Concerned - 10 g Package dying?

[omchris]

Hello, I have been reading this forum for some time now and I finally decided to take the plunge. I set up me 10 g tank last week and this Saturday I purchased the 1st half of my 10 g package. I live in Tampa so I was able to go TBS and select me rocks and pick up my sand. I was very impressed with them and with life that came with it. The first day was wonderful, all the life I was seeing. My wife and I spent a lot of time just looking at everything with all the ooos, and ahhhs. Then came the disaster. I tested my water params with AP test kit. My ammonia was at 1.0 so I quickly did a water change with my ready and waiting saltwater mix with RO water. Yesterday morning I checked and water was a bit cloudy but ammonia was .50 and I had to go to work so I figured I would deal with it when I get home. By the time I got home my ammonia reading was off the charts and everything seemed dead or dying. I removed all my rocks and tried to get off everything that seemed dead or dying. Did a 5 gal water change, waited, tested and it was still at four. Did another 3 g water change and finally brought it back down to .25. There is the orange and purple stuff on it, but everything else seemed lifeless. Found a couple dead pistol shrimp and couple dead crabs, and a dead mantis shrimp. This morning the ammonia was at .50 again, but there is some more dying stuff. My concern is that I will be at work all day and my rock and sand are "stewing" in that foul water. Sorry for the long post but I am very concerned. Will everything on my rock die? What can I do? I really cannot miss work right now. Please help. I have noticed you guys are really helpful and friendly.

Thanks,
Omar

 

[koj11]

Sounds like a normal cycle to me. There are two schools of thought on cycling. The first (and what I do as well) is to do water changes, change filters, etc. while cycling. This will make your cycle last longer, but you will save more life on your rocks. The other way is just to let it (as you put it) stew. This will definately result in a shorter cycle, but there will be much more die off. I would recommend doing what you are already doing, and be sure to keep testing to stay on top of it. On another note, you're probably lucky to have gotten rid of that mantis shrimp now instead of having to deal with him at a later date. Good luck!

 

[liverock]

Re: Concerned - 10 g Package dying?

Hello, I have been reading this forum for some time now and I finally decided to take the plunge. I set up me 10 g tank last week and this Saturday I purchased the 1st half of my 10 g package. I live in Tampa so I was able to go TBS and select me rocks and pick up my sand. I was very impressed with them and with life that came with it. The first day was wonderful, all the life I was seeing. My wife and I spent a lot of time just looking at everything with all the ooos, and ahhhs. Then came the disaster. I tested my water params with AP test kit. My ammonia was at 1.0 so I quickly did a water change with my ready and waiting saltwater mix with RO water. Yesterday morning I checked and water was a bit cloudy but ammonia was .50 and I had to go to work so I figured I would deal with it when I get home. By the time I got home my ammonia reading was off the charts and everything seemed dead or dying. I removed all my rocks and tried to get off everything that seemed dead or dying. Did a 5 gal water change, waited, tested and it was still at four. Did another 3 g water change and finally brought it back down to .25. There is the orange and purple stuff on it, but everything else seemed lifeless. Found a couple dead pistol shrimp and couple dead crabs, and a dead mantis shrimp. This morning the ammonia was at .50 again, but there is some more dying stuff. My concern is that I will be at work all day and my rock and sand are "stewing" in that foul water. Sorry for the long post but I am very concerned. Will everything on my rock die? What can I do? I really cannot miss work right now. Please help. I have noticed you guys are really helpful and friendly.

Thanks,
Omar

Your water quality is a must with such a small tank, as long as you keep the the water in the safe zone all is well like here..


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=328896&highlight=tbs

At this point you have stressed the rock out and it will continue to die.....once the ammonia gets toxic, the rock dies.....

You must maintain water quality, especially in such a small tank, things go bad real fast...

Thanks
Richard TBS

 

[omchris]

Thanks for the quick reply Richard. I feel so bad about the rock. I know that you guys put a lot of work into the TBS project. Is there anything I can do to salvage the situation?

 

[koj11]

Don't be so discouraged. The response above from tbs is overly "doomsdayish" if you ask me. I can't imagine how an inanimate object (a rock) could be "stressed". If you just do your best (like you have been already), you will be just fine. The minutest amount of ammonia is toxic, and you can't cycle a tank without seeing ammonia. Following that logic would mean you would lose all life from all rocks in all cycles in all tanks... That's just not common sense if you ask me. You're on the right track. Keep up the good work!

 

[omchris]

Thanks for the encouragement koj.

 

[Dexter1334]

Hi Omchris,

I found the biggest source of ammonia in my first shipment was the huge number of sponges on the rock. Some sources say that even a short exposure to air will cause these to die.

In my first shipment, either because of low temp's during shipping or exposure to air I lost quite a few sponges. I ended scraping of the ones I could see that were obviously dying. Then, by taking the rock out and giving it a sniff I could tell immediately if the ones still on the rock were good or dying. If you are not sure, the sponge is probably ok. Believe me, once you smell a dead sponge you will have no doubts as to which are good or bad.

I got some high spikes with the first shipment which leveled off after about a week. Some of the sponges were deep in the rock and inaccessable and I had to wait for them to rot away. Lots of water changes. I work a 15 hour day, and only managed one change on some days.

With the second shipment I got a little spike of ammonia that lasted about three days. I hardly had to do water changes at all. I also got some beautiful sponges with the 2nd shipment and although they were stressed they have recovered and are growing nicely. I've noticed some other changes also. Some of the Coraline algae peeled away, but is growing back. There are little serpent stars all over and I have enough porcelain crabs to stock a LFS.

If you give your tank ample time to reach equilibrium before you add your 2nd shipment, your system should have no trouble acclimating to it.

 

[liverock]

Don't be so discouraged. The response above from tbs is overly "doomsdayish" if you ask me. I can't imagine how an inanimate object (a rock) could be "stressed". If you just do your best (like you have been already), you will be just fine. The minutest amount of ammonia is toxic, and you can't cycle a tank without seeing ammonia. Following that logic would mean you would lose all life from all rocks in all cycles in all tanks... That's just not common sense if you ask me. You're on the right track. Keep up the good work!

Please understand, our rock is not what you are used to......Fiji rock has little life and can be cycled in a toxic environment with no problems as there is little life to worry about....

But our rock is teeming with life, not inanimate, and if not cared for properly, will die, killing most of the life in your tank, if ammonia levels are not maintained below 1ppm during the cycle.

In my experiance, once the ammonia reaches deadly levels and is not controled by water changes, all the life on the rock is stressed and starts to die. At that point there is no turning back as the dead and dying life will create so much ammonia that the rock will never recover. Sure it may cycle, but the end result will be rock with little life.

Water changes are a must
ammonia must be kept under 1ppm.

See our customers pictures here on RC

or here
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=328896&highlight=tbs

When the ammonia is kept in limits, the result is a happy tank.

Thanks
Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com

 

[koj11]

But our rock is teeming with life, not inanimate, and if not cared for properly, will die, killing most of the life in your tank, if ammonia levels are not maintained below 1ppm during the cycle.

A rock itself is inanimate, no matter what other living organisms are on it. This person is caring for it as best as can be expected. He's doing mulitple water changes in a single day! If that's not caring for the rock properly, I'd certainly like to know what is. As far as keeping an ammonia level under 1 ppm during a cycle...I would have to see that to believe it. If you can cycle a tank and NEVER have an ammonia level of over 1 ppm, then I've got a bridge for you to sell for me. In my opinion, omchris, you're getting some bad advice here. They said "at this point you have stressed the rock out and it will continue to die". Bunk. Don't believe it for a minute that you haven't done what could be done for this rock. I think it's pretty lame for them to try and tell you that your rock is dying because you haven't done enough when you're doing MULTIPLE WATER CHANGES IN A SINGLE DAY! Good lord. I wasn't a fan of tbs rock before because of all the bad hitchers...I'm even less of a fan now because of the blame game being played here.

 

[SPC]

I can't imagine how an inanimate object (a rock) could be "stressed".

Its not the rock itself, koj11, its the life on the rock.

If you just do your best (like you have been already), you will be just fine.

How do you know this? You do realize that TBS was trying to emphasize through their post how important it is to keep ammonia levels below 1ppm, don't you?

The minutest amount of ammonia is toxic, and you can't cycle a tank without seeing ammonia.

No one said you could, TBS said 1 ppm

Following that logic would mean you would lose all life from all rocks in all cycles in all tanks... That's just not common sense if you ask me.

Have you any experience with Fla aquacultured rock?
Steve

 

[hdtran]

Koj11,

I set up a 120g tank with a moderately undersized TBS package.

My ammonia never rose above 0.25ppm with the first half of the package, with no water changes.

I'm now keeping (successfully so far) a Tang, 2 clowns, 1 damsel, a goby, and assorted inverts with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates, 3 to 3.5 meq/L alkalinity & 400 ppm calcium.


Please sell me your bridge. I love bridges.

p.s. Nobody is blaming anybody. The original poster is doing his (her) best, we understand that & encourage it.

 

[omchris]

Hi, I am sorry for the disagreement I seemed to have caused. I appreciate both points of view. I must be honest and admit that I am still fascinated with TBS rock and the life that comes with it. It is for that reason that I became so concerned when I started to see the life on my rock started to die. I am trying my best to be vigilant with my water changes, but it is a bit difficult when I am away from home and at work for 12 hours for the day. I will continue with I am doing and hope for the best.

 

[Splach]

Wow Koj11,

the fact that you dislike TBS rock is very evident in your posts. It is also evident that you have never had any. I cycled 150 lbs of live sand and live rock and never had over 1 ppm ammonia (and the only reason it got that high is that I did a few things wrong).

There is no "blame game" going on here, the end user simply has a very difficult tank to manage. Any 10 gallon nano is going to be very difficult to keep happy. You must be willing to agree on that point at least.

Further the posts about the rock are spot on. Maybe all the rock you have had in the past has been "inert", "inanimate", etc (whatever the term was that you used) but the stuff from TBS is covered, filled, crawling, and seeded with life. I have new things sprouting up weeks later from deep in the pores of the rock. Further I would deal with 100 mantis before I would take the rock that I have seen at the LFS and in peoples tanks 6 months later with 1/2 a dozen different types of life on it. If you live near Seattle come take a look at my tank and see if you can even count, much less identify the things all over my ecosystem.

As to the original poster, sorry about your pistol shrimp, crabs, and mantis shrimp. The only solutions at this point are to go with all the other Fiji rock guys out there and let the tank go into supertoxic mode until it finally all breaks down all of the dead and dying material in the sand and rock or to continue doing water changes to try and salvage anything that might still be hiding somewhere in the rock. Once you have established and stablized this batch of rock the bacteria in your tank should be able to handle the second batch much easier (I had only a nominal second spike from adding 150 lbs of live rock). If it is in the cards you might take a look at what is available in the 29 gallon range at a local fish store. Increasing your water volume to this level will help create a more stable environment and you will have a much easier time maintaining it.

If you want to read up on any of the history of my tank it is in this thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=284088

Good luck, and keep us informed of your progress.

 

[hdtran]

Omchris,

Just continue with 50% water changes 2x/day. A 10g will go south in a hurry. Be sure your premixed saltwater is at tank temperature before you perform your water changes. In a few days, it will stabilize. I have a 5g nano for my hitchhiking octopus, and I threw in a handful of sand and a couple of pieces of rock for that tank. It took about 2 weeks for the 5g to cycle, and I was changing water 2x/day at first.

When you're transporting your second half of package from TBS, don't bag it; just bring a large rubbermaid container filled with saltwater. I would also probably avoid the 30 minutes on the tarp which we all do to let hitchhikers crawl off.

Also, look for a dying sponge (as kp1917 found). Richard & crew do their best to remove them, but an occassional one stays hidden.

Good luck!

 

[delta]

Another thing is if you are running a protien skimmer which in my opinion is a must keep it clean and adjusted properly this will help reduce the bio load.
i think at one time or another we have all said i take care of that later sometimes it no problem sometimes it is a problem i ve been on bioth sides of that one.

Anyway good luck keep us posted

 

[koj11]

Good lord people get a grip. Here we have a new hobbyist who is having some difficulties and comes on here asking for help. He is going above and beyond what most people (especially someone new to this hobby) would do during their cycle. And what kind of a response does he get from tbs??? Here are a couple quotes...

"At this point you have stressed the rock out and it will continue to die.....once the ammonia gets toxic, the rock dies....."

"But our rock is teeming with life, not inanimate, and if not cared for properly, will die, killing most of the life in your tank, if ammonia levels are not maintained below 1ppm during the cycle. "

"Water changes are a must
ammonia must be kept under 1ppm."

Nice...

I know if I was just starting, and busting by butt to do everything I could to achieve my initial goals in this hobby, the last thing I'd want is for the company I bought my rock from to come on here and basically say "Tough luck dude you blew it and now everything is going to die." I mean really...they actually say "Water changes are a must" (no kidding, he's doing mulitiple water changes every day). How about some encouragement for a newbie next time instead of blasting him about how he screwed it all up? I don't see one piece of advice for him from tbs except for a vague "keep water quality high". The only specific suggestion for him is to do water changes, which (once again) he is already doing. I feel this is a terrible response to a struggling newbie, and that's why I posted with some encouragement for him. Thank you all for flaming me as well.

The only reason (like I said above) I was not a fan of tbs rock before was because of all the unwanted hitchers people have had problems with on this rock. Now I'm really unimpressed after their handling of this customer of theirs. Please people, take a deep breath and go back up and read what was said by tbs. Is this the kind of negative response you would want if you were in omchris' shoes?

Omchris, I apologize if I got your thread sidetracked. The kind of flaming going on here is not typical of this forum and its members. You're in the right place to learn all you need. Keep doing what you are already doing and your tank will be just fine.

 

[Myka]

I was just wondering why everyone is replying here. Liverock is the "pro" here, why not follow the advice of the man who sold it to you?

Mindy

 

[ynotynot123]

Omchris, I'm new to this too, I had the same thing happen with my rock in a 10g. A lot of my stuff died too, but i kept up with the water changes and managed to save quite a bit, besides, when you get your second shipment, there is more life on it, and since the bacteria is already built up in your tank you should not have as much of a problem. My second shipment has been in for four days now and my ammonia is still at 0. I'm not saying i'm out of the woods yet, but everything looks good. I wouldn't worry so much about your rock, just keep up with the water changes, that's what i did.

IMO richard has not been negative at all. He's just stating the best care for the rock HIS company produces. He should know, he's been doing it long enough.

Anyway, don't sweat it, it'll all work out and your second shipment will come with 2x the life as the first and it should be a lot easier.

just my humble opinion,
Tony

 

[SPC]

I feel this is a terrible response to a struggling newbie, and that's why I posted with some encouragement for him.

Please people, take a deep breath and go back up and read what was said by tbs. Is this the kind of negative response you would want if you were in omchris' shoes?

No, actually if you take your own advice and go back and read your first post to omchris, you may note where the advice you gave "Sounds like a normal cycle to me.", to a newbee with Fla aquacultured rock I might add, was wrong.


The only reason (like I said above) I was not a fan of tbs rock before was because of all the unwanted hitchers people have had problems with on this rock. Now I'm really unimpressed after their handling of this customer of theirs.

Don't you really mean "their correcting my poor advice to a newbee?" Richard stated facts in his response to omchris that were already listed on his web site, you gave advice that was just flat incorrect.

You're in the right place to learn all you need. Keep doing what you are already doing and your tank will be just fine.

Really? Lets see, omchris said in his first post:

By the time I got home my ammonia reading was off the charts and everything seemed dead or dying.

And your response was:

Sounds like a normal cycle to me.

Is this what you are referring to when you say "your in the right place to learn?" Or would this just be giving a newbee some encouragement.
Steve

 

[koj11]

Not clever at all. You can take an out of context quote from omchris, and pair it up with an out of context response from me, but it doesn't make your chosen sentence of mine refer to your chosen sentence of his. We are all familiar with this sort of distorting of the facts. Just watch any political debate or commercial...

spc, no matter how much you pick apart what I said...no matter how much you try to twist it to something it is not...no matter how much sarcasm you throw in with it...it still won't change the facts here. It won't change the plain and simple gist of what I'm saying.