Here We Go Again!

[DrHank]

Doesn't matter how long it takes to get it as long as you do. We're all here to help each other and we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

Lighting is an important part of a reef aquarium however live rock does not require a lot of light. When it's being cured, most folks use little or none.

[Dentoid]

I agree. LR doesn't need light and the organisms that are on the LR don't either. Yes there probably are some organisms that need light on the TBSW rock, but they are few and far between. What is important are the worms, stars, good crabs, coraline algae and anaerobic bacteria that are good and don't require light. In fact many of them are nocturnal. Primarily, a healthy tank is teeming with life night and day. It's what you can't see that is vital to the ecosystem and is what makes it tick! The pretty fish are secondary, IMO.

[lcstorc]

Souds like lots of progress today. Yes what you bought was base rock. When put in a tank with LR it will eventually become live. This is like the piece I described that the daughter of my LFS owner sold me. Sometimes you can get some great pieces this way. Just rinse it off and put it in the tank. There is no need to cure it. ATM you have the bio-balls preforming filtration plus have only one fish so I would not really worry about it. I would get some good LR though to help in the short term and to seed the base you bought as well as what you already had.
Onto the livestock list. Most of it I think is good. A couple of things I will mention ust so you know.
First off the only crabs I allow in my tank are the scarlets. IMO the others are just too likely to find a quick meal of something you want to keep like a snail or a fish. The scarlets are considered very safe though I just broke down and got some this week so I am trusting others on this one. Previously I had no crabs in my reef at all.
Several of the snails I know nothing about but turbos have the nickname of buldozers for a good reason. You would be amazed at the rocks they can move when they get big. The other worth commenting on is the bumble bees. Everyone seems to have their own opinion on these and sometimes I hear they are reef safe and sometimes not so I have avoided them just to be safe. They are really cool looking though.
Be ware the pistol shrimp. Another animal I have heard very mixed reviews on. They have a neat symbiotic relationship with the goby but do some more reading before you buy this one. I have even heard of them cracking tanks.
Beware the urchin if you are going to have a reef. Most of them are not considered reef safe. First they eat the rock and second they are buldozers as well. If you really want one go for it but just make sure first.
I would avoid the sea slug since they release toxins into the water when stressed or dying and I don't think you want that.
Also you have a lot of starfish on your list. They are cool animals but that is just too many unless you want them to eat all your fish. Avoid the sand sifter since they live entirely on the infauna in the sandbed and are recommended only for well established tanks of over 100 galons. Also linkas are know to be tricky so you may want to ditch that as well. The banded serpents are good just be careful since they like to try to climb out of the tank. If by the fancy star you are referring to a basket star do not do it. They have an almost 100% death rate in captivity. If something else then that would be a different story. I don't think I would get 4 cukes either. Maybe one would be good but from what I understand they can get pretty big. I save my favorite for last. I LOVE fighting conchs. IMO there is nothing better to keep the sand bed clean. Queen conchs are also good for the rock and glass so in short. I love conchs.
Anyway looks like things are improving rapidly and you are doing some great research on your fish list. You and your tank are going to be just fine if you keep up at this rate.

[Melanie]

I barely want to type today. I haven't seen my firefish since yesterday. He likes to hide but I used the flashlight and I keep looking for him (through the glass) and I can't find him. This is what happened right when the clownies died.

I will say that I set up my QT and I'm running it now to test it out. Nothing in it but airstones, a filter, and water.

I'm doing something to my base rock. I put it in a tub with a power head, salt water, heater, and Stress Zyme. Smells pretty awful so I guess I'm glad I didn't put it in my tank. I probably should do a water change in there but I'm so tired from work and then setting up the QT.

I am really torn between moving what LITTLE I have left in my display tank to the QT and replacing all the live sand, adding 100 or so lbs. of live rock, ditching my bioballs and cycling my tank. OR being satisfied with a turbo snail and a cool scarlet crab in a friggin 72 gal. tank. OR selling the whole thing and realizing I'm only good with dogs.

I really suck at this.

[lcstorc]

You do not suck at this. You just need to take some time with it. There is a lot to learn in this hobby and I don't think you ever know it all.
Did the firefish come out for dinner? Have you tested your water? What do the test look like? If your paramaters are good he is probably somewhere hiding. I have had a fish hide for several weeks before only to re-appear one day for dinner. Now that I think of it my firefish disappeared for about 3 weeks once then showed up with no explanation.
Hopefully he is just playing a game of hide and seek. They do that occasionally. Meanwhile set up the qt so you are ready. If you have amonia in the tank then do a water change ASAP. You may have stirred stuff up when you cleaned the bio-balls.
I do wonder why your base rock smells. What does it smell like? It should be clean, dry rock with pretty much no smell. If it were LR then there would be a smell but not base.
Keep your chin up. It will get better. It just takes time and patience.

[DrHank]

Melanie, your new test kit showed that there was nothing seriously wrong in your tank. I think that you just need to give it some time.

If your new rock smells, then you did great by not putting it in your tank. That in itself shows that you don't suck at this. It just takes time to learn and there is so much to learn. I've been in the hobby for a long time and in the short time I've been here at reef sanctuary these folks have taught me a few things.

Tomorrow take your test kit and do an ammonia test on the water that your rock is in. It is possible that the LFS where you got your rock may have soul you uncured live rock or (if it was dry when you got it) live rock which had died fairly recently. If there is any ammonia reading, something is decomposing and you will have to cure the rock before you can use it in your tank. If your test doesn't reveal any ammonia, wait a couple more days and retest. Let us know what you find.

[Dentoid]

Did you see the Friends episode where Pheobe wrote the song "Smelly Cat", you can write a song Smelly Rock! Come on Melanie, snap out of it! You are in the learning curve and doing a heck of a job. It will get easier and more enjoyable. I promise!

[Melanie]

Lynn, I wish I had not gone over to test my display tank. I thought I would see if there was an ammonia spike from a dead firefish. Since I had the test out, I went ahead with the ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites.

First the good news, ammonia and nitrites are 0. Nitrates on the other hand are through the ROOF.


What could have happened????

I haven't done anything except change the water recently. I did 20 gallons!

[Dentoid]

That level is not going to kill your fish. It's coming from your nitrate factory, the bioball factory. The only way to get it down at this point is WC's.

[DrHank]

I agree with Scott. What was happening was that your bio balls were so full of grunge that the wet/dry wasn't working properly. When you cleaned it up it started to work like mad. The result was that it took any residual ammonia and nitrite and rapidly converted it to nitrate. That pushed your nitrate off the scale. Congratulations, your wet/dry works perfectly. That level of nitrates would kill almost all corals and many marine invertebrates. That is exactly why reef enthusiasts don't use wet/dry filters.

[Melanie]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

These are the only ways to get rid of nitrates:
water changes
some macroalgaes
live rock with anaerobic bacteria that "sucks" it out

So, if you have tons of live rock and your cycle is working, why would you need to do a water change? Wouldn't the levels all stay near zero?

PS, I'm getting pretty close to buying all my liverock. My birthday is August 6 and I am going to maybe buy it for myself as a present. I keep looking at the tampabayliverock and I think it is a great price for a great product. Plus I can maybe take a trip to Busch Gardens and then get the rock on my way back. No shipping!

[Melanie]

News Flash!!!

Firefish has been spotted alive and well! OMG! I can't tell you how happy I am. He's alive!

I haven't actually witnessed him eating yet. I've had him a few days. He may be scavaging while I'm at work. I only feed about 1/8 of a thawed mysis shrimp cube in the morning and he darts away when I put the food in the tank.

PS, My husband says he thinks I'm creating a Frankenstein fish. I have my QT running and a bucket with base rock bubbling and my display tank and cords and lights and heaters running everywhere. LOL. Gotta love hubby.

[lcstorc]

What wonderful news!!! Somehow I just knew he was in there hiding.
One thing you should do in the future is have the lfs feed any fish you are considering buying before you buy it. Just a little trick we use to make sure the fish is eating properly before bringing it home. Hopefully your little guy is just eating behind your back. He certainly has plenty of room.
On to other things. Oh I so remember that color on the nitrate test. Been there, done that one. Mine was fixed by removing my bio-balls slowly from the system and doing a lot of water changes. In the beginning I did 25-30% a week and still got that red color like yours. Eventually though they did come down as my biological filter took over and did the job. It is great that am and trites are 0 since those are the real fish killers. Trates are coral killers but you don't need to worry about that now. Personally one thing I would do is get another nitrate test. I hate the AP nitrate test and to this day mine will say my trates are through the roof when 4 other tests show them at 0 or near 0. I may have just gotten a bad test kit but it has made me not trust them.
As to your question about trates there are actually a lot of things that will reduce them. Macro like you mentioned, anerobic bacteria in the LR, Clams (they actually eat the stuff) and quite a few other critters. The problem is that just about everything has waste that ends up as nitrates. The water changes do two things. They dilute the contaminants (nitrates etc) and they add trace elements. This is why you still need to do water changes on an established system. You will usually do them less often and smaller percentages but they never go away entirely. With my tank up a little under 2 years I am down to 20% every 2 weeks. I could do even less if I would quit overfeeding but I love to watch everybody eat so it is a choice I have made to feed more and do more changes as a result.
At this point I rarely even test my water since I have a gorgonian (coral) that is a great indicator of nitrates. If it doesn't open when the lights come on, I know I have a problem and start testing or just do the water change without even testing. It will take some time though until you are at that place. Right now your tests are your friends and will help tell you what needs to be done.
Anyway, now that the firefish has re-appeared take your time and start doing more water changes. Get your LR and cure it well and then I would take out the bio-balls. Not before you get the rock though since they are obviously working on the amonia and trites just like they are supposed to.
Keep your chin up. Frankenfish will come out soon and things will be a lot better. (I so love the Frankenfish line.)

[bluespotjawfish]

Melanie,

Great news on your baby! The picture you describe was me just a few months ago! Hubby thought I was crazy too. Ok, he still does now that I have a dedicated fish room for my supplies and test kits, three tanks, two large tubs of water, spare buckets, etc). I would invest in some 5 in 1 test strips to simplify the upcoming month of testing (make sure the strips are for saltwater). As long as your nitrates are that high the test strips will be adequate to let you know where you stand on all the basic tank parameters and they are much quicker to use. Then you can test with a real kit once or twice a week, instead of daily. I have found that when I compare them to my regular kit they are surprisingly accurate. When you get down to 0-2 ppm on the nitrates the strips are harder to use because they aren't very sensitive to low levels, but they are still a quick way to tell that your tank needs some attention.

On your tub of rocks, once the amm and nitrites are zero you should gently scrub the loose stuff off of them and do a 100% WC on them and then about a week later do another 100% WC (make sure your water parameters are about the same before you do this (temp, salinity, pH). Don't put them in the display until the nitrates are gone or you will add to the nitrate problem that you currently have. It is much easier and quicker to do complete water changes to control the nitrates in the tub than to deal with it in the tank. I would also keep the rocks away from light as long as your nitrates are high or you could start a good algae outbreak.

I'm getting excited for you!

[Dentoid]

Melanie, are you still trying to cure what was once dry base rock? If you are, that's a waste of time and money spent on saltwater. No offense Lorraine, you're my bud, but Melanie forgo this unnecessary curing process on the base rock and save your money for real LR.

A word about anaerobic bacterial populations, they are very fragile and take much longer to develope than the aerobic bacterial populations. Furthermore, they are easily wiped out by oxygenating events like stirring the sand bed too deep. Even if you have 100lbs of LR and a DSB, you can still have high nitrate levels until the tank and its anaerobic bacterial population mature. In new tanks that could take up to a year. Therefore, you will still have to export the nitrates with frequent WC's. My tank is 8 months old and I'm still battling nitrates, even with a DSB and a refugium w/ DSB and blooming chaeto. So the answer to your question is theoretically yes if the cycle is working and you have the proper bacterial populations then you shouldn't have to do WC's. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. There are a multitude of reasons why, which I won't get into.

BTW, glad to hear your Firefish has shown.