So I bought a neglected saltwater tank

[BeanAnimal]

Test kits are a bit of a toss up. I like the Salifert kits for some things and the owner is a member here, so good to support him. I think my biggest issue with some of them is me struggling with the dropper bottle. I have pretty much exclusively used their kits for years though.

I am NOT a fan of the hanna checkers ( I am in the minority though). The Alkalinity and ULR Phosphate are ok and not a bad investment - but the others are problematic due to tiny sample size and amplification of error, along with (what I feel) are too many variables and suspect quality control on reagents.

Red Sea Pro KH, Ca and Mg are also very good.

 

[griss]

Y

Test kits are a bit of a toss up. I like the Salifert kits for some things and the owner is a member here, so good to support him. I think my biggest issue with some of them is me struggling with the dropper bottle. I have pretty much exclusively used their kits for years though.

I am NOT a fan of the hanna checkers ( I am in the minority though). The Alkalinity and ULR Phosphate are ok and not a bad investment - but the others are problematic due to tiny sample size and amplification of error, along with (what I feel) are too many variables and suspect quality control on reagents.

Red Sea Pro KH, Ca and Mg are also very good.

Yep, I use Salifert kits for everything but PO4. For PO4 I use the Hanna checker.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I want automation... but there are no viable products out there currently. They all appear to be maintenance nightmares that are more fiddly than they are worth. Hopefully that gets better with time.

 

[Reefing102]

I use salifert for nitrate, calcium and magnesium. I use Hannah for phosphate and Alklinity. Mainly cause I haven’t been able to afford the Hannah’s all at once

 

[Timfish]

It's a ceretainty you will have to move it but as it's expanding a lot more than when you got it it's happier with current conditions. I'd give it at least a month or two be moving it to see what it wants to do.

 

[Reefing102]

Forgot to mention, did a little research on the light. It appears they are an older light (from around 2012/2013 or so). Nothing wrong with that but it appears to be discontinued with limited parts and almost no customer support available. That said, it looks like it was a good light at the time. You may, as time comes, consider getting/renting a par meter to see what numbers it’s pushing (only needed for coral and not fish)

 

[Kirino]

A little update:
- been doing water changes 2x a week, a little more than 10%
- values are fine, except for the NO3, which remains pretty high, a bit lower though but still high
- there's a little bit of algea, but not a lot, the yellow tang keeps eating 'em I reckon, at least I see him grazing a lot
- I'm just making my batches of salt water with 34 now. Salinity is still like only 31 in the tank and doesn't want to go up for some reason.
- so the cheato and caulerpa are in. How slow or fast do these grow?
- the fish seem fine, the yellow guy seems easily stressed, the rest of them don't have a care in the world.
- the tiny coral gorgonian looks pretty good, as far as I can tell at least. The tiny polyps? on it are like very visible lately

 

[Reefing102]

With sufficient nutrients, Cheato and caulpera can grow very quickly. But glad to hear things are going well so far

 

[Kirino]

The emperor angelfish is acting really stressed out since this week, his coloration isn't great and he's making these short, dashes. Sometimes crashing into something. Amonia test indicates nothing, NO2 nothing, NO3 is still too high. Salinity is 32. Frequent water changes isn't really helping. I should probably get more test kits, maybe I'm messing up some other value.

I did notice the skimmer often stopped producing foam, because the sump water level often drops below it's working height. The only way to counter it is to top up the water higher then it's supposed to be in the sump. Even then it's not doing much lately and it has no options to tweak it. It's this old, square Tunze thing. So I just now got another one, second hand: Theiling E Cone 2000, it seems to works great. Producing foam and then some. If it will really help is another question ..

I don't know, not sure what to do here, but the emperor sure doesn't look good. Most of the other fish seem fine, although the emperor's behavior seems to be stressing out the yellow tang. Both of them used to swim around, now they are both just hiding in a cave.

 

[Kirino]

The other fish started looking a bit pale as well. So I figured out the pH dropped too low, the pH meter that came with the tank is not working well, since the test(s) I bought indicate something way lower. Since my previous post I been raising the pH again slowly, following some posts I found, but it was too late for the emperor angel. He did not handle the drop well at all and damaged his fins and skin from stress crashing into rocks. Even though the pH is back in an acceptable range, and even though he was actually looking better yesterday, swimming around calmly again, the damage must have been too much. In the evening I found him hiding on the bottom of the cave and all of a sudden another fish started biting off his tail. By the time I managed to get in between, there were decent chunks missing. Later that night he took a turn for the worse and just started floating upside down.

Well that sucked. Not a fun experience. Sorry, I failed the emperor angel fish. At this point it's obvious I shouldn't have bought a stocked tank and should just have started with a clean slate.

Meanwhile the other fish have regained their color and are doing ok. The yellow tang for some reason is being very territorial against the fish that was biting the angel. Always makes himself as big as possible with his dorsal fin up. He wasn't doing that before. To be honest I'm going to look into selling that murder fish as I'm pretty sure he's the type that eats anything weaker then him. I don't feel like loosing the yellow tang.

 

[Reefing102]

Well I’m glad you got it figured out. The tang is likely trying to reestablush territory after the move/change in aquascape. As for the killer fish, what kind of fish is it? Looks kinda like an Angel from the pic but would need a clearer/closer pic.

 

[Kirino]

The angel is the one that kicked the bucket. I snapped a picture and google is telling me Picasso trigger, from what I'm reading he is dangerous. The yellow tang has some side fin damage as well on closer inspection. I'm concerned it could get worse. He is back to nice yellow, instead of white yellow though. Not sure what I can do to prevent further fin damage. I dont like these little 'faceoffs' the tang is having with the trigger, although right now its just flexing.

 

[Reefing102]

Picasso Triggers are definitely on the aggressive side and can wreak havoc on any clean up crew.

 

[Kirino]

So I got the pH back under control. The No3 however just doesn't want to go down, like at all. I read in a few places that if nothing else helps, I should consider just changing about the entire volume over the course of a single day. I don't know, sounds risky.

The new skimmer is at least doing it's job. Gunk builds up on the inside (top) of the cone. Some foam goes into the cup. I'm not sure how much foam is supposed to go into the cup daily? Either way, at least this one is doing something compared to the previous one.

I'm worried about the yellow tang. His breathing is too fast and even though his color is back to yellow (from white yellow), he's barely coming out of his cave, didn't eat at all since yesterday and I just caught him scratching himself this evening. Clearly he still has stress, so I would really like to get that No3 down. What do you think?

 

[Reefing102]

Something that may help is NoPox but be very careful to follow the instructions as it can cause issues if overdosed based on reading others experiences.

Your rock may be leaching NO3 though I don’t know if that’s a thing. I know PO4 leaching is a thing though.

Your tang may just take a bit to get used to the new environment. I know mine, before a rock crushed it, it was regularly breathing heavy. It seemed normal

 

[Kirino]

I went ahead and replaced half the water, since then the no3 halfed, which is kinda obvious but ok. The first day looked a bit stressy, but since thereafter the yellow tang is a lot more active, swimming around again, grazing and eating when fed.

The trigger seems fine as well, although he has developped window surfing since then. Not sure what that means, he still does his usual digging and hunting. He just window surfs a lot as well.

Next I bought a better temp controller. The old, second hand one didnt respect it´s target temp of 26 degrees Celcius and kept rapidly turning off and on when it did, a total nightmare

Its on 25,5 now.

The new skimmer is working, looks like I need a bit higher settings, as the dirt is left in the colar. You can really tell there is too much crap in the tank.

Not sure how high the foam should be, I just cleaned it a tiny bit when I got home and put it like this:

I suspect the dirt should go in the cup instead

 

[BeanAnimal]

It will be a bit of both. You don’t want the cup to fill in a day, but you can adjust the level up a bit to push foam in faster. Fine tune it until reach a happy medium.