About to Quit

[missourimud]

I started my tank about the same time as you and all I can say is dont give up. I realize you are moving and that is a great opportunity to do a restart, maybe change your approach, I have been following but have not kept current (i.e. read all 16 pages). I also started with dry rock. With the vast knowledge of this resource you simply cannot follow all advise all the time. I knew not the "proper" quarantine procedures when I started and the first handful of fish went straight to display. I also got on a live sale that had amazing deals, literally have not seen the like since. so I ended up with more coral than one should start with. Even put a birdnest in as part of the first bunch. Thus far everything is thriving. I did add real maricultured live rock from GLR and that may have been my saving grace. I did get a couple aiptasia and do have some bryopsis but nothing I have not been "relatively" successful thus far. When I did buy a kole yellow eye I decided to qt him, watched him whole he stayed skittish in a 10g, then brought him to therapeutic level of copper. He did not seem right. I made the decision to stop this process. He has been moved to my display, he is still a somewhat shy fish but his behavior is nothing like before, eats great, chases my carpenter wrasse ( who previously thought he was top dog).
My point is there is a wealth of information by very knowledgeable people on here, opinions vary, but the vast majority are trying to help. It can be hard because of this, but you have to pick whom you take advice from, not because others are wrong but methods vary.
As for me, I am going to go with the more natural approach, yes some people go to the doctors and get preemptive medications or vaccines(which are NOT medicine). Others take care of themselves by healthy lifestyles and nutrition choices. Not to say medical intervention is not needed, but can be mitigated. I attempted to qt and that approach and was not a fan of how it was headed so will not be doing so going forward. I could be wrong and everything could die today, but @Paul B and @atoll and @Lasse have demonstrated this approach is viable long term.
Just dont quit, the hobby needs yoyr money

 

[Danroo]

I have read this whole thread and would like to chime in cause I also started with dry rock but in a 20 gallon tank.

I started seeing diatoms at the second week after my tank was cycled with base light. Switch to a low par light after like a month and started seeing blue green algae, which was better than the previous one added power heads next month to this day my rock and sand are flourishing with algae. I started seeing hard growth with tap water, which I used for 2 months but barely did water changes cause my nitrates and phosphates were constantly 10. It’s been 5 months now I have livestock of 5 fish. Lost one cause of injury and some trochus snails due to lack of algae and I bought a lot of em by mistake.

I wouldn’t Lose hope on starting a tank with dry rock cause for me it was a great experience seeing nature takes place now after 5 months I’m gonna start with some soft corals cause my rock is live now, but I would agree that dry rock is not for corals. For corals you definitely need a live rock to start with.

I would suggest changing your salt towards fritz reef pro mix for better ph and dkh and you’ll start seeing results. Which is I am using currently. Try to move some of your rocks towards your qt tank for a week or so until some type of algae starts to grow in it , and order livestock from live aquaria so you don’t have to quarantine them. All 5 of my fish are from there I had no losses whatsoever based injury cause damsels are stupid fish.good luck.

 

[Apollo7235]

Huh, I was following this thread too, but just noticed that I haven't gotten any notices in quite a while. Same thing is happening on a couple other threads I'm on. May be some bug on R2R?
Anyway, very sorry for the continued woes and frustration. Perhaps you stated it before and I missed it, but what are you using to check your copper levels in QT?

I was using a brand new Hanna checker. I hadn’t even gone above 2.0 when the fish died.

 

[tehmadreefer]

I was using a brand new Hanna checker. I hadn’t even gone above 2.0 when the fish died.

Again too much too fast, you never let the tank be and mature on its own. That is why. You are having soo many problems, has nothing to do with your water quality and the ice test was a waste of money. Stop fiddling with stuff and just relax and wait.

 

[Apollo7235]

Again too much too fast, you never let the tank be and mature on its own. That is why. You are having soo many problems, has nothing to do with your water quality and the ice test was a waste of money. Stop fiddling with stuff and just relax and wait.

You would have to read back through to understand that this was in my quarantine tank and I have not touched my display beyond biweekly water changes. I was told by multiple sources to add more fish; I attempted to do just that and they all died from some unknown something in quarantine. That’s all that was about.

 

[tehmadreefer]

You would have to read back through to understand that this was in my quarantine tank and I have not touched my display beyond biweekly water changes. I was told by multiple sources to add more fish; I attempted to do just that and they all died from some unknown something in quarantine. That’s all that was above read this whole thread and just like

The majority of us that know what are doing. We’ve all told the problem yet you continue to disregard our advice. Additionally, qt is the worst thing you can do to a fish, couple that with being new and not having a clue = problems.
Why can I add fish in my new tank after 2 weeks of it being up and sps like a month in with no deaths, using old dead dried out rock from being in storage? I know what I’m doing and listen to people back when I was a noobie in 2007…

 

[Rmckoy]

Quarantine is just that .
to quarantine or medicate livestock .
I was to the understanding a quarantine tank used to be set up when needed .
there was no rocks , sand or anything in it besides a pvc elbow to provide hiding place .

ammonia spikes would happen if daily water changes were not done .

Wait to see what the icp test reveals , but moving forward . I would reduce everything to one tank ( DT)

 

[BostonReefer300]

The majority of us that know what are doing. We’ve all told the problem yet you continue to disregard our advice. Additionally, qt is the worst thing you can do to a fish, couple that with being new and not having a clue = problems.
Why can I add fish in my new tank after 2 weeks of it being up and sps like a month in with no deaths, using old dead dried out rock from being in storage? I know what I’m doing and listen to people back when I was a noobie in 2007…

Assuming you've read through the thread, you should understand that this lady has been asking for advice and acting on many of the suggestions. It's apparent to several of us that there's likely something weird going on with her setup beyond standard newbie woes. Regardless, if the best you can do when someone is desperately asking for help is to be a jerk, then do us all a favor and move onto a different thread or an altogether different forum.

 

[Rmckoy]

Assuming you've read through the thread, you should understand that this lady has been asking for advice and acting on many of the suggestions. It's apparent to several of us that there's likely something weird going on with her setup beyond standard newbie woes. Regardless, if the best you can do when someone is desperately asking for help is to be a jerk, then do us all a favor and move onto a different thread or an altogether different forum.

Both of her tanks have had their issues and I completely agree with your comment
I’ve noticed the last few days have brought out a lot of negative comments on this particular thread

 

[Steph72]

I was using a brand new Hanna checker. I hadn’t even gone above 2.0 when the fish died.

I’ve had very mixed experiences using copper quarantine. I see the value in it, especially after having marine velvet wipe out my entire 90 gallon. I do find it to be stressful, though, and have lost fish in the process of treating with copper. My strategy nowadays is to keep new fish in an observation tank for a month to look for any issues. Everyone has an opinion about quarantine and a different approach…the best approach is the one you’re comfortable with. I’m interested to hear about the test results because it does seem like something is off. Do you have a TDS tester? Its a useful tool to have. Please, please give it a lot of thought before you give up. This hobby can be such a joy and so rewarding…but for some of us it kicks us in the tail numerous times first. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve cried out of frustration, I could almost pay off my credit cards! Lol Hang in there

 

[Danroo]

I was using a brand new Hanna checker. I hadn’t even gone above 2.0 when the fish died.

Can you give a summary on the actions you have taken so far?

 

[Apollo7235]

I’ve had very mixed experiences using copper quarantine. I see the value in it, especially after having marine velvet wipe out my entire 90 gallon. I do find it to be stressful, though, and have lost fish in the process of treating with copper. My strategy nowadays is to keep new fish in an observation tank for a month to look for any issues. Everyone has an opinion about quarantine and a different approach…the best approach is the one you’re comfortable with. I’m interested to hear about the test results because it does seem like something is off. Do you have a TDS tester? Its a useful tool to have. Please, please give it a lot of thought before you give up. This hobby can be such a joy and so rewarding…but for some of us it kicks us in the tail numerous times first. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve cried out of frustration, I could almost pay off my credit cards! Lol Hang in there

Thank you for kind words and yes, I do have a TDS meter. We are on well water and the input usually reads around 120 while the output has always been 0.

 

[Apollo7235]

Can you give a summary on the actions you have taken so far?

Sure:

Added 6-pounds of live rock

Water changes every other week, only

Water changes of 25% or less, only

Continue to run the lights per the AI Saxby schedule

Feed as usual (target feed with minimal broadcast feeding once per day)

Add more fish (they all died in QT)

Hands off, leave it alone.

Run an ATI ICP test, results pending.

 

[Danroo]

Sure:

Added 6-pounds of live rock

Water changes every other week, only

Water changes of 25% or less, only

Continue to run the lights per the AI Saxby schedule

Feed as usual (target feed with minimal broadcast feeding once per day)

Add more fish (they all died in QT)

Hands off, leave it alone.

Run an ATI ICP test, results pending.

May I know why are you doing water changes are you having issues with nitrates and phosphates?

I would suggest doing nothing and just keep feeding until you have around 25 ppm nitrates and 10 ppm phosphates. Don’t siphon the sand bed let the leftover food rot, if it creates cloudy water you can do a water change, other than that the tank is taking its sweet time for some reason to mature.

 

[Rmckoy]

May I know why are you doing water changes are you having issues with nitrates and phosphates?

I would suggest doing nothing and just keep feeding until you have around 25 ppm nitrates and 10 ppm phosphates. Don’t siphon the sand bed let the leftover food rot, if it creates cloudy water you can do a water change, other than that the tank is taking its sweet time for some reason to mature.

10ppm phosphates ?

 

[Danroo]

10ppm phosphates ?

I meant 1 lol

 

[Apollo7235]

May I know why are you doing water changes are you having issues with nitrates and phosphates?

I would suggest doing nothing and just keep feeding until you have around 25 ppm nitrates and 10 ppm phosphates. Don’t siphon the sand bed let the leftover food rot, if it creates cloudy water you can do a water change, other than that the tank is taking its sweet time for some reason to mature.

Yeah, the last time I tested mt phosphate was 0.13 and nitrate 12.0 if I remember correctly.

 

[Danroo]

Yeah, the last time I tested mt phosphate was 0.13 and nitrate 12.0 if I remember correctly.

Hmm I remember correctly I was also having nitrates being 25+ ppm every week, when my rocks were all dry. But as soon as algae starts to show up it became constant 2ppm same with phosphates being around 0.5 and now they’re constant 0.03.

Hmm I guess bigger systems take time with dry rock to be established. These are my 5 months old dry rocks

 

[JCM]

Assuming you've read through the thread, you should understand that this lady has been asking for advice and acting on many of the suggestions. It's apparent to several of us that there's likely something weird going on with her setup beyond standard newbie woes. Regardless, if the best you can do when someone is desperately asking for help is to be a jerk, then do us all a favor and move onto a different thread or an altogether different forum.

Fully agreed, this is clearly not just regular new tank woes. Something went drastically wrong somewhere and she certainly seems open to advice.

 

[Apollo7235]

Fully agreed, this is clearly not just regular new tank woes. Something went drastically wrong somewhere and she certainly seems open to advice.

Trust me, I am absolutely willing to try whatever you guys think will work!!

Just impatiently waiting for the ATI results at this point..