Everything is a mess and I'm newish!

[CharlieAsh]

Hello.

I took over a friend's tank and I love it. I'm still getting used to it, and I put a lot of thought into it.

This week I noticed that the coral looked stressed, and my pretty pink one was looking tired. I tried to get my water tested at my local shop on Friday... But when I got there there was a note saying they only do home visits now. I feel like I have lost a friend, which is odd, but I definitely lost my support group!

I didn't worry too much about the water until I noticed the fish swimming around oddly today and the coral and anemones shrinking up. I decided to take my water to a new shop to get tested.

The man was knowledgeable, but not patient.

My salinity was low. my nitrates are high at 40.

I have a 125 gallon tank, and I changed out 5 gallons to spike the salinity which seems to have chilled out the fish.

The nitrates are a different story. I don't over feed, but I don't know how they keep climbing. I put seaweed on a clip for my tang (who is the worst, by the way) but most of that seems to get eaten. It is possible I'm not cleaning the filter bags and protein skimmer often enough... But I'm not sure what else to look to.

My friend told me to filter the sand while I do the water change, but I have a mandarin fish and I'm worried if I suck up the debris in the sand, I will lose copepods in the process... Am I being too cautious?

I know these things have lots of opinions attached... I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this now that my local guys aren't accessible anymore.

 

[elcapitan1993]

You said your salinity was low what exactly was it at? , how long has the tank been setup? , did you need to cycle it? What are you other parameters at?

 

[Just a Wrasse.]

What are your other parameters?

 

[MaxTremors]

If you’re going to be keeping corals you really need to be able to test your water yourself. Being dependent on someone else for that just isn’t reliable enough (as you’ve learned, both to get the tests done and that the test were done accurately). I would recommend really familiarizing yourself with the basic parameters that we generally test for, how they affect corals and fish, and their relationships to each other, the basics are salinity, alkalinity, nitrates, phosphates, calcium, PH, and magnesium (being able to test all of these is important, but if you can’t afford to buy them all at once, I listed them in order of importance). When buying test kits, avoid API brand, if you would like brand recommendations, feel free to ask.

Without knowing where your salinity was at, it’s hard to say if that’s what the problem was. 40ppm nitrates is high, but not dangerously high, it may make some corals slowly recede over time, but it wouldn’t cause a problem over night. Unless you’re doing bigger, more frequent water changes, running a refugium, carbon dosing, doing some sort nutrient export, everything you feed the tank is going to end up as nitrates and phosphates (even if all the food you feed is eaten, it still gets pooped out and breaks down into nutrients).

A five gallon water change on a 120g tank is a 4% water change, you need to be doing at least 10% biweekly, and I would recommend 20% weekly until you get your nitrates under control (and in the meantime look into other forms of nutrient export, 20% water changes on a 120g tank is costly and can be labor intensive).

Without knowing what all of your parameters are (and if they were tested with quality test kits) and if they are stable over time, it’s hard to recommend a course of action other than getting test kits so you can track your parameters and make corrections where needed and continue with water changes. Also, are you using RODI water? If buying water from an LFS, I would recommend getting your own RODI unit and making your own saltwater, it’s cheaper in the long run and more trustworthy.

Anyway, as I said that’s all I can recommend without more info, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

 

[Adrift]

I believe the only question that was answered. Yes you need to vacuum your sand. I ok divide you tank into 1/3 or 1/4 and do that section during your next water change. Their are plenty of videos explaining how. Then go to the next section during your next water change an so on. You don’t want to nuke your tank if one day you decide to reaquascape and sand gets disturbed.your copepods will survive you can always breed them too

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks like a cople of water changes are in order.
My best suggestion is to find either a local reef club member or LFS that would be willing to do and show you steps of aquarium maintenace and get your tank back on track. A reliable test kit will be an essential purchase (NO API test kits) and a salt tester such as Hanna digital tester or reliable refractometer (must be calibrated occasionally)

 

[CharlieAsh]

You said your salinity was low what exactly was it at? , how long has the tank been setup? , did you need to cycle it? What are you other parameters at?

1.20? The very bottom of the salinity gauge okay amount.

I didn't get results for other markers. It wasn't what I'm used to getting... I'm not a huge fan of the shop and am definitely looking into getting my own testing kit.

I don't understand what you mean by cycle...

 

[CharlieAsh]

If you’re going to be keeping corals you really need to be able to test your water yourself. Being dependent on someone else for that just isn’t reliable enough (as you’ve learned, both to get the tests done and that the test were done accurately). I would recommend really familiarizing yourself with the basic parameters that we generally test for, how they affect corals and fish, and their relationships to each other, the basics are salinity, alkalinity, nitrates, phosphates, calcium, PH, and magnesium (being able to test all of these is important, but if you can’t afford to buy them all at once, I listed them in order of importance). When buying test kits, avoid API brand, if you would like brand recommendations, feel free to ask.

Without knowing where your salinity was at, it’s hard to say if that’s what the problem was. 40ppm nitrates is high, but not dangerously high, it may make some corals slowly recede over time, but it wouldn’t cause a problem over night. Unless you’re doing bigger, more frequent water changes, running a refugium, carbon dosing, doing some sort nutrient export, everything you feed the tank is going to end up as nitrates and phosphates (even if all the food you feed is eaten, it still gets pooped out and breaks down into nutrients).

A five gallon water change on a 120g tank is a 4% water change, you need to be doing at least 10% biweekly, and I would recommend 20% weekly until you get your nitrates under control (and in the meantime look into other forms of nutrient export, 20% water changes on a 120g tank is costly and can be labor intensive).

Without knowing what all of your parameters are (and if they were tested with quality test kits) and if they are stable over time, it’s hard to recommend a course of action other than getting test kits so you can track your parameters and make corrections where needed and continue with water changes. Also, are you using RODI water? If buying water from an LFS, I would recommend getting your own RODI unit and making your own saltwater, it’s cheaper in the long run and more trustworthy.

Anyway, as I said that’s all I can recommend without more info, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I have been getting my water from the fish store, but with them going out of business, that is a little unreliable now.

I am absolutely interested in my own testing kits and would love some recommendations.

I would also love to establish a more sustainable tank in any way I can, so I am interested in how this all works. I have a small in tank refugium with cheato to help those little copepods survive into adulthood to become food for the mandarin. There isn't room in the bottom of the tank to have a refugium, sadly. I have bag filters, then a protein skimmer then the return... And it is all glued down so I can't add to the system

 

[CharlieAsh]

I believe the only question that was answered. Yes you need to vacuum your sand. I ok divide you tank into 1/3 or 1/4 and do that section during your next water change. Their are plenty of videos explaining how. Then go to the next section during your next water change an so on. You don’t want to nuke your tank if one day you decide to reaquascape and sand gets disturbed.your copepods will survive you can always breed them too

That is a really good system and I appreciate the idea!

 

[CharlieAsh]

You said your salinity was low what exactly was it at? , how long has the tank been setup? , did you need to cycle it? What are you other parameters at?

The tank is about a year and 5 months out from the full tank failure. I've been slowly taking it over for just under a year. Coral has been established between 1 year and 6 months.

 

[CharlieAsh]

The tank is about a year and 5 months out from the full tank failure. I've been slowly taking it over for just under a year. Coral has been established between 1 year and 6 months. And the salinity was at 1.20 but bumped to 1.22 with the mini water change.

 

[TheDragonsReef]

Welcome to r2r!

So your nitrates are definitely too high for coral but i suggest buying a full range of test kits so you can check everything else.

Nitrates are cause by decaying organics in the water that start as ammonia and bacteria converts it to nitrites and then nitrates.

The best ways to lower nitrates are water changes, but you fish will always produce wastes and Nitrates so you have to keep up with the water changes. If you dont like doing water changes as much a skimmer or refugium will help remove Nitrates and can lengthen the time between water changes and possibly eliminate the need for them all together depending on how much waste the tank produces

 

[Freenow54]

Hello.

I took over a friend's tank and I love it. I'm still getting used to it, and I put a lot of thought into it.

This week I noticed that the coral looked stressed, and my pretty pink one was looking tired. I tried to get my water tested at my local shop on Friday... But when I got there there was a note saying they only do home visits now. I feel like I have lost a friend, which is odd, but I definitely lost my support group!

I didn't worry too much about the water until I noticed the fish swimming around oddly today and the coral and anemones shrinking up. I decided to take my water to a new shop to get tested.

The man was knowledgeable, but not patient.

My salinity was low. my nitrates are high at 40.

I have a 125 gallon tank, and I changed out 5 gallons to spike the salinity which seems to have chilled out the fish.

The nitrates are a different story. I don't over feed, but I don't know how they keep climbing. I put seaweed on a clip for my tang (who is the worst, by the way) but most of that seems to get eaten. It is possible I'm not cleaning the filter bags and protein skimmer often enough... But I'm not sure what else to look to.

My friend told me to filter the sand while I do the water change, but I have a mandarin fish and I'm worried if I suck up the debris in the sand, I will lose copepods in the process... Am I being too cautious?

I know these things have lots of opinions attached... I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this now that my local guys aren't accessible anymore.

You are going to get told to water change forever over and over. I did and it did not help. There are very knowledgeable people on this forum. Wondering why your nitrates are not getting converted. These come to mind, water quality source, What you did differently, lighting. Fish can take a lot of abuse as opposed to coral I have noticed. You need to do better water changes as well. More controlled and regular. I assume you have a Refractometer set your salinity at 1.024. Every time you do something it stresses the tank, and its inhabitants.