MAYDAY in Duluth, MN!!!

A

amerifinn

New member
Is anyone in the area doing a water change? I need 15-20 gallons of cycled water for my dire situation! My 135 crashed and I have some very large fish stuffed into my 5 gallon nano.
Before I get bashed on again, it was an emergency, I had to do it. I was sitting watching my fish die 1 by 1, and HAD to do something immediately. I got a 20g long tank for them, but I need the water for the rescue. PLEASE HELP!

Thanks

amerifinn@charter.net
 
whish i could help but i am in the sw corner of MN well in iowa but close enough. i would say just mix up some new water and add the water from the 5 gal. and keep up with small water changes.
 
You just need water that doesn't have chlorine, etc in it. Do you have some Prime or some other dechlorinator on hand? Dechlorinate some normal tap water and then mix in the salt and make sure you bring to temperature.

Once you get the water in there and all set, then you need to worry about the cycle. Do you have anything from the main tank that you can salvage (LR or some other biofilter). I used to live in MPLS but now I'm in Nashville, so I can't really offer to help except over the net...

Jack
 
Thanks for the replies. I will do the new water mixed with good water out of the nano. I have Prime & I'll add it. I can use one of the filter pads out of the 135. Thanks again for the tips :)
 
Well, I've got everyone in the new tank, and all is going ok. Here's the text from my initial post:
Hi, I'm new to this. I have a 135 gallon fish w/ liverock. It was a running system when I bought it, and included live sand but no rock or anything. I have had it running for 1Ã"šÃ‚½ months.

Everything was testing ok, so I bought 45# of cured liverock and of course re-cured it for 15 days, scrubbing it twice. After I added the LR, the system tested fine the next day, but my ammonia and nitrites shot up to .50 2or 3 days after and several of my fish weren't looking too olympic. Two died and so did one of my cleaner shrimp. I immediately yanked out the LR back to the curing bin and pulled the remaining fish out and had to cram them into my 5 gallon nano (1 6" blue tang, 1 yellow tang, 1 5"powder blue tang, 1 dwarf angel, 1 blue-jaw trigger, 2 perculas, 1 damsel) they look like sardines in there. Poor things.

The fish quickly perked up once in the little tank.
The blue tang is kinda floaty looking, so I have been trying to do the frozen pea (thawed & peeled) soaked in garlic x-treme trick, but she won't eat it. Everyone else is eating well.

I guess my question is now that my 135 is essentially empty except for 2 anenonmes, 2 blue damsels, a 1 scooter, and 1 large lawnmower and a bunch of livesand, how long will it generally take to get the nitrites and down? (the ammonia looks ok now) I have been doing daily 10-20 % water changes, added Prime and Cycle.

Also what can I do about the "Dori" tang?

Thanks so much.
 
The tang may just stress until there's more room; maybe try shortening the full-daylight cycle, and see if you can't get them to rest...comments, anyone?
 
UGH! I went to check the new small tank and everyone was almost Fins Up! All the fish were laying on the bottom panting.

I had to net everyone and put them back in the 135 with less than optimal water quality. I dosed the 135 with Amquel Plus.

I tested the water in the small tank and it showed everything ok except for Ammonia @ .50, so I am now changing the water in the small tank again and using the filter pads out of my nano. These poor fish are having a hell of a week!! I don't really know what else to do.
 
Hmmm. Okay. I'm far from being an expert on this, so hopefully someone more knowledgable than me will jump in and help (and correct any bad advice I may give). Lets see how we can break this down...

<b>The current 135:</b>
It sounds like you overwhelmed your biofilter with the addition of LR before it was fully cured. Some questions about the setup as it stands right now:
1) Is that testing okay for ammonia because you added prime to the 135, or because the LR is not in there and the biofilter took care of it? If you are adding prime to keep the amonia and nitrite down, you will need to take out the remaining livestock and probably toss in the LR and let the 135 completely cycle before you _slowly_ start to reintroduce the livestock. If the current biofilter was okay with all of those fish, then you likely can stop adding prime and see what the params do with the LR gone. Then I would still recommend slowly introducing your fish back into the display. Do you have any friends or is there a local reef club or LFS that you could use as a resource to maybe hold some of your fish while you get things in order?
2) Did you have all the livestock for the entire 1 1/2 months you were running this tank without any problems with ammonia or nitrite?
3) What biofilter are you using for this tank besides the live sand?

<b>The LR:</b>
Did you follow the cycle in the curing bin? It doesn't sound like it had finished cycling when you put it in the 135. You should make sure it is fully cycled in the future before you add to the main display.

<b>The 20 gal long:</b>
Whoa, that sounds like too many fish for this small space. I think the space in the 135 is really needed to keep the agressive fish from being too aggressive. In the 20 you are likely to have mayhem. I recommend either returning many of the fish to the LFS or having some experienced SW aquarists hold them for you.

<b>The fish:</b>
I do not know enough about the fish you have, especially the trigger, and I don't know how compatible they are together. Also, the tangs and the trigger generate a lot of waste (amonia).

<b>The Future:</b>
Take things slowly. If you have been adding fish since you got the tank (1 1/2 months ago) you have been going way too fast.

There are some excellent threads started by WaterKeeper that could really help you out. I recommend reading as much of these as you can. They are listed in the second post in this thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166836

Jack
 
I believe you're right, I don't think I let the LR cure long enough. Apparently 15 days wasn't quite enough. I know now to retest the LR curing tub for 0 ammonia before placing it in the 135.

I am running 2 Magnum 350s- One with those ceramic nuts & bolts looking things (fluval, I think), and one with Ã"šÃ‚½ activated carbon and Ã"šÃ‚½ those ceramic things, 2 powerheads, and a protein skimmer. Also, the live sand.

Everything was testing ok with all the fish in there until the LR episode.

I'm not sure if the tank is testing ok because of the Prime or not. I was under the impression that those types of chemicals don't really remove the ammonia, just neutralize it, so it's not so dangerous. I am now showing .50 ammonia, but I don't know if it's "neutral".

Again, I agree those poor fish are WAY too cramped in the 20. As I said, now they are in the main tank again because everything skyrocketed in little one and the fish were on the bottom panting. They all look great in the 135 again, but I'm concerned about the .50 ammonia. I'm out of places to put the fish, until I get the water changed in the small tank.

Thanks again for your help. I am at a loss, here.
 
Hi Crumbletop,

I'm the boyfriend of Ameri-finn. I just wanted to let you know that we understand that the 20g tank is too small for these fish. WE HAD A SYSTEM CRASH AND HAD NO CHOICE.

And now, after switching from the nano to the twenty, the 20g tank crashed and the fish were floating. Now we have again, re-introduced the fish to the 135g tank where the ammonia is reading .50

We NEED to figure out a way to cycle the large or the small (or both)to get the ammonia level down. I'd love to get good readings out of both so we can split the fish up.

Any ideas ?

Thanks,
Nunnu
 
I don't really know what you can do except frequent water changes in both tanks. I'd mix up some new water along with the nano biofiltration stuff in the 20, and then I'd probably put the goby, the blennys, and the clowns in there. Maybe even the yellow tang. Then I would follow this tank's params twice a day and do frequent water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down. Hopefully you have enough seeded biomaterial to handle the ammount of waste they will create. If you don't have hiding places in this tank, get some plumbing parts from home depot or manards, clean them really well with venegar and put them in the 20. This will give the fish some places to hide so they won't be so stressed.

In the 135, I'd leave the rest of what you have and do the same thing with monitoring the ammonia and nitrite levels and keeping up with frequent water changes.

One additioinal option is to head out to home depot or manards and get some rubbermaid plastic bins -- like 40 gallon ones, and use those as temporary tanks. They will keep the fish a little more calm because the walls are opaque. You can use them just like you would a normal tank. They are cheap and can give you room for all of your fish. I'm not sure what else to offer at this point.

Jack
 
Everyone I've talked to says no more than 15-20%. We did a 40% three days ago, and from what I've been told it may have depleted the beneficial bacteria already. Any ideas?
 
Those fish will give you nightmares. I second what Jus Jim said. It would be incredible to be able to take your critters (not just the fish-especially the anemonea too-leave him on his rock) to someone you new could take proper care of them for you (or will even give you store credit if need be). Not a petco from what everyone says.

I got a fish and an anemonea and they drive me bonkers. It seems like they are infants with phneumonia sometimes. They keep you up all night when things aren't right for them!

Good luck. I learned that a good six month wait is appropriate for anemonea. That was after I'd gotten it. It isn't easy to find the right places to get the info you need for those critters. Especially if they are linked and you don't get the link.

There's a site someone directed me to...it's Karen's Rose anemonea.
http://www.karensroseanemones.com/index.htm

I hope this helps you like it helped me.

You are going through something like what I went through. My tank did not crash, but one of my corals got a little stung. I set this bit up for corals not anemonea. That was my kids idea. So I was stressing. The anemonea got his own tank with the rocks and business from the smaller tank. Funny how we go from one tank to two...

Good luck with your tanks. They will be ok eventually I'll bet
 
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