Good crap, Bad Crap & ?? Crap

[flameangel88]

This is what the tank looks like after moving somerocks over to the 75g to help seed that tank and to give room on this one for better circulation.

Removed some rocks to get better circulation

Moved the Romora to the 75g and replaced with CSS65 on this tank--1 day collection

 

[flameangel88]

New Arc Eye Hawk in the 75g

Royal Gramma hidden in the rock and got moved over to the 75g

 

[ybenormal]

I would remove the canister filters or at least remove all mechanical media from them. Canisters are designed for and work great on FW tanks but, IMHO, they tend to trap waste particles and cause high nitrates in SW tanks. LR, live sand and a good protein skimmer should be all you need for most SW tanks. Keep all other water parameters in check, feed lightly, remove any uneaten food and perform partial water changes as needed to bring nitrates are under control.

 

[flameangel88]

ybenormal, thanks for the input. I've done everything to lower nitrate that are normally done with FW tank but the nitrate just having decreased one bit. Through process of elimination, I've cleaned the canister filter, opened the wet/dry (no filter pad inside) it was very clean and could only think that its the filter media that can cause the nitrate problem. I'll quadually take out the eheim filter media as they can have slim buid up. I think you are right all we need is LR, LS, very good skimmer, good circulation, wcs and possibly carbon and we are set and I complicated things by doing more.

 

[figuerres]

Yep!

the whole reason folks started to run a deep sand bed (6 inches give or take) and live rock has been (as far as I know) to use a phrase I have read in a book:

"Less Technology, More Biology"

like albert said:

"Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler"

so mimic the ocean:

big water volume as it relates to the fish and corals in a system.

good movement, good airation.

large volume of sand and rock.

balanced chain of life.

the base beeing the arobic and anearobic bacteria that are the last stage in waste processing.

pump for movment, skimmer for aration and "beach foam" effects.
lights to power photo-synthic life.

then just balance the rest.... sand, rock, coral, fish, etc....

 

[flameangel88]

You guys have been great in helping me out.

Thanks again!

 

[ybenormal]

No problem. Keep an eye on nitrate readings and continue with the partial water changes to keep them as low as possible while your tank is maturing and stabalizing. Let us know what the readings look like once the canisters are removed. BTW, you are not using bio-balls in the wet/dry are you?

 

[flameangel88]

Will do. No, the media is the Eheim stuff (Efisubstrat). I've 6 liters of this stuff--wonder if I can use it like sand and put it in the tank as substrate?

 

[flameangel88]

Stone Crab

Stone Crab

I don't know if it takes 4-5 to to double but I didn't see mine in about 2 weeks and it kinda double in size. I forgot about it till it came out during feeding time then went back to hiding under the biggest rock of course. I'll try to get quick picture next time.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7325625#post7325625 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mikehulen
First one is a gorilla. Considered a bad crab, but I keep them in the tank for my mantis to feed on.

Second is a stone crab. A real bulldozer and almost doubles in size with each molt (4-5 weeks). never saw mine do anything wrong, but got tired of him re-aquascaping my aquascaping.

Third is porcelan. Good crab.

 

[ybenormal]

My stone crab (occupies my sump) has become vicious lately, attacking very large hermit crabs and even offering to take me on at feeding time. I fed him some shrimp with one of the long, clear, plastic rods with a dull point on the end. He took the shrimp with one claw and with one motion of the other claw he shaved the end of the plastic rod totally off!

How are the nitrate levels in your tank now?

 

[flameangel88]

Nitrate is still holding around 40 after taking out everything that I can think of or someone here suggesting to. Since I've done the normal water changes and will be adding a bit more of LS and LR then see what happen from there. I'm also looking into a RO/DI unit...I'm not sure this will help as the test of replacement water with Nitrate showing 0 but at least the quality of water will be better. I've also turn up all the rocks to be sure there's nothing underneath rotting. The only thing that I can tell lately is I see less and less of snails and hermits crawling around.

This is what I've have in the tank now:
45-50lbs of LR and 30-35lbs LS
1 very sm Pygmy Angel, 1 Spotted Hawkfish, 2 O. Clowns, 2 P. Cardinal, 1 Banded Coral Shrimp, 1 Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Tiger Cucumbers and the bunch of snails and hermits.

 

[ybenormal]

That is very strange. One other thing to check would be accuracy of your test kit. I recently had an issue where tap water tested at zero nitrates but the tank tested at 40+. This was a sudden, unexplained change and nothing seemed to help bring it down. I used another test kit and found that the nitrates in the tank were actually ~5ppm. Turns out that the first test kit had gone bad and any nitrates automatically registered at 40+ on the scale. I used a third test kit to confim results.

 

[flameangel88]

That's what I thought at first while using the Pharm Aq then went out to get a Seachem and they weren't off by much tested using both on my new 75g (it register 5 here) and repl water (0 here) as well and came close on both. I ran out of ideas to try other than to take fish out and may do that by taking the pair of Pajama Cardinals out. The this that kills me is that after doing water change it really doesn' reduce the nitrate reading but it doesn't register anything in the repl water and after adding RO/DI and that doesn't work then I'll be out of ideas.

 

[figuerres]

also by now I say link this over to the Chem. board and see what they say.... there must be some logic here that we are missing.


see what they say.

 

[flameangel88]

Denny, that's a great idea. In the meantime I'll put some plants in the back compartment and keep a light on back there 24/7 and see if it will help. I've been pulling hair out for a while till I started working on the 75g as it took my mind off it. How are things with your tank?

 

[figuerres]

a few notes on my tank:

today was "move the rock day"

I have been tracking a nasty Gorilla crab for a while....

I think he has eaten about 8 pepermint shimp and at least one cucumber !

got him -- body was about the size of a quarter.
now he's in the sump with rock frags where he can clean up the rock there....

also found a dime sized one and was able to lure him with some nori to stay put while I got him, he did try and run but a thumb and finger got his legs on one side -- so he's in the sump also.


now to get some more "good cleanup" guys to replace the ones the big crab et' up !

the fun thing was folling the big crab -- he thought he was hiding when he came out in a big rock.

I just let him think that.... when I started lifting rock out of my big tub I knew he was in the bottom ready to get back to my tank.

he did not know I was on to him...
I got the rocks with holes out first and let him hide where I knew I could find him...

with the rocks gone he was in a nice big tub of water where I could net him easy

oh and the flatworm exit stuff worked great!! no more red devils anywhere I look .....

so now to keep working on making this tank a real looker