me a skimmer and test kit from back home, but I've no idea which he's going to get. The water here in Beijing is hard and ph level is 300ish. I always let the water sit for at least a day before I put it in the tank.

 

[thincat]

1) your water is to cold (70 degrees) for the fish you are trying to keep.
2) Try drip acclimating your fish 1-2drops per second till water is twice what it was, dump half out and fill bag again. Don't dump water back into your tank, Use a net and pour water out.
3) Try to get at least another 10-15# more lr.
4) I don't understand your PH..Saltwater tanks run 7.8-8.4, not 300ish!
5) Don't feed your fish so much once everyother day is fine.
6) you should seriously consider QT for your new fish,

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Saw your other thread about what equipment to get, and found this one talking about all your problems...

I don't think equipment is really your problem. As thincat mentioned, 70 degrees is really cold for a saltwater tank. Really cold. Most likely, that's one of your main issues.

The other issue is just a hunch, but I'm guessing you're using tap water and some local salt mix? What salinity are you making your salt water up to? If you're using tap water, that's probably the other issue that's causing you problems. While tap water in the US is sometimes a risky thing for saltwater tank, I'd say it's a really really risky thing in Beijing.

 

[sleeper417]

Yeah . . . water here sucks pretty badly. Tap water here has a 300+ rating on the TDS. Purified water is usually 0-10. Can't do anything about it until I buy my own house out here. Just not willing to fork out that much cash on water.

 

[match55]

I wasn't clear enough. I didn't have all the fish in there at the same time. I read up on the gallons to inches of fish rules and did do my research.

At the most, I had 8 fish in there at the same time. Roughly 10 inches of fish.

Swimming space wise, I think I'm alright. The tank is 125 cms x 45 cms x 45 cms. The tangs seem very happy in there. They were always swimming around like what I see at my buddies' houses and their tanks are . . . massive monstrosities . . . basically almost the size of a average bedroom back home.

Now that I've cleared it up, any suggestions?

even tho you are not putting all the fishes at the same time, its still too much for a 60gal tank.
1 blue tang need at least 75gal, they might seem doing fine in your tank, but they won't when they grow bigger, they like to swim fast in a ling distance.

about water, why not get a RO/DI unit?

 

[sleeper417]

I haven't seen a RO/DI unit here in Beijing. Beijing is strange. I don't know a single person who has a water purifing unit at home. Everyone here gets delivered purified water in bottles. Kind of like Arrowhead delivery man except on bikes.

I can probably order one from back home, but I've no idea how to install it. How hard is it to install one? Do you just stick it into your faucet or what?

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

It's not difficult to install - for a permanent install you just tap into one of your cold water lines. The easiest install though is to get a connector that just screws on your faucet outlet and feeds the unit. Granted, you have to take it on and off to use that faucet (or get a T-connector) but it's pretty easy. The other issue though is storing the RO/DI water. The units generate water on the order of 50-100 gallons per DAY, so you can't just turn on the faucet and expect enough water to mix up salt just like that.

300 TDS is surprising... I would've thought it'd be worse. The problem though is that you don't know what kind of chemicals are in it. I just remember when I was in China many years ago, even the bottled "pure" drinking water had the smell of diesel to it. Hopefully things have changed...

But DO bring that temperature up to 78-80 degrees F. Between the temperature and the quick acclimation time (versus drip), that could explain a lot of deaths.

Also agree that you're pushing your stocking limits... but that's not causing your deaths in my opinion.

 

[sleeper417]

Will look into the RO/DI unit and see if one of the local fish markets can do it for me. That's right, not fish stores, but fish markets. Imagine 10+ small fish stores converged into one with quality basic goods and a handful of advanced gear, but nothing spectacular.

You'll be surprised just how much Beijing has changed in these couple of years, especially after the Olympics.