Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

Thanks for the pic Saltylifelove. Love the rock work! You can post as many updates in here as you want.

Cap'n that's just way to much work for me. ;)
 
Totally not mine but one of the better youtube vids I've seen. Very smooth and I like the sound track.

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To really enjoy it click on the HD button and see it in high quality.
 
capn_hylinur said:
your lfs should not have told you to use anything on a cycling tank. The buffer system just like other systems is still trying to stablilize itself.
Most of the time low pH readings are more a factor of gas exchange in the tank.
As carbon dioxide rises the pH inversely lowers. Sometimes increasing flow across the surface of the tank and keeping it uncovered(like glass tops) is all you need.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Capn, I have left the tank uncovered for the past week and the only flow I have is from the pump blowing back out. I am still trying to figure out if I want a Koralia 3 or 4. I guess I will keep testing tank and see what happens sense there is no way I would be able to catch the chromis. I have waited this long for the tank to be ready...I will probly get another spike now from all the waste from the fish? Setting up my 20L was so much easier....

Paul...I thought the fish might want to take a break from swimming. :idea:
(I guess I should close the curtains next time)

Jason...thanks for letting me high jack your thread! You really like the rock work?? Everyday I look at it, I kinda want to knock it over. Hopefully the additional 20 lbs will help with that...lol
 
SaltLifeLove said:
Jason...thanks for letting me high jack your thread! You really like the rock work?? Everyday I look at it, I kinda want to knock it over. Hopefully the additional 20 lbs will help with that...lol
Click to expand...

No problem. Cap'n and Paul are really helpful and knowledgable even though they are getting rather old. I definitely like the rock work from what I see.
 
Well Thanks and I will appreciate any old wisdom I can get ;) My very expensive camera recently broke and I am now using a cheapo digital camera that a family member is letting me borrow, and the pictures are just bad... even though closing the curtains would have helped,lol I will take more and try to get them smaller as well...but I am not to good at that either.
 
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Cap'n and Paul are really helpful and knowledgable even though they are getting rather old.
Click to expand...

WHAT? Whats that Sonny? Speak up. Who? No, what did you say?
pish? who's got pish? fish? No I'm not hungry.
 
Just pulled out the flame angel. :( It's for the best for her and my tank to get back to normal. I'm still afraid that this added stress may do her in however. But I figure that after a month in my tank and is still stressed out then I'd rather her die quicker in a QT tank then slowly over the next year in mine. She started shaking her head here and there the other day which is a sign she's getting ich in the gills I believe. I noticed the cleaners sticking their hands in there and pulling stuff out. I think if it wasn't for the two cleaner shrimps I have her gills would probably be seized up already. They certainly have been doing their jobs.
 
Paul HA! :p

Looking back on ich (got it in the tank early, had to go fallow 8 weeks with all my fish in my 12 gal nano and 2 10 gal qt tanks) I think it is best to focus on two things:
clearing and preventing ich from the DT
Understanding that it is largely about keeping healthy fish- stressed fish get sick so easily.

If you keep your fish happy healthy with good params and food and QT in the beginning, everyone should be strong enough to get through stressful times. It was hard going fallow but soooo worth it.

If you really want to get your tank clean, go fallow. Ich can't live without fishies for too long. Then you get to reintroduce your livestock carefully.

You are a trooper for sticking through it, it can be hard to watch a good fish slowly deteriorate and feel so helpless. More than once a fish has died after I moved it trying to help it. Sometimes it is a losing battle.

Looking at tanks like Paul's reminds me why I love this hobby and to keep my perspective on super sterile tanks in check. I don't mean for these attitudes to be so conflicting- rather I find a happy balance between.
 
All the other fish in there are plump, happy, and healthy. Never a sign of a scratch or a shake or any other sign of disease/parasite. So, for now I'll be keeping them in the tank but if necessary I'll have to ship them off to get in a QT as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a QT or have the room for one. My current tank(which isn't that big) is already taking up 1/4 of the living room. Every nook and cranny is being used for something. The QT tank would have to be in the middle of the floor somewhere which really isn't feasible as we'd just trip over it and kill everything. In a few more years we'll move and get a bigger place but this little cracker box sized house was what we had to do to rebound and get back on our feet.
 
Well, hopefully she'll recover. If not then I'll cheer myself up by getting a mandarin. I turned the fuge light and actinics back on today. The refugium is absolutely COVERED with pods. They were crawling over each other. There is 00000 cyano left in the DT after 3 days lights out. There is some in the refug left but that's fine with me. The pods are loving it. Nitrates/phosphates at 0. BTW, after dosing the ich attach my phosphates did go up which I think caused the cyano outbreak. The polyfilter is turning a nice brown color which is not from the cyano in the refugium but from absorbing those phosphates and left over meds that were dosed I believe.
 
Well I am glad you have so many pods, thats great news. Considering I had a mild panic attack about mine...lol I have wanted a mandarin sense day one but didn't want to deal with pods, and now I am dealing with them any way :)
Those chromis sure do like them though, I am not sure I am going to have any left!

O and for all other purposes, you don't have to call me SaltLifeLove real name is Ali...so nice to officially meet you. :wave:
 
Jason, you need to feed those fish some live blackworms for a couple of weeks. Thats the only way you are going to get them in breeding condidtion, which is the condition they need to be to ward off ich. You can treat them but you will have to do that all the time. If you can get fish into breeding condition and keep them like that, most of your problems will be over. Except for needing a larger house, you are on your own with that one.

Ali, nice to meet you and know your shorter name.
 
Nice to get a name behind the name Ali.. :fun4:


Hey Paul couldn't I just use blood worms. :jester:


Forgot to post pictures of a new cheap light I got for the refugium this past weekend. $12 including 15w cfl 6700k light.

Don't let the fancy shiny metal look fool you it's all plastic.
2hdvgoz.jpg


I'm going to paint the shield black on the outside and fit in a reflective aluminum for the inside.

9gvm8p.jpg
 
SaltLifeLove said:
Well I am glad you have so many pods, thats great news. Considering I had a mild panic attack about mine...lol I have wanted a mandarin sense day one but didn't want to deal with pods, and now I am dealing with them any way :)
Those chromis sure do like them though, I am not sure I am going to have any left!

O and for all other purposes, you don't have to call me SaltLifeLove real name is Ali...so nice to officially meet you. :wave:
Click to expand...

chromies will eat anything--you don't have to worry about them eating pods.

From the earlier post---add a couple of chromies will not affect the cycling of your tank to any degree to worry about. Bigger fish I would add one a week and monitor for ammonia
 
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