Let the games... BEGIN!!

[jdavid]

OceanDeep85;970397 wrote: Thanks, Josh. I always appreciate your input.. Man. Honest. You know that. I appreciate everyone else's too... but sometimes I'm just like FUDGE IT!!! Haha. I'm just gonna make the most out of things until I can move up to the 40gal breeder setup i eventually want. But to do that, I know I need to go with the deal we talked about a while back. I'm ok with training wheels. I want to be good at this. Like, really good.

Lol! Another thing is, the training wheels can be a good thing. Had I started out with a great setup, I'd have broken it down four times already, or, it would be full of damsels, Kenya tree, and teal palys and suck forever

I'm sorry... I can't help myself

PS you can make a new thread seeking help with water testing. I don't think many will read 10 pages to find that request. My bad.

 

[oceandeep85]

JDavid;970400 wrote: Lol! Another thing is, the training wheels can be a good thing. Had I started out with a great setup, I'd have broken it down four times already, or, it would be full of damsels, Kenya tree, and teal palys and suck forever

I'm sorry... I can't help myself

PS you can make a new thread seeking help with water testing. I don't think many will read 10 pages to find that request. My bad.

All good, man. I'm going to try and get by one of the local shops with a water sample before the week is out. I'm at work right now but will be testing my parameters once I get home this evening, so I'll provide an update.

I think my next thread is going to be about my DIY super-filter. I may close this one soon. It's definitely run its course.

Josh- when is a good time to come down your way and check out your setup and talk about doing some deals on some things? Or, grab 5 beers.

:up:

 

[oceandeep85]

I've had the tank up and running since the 3rd week of June. I'm not talking about anything in the immediate future.. I'm talking about months, or more, down the road. And if you look back at this and some of my other threads, you'll see that the upgrading and expanding has been more due to encouragement by other reefers, not me.

Further, the 'super filter' is a fun nickname I'm giving to a project that I personally interested in working on, not because I think I need it or because I really do believe it will, in fact, be a 'super filter', as I've said, I like designing and building and tinkering.

I can't imagine that I can go much slower than I've been going..


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[bulkrate]

The Fish Store is in the neighborhood and will do basic water tests (reliably) for free - Salinity, ammonia, nitrate (at least did the last time I checked). Might be a good idea to get a baseline from someone using a different set of test kits than you at this point.

I've got a spare refractometer I'm not using and work in the Perimeter area. PM me if interested.

 

[oceandeep85]

***UPDATE***

Golden Damsel was white and laying stiff at the front of the tank when I got home. I'm no expert, but I think this means he died. Yep. He's dead.

GSP was white and brown. I took it out of the tank, peeled off the GSP, discarded it and have set the piece of liverock it was on out on my balcony to dry for a few days.

My blue damsel was gasping near the top of the water line. I have hooked up an air hose to my powerhead and am going to run O2 through the night.

I haven't even bothered testing my water... just dosed a little prime and a little stability.

Pretty bummed at the moment.

BulkRate is meeting me tomorrow to let me borrow a refractometer and some of his testing equipment so I can get a better idea about what's going on with my water params.

 

[jennm]

Unfortunate losses. For GSP to croak, something is seriously wrong. I've seen that stuff endure everything from sky high nitrate to 50-degree water and still keep coming back.

What about the other damsel(s?). Any other livestock in the tank? If so, how's it looking?

Any chance that a contaminant got in? Hand lotion, air freshener... anything like that?

Jenn

 

[oceandeep85]

Hey, Jenn-

The chances are exceedingly low. The Tank is away from any type of air vent, it's well away from the kitchen and there's really nothing to dust or clean over there. It's in a cut-out that was originally supposed to serve as a bar, in the living room.

The other damsel seems to be doing fine.

I'm really thinking that the GSP just suffered the effects of long-term sky-high ammonia and a lot of prime and stability along with being moved quite a bit and salinity changes- not to mention apparently low 02 levels due to ammonia displacement.

 

[oceandeep85]

Wondering if it might actually be better to just scarp the whole thing and start over.

 

[jennm]

Well that's an option... but I'd still like to help you figure out what happened here, if for no other reason, to know why. Better yet, to avoid a similar happenstance again. If the issue is not related to the live rock and events surrounding it, something is amiss somewhere that we haven't figured out yet. I'd hate to see you start over and have it repeat again.

If the fish and gsp were fine yesterday, what happened between then, and this morning? Water quality issues notwithstanding, if the fish didn't look stressed (ie the Prime was doing its job), I wonder how it went from OK to dead in ~12 hours or so.

I hate an unsolved mystery.

Jenn

 

[oceandeep85]

..haha.. I can tell.. but I do appreciate your genuine interest...

I really can't tell you. I can tell you that if you read the thread some more, you'll see that the corals have been slowly deteriorating for some time.. so quite honestly, I'm not surprised by the coral death.

As far as the golden damsel.. it pretty much always hid. I was REALLY encouraged last night because it was out and swimming around freely. I mean, really visible.. there really were no signs of stress..

however, I DID start dosing less prime and stability, so, maybe I dosed too little and the golden finally succumed to the ammonia.

Right now, as far as I know, the blue is the only living thing left in the tank.. because apparently there's obviously no BB living in there...

is is possible that the ammonia is just too high for BB to develop??

anyway.. I'm running 02 and will just keep running 02 so there's plenty of oxygen. I noticed, however, when I lift the hood that the water surface is really frothy.. almost like a protein skimmer.. the bubbles are not eternal, but they are long lasting.

I just pray to see some sort of cycle start here soon... as long as that happens, I'll be good to go.. but so far.. nothing. I'm baffled. Any way I can naturally add more BB to what apparently seems to be a water column with plenty of available (locked and free) ammonia for it to consume? I mean.. I'll try anything. I'll stand there and breathe on it if I have to. maybe sing it a song?

Also, jenn.. maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing.. but I took my filter pad out this evening from my HOB filter. It was disgusting. It was also ripped so some of the carbon was falling out. It was really gross and wasn't rinsing clean, so I scrapped it. Right now my HOB just has the spongy mechanical filter 'pad' in it.

Maybe that's something??

 

[jennm]

Well we've established that you were over-dosing Stability. That may have done more harm than good.

You mentioned before that you were dosing Prime twice a day - that's not necessary. Prime can be safely dosed up to 5 times the prescribed dose, but I wouldn't suggest doing that daily either. How much were you dosing?

Dosing less should only matter if there is an active source of ammonia, continually creating ammonia. Typically a few days after ammonia becomes apparent, it starts to decrease, with a rise in nitrite as the decaying organics go through the cycle. Ammonia rises. Then ammonia falls and nitrite rises. Then nitrite falls and nitrate rises. Eventually ammonia and nitrite go to zero and usually a small, inconsequential amount of nitrate remains (which is then diluted with water changes).

Are you still changing water daily too? Or have you stopped that? IMO I'd let it settle out... and make it a priority to get a good set of water tests.

Something tells me salinity has something to do with this.

Jenn

 

[oceandeep85]

I have not been continually changing water... I've gotten to the point where I'm pretty much leaving it alone. Other than running 02 through my powerhead, I've not done anything else. As far as I know, only one damsel and a small bit of uneaten food should be adding any ammonia source at all.

Will a high salinity cause the tank cycle to stall?

I'm meeting BulkRate this evening after work to borrow some of his testing gear since he lives close by, so, after becoming familiar with the new tests and refractometer, I'll post my findings.

But you're right, given the apparent ammonia level, I should be well on my way to Nitrate readings only at this point. I should be more concerned with what fish and corals I want to keep rather than this crap by now.... :/

Thanks, Jenn. Appreciate it. And thank you to everyone else who's offered up sound advice and been following along. Josh, Bassett, JC K... everyone.

 

[demifelix]

at this point I think it's best to break everything down and start over, and do it slowly this time and monitor all parameters

 

[oceandeep85]

demifelix;970713 wrote: at this point I think it's best to break everything down and start over, and do it slowly this time and monitor all parameters

I'm going to give it until the end of the month. I've decided.

if it's not resolved by then, I'm going to buy a cheap 29, 36, or 40 gallon and start over.

 

[tdam]

IMO, its not supposed to be this hard. Get a bigger tank, let it cycle with live rock for about a month, and you should be good to go. Especially with the beginner corals you are doing. Not saying problems never arise. But doing all the work you are doing now would just discourage me. Keep it simple it time.

 

[jennm]

Hopefully testing with a different set of equipment - and eyes, will glean some information.

High or low specific gravity can mess with things but it has to be *really* out of whack to stall things completely.

Let's see what the parameters are - then we can rule that in or out and go from there.

I'd wait to do anything drastic just yet.

 

[oceandeep85]

yeah, I'm with you, Jenn. I'm not doing anything unless the issue is just entirely unresolved by August 1.

 

[oceandeep85]

tdam;970726 wrote: IMO, its not supposed to be this hard. Get a bigger tank, let it cycle with live rock for about a month, and you should be good to go. Especially with the beginner corals you are doing. Not saying problems never arise. But doing all the work you are doing now would just discourage me. Keep it simple it time.

I hear you, tdam. and it is discouraging. Very discouraging. But keeping a saltwater reef has been a lifelong dream of mine, so I'm not ready to abandon ship.

 

[oceandeep85]

JennM;970728 wrote: Hopefully testing with a different set of equipment - and eyes, will glean some information.

High or low specific gravity can mess with things but it has to be *really* out of whack to stall things completely.

Let's see what the parameters are - then we can rule that in or out and go from there.

I'd wait to do anything drastic just yet.

Jenn-

What about the skimmer effect that my 02 has been having on my water? When I checked it this morning, while running it through the night, the entire surface of the water was covered in sustained bubbles. I really had to wait a bit for them to pop or pop them myself.

Could that be something?

 

[ringo®]

Sounds like a protein layer on the surface of the water. Do you have anything that skims the surface like an overflow?