Saltwater Newbie

[Dave Parker]

Hello everyone,
My set-up has been running since Febuary. My dealer has been maintaing all operations for my tank, but its time for me to do it alone, as he has slacked off alittle. They came by twice a month for check-ups. Since June its been downhill with poor water quality
fish disease,dying inverts and fish. I'm trying to recover with water changes, but my nitrate is alittle high.Also around the same time in June or before I noticed little white spots in my tank on the glass, live rock and over flow. I can scrape it off the glass but not the rock. What is this

I have the basic clean-up crew, also 4 emerald crabs
5 fish, 1 anemones, mushroom coral, button polyp
and I think thats it
Thanks for all your input
Dave

[Avi]

Can you mention how much live rock you have? Also, do you have a good skimmer? That's critical. If you have an appopriate amount of live rock, and a good skimmer, that should go a long way toward maintaining your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates where they ought to be. Also, can you say if you have any kinds of filters going on the tank? One more thing, for now.....what kind of water flow do you have in the tank?

As for the white things on the rock and the glass, etc....do they look like small snails?

[Randall_James]

If you are not sure about what you have, open the cabinet, shoot some pics as well as the tank and the inhabitants. Closeups are good......

[markandkristen]

i agree on the live rock and skimmer
until i had 1 pound per gallon i never really had good success with stable parimeters.
a mid to high dollar skimmer is a must.

[benhere]

sheesh, I know it's complicated and you're bound to make mistakes when you're starting your first reef, but I don't think it's a good idea to have pet store people come to your house (or where ever your tank is) to do maintenance, you should take the time to learn about these things yourself... knowledge is power! if you don't you end up getting problems that you have no clue how to fix and you have to call your
LFS and ask for them to come and help you (which IMO is a waste of time/money). This forum is a great place to learn about reefs, you should hang around here and learn as much as you can

[Randall_James]

Wow guess I am in big trouble myself, I have a guy that comes in once a month to service my 200G FW tank.

I just do not have time for the thing and it is an integral part of my office. I do what I have time for (2 hours a week) and he takes care of the rest.

And I think he is here learning what he can in as quick a time span as possible. I give him credit for stepping up and learning about his tank.........

[Randall_James]

Oh yea my apologies! Where are my manners

To Reef Central
Dave Parker

[Dave Parker]

Can you mention how much live rock you have? Also, do you have a good skimmer? That's critical. If you have an appopriate amount of live rock, and a good skimmer, that should go a long way toward maintaining your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates where they ought to be. Also, can you say if you have any kinds of filters going on the tank? One more thing, for now.....what kind of water flow do you have in the tank?

As for the white things on the rock and the glass, etc....do they look like small snails?


__________________
OK......I have 60lbs of live sand
47lbs live rock (Tonga Branch)
UV Sterilizer 9 watt turbo-twist
P. Skimmer ( although not sure if its set right, not much waste that accumulate's, It has an adjustment for more water, but I keep the water at the level mark indicated on P.S.)
W/D filter and a Power Head about mid height of tank flowing on the anemone
The dealer only does saltwater system

Great info here, I'm glad I found RC. I belong to three other forums
TIA ..........Dave

[Dave Parker]

As for the white things on the rock and the glass, etc....do they look like small snails?

No they look more like salt deposits
I'm working on pics soon

[benhere]

ya I wasn't trying to sound rude or anything, I was just saying that IMO I wouldn't want somebody servicing my tank, but that's just me- I'm sure that if I didn't have any time at all and I had the money I *might* be willing to hire people to do the work for me, but as for now, I have WAAAAYYY too much time on my hands.

[Avi]

Okay...The first thing I would do is make sure your skimmer IS working at its most efficient capability. With five fish, a cleanup crew and some other things in the 72-gallon tank, I believe there should be consistent foaming and waster removal by your skimmer....What brand is it? Maybe someone with the same brand can tell you what to do to set it correctly, or go to the manufacturer's website and see if your model's manual is posted there if you don't have it. Get that thing going...it'll make a big difference.

The next thing I would do is add more live rock to the tank. I believe you should have at very least, one pound per gallon....and I would have even more...maybe altogether something close to 100 pounds. I think that will also make a very big difference.

I assume, since you didn't mention any, you don't have any supplemental filters going, and that's good. But, I'd bet that you don't have sufficient water current (flow) in the tank....what's going on in your tank with that?

As to the white things, I'm thinking that they might be the calcerous based for small fan worms. The are fine and won't hurt anything, if that's what it is.

[Randall_James]

W/D filter and a Power Head about mid height of tank flowing on the anemone

The wet/dry, has bio balls in it? if so, you might consider removing as you add your new rock.

Please run any new rock thru quarantine before adding to display

If you only have a single power head, I am sure that you need to add a couple more to help mix things up. The fact that your 1 is aimed at your anemone and it is not moving kind of indicates low flow. They do not usually like direct flow like that if it is very strong. (I would leave that one alone if he is happy however)

[inlandreef]

[welcome]

[Dave Parker]

benhere ya I wasn't trying to sound rude or anything, I was just saying that IMO I wouldn't want somebody servicing my tank, but that's just me- I'm sure that if I didn't have any time at all and I had the money I *might* be willing to hire people to do the work for me, but as for now, I have WAAAAYYY too much time on my hands.

I totally understand what your saying, its just in the beginning I know nothing about reef system. So these guys help me get on my feet


I assume, since you didn't mention any, you don't have any supplemental filters going, and that's good. But, I'd bet that you don't have sufficient water current (flow) in the tank....what's going on in your tank with that?

As to the white things, I'm thinking that they might be the calcerous based for small fan worms. The are fine and won't hurt anything, if that's what it is.

Actually, what is considered supplemental filters, is this the same as carbon pads and polyester pads, those type of things i use in my W/D.
And you are right, upon close inspection these white dots are small fan worms as you call them

The wet/dry, has bio balls in it? if so, you might consider removing as you add your new rock.

Please run any new rock thru quarantine before adding to display

If you only have a single power head, I am sure that you need to add a couple more to help mix things up. The fact that your 1 is aimed at your anemone and it is not moving kind of indicates low flow. They do not usually like direct flow like that if it is very strong. (I would leave that one alone if he is happy however

Yes the W/D has bio balls
Please give more info on how to quarintine the rock
the power head has rotating head

Thanks for all your input guys..........Dave

[sidog1]

Dave,
you might want to get rid of the bio balls. they will store nitrates...
The others already mentioned more flow. maybe add a couple of seio pumps in there?

Doctors Foster and Smith is having a sale on them too.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...G&N=2004+22788

as for more live rock, see if anyone is exiting the hobby, you can probably pick up some for cheap and it's probably cured if their tank is still set up. Or check out your local fish store for some cured rock. If you order live rock from online, you will have to cure it in a separate container to let things die off. I'm just getting back into the hobby so others will have more input than me. hope this helps

simon

[fishylad]

Most of the questions I think you might or currently have I would bet they will be addressed in the thread below.

Be prepared to read but you won't regret it.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=239848

[RBU1]

Dave, One thing you will learn real fast with this forum is you are going to get many different opinions on how to handle things. THe best thing you can do is get all the input from all before YOU make your own decision. Let's take the Bio-Ball thing for example. My W/D has had bio-balls in it for the entire year the tank has been running. My nitrate level is 0. The one thing I did do is SLOWLY removed some of the bio-balls with every weekly water change. I removed enough bio-balls so that the ones in the W/D are below the water line. If they are all covered with water you should be OK. I will say the most important thing you can do is a regular schedule of water changes. I do my 75 gallon tank every Sunday. I have 2 - 33 gallon food safe buckets in the basement. One has my RO/DI water and the other has a powerhead and a heater with my salt water mixed and ready to use. Make sure you mix your water up a couple day's in advance to give it time to mix. If you don't have one already consider an RO unit. You can get a good one at a good price from www.airwaterice.com If you don't have a refractometer please get one those swing are things are not worth the plastic they are made from. OH well GOOD luck to you. BILL

[Avi]

RBU1's right about the different opinions you'll get here. I, for example, just don't buy the whole RO thing. I know, I know...some people will get hot under the collar but it's been my experience that it's just not necessary...and, accepting that I might be looking only at my experience, try doing the reef without it and if you run into consistent water quality problems, only then would I consider doing RO. But that's just it, there are lots of ways to do this here reef thing. That having been said, there are certain things that can be chalked up to "popular wisdom" or learning from what other people have figured out it the best way to do something, and when it comes to a reef, the popular wisdom is for Dave Parker to have more live rock than he has now. If you can't get it, as sidog suggests, from someone local who's selling it, then if you have a reliable fish store, have them sell you some cured live rock which they've had for some weeks in a tank that had a good current running through it. The rock should smell like the ocean shore, not like some dead fish. It comes easier and easier as you go along.

[Randall_James]

I just wish I had AVI's water then, sheesh you should see the numbers on this stuff and we use chloramine

[Avi]

Randall...you might be absolutely right...the water in some parts of the country...I guess world...are so different from others. I live in the northeast and I just know that RO isn't essential here...but "here" might even be a small island in an RO-needing sea.