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jamezdupuis

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
5
Location
Bridgewater,NS
Hi I'm new to this site and thought i would post a little about myself and my setup and whats going on in it, hopefully i will get some pics uploaded too to get a better idea for you on my setup. So lets start.

to start I'm 22 and live in Bridgewater NS Canada.( which unfortunately is about an hour away to any saltwater pet stores :( )

I started out about 5 years ago keeping freshwater fish mostly cichlids with a 10gallon then about 6 months ago i purchased a used 20gallon which at the moment now is empty and i am contemplating what to do with this tank next.( strongly considering getting frogs or turtles, unfortunately it's illegal to sell turtles here in pet stores). and to round out the list i have also purchased a 30 gallon which is what i used to start up my new( 4 months now) saltwater tank. I will break down the past info on my saltwater tank here now:

month 1: so i started buying 11 lbs of LR( 2 rocks) and 6 lbs of livesand for the bottom of the tank and i also purchased some dead coral about the size of one of the LR.

month 2: tank started its cycle seems to be some curly white things growing on the undersides of the rocks a bit a few have grown over onto the coral.ordered 10 lbs of carrib sea live sand to add the to live sand at the bottom of the tank.turning some colors kinda like a orangy bronzy color

months 3: everything seems stabilized. went to the saltwater store and picked up 2 fighting conch and 2 trochus snails. they seems to have settled in well. the dead corals brozy orange is becoming more prominent and now has little tiny maroon spots dispersed all over it and has some areas with a bright green tint as well. noticed a white sack floating around the bottom of the tank. sack attached to coral. sack disappeared, now have a lot of little pods running around the coral and a bit on the LRs. added in some more rock into the tank. not live rock but hoping it will eventually become live rock. the guy at the shop said it was from lava or something so he said it was safe and should eventually become live.

month 4: dead coral has all sorts of color levels still seems to be stabilized I can't quite get my salinity to measure anything but 1.26... a little high i guess. both snails and conch are living well it seems and have been surviving well.. some build up has started in the carribsea of the bronzy color on the coral. it's neat because its only on the carribsea sand and not the other you can see where they meet. I decided it seemed like everything was going good so far so i decided to add two clown fish to my tank. they are tiny about 3/4 - 1/2 an inch each. they have so far eaten at every meal and seem to be swimming and enjoying their new tank without any issues yet. a new strange white sack has formed on the coral i noticed when i went to introduce the clownfish to their new habitat. it kinda filled in a whole gap area that was in the coral before it kinda almost looks like a marshmallow with a pin hole in it( not at all sure what the heck this is) if someone could help with this I'd appreciate it. i checked it again today and it seems like now the orangy stuff from the coral is slowly growing onto it or something is coming out of it , i don't quite know...


so yeah that's my situation with my tank so far .... may have ramble on a little too much for my first post. I will try and get pictures uploaded later today to give you a better perspective.

Thanks
James Dupuis.
 
Pictures would help. It sounds like normal new tank startup. Some of it is most likely coraline algae (green, pink, red, maroon on rocks). The brown is probably diatoms, which will burn out in a few weeks. The growth you are seeing could be peanut worms (great to have). Again pictures would help.
The buildup on the sand might by cyanobacteria (bad). Is it in sheets and does it come off easily?
Do you have any test kits? If not get yourself to BigAlsOnline which is a Canadian retailer with a strong online presence. You need to test for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate at a minimum. If you decide to add corals you will also need to test for Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium.

Use a refractomer for testing SG and use RODI water for top off and partial water changes.

Read the artciles on this forum...
New Tank Setup List

How to cycle your tank with out the use of fish

Please list all equipmetn that you have, how often you do water changes, how big of a change you do, all livestock in the tank, and what type of lighting you have and how long is it on each day. Also, what do you feed the tank and how much and how often?

welcometoaa.gif
 
Thank you for the advice/ feedback.

I decided to go and take pictures of the test stuff and food i have to in case that would help. so i just loaded my pics onto my PC so here's what I've got.
this was the first week of setup :

pic of whole tank
Picture 001.jpg

picture of lR1
Picture 002.jpg

picture of dead coral
Picture 003.jpg

picture of LR2
Picture 004.jpg

as you can see there was some hair algae on the LR's that died off pretty much completely now just the rocks still look somewhat green stained.
I'm not sure how to add more than four pics as attachments so i will put the rest in following posts.
 
pics now...

the tank as a whole now... you can see that the dead coral has changed colour and I moved a few of the rocks when introducing the new lava stuff... i also added the sand in this so its more level and you can see in the bottom center-right the orangy sand thing against the glass i was talking about... i thought that these were just diatoms..
Picture 280.jpg

this shows the dead coral in center lava rock on left and then there is one of the LR on the right of it.
Picture 286.jpg

another full pic of the tank.
Picture 295.jpg

two clowns swimming beside the Power head
Picture 308.jpg
 
here's the white stuff growing on the dead coral. sorry their so fuzzy my camera is a POS... i tried zooming in and these were the best of the shots of it ... its about the size of a quarter and about 1 -2 cm high but it was in a hole/ groove so it just filled that up it kinda looks like spiders eggs or like a marshmallow i dunno...
Picture 287.jpg

Picture 288.jpg

View attachment 14330


this is the external stuff i have with the aquarium and the stuff i feed the clowns
Picture 311.jpg
 
That looks like brown diatoms from the photo, but a close up would help.
OK, let's start with the standard questions.

What size is your tank? 30 gallons
How old is your tank ? 4 months?
How did you cycle your tank and when?
How much LR, a/o LS is in the tank? 15 pounds-LR? 10 pounds LS?
Was the LR cured ? (when)
What inhabitants do you have ? 2 fighting conch, 2 trochus snails, 2 O clowns?
What filter(s) are you running ?
What Power Heads are you running?
What kind of salt are you using , and how are you making it?
What kind of H20 are you using ? Distilled , tap , RO/DI ?
Are you using any additives?
What are your water parameters ?
PH
Temp
Ammonia
NitrIte
NItrAte
Calcium
Alk
Magnesium
SG (Specific Gravity / Salinity)
Measured with a refactometer or hydrometer (swing arm?)

Get a refractomer for measuring SG and get a RODI unit for making top off and partail water changes.

Post new questions in the Gettijng Started section.

Also, how old are those test kits and are they for sw?
 
Please list all equipmetn that you have, how often you do water changes, how big of a change you do, all livestock in the tank, and what type of lighting you have and how long is it on each day. Also, what do you feed the tank and how much and how often?

i have two canister filters on the tank one was for 30Gallons and one for a 20Gallon,( i leave the water not filled to the top so that the water returning creates a bit more of a flow added to the powerhead) the powerhead is a maxi 400 and the heater is one i got at the store which is submersible and i have that set to 79-80 and it keeps it at that consistantly every time i check the tank. i have a 20w t8 aquaglow light on top... i know it should be stronger from what ive read, it's on my future wishlist.

i read through those two articles/ posts you sent me a few months back. i had read articles which said when cycling not to do water changes so i hadn't until now when i was going to add fish... i plan on doing it either weekly 15-20% or biweekly maybe you can steer me in the right direction here.

and a small air pump and air filter

livestock:
2 fighting conch
2 trochus snails
2 clown fish( perculo? not sure if thats how u spell it)

11lbs of liverock
about 5 lbs of dead coral which seems to be acting more like live rock than the live rock

16 lbs of livesand bed

i feed the fish twice a day at 8:45 when i am leaving for work and at 6:00 pm when i get home from work the light is on a timer which turns on at 8am and turns off at 9:30 pm. the morning feeding is OSI marine flakes and generally what they can eat in about 3 minutes... the night time is alternated between the the prime reef feed stuff and the ice bites frozen shrimp , with what they can eat in 3-5 minutes.

i also purchased a whole bunch of blue christmas led's from a garage sale and plan on stripping them down and resoldering them together to use as a nighttime moonlight / blue lighting to give it more of an oceany feel... i'm not sure how blue led's work for creating like am actinic blue light or what not , how many blue leds it would take/ how many i would need. i have about 300 blue leds or so... i just need to find some sort of PC - board or something i could use in replacement of a pcb all the pcb's ive seen have too small of holes for the guage of wire used for these leds...

What size is your tank? 30 gallons
How old is your tank ? 4 months?
How did you cycle your tank and when? I started out by adding the two liverock and adding a little bit of food everynow and then and watching for the spikes until they leveled off, started this about 4 months ago at the 2 month part i added the 2 snails and 2 conch which i thought would be a second level start to it and they are surviving well so i decided to go for the fish after returning from vacation.
How much LR, a/o LS is in the tank? 15 pounds-LR? 10 pounds LS?
Was the LR cured ? (when) the guy at the shop i baught it off of said it was precured- live rock? not sure i got it from him 4 months ago.
What inhabitants do you have ? 2 fighting conch, 2 trochus snails, 2 O clowns?
What filter(s) are you running ? 2 filters one for a 30 g and one for a 20g both canister
What Power Heads are you running? I am running a maxi-jet-400
What kind of salt are you using , and how are you making it? I mixed in a seperate bucket some instant ocean mix with water i bought for like water cooler... is that RO/DI water?
What kind of H20 are you using ? Distilled , tap , RO/DI ?See above
Are you using any additives? I am using ket marine essentials ( purple round thing in the pic)
What are your water parameters ?
PH
Temp 79
Ammonia 0( if anything not much more)
NitrIte 0-5( if anything not much more)
NItrAte around 25 mg/L
Calcium I don't have anything to measure this but the guy at the shop said adding the dead coral would boost this?
Alk not sure
Magnesium not sure
SG (Specific Gravity / Salinity) 1.025( i know it's suppose to be a little less i keep just adding the water without the salt mix but it only slowly going down.
Measured with a refactometer or hydrometer:swing arm( instant ocean)
 
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