tgunn
Active member
I've had my tank up and running since October 2005; so I'm coming on 2 years running now. I read and researched about saltwater fish for about a year and followed build threads on here before even considering my own system.
Despite attempting to follow good husbandry practices throughout the life of my system, lately I seem to be killing an inordinate number of fish.
Let me give some history..
My system consists of:
140g tank
2 x 250w 10k halides
2 x 54w blue plus T5
2 x 54w aquablue T5
100g basement sump
Three pump Octopus recirculating skimmer (rated for a huge tank, much larger than mine).
Calcium reactor run by doser
I grow chaeto (very slowly) in my sump using a couple of CF floodlights ala Melev.
All water for the tank is filtered with a RO/DI system, and I try to keep the TDS around 0-2 TDS.
Here's a chronology of my failures to keep fish:
When I first started the tank I set it up with 130lb of liverock; 100lb of base rock and 30lb of premium rock. I started out with a 1-2" shallow sand bed in the display. I let this cycle until all the levels were stable.
My first fish was a yellow tang, which I still have today.
Slowly over about a year I worked up to:
- yellow tang
- 2 x clownfish
- 6 x blue/green chromis
- Pink Square anthias
- Powder blue tang
- Sailfin tang
This was the peak of my fish stock...
The chromis began fighting and their numbers dwindled to 2.
From the start I ran a Resun Ozone generator with my large beckett skimmer. I didn't run carbon over the skimmer effluent but I controlled the ORP with an ORP controller.
In December 2006 I bought my large 3 pump recirculating octopus skimmer. Little did I know this was the start of BIG problems. I didn't realize it but the new skimmer was not processing the ozone effectively at all. In January 2007 I bought 4 new fish which I put into my 35g quarantine tank (I'll explain QT procedures later). By February 2007 they were disease free and healthy; ready for the main tank. I put them in and was shocked when the next day ALL 4 were dead. I lost a lamark's angel, bicolor dottyback, sixline wrasse, and scooter. i spoke at length to the LFS and he suggested ozone overdose, knowing my system pretty well. He loaned me a Hach free/total chrlorine kit and sure enouigh I tested pretty high for OPOs. I immediately shut down the ozone. The next day my pinksquare died. A few months later my sailfin was found stuck to the closed loop intake dead.
The ozone overdoes proved to kill off most of the microfauna in the sandbed, making it a trough of sludge and decay. In April 2007 I took down the tank, put everything in the sump and cleaned out the tank and all the sand. Time to try barebottom.
Unfortunately 1 of the chromis died from the stress of the move to the sump, and one of my clowns got sucked into the intake of the PCX-40 I was using to move water in the sump (NOT good).
Everything was running fine so in June 2007 I bought a Kole tang, and 3 cardinals.
One of the cardinals perished the same day in QT, but the rest of them did fine and made it to July when it was time to introduce them into the tank. My daughter was born in July and becase of that the tank for neglected for a few weeks after the new fish were introduced.. My powder blue, who seemed to be doing fine for the longest time, was stuck to the closed loop intake when I got home one day from work. Not more than a week later the Kole suffered the same fate.
I figured big fish and the closed loop intake was the problem. 5000GPH through a single intake screen was probably too much. It just so happens at the end of July one of my closed loop bulkheads popped and the tank started leaking. So I bought a stock tank, put everything in, tore down the tank (AGAIN), sealed off the closed loop, and replaced it with two Tunze 6101s thinking they'd be less hazardous than my old closed loop intake screens.
Around August 2007 I bought a purple fish (can't recall name), baby regal tang, and a sixline. All were QTed and seemed happy and healthy. I introduced them into the tank the beginning of this month. A few days later te sixline was dead. The regal and purple fish are fine though.
At that point I bought more fish and put them into QT. I bought a cleaner wrasse, baby sailfin, two electric blue damsels, and a black clownfish. The cleaner died overnight.
Yesterday I noticed one of the damsels was not doing well:
It had a raised yellow bump on its side and was acting kinda sluggish.
Sure enough it died and got stuck on one of my powerheads in the QT tank.
I found it this morning and removed it. Well, I dunno if the death of that fish did it, but my sailfin is acting VERY sluggish today; laying on its side and being very lazy looking. No signs of physical trauma though.
I did a 50% water change with tank water; we'll see if that helps things out. I did not test the nitrates/ammonia and all that because I just wanted to get things in gear again. I'll test that later today though.
So what's my QT procedures:
When new fish come home I typically float them in the sump. Over the span of about 45min to 1 hour I will drip in more water or scoop little bits of water into the bag. With my last batch I poured all their bags into a small bucket and just dripped in tank water.
While this was happening the QT was set up with 35g of tank water, a maxijet 400, maxijet 1200, and an aquaclear hob filter. For filter media I used a combination ammonia remover and carbon pack, and a new ceramic media cartridge (I normally use one that has been in the sump, but I forgot to put it back in the sump after the last run).
I feed with an auto feeder a combo of flake spirulina and prime reef 2 x daily (small feedings).
Once the fish have been drip acclimated long enough I net them and put them into the QT tank (the LFS uses various medications on new shipments and recommends to limit the amount of that water introduced to the tank).
I'm really getting bummed out. My corals all look terribly pale and bland, and it's been suggested to me that my fish load is WAY too low for the corals to get the nutrients they need to actually color up. But I can't seem to get the right fish load because things keep dying on me.
Any help and pointers would be greatly appreciated. I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong here.
Thanks,
Tyler
Despite attempting to follow good husbandry practices throughout the life of my system, lately I seem to be killing an inordinate number of fish.
Let me give some history..
My system consists of:
140g tank
2 x 250w 10k halides
2 x 54w blue plus T5
2 x 54w aquablue T5
100g basement sump
Three pump Octopus recirculating skimmer (rated for a huge tank, much larger than mine).
Calcium reactor run by doser
I grow chaeto (very slowly) in my sump using a couple of CF floodlights ala Melev.
All water for the tank is filtered with a RO/DI system, and I try to keep the TDS around 0-2 TDS.
Here's a chronology of my failures to keep fish:
When I first started the tank I set it up with 130lb of liverock; 100lb of base rock and 30lb of premium rock. I started out with a 1-2" shallow sand bed in the display. I let this cycle until all the levels were stable.
My first fish was a yellow tang, which I still have today.
Slowly over about a year I worked up to:
- yellow tang
- 2 x clownfish
- 6 x blue/green chromis
- Pink Square anthias
- Powder blue tang
- Sailfin tang
This was the peak of my fish stock...
The chromis began fighting and their numbers dwindled to 2.
From the start I ran a Resun Ozone generator with my large beckett skimmer. I didn't run carbon over the skimmer effluent but I controlled the ORP with an ORP controller.
In December 2006 I bought my large 3 pump recirculating octopus skimmer. Little did I know this was the start of BIG problems. I didn't realize it but the new skimmer was not processing the ozone effectively at all. In January 2007 I bought 4 new fish which I put into my 35g quarantine tank (I'll explain QT procedures later). By February 2007 they were disease free and healthy; ready for the main tank. I put them in and was shocked when the next day ALL 4 were dead. I lost a lamark's angel, bicolor dottyback, sixline wrasse, and scooter. i spoke at length to the LFS and he suggested ozone overdose, knowing my system pretty well. He loaned me a Hach free/total chrlorine kit and sure enouigh I tested pretty high for OPOs. I immediately shut down the ozone. The next day my pinksquare died. A few months later my sailfin was found stuck to the closed loop intake dead.
The ozone overdoes proved to kill off most of the microfauna in the sandbed, making it a trough of sludge and decay. In April 2007 I took down the tank, put everything in the sump and cleaned out the tank and all the sand. Time to try barebottom.
Unfortunately 1 of the chromis died from the stress of the move to the sump, and one of my clowns got sucked into the intake of the PCX-40 I was using to move water in the sump (NOT good).
Everything was running fine so in June 2007 I bought a Kole tang, and 3 cardinals.
One of the cardinals perished the same day in QT, but the rest of them did fine and made it to July when it was time to introduce them into the tank. My daughter was born in July and becase of that the tank for neglected for a few weeks after the new fish were introduced.. My powder blue, who seemed to be doing fine for the longest time, was stuck to the closed loop intake when I got home one day from work. Not more than a week later the Kole suffered the same fate.
I figured big fish and the closed loop intake was the problem. 5000GPH through a single intake screen was probably too much. It just so happens at the end of July one of my closed loop bulkheads popped and the tank started leaking. So I bought a stock tank, put everything in, tore down the tank (AGAIN), sealed off the closed loop, and replaced it with two Tunze 6101s thinking they'd be less hazardous than my old closed loop intake screens.
Around August 2007 I bought a purple fish (can't recall name), baby regal tang, and a sixline. All were QTed and seemed happy and healthy. I introduced them into the tank the beginning of this month. A few days later te sixline was dead. The regal and purple fish are fine though.
At that point I bought more fish and put them into QT. I bought a cleaner wrasse, baby sailfin, two electric blue damsels, and a black clownfish. The cleaner died overnight.
Yesterday I noticed one of the damsels was not doing well:
Sure enough it died and got stuck on one of my powerheads in the QT tank.
I found it this morning and removed it. Well, I dunno if the death of that fish did it, but my sailfin is acting VERY sluggish today; laying on its side and being very lazy looking. No signs of physical trauma though.
I did a 50% water change with tank water; we'll see if that helps things out. I did not test the nitrates/ammonia and all that because I just wanted to get things in gear again. I'll test that later today though.
So what's my QT procedures:
When new fish come home I typically float them in the sump. Over the span of about 45min to 1 hour I will drip in more water or scoop little bits of water into the bag. With my last batch I poured all their bags into a small bucket and just dripped in tank water.
While this was happening the QT was set up with 35g of tank water, a maxijet 400, maxijet 1200, and an aquaclear hob filter. For filter media I used a combination ammonia remover and carbon pack, and a new ceramic media cartridge (I normally use one that has been in the sump, but I forgot to put it back in the sump after the last run).
I feed with an auto feeder a combo of flake spirulina and prime reef 2 x daily (small feedings).
Once the fish have been drip acclimated long enough I net them and put them into the QT tank (the LFS uses various medications on new shipments and recommends to limit the amount of that water introduced to the tank).
I'm really getting bummed out. My corals all look terribly pale and bland, and it's been suggested to me that my fish load is WAY too low for the corals to get the nutrients they need to actually color up. But I can't seem to get the right fish load because things keep dying on me.
Any help and pointers would be greatly appreciated. I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong here.
Thanks,
Tyler
