Please help!!
- Thread starter Madmax412
- Start date
aznflyfisherman
New member
With a small tank like that its fairly easy. I would just go ahead and set the temp to 78. Then slowly increase your sg to your desire at 1.023-1.026 as everyone stated. Why dont u just pre mix a 5g bucket of salt water, make sure the temp is at 78 to match your tank temp. Do a water change of 3g n see where your sg is at. In a few days you can do another 2g water change. Repeat as needed to increase your sg to 1.025 if it was me.
Grimreaperz
New member
Fish can't take a salinity raise more then .002 every 10 min. To properly raise salinity. Use saltwater instead of freshwater to top off the tank as Sk8r stated. Once desired salinity is reached start toping off with fresh water.
The tank has to many fish is my bet. Ammonia should be 0.
You need live rock for filtration....
I hate to say it but lack of research prior to purchase caused this. It sounds like you need to do a lot more reading on proper husbandry. And I'm not saying this to be mean just trying to point you in the right direction to have success in the future. I would start in the stickies section of this forum it's where I started. I will have about that amount of fish in my 36g with 29g sump
NEVER add water with undesolved salt to a tank with fish it's like putting you in a room with extremely hot air. It burns their gills. I mix my saltwater by putting a heater and strong powerhead in a bucket and leave if for about 4 hours. Check salinity and add salt or fresh water depending on what I need to do. Once my salinity has been reached I'll usually leave it overnight nd check again before I do my water changes. This is overkill but better then hurting fish.
There are a lot of things contributing to this and the first and foremost is you should definitely do some major reading up. And get a better salinity measurement instrument. Probes are decent so long as there is no bubbles on them. What I started with.
What kind of oxygenation do you have for the tank? Waterflow? Just the HOB filter? I would say water flow should be increased with a powerhead or two.
We all know how exciting this hobby can be but truly nothing is quick in this hobby until you are dealing with issues from rushing then it's an onslaught of headaches......caused by our impatience.
Also you stated you had " Cheetah" in your filter? Do you mean Chaetomorpha often called Chaeto. It's a green macro algae? If you have this in the filter what is lighting it?
I wish you the best of luck please keep us posted.
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The tank has to many fish is my bet. Ammonia should be 0.
You need live rock for filtration....
I hate to say it but lack of research prior to purchase caused this. It sounds like you need to do a lot more reading on proper husbandry. And I'm not saying this to be mean just trying to point you in the right direction to have success in the future. I would start in the stickies section of this forum it's where I started. I will have about that amount of fish in my 36g with 29g sump
NEVER add water with undesolved salt to a tank with fish it's like putting you in a room with extremely hot air. It burns their gills. I mix my saltwater by putting a heater and strong powerhead in a bucket and leave if for about 4 hours. Check salinity and add salt or fresh water depending on what I need to do. Once my salinity has been reached I'll usually leave it overnight nd check again before I do my water changes. This is overkill but better then hurting fish.
There are a lot of things contributing to this and the first and foremost is you should definitely do some major reading up. And get a better salinity measurement instrument. Probes are decent so long as there is no bubbles on them. What I started with.
What kind of oxygenation do you have for the tank? Waterflow? Just the HOB filter? I would say water flow should be increased with a powerhead or two.
We all know how exciting this hobby can be but truly nothing is quick in this hobby until you are dealing with issues from rushing then it's an onslaught of headaches......caused by our impatience.
Also you stated you had " Cheetah" in your filter? Do you mean Chaetomorpha often called Chaeto. It's a green macro algae? If you have this in the filter what is lighting it?
I wish you the best of luck please keep us posted.
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
Last edited:
Dkuhlmann
New member
I will add the one thing that wasn't said. When you mix your top off water with salt you want to make it whatever your final sg you wish. For example if you want it to be 1.024 then make the top off water to 1.024 and only top off long enough for the main tank to reach the 1.024. After it reaches that number stop topping off with saltwater and only use RODI from that point on for top off.
I do agree that your tank has way too many fish and I'm a person that has an overstocked tank according to most here. Ammonia needs to be 0, ZERO anything more is burning their gills and doing major damage to them. You can get Prime water conditioner or similar to fight the ammonia to make it tolerable to the critters in your tank.
Ammonia is consumed by bacteria in your tank and if you don't have enough of it to consume what the critters are producing you have to increase the bacteria or decrease the ammonia producers.
I do agree that your tank has way too many fish and I'm a person that has an overstocked tank according to most here. Ammonia needs to be 0, ZERO anything more is burning their gills and doing major damage to them. You can get Prime water conditioner or similar to fight the ammonia to make it tolerable to the critters in your tank.
Ammonia is consumed by bacteria in your tank and if you don't have enough of it to consume what the critters are producing you have to increase the bacteria or decrease the ammonia producers.
Guys I understand where you're coming from. I've kept overstocked nanos in the past and have been successful. The difference is I setup the tank to the standards of the extensive research I did and spent time putting the tank through a life cycle. I will make this tank work. My goal at this point is to save the anemone and the two clowns. I had my heater set to 73 woke up this morning to tank temps at 77. ****ed. Thanks for the advice that's been helpful to my situation. I will top off Evap with warm salt water. Ammonia is very low and .05 ppm isn't great but is tolerable. Nitrates are standard for a re-adjusting community. By the looks of it my mistake was adding salt directly to the refugium. That's how I added in the past never had an issue- however I'm dealing with a smaller volume now.
Thanks again for all your help.
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Thanks again for all your help.
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