Hey there all. I am new to the forum and having some trouble. Figured I would introduce myself. Name is Josh and I live in the Phoenix area. I am 35 and married with 3 kids. In the past I have had a few smaller 75g fresh and salt water setups but nothing ever very serious. I decided a while back I wanted to get a tank again. I work quite a lot and decided at first that my best bet was to find someone I could pay to come by regularly to service the tank for me so I could get maximum enjoyment and learn what I needed to over time.
I found a guy and bought from him a used (coming from one of his other clients) 150g tank with stand and sump including the original water, rock, fish, ect..
They came and set it all up and mostly things were not to bad. Had some issue with clarity that I believe are primarily due to the layout of the sump and having the skimmer in the same section as the return line. The sump layout was one with 2 incomming chambers with a hose to each that fed into a large thin, square filter pad and then down through a large amount of bio balls. Then under a partition over to the second side of the tank where I had a skimmer, UV filter, and return line.
The tank originally came with a little live rock and a lot of what he called mountain rock. One of the first things I had him do was remove all the non live rock and replace it with live rock.
Now for some of the issues, Please keep in mind I did/do not know a lot about tanks and so some of the things I now know to be mistakes I did not know at the time. Fish I had in the tank were as follows roughly. Niger trigger, dwarf angel, porcupine puffer, dog faced puffer, maroon clown, spanish hogfish, juvi wrass (forget the type off hand), Goby, queen angel, butterfly fish. that is mostly it. I may be missing something small but that is the gist of it.
So not long after getting the tank I get an ich outbreak that was pretty bad and of course getting worse each week. the guy started out by only having me add some garlic to the tank once a day but it just kept getting worse. He then told me to treat with copper. This eventually seemed to kill it all off. I had no idea at the time that this was a no no with a display tank with live rock and the like.
Things were mostly good for another few months when I made a really stupid mistake myself. I went on a vacation and adjusted the temp to save some money. I was not even thinking about the tank at the time. I adjusted the temp from 76 in the house to 86. Well, not long after getting back from a week away I had a huge ich issue again. Just about all my fish died very fast. Within a couple weeks of this. My wrass and hogfish were pretty much unaffected though.
Well, he had me use a formaldehyde treatment as well as lowering the salinity. Nothing helped. I found out at this point also that though I asked him every month if he was testing my water that it seemed he was not as my nitrates were off the charts. Everything else was ok but the nitrates were high.
We did 2 80g water changes each a week apart but it still tested to the max on the chart. 2 more 30g changes since then and it is still testing max on the chart. I have been using some beads that say they are supposed to absorb up to 20ppm between recharges and also using a AZ-NO3 product that claims to remove nitrates for the last 2 weeks but so far it still reports red. that said it does take it a little longer to turn red then it did at the beginning. If that means anything.
I decided at this point that I no longer want this guy near my tank. Granted I screwed the pooch when I did what I did to the temperature, I learned since then that it is a terrible idea to have treated with copper or formaldehyde in a live rock and live sand tank and that I should have used a hospital tank. I have also learned that he never tested my water and now my nitrates are through the roof.
I am working now to try to being the tank back to a point where it is habitable for adding in new tenants. I still have the Goby and wrasse and have put in a few shrimp (after having the copper I had used some pads that were meant to remove the metals from the water) and the shrimp have been in it and alive this last 2 weeks without trouble. The goby and wrasse are doing great. I have decided I want to go less aggressive and have a soft coral and community fish tank. I have started doing my own water changes and am doing my own treatment with the AZ-NO3 as well as adding some bacteria each day the last 2 weeks as I fear events of the last half year have wreaked havoc on my bio filtration system.
Nitrates are still high. I think I need to go pick up a copper test to verify that it is gone. Or as gone as it can be having been exposed to my rocks and sand. I tested Alkalinity and that came back at 7.5. I bought new lights as well. 4' LED panoramas to compliment the LEDs I had already put in place or the original bulbs that I bought from the guy. I have also thrown out the old bio ball sump and bought a new 3 chamber refugium sump. first champer has the intake and skimmer, central chamber right now only has some refugium mud, and my UV filter (which is currently off), third and final chamber has my auto fill sensor and return hose.
Are there any suggestions out there? I am still looking to buy a decent but not to expensive RO/DI setup for my laundry room to dedicate to my tank for making my own water. I have been buying RO water from Water & Ice to top off my auto fill source and pre-mixed water from my LFS for my water changes.
Questions I have in addition to any freely offered criticism and advice
1) What should I put in my middle sump section? More live rock? Plants?
2) I love unique, colorful fish and used to live on a boat in the Caribbean so particularly love things I knew from there. Any thoughts on good fish I should think of adding once my water has lower Nitrates?
3) I would love a bunch of soft corals, an urchin or two, some stars, bunches of shrimp, ect. I like inverts a lot as well. Thoughts on this?
4) Thoughts on my current treatment plan of using AZ-NO3, the beads, and 20% water changes? Given I have no idea what my Nitrate levels actually are as they are red. They could be 500ppm for all I know....
Let me have it. Only thing I know for sure is I need to start doing this myself and not rely on others.
I found a guy and bought from him a used (coming from one of his other clients) 150g tank with stand and sump including the original water, rock, fish, ect..
They came and set it all up and mostly things were not to bad. Had some issue with clarity that I believe are primarily due to the layout of the sump and having the skimmer in the same section as the return line. The sump layout was one with 2 incomming chambers with a hose to each that fed into a large thin, square filter pad and then down through a large amount of bio balls. Then under a partition over to the second side of the tank where I had a skimmer, UV filter, and return line.
The tank originally came with a little live rock and a lot of what he called mountain rock. One of the first things I had him do was remove all the non live rock and replace it with live rock.
Now for some of the issues, Please keep in mind I did/do not know a lot about tanks and so some of the things I now know to be mistakes I did not know at the time. Fish I had in the tank were as follows roughly. Niger trigger, dwarf angel, porcupine puffer, dog faced puffer, maroon clown, spanish hogfish, juvi wrass (forget the type off hand), Goby, queen angel, butterfly fish. that is mostly it. I may be missing something small but that is the gist of it.
So not long after getting the tank I get an ich outbreak that was pretty bad and of course getting worse each week. the guy started out by only having me add some garlic to the tank once a day but it just kept getting worse. He then told me to treat with copper. This eventually seemed to kill it all off. I had no idea at the time that this was a no no with a display tank with live rock and the like.
Things were mostly good for another few months when I made a really stupid mistake myself. I went on a vacation and adjusted the temp to save some money. I was not even thinking about the tank at the time. I adjusted the temp from 76 in the house to 86. Well, not long after getting back from a week away I had a huge ich issue again. Just about all my fish died very fast. Within a couple weeks of this. My wrass and hogfish were pretty much unaffected though.
Well, he had me use a formaldehyde treatment as well as lowering the salinity. Nothing helped. I found out at this point also that though I asked him every month if he was testing my water that it seemed he was not as my nitrates were off the charts. Everything else was ok but the nitrates were high.
We did 2 80g water changes each a week apart but it still tested to the max on the chart. 2 more 30g changes since then and it is still testing max on the chart. I have been using some beads that say they are supposed to absorb up to 20ppm between recharges and also using a AZ-NO3 product that claims to remove nitrates for the last 2 weeks but so far it still reports red. that said it does take it a little longer to turn red then it did at the beginning. If that means anything.
I decided at this point that I no longer want this guy near my tank. Granted I screwed the pooch when I did what I did to the temperature, I learned since then that it is a terrible idea to have treated with copper or formaldehyde in a live rock and live sand tank and that I should have used a hospital tank. I have also learned that he never tested my water and now my nitrates are through the roof.
I am working now to try to being the tank back to a point where it is habitable for adding in new tenants. I still have the Goby and wrasse and have put in a few shrimp (after having the copper I had used some pads that were meant to remove the metals from the water) and the shrimp have been in it and alive this last 2 weeks without trouble. The goby and wrasse are doing great. I have decided I want to go less aggressive and have a soft coral and community fish tank. I have started doing my own water changes and am doing my own treatment with the AZ-NO3 as well as adding some bacteria each day the last 2 weeks as I fear events of the last half year have wreaked havoc on my bio filtration system.
Nitrates are still high. I think I need to go pick up a copper test to verify that it is gone. Or as gone as it can be having been exposed to my rocks and sand. I tested Alkalinity and that came back at 7.5. I bought new lights as well. 4' LED panoramas to compliment the LEDs I had already put in place or the original bulbs that I bought from the guy. I have also thrown out the old bio ball sump and bought a new 3 chamber refugium sump. first champer has the intake and skimmer, central chamber right now only has some refugium mud, and my UV filter (which is currently off), third and final chamber has my auto fill sensor and return hose.
Are there any suggestions out there? I am still looking to buy a decent but not to expensive RO/DI setup for my laundry room to dedicate to my tank for making my own water. I have been buying RO water from Water & Ice to top off my auto fill source and pre-mixed water from my LFS for my water changes.
Questions I have in addition to any freely offered criticism and advice
1) What should I put in my middle sump section? More live rock? Plants?
2) I love unique, colorful fish and used to live on a boat in the Caribbean so particularly love things I knew from there. Any thoughts on good fish I should think of adding once my water has lower Nitrates?
3) I would love a bunch of soft corals, an urchin or two, some stars, bunches of shrimp, ect. I like inverts a lot as well. Thoughts on this?
4) Thoughts on my current treatment plan of using AZ-NO3, the beads, and 20% water changes? Given I have no idea what my Nitrate levels actually are as they are red. They could be 500ppm for all I know....
Let me have it. Only thing I know for sure is I need to start doing this myself and not rely on others.
Continue doing water changes, 20% weekly. If you don't have a skimmer, consider adding one into the empty chamber of your sump. Or, place some chaeto in that spot - you'll need a light over that chamber.
