This is my first post to this forum, and it's going to be a long one - so please bear with me. I have several years experience with African cichlids, but this is my first salt set up. I've moved and set up many, many tanks.
About 8 months ago my husband and I moved an 8 year old 90 gallon salt set up to my brother's house - a friend was moving and gave it to him. 6 fish, 1 clam, a couple bulb anemones, lots of rock. All very pretty and healthy looking. After several months of happiness, a fish disappeared, then a fish died. Later the clam died. He had an 'expert' come in and look at the tank. After being given a ridiculously long list of problems (none including what we actually found) my brother decided he wanted to start over and get rid of everything in the tank.
My husband and I decided it might be a good time to try salt. We bought a 16 gallon cube and decided we'd move up what we wanted from the 90 gallon...
I'm not sure what was done in the old tank in the way of maintenance for the last couple weeks. When we got there to tear the tank down it was in dismal condition. Completely overgrown with dark slime and aiptasia. Very sickly looking bulb anemones. The last time I'd seen this tank it was gorgeous... We tried testing the water, but results weren't readable - test kits were very old and not making sense. We had friends with us who have salt experience and they helped us decide on our course of action.
Long story short. We took some rock for our tank, crushed coral substrate, 3 small anemones, and 2 clown fish. We also took the bio balls. We lightly scrubbed the rock, and rinsed the substrate. When setting up we did about a 30% water change because of how bad everything looked. The water was yellow.
A little about the 90 gallon tank... It was running an undergravel filter (total sludge) and a few inches on the side were sectioned off for bio balls.
After getting everything set up we went out and bought a new test kit - good thing Petsmart was open until 10:00pm. Bad news: ammonia, nitrite, and low pH. This was Sunday. Here are the results for my 16 gallon cube.
__________NH3/NH4___NO2__NO3____pH
12/21 PM_____.5_______.1_____0?____8.0___I doubt these NO3 results, it was late.
12/22 AM_____.5_______.2+___5.0+__8.0 ___2.5 gallon water change.
12/22 PM_____1-_______.1+___2.5___8.4-
12/23 AM_____1-_______.2-____2.5___8.0___planning water change.
Based on other advice my intent was to do a 2.5 gallon water change (~<20%) every day until things got better.
What do you all think I should do? Should I use a product to remove ammonia, or is that going to damage what biological action I have? Is there a different course of action I should follow - or is this pretty much the best I can do so I just continue and keep my fingers crossed.
Thanks for any help.
-Merlynn
About 8 months ago my husband and I moved an 8 year old 90 gallon salt set up to my brother's house - a friend was moving and gave it to him. 6 fish, 1 clam, a couple bulb anemones, lots of rock. All very pretty and healthy looking. After several months of happiness, a fish disappeared, then a fish died. Later the clam died. He had an 'expert' come in and look at the tank. After being given a ridiculously long list of problems (none including what we actually found) my brother decided he wanted to start over and get rid of everything in the tank.
My husband and I decided it might be a good time to try salt. We bought a 16 gallon cube and decided we'd move up what we wanted from the 90 gallon...
I'm not sure what was done in the old tank in the way of maintenance for the last couple weeks. When we got there to tear the tank down it was in dismal condition. Completely overgrown with dark slime and aiptasia. Very sickly looking bulb anemones. The last time I'd seen this tank it was gorgeous... We tried testing the water, but results weren't readable - test kits were very old and not making sense. We had friends with us who have salt experience and they helped us decide on our course of action.
Long story short. We took some rock for our tank, crushed coral substrate, 3 small anemones, and 2 clown fish. We also took the bio balls. We lightly scrubbed the rock, and rinsed the substrate. When setting up we did about a 30% water change because of how bad everything looked. The water was yellow.
A little about the 90 gallon tank... It was running an undergravel filter (total sludge) and a few inches on the side were sectioned off for bio balls.
After getting everything set up we went out and bought a new test kit - good thing Petsmart was open until 10:00pm. Bad news: ammonia, nitrite, and low pH. This was Sunday. Here are the results for my 16 gallon cube.
__________NH3/NH4___NO2__NO3____pH
12/21 PM_____.5_______.1_____0?____8.0___I doubt these NO3 results, it was late.
12/22 AM_____.5_______.2+___5.0+__8.0 ___2.5 gallon water change.
12/22 PM_____1-_______.1+___2.5___8.4-
12/23 AM_____1-_______.2-____2.5___8.0___planning water change.
Based on other advice my intent was to do a 2.5 gallon water change (~<20%) every day until things got better.
What do you all think I should do? Should I use a product to remove ammonia, or is that going to damage what biological action I have? Is there a different course of action I should follow - or is this pretty much the best I can do so I just continue and keep my fingers crossed.
Thanks for any help.
-Merlynn
