getting feet wet

[polishreject1]

hello everyone, i was giving a 55gal tank with all of the bells and whistles,sump tank,halide lites,2 koralia ,skimmer. i bought 80 lbs of live sand for a 4 inch substrate and 10 lbs of live rock to start with. i also was given 60 lbs of base rock which i put in the tank. i was told to let it cycle for 8 weeks,and to hurry it up put in a dead shrimp or two. i had the water checked and was told it was ok bought two clowns died in 3 days,checked the the water bad again. was told to "cook" all of the rock in the tank. cooking rock. i took all of the rock out of the tank but 3 small pieces and was told to put in a damsel Now have one fish, 3 pieces of rock turned off halide lite and have a t5 on for the damsel. check the nitrate lv aftera week and a half lv is 2.5-5.0 was told i should start all over HUH i need help i dont want to give up just yet. i would like a reef tank but right now any kind of tank would do.it has been 3 months since this all started

 

[tnwillia]

Welcome to RS! Go slow, nothing good happens fast in a reef tank!

 

[1ofManyNguyens]

Welcome to RS.

I agree with the above. Slow down.

Put your LR (live rock) and base rock in the tank and let it cycle, buy your own test kits and do the testing yourself, buy a raw deli shrimp or more and place it in your tank to help kick off your cycle.. SIT BACK AND WAIT. Try not to cycle with live fish as its stressful on them and can/will cause harm in the long run (as you can tell by your clowns).

Thats some things to consider. Im sure others will be in soon to add links and other information to help you along.

Just remember to take things slow. The faster you go the faster youll crash.

You'll see how great your tank will be once you slow down and read up on how to do it the right way.

 

[Glaucus]

Not understanding if you did indeed wait 8 weeks, then tested then added fish.

Also not sure what was wrong with your water parameters and why to cook the rock. You had a big algae problem?

Now someone told you to start over? What does that mean? All your fish are dead? And now someone recommended to take everything out of your tank?

If the rock are still worth keeping live I would take out the rock, remove all the organic material from them and put them in in buckets with seawater. If they are covered with garbage and organic material then give up on them and clean them, boil them, dry them. Get all organic stuff off them. Then get out all the sand. Then clean the tank but don't use soap or anything chemical. Then put new seawater in it. Have it run for a few days. Make sure skimmer is working and keep off the lights. Many people recommend water changes. Some people do a certain percentage every week. Some do it every month. Many in between. Maybe 15% or so biweekly is good. Im sure there's a debate thread on this. Then add back some of the rock and eventually all of it. Wait a week and then crank up the light slowly until you have all lights on for 12 hours a day. Test the water after a couple of weeks and probably add some pieces of new life rock if your old life rock are kinda dead. Try to siphon out all the waste, detritus and rubble that comes out off the rocks during the cycling. As you say yourself take 8 weeks or more for this once all the rocks are in it.

If you have barely any live rock left then you need more weeks for the tank to develop. If the rocks were still quite covered with dead material it needs more weeks to become stable.

You will see several development stages. When the algae stops growing big time and water params have been good for a several weeks remove all the big macro algae manually and add snails and/or hermits. Don't have only a few. Have quite some so they can eat algae and stuff about as fast as it can grow. No need to add all of them at once. Research which ones you want and which ones help you the most and make sure you get the right species. Clean the glass to force the snails to eat off the rocks.
Also, make sure you have variable water flow so you don't have dead spots where detritus builds up.

When the rocks are basically clean you can add a fish. You keep checking params all the while. Don't feed more than they eat in 5 minutes. But you can also add some corals first as they don't need you to put in new organic material. They won't stress the stability of your tank.

Then you can add back sand. I guess you cook it since now it's basically 'dead'. Get all the organic stuff out of it. Best is to have kinda fine sand, like 1 to 2.5 mm, and have only a thin layer for decoration. It has no other function. It is hard to keep the sand clean and for denitrifying bacteria in the sand you need a really deep sand bed. That's something for a sump only. No sand will actually be easier to keep clean.

Donno if this addresses your actual problem and the decisions you face. GL

 

[polishreject1]

thanks everybody for your input.this is now my 10th week with this tank. i was told to put the rock in saltwater with a pump and heater and cover the water with a lid for a week then take the rock outand rinse the tub out ,put freash salt water in for an other week , keep doing this until the rock turns whitesh then the rock will be clean.when i put this rock back in the tank, will it effect my niterates?

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

to ReefSanctuary, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members