I should add, that had i known, i would've done differently, therefore I am sharing how to screw up a new-to-you tank. reef2reef has solved my problems as i found out i had problems. I didn't know the questions to ask and i assumed i knew after 8 years what to do. only to find i was actually killing most things by phosphate levels, nitrate levels, feeding method and so on. Here i start the entries from -77 to +77 days of adding the fish.
day -77 on july 11th, I bought a used 200gallon tank that was being offered as a 280gallon. This was to replace my 100 g that was 8 years old.
lesson #1: calculate the actual volume to see if it is true. A month later when i was setting up i did the math and found i bought a 200g.
in the 77 days it took to set up the tank, i found the original pumps were seized (always check pumps), there was a crack in the acrlic (you can buy weld on 4 to fix), the base was dead and needed serious fixing, the flexible hoses were dried, and so on...
I i moved lots of live rock , copepod clusters and starfish 24 days before the big move, only to find i had bad circulation and there was a deadly halocline with salinity off the scales at bottom of the tank. look at one of the original empty pictures to see a halocline. 20200901
from moving the rocks in old tank, i found that i must have disturbed the bacteria balance as my prized butterfly fish got ill and died fast.
day 0 of move, tried to bring some old water to bring bacteria again (an effort that didn't work as i indirectly found out through phosphate graphs on adding commercial bacteria).
day 21 another fish died like the butterfly. I never had fish get ill before.
day 28 more fish added, but worried something is wrong.. more reef2reef reading made me buy a phosphate kit to solve why the white in my tank was now brown everywhere.
day 29 added store bacteria and phosphates were around 1.5ppm! switched to frozen food that i directed to the thungry ones only to forget to feed hermit crab in the plan.
day 36 the other clowns attacked the smallest clown such that he died.
day 61 found hermit crab ate the arrow crab and was also chewing apart my mushrooms. he was moved to the sump after being convicted.
day 77 (today), phosphates are still trending downward using a bioreactor, and a small amount of GFO. today we are at 0.307ppm! i beleive it was that for years i improperly fed flakes in a rather bad way such that the sand and rocks absorbed everything. my graph is non-linear with a taper that lasted almost a month. i am now seeing a sudden drop, so maybe the rocks are near done.
i think i have spent nearly an extra thousand if not more just redoing old systems that i tried to fix up. Looking back i always had these problems but never looked for a solution until i wanted a larger tank to solve the thought that maybe my tank was too small for the fish. i hope one day to get the systems to the point i can be like some people here and extended or delay my water changes by having the right balance of systems, but i am not knowledgeable enough yet (besides the phosphates are still 10x too high).
day -77 on july 11th, I bought a used 200gallon tank that was being offered as a 280gallon. This was to replace my 100 g that was 8 years old.
lesson #1: calculate the actual volume to see if it is true. A month later when i was setting up i did the math and found i bought a 200g.
in the 77 days it took to set up the tank, i found the original pumps were seized (always check pumps), there was a crack in the acrlic (you can buy weld on 4 to fix), the base was dead and needed serious fixing, the flexible hoses were dried, and so on...
I i moved lots of live rock , copepod clusters and starfish 24 days before the big move, only to find i had bad circulation and there was a deadly halocline with salinity off the scales at bottom of the tank. look at one of the original empty pictures to see a halocline. 20200901
from moving the rocks in old tank, i found that i must have disturbed the bacteria balance as my prized butterfly fish got ill and died fast.
day 0 of move, tried to bring some old water to bring bacteria again (an effort that didn't work as i indirectly found out through phosphate graphs on adding commercial bacteria).
day 21 another fish died like the butterfly. I never had fish get ill before.
day 28 more fish added, but worried something is wrong.. more reef2reef reading made me buy a phosphate kit to solve why the white in my tank was now brown everywhere.
day 29 added store bacteria and phosphates were around 1.5ppm! switched to frozen food that i directed to the thungry ones only to forget to feed hermit crab in the plan.
day 36 the other clowns attacked the smallest clown such that he died.
day 61 found hermit crab ate the arrow crab and was also chewing apart my mushrooms. he was moved to the sump after being convicted.
day 77 (today), phosphates are still trending downward using a bioreactor, and a small amount of GFO. today we are at 0.307ppm! i beleive it was that for years i improperly fed flakes in a rather bad way such that the sand and rocks absorbed everything. my graph is non-linear with a taper that lasted almost a month. i am now seeing a sudden drop, so maybe the rocks are near done.
i think i have spent nearly an extra thousand if not more just redoing old systems that i tried to fix up. Looking back i always had these problems but never looked for a solution until i wanted a larger tank to solve the thought that maybe my tank was too small for the fish. i hope one day to get the systems to the point i can be like some people here and extended or delay my water changes by having the right balance of systems, but i am not knowledgeable enough yet (besides the phosphates are still 10x too high).