Help!!!!!

[mutiger91]

Have a jbj nano cube (13g) that i just had two perculas i just bougth die. Acclimated them over an hour. first one became listless then died and then the other followed the next evening. Both dead in 24 hours. I checked all water parameters. Nitrites, Nitrates and Phosphates at 0. PH at 8.2. Hardness at 240. Temp 76 and SG at 1.026. The tank has live rock, live sand bed is rather new (2 weeks) but the colt coral i have and the zenia look great.

any ideas of what is going on here. the fish were bought from a lfs and had been there for a month healthy and eating.

 

[disc1]

What was the salinity in the bag?

 

[peppie]

Your tank is way to young to add livestock.
If you set it up 2 weeks ago it has not finished its cycle.
Read all the posties on the top of the New to Hobbie sec. I'm sorry for your loss.
This could have been avoided if you had done the proper research.
You should have your fish out of the bag within 30 min of opening the bag. My guess is their gills were damaged do to the ammonia that was created in the bag while they were acclimated. I dont know that for sure, but it sure didnt help.
Please do more research before you put any more livestock in your tank.

 

[stewartms]

I am not sure from your post how long your tank has been set up as you only state that the sand bed is new (two weeks). If the tank is only two weeks old then you should not have fish or corals at this point. Even if the tank is older, a new sand bed could be causing a cycle.

Also, please see this post.....
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1939508

 

[ludiNano]

I wait 5-6 months before adding any livestock, now i also start tanks w/ dry rock (seeding it w/ live). but i would still wait near that amount of time if i started w/ live.

As a suggestion if you dont use a auto top off i would lower your SG, it gets to be very time consuming to top off manually and w/ such a small water volume and such a high SG it would have very large swings.

 

[mutiger91]

Its a new tank with 20 lbs of live rock from my other established aquarium. sorry forgot to add that little tidbit

 

[drew_l]

+1 peppie
+1 stewartms

 

[tdwright1971]

In my limited experience the smaller the aquarium the longer it takes to cycle. I cycled my current setup in a day using established rock, sand, and refugium. <it was a move> My only loss was my mysis population< exposure allowed them to be eaten>. I cycled my 36 in two weeks. That being said the initial cycle is but the start of a continuous cycle that you build upon.