Lorraine's Rebuilding of 125 gal Tank

[bluespotjawfish]

I'm starting this journal as I start to rebuild by 125 gallon tank. The tank is fully stocked with fish and is in the process of cycling. I lost all my corals on 12-23-06, so for now it is a fish only tank. Fish today include:

Nasa Tang
Palani Tang
Emporer Angel
Foxface
Flame Angel
Maroon Clown
Purple Stripe Pseudochromis
Bluespot Jawfish
Adult Twinspot Wrasse
2 Yellow Tangs
3 Green Chromas
2 Gobys (???)
Variety of crabs (including 2 anenome crabs who lost their anenome)

Here is a link to a photoshow of my tank today:
http://photoshow.comcast.net/viewshow/zS5Gt8pC

Water parameters today are:
Ammonia = 1.2
Nitrites <0.1
Nitrates = 5-10
Phosphates = 1.0
ph = 8.0
Salinity = 1.0235
Alk = 17.6 dKH (mixture is about 17 dKH, so this is normally high like this)
Cal = 475 ppm (mixture is about 500 ppm, so this is also normally high too)
Still using tap water until my RO/DI unit arrives. My tap water tests at 0 on both nitrate and phosphates.

As for tank specs, it's been so long since I set up the tank, don't know the specifics of much of anything and I am certainly not techy, but here are the basics:

Sump has skimmer (runs with 2 pumps - 1 medium, 1 small) and a UV sterilizer (with 1 medium pump). Also use carbon in the sump (under the flow from the skimmer). The return pump is a CustomSeaLife Velocity T2 pump (rated at 650 gph @ 3 feet). I recently added an extra medium pump and backup battery operated air source internal to the tank. Lights are 5' VHOs (2 Blues and 2 Whites), changed about a month ago. The bottom has aragonite with a plenum filter. Live rock takes up about 1/4 of the tank.

Over the next six months, I hope to add back in a variety of frogspawns, fox coral, candy coral, hammer coral, leather corals, mushrooms, and a variety of polyps (if my fish will allow me to). Maybe after that I might try some stuff that I haven't been able to keep in the past because of high nitrates and phosphates. We'll see.

I have ordered a RO/DI unit from the filter guys, as well as a new ASM G-2 skimmer. Excited for them to get here.

[PhilOlsen]

Thats a pretty big bio load for a 125, the Naso alone can get to 14"+

[bluespotjawfish]

Agree! It's even a BIGGER load when the tank has to go through a cycle (a first for me since the tank was set up 8 years ago). Hope it makes it. Still holding my breathe.

[bluespotjawfish]

Water parameters today are:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrites = 0
Nitrates = 1
Phosphates = 1-3
ph = 8.0
Salinity = 1.023
Alk = 17.6 dKH
Calc = 460

I've lost my Nasa tang and my Bluespot has moved to the opposite side of the tank - he doesn't like what the Nasa did to his hole. He has now dug a large hole in the corner of the opposite back end. Now I can see him when he is even inside his hole, which is really cool.

Have my RO/DI unit from the filter guys, but it's still in the box waiting for me to do something with it, hopefully tomorrow. I've had my phosphate reacter up most of the week, but haven't seen a change in the phosphates. I'm running ROWAphos since yesterday. Will need to track down the cause of this at some point. Tested the water out of the reactor and it has the same reading. Maybe I have it set up wrong.

My daughter reports that the corals I sent to her tank didn't make it:

My "PINKY" who is entered in the photo contest lives no more, darn it!

[JFK_Jr]

Sorry to hear about your troubles...

Rest assured you have our support in your new endeavour...

I'll be looking forward to seeing your tank get back to it's glory days...

PS... I loved those pink Zoo's... they were awesome!

[lcstorc]

Oh no! Not the pink zoas. Those looked great. Hopefully you can find some more once your tank is ready for them. I absolutely love the color.

[bluespotjawfish]

Bluespot's new home. We love it cause we get to watch him all the time, even when he is in the hole. I guess he heard that someone needed to do something to the plenum and he thought it was his job! I imagine his other hole was just as elaborate as this one. He comes completely out of this one a lot because he has the extra security of the rocks around him. More food at this end of the tank too! Harder to get a good photo though because I can't clean the glass in this area.

[kyle1284]

Im sorry to head about your tank.... any idea what caused this sudden cycle?

[bluespotjawfish]

Thanks! Best I can figure is I did a regular water change and ran out of Stresscoat that I usually use to dechlorinate the water. I grabbed a bottle of Amquel I had around from my freshwater days. Since fish are much more tolerate of chlorine than corals, I think the Amquel was outdated and did not dechlorinate the water. Within a few hours of my water change all corals were gone.

Here's a link to the thread about that if you want to read more.

Christmas Tragedy in My Tank

[charlir1954]

We all feel your pain and anguish and hope that your new set even outshines your last beautiful set-up. Good luck and best wishes to you!

[lcstorc]

I love the bluespot. Thought about buying one a week or so ago but decided to wait a bit. Gorgeous fish. Love the pic of him on you avitar too.

[bluespotjawfish]

We've had this guy around for years! They are pricey, but he loves me! We actually had to buy several of them. They kept jumping out of the tank (even with the closed cover they would find a way out). At a hundred bucks a pop it wasn't very entertaining when they did that! Finally this one stuck.

While I'm here I might as well post another update. My new ASM G-2 Protein Skimmer arrived today in a very large box. The box is too intimidating to open, so will wait. I'm scared that it won't fit. I did get the phosphate reactor back up and running and did a WC with RO today (with just a few small floods from not thinking first). Since I had to go to the LFS to get the new pump, I had to bring home some candy coral. My fish keep knocking it over and they will be put on a time out if they do it again. The LFS had some live brine shrimp so fishies got a little surprise today.

[lcstorc]

Go ahead and open the box. The same thing happend to me with the g4x I got for Christmas. We totally freaked at the size of the box. Once we opened it we found that while yes it is big there was lots of packing material inside and the unit was the size listed in the specs and therefore fit nicely.
Back to the bluespot. That is exactly why I didn't buy it the other day. I have lost several wrasses to carpet surfing and know I would have been majorly upset if I bought it and it jumped. It was bad enough when I lost my original Chevron to a rockslide. Glad this guy is working out for you. They are truly spectacular looking fish.

[bluespotjawfish]

Ok, not so scary after all! The box got opened and the monster came out. I slipped it into my sump, and "poof" - lots of room for skimmer people~! Also put an MJ 1200 in the tank and removed the temporary pumps I had put in when trouble started. Found a nice frogspawn and another great hammer coral today! Also beefed up the cleaning crew by replacing my lost snails with 36 new ones (nassaris, cerith, and vietnam turbos) and a sea hare. The sea hare disappear quickly to the dark dungeons of the tank. I would be scared if I were him. The candy coral still hates the fish and the fish hate (or love) it. Some more frags as a result. Everything else is loving life!

[lcstorc]

Glad to hear everything is going well. Keep at it you are well on the way to recovery.