Who's Into Saltwater?

[Tony]

Well we may have some sad news by the time I get home in the morning. As I was getting ready for work, I noticed that Blenny was not looking so hot. I looked closer and he was breathing very hard and fast, and his whole mid section was almost a purple color. I have a strong feeling that he will be dead by the time I get home. As stated earlier, I was thinking I was a little premature in getting him but thought there was enough algae in the tank for him. Either he is just stressed or there is in fact not enough to eat. We will find out when I get home. Sucks, he is a great fish to watch.

 

[callsign4223]

Heck yea, if you get the LED's I will snag those T5's from ya.

 

[wolfman76]

If and when i can set up a tank i will be setting up a 80 gallon euro front tank with my 26 gallon as a hospital tank

 

[Tony]

I think we are going to have to purchase another small quarantine tank for the fish. I lost the Blenny last night and it looked like he had internal bleeding. The smaller of the two clowns looks to have ich and I think a couple of the chromis have it as well. If I don't do something soon, I will loose the whole tank. Not sure where all of this came from, but I may be taking the tank down and bleaching everything and starting over. Not what I want to do, but it's the game we play. We may just take the tank down and sell the rock and sand. But hopefully we can kill this before it spreads any further. Already lost a $20 fish, now a $25 fish is in trouble...

 

[Tony]

I forgot about the 10 gallon tank that I had used as a refugium on my last tank. It was sitting outside in my entry way with sand and some other crap in it. I have it inside now, cleaned out and ready for the fish. We are going to stick a small filter on it just to move water as well as a heater but that's it. I just hope it's not too late for the fish and we can save them. Heavy treatment is all we can really do...

 

[callsign4223]

Being a packrat has it's perks occasionally. Good to see that you have a quarantine tank and may be able to save some of those fish, salties aren't cheap.

 

[Tony]

Nope, they are not. Unfortunately the Blenny took a turn so fast that I couldn't save him. The two Perc clowns are now in quarantine and we have given them their first dose of meds. They are pissed being in a 10 gallon tank from the 90 lol. But the small one (male) is swimming more in this tank. I'm thinking the Chromis was some of what stressed him out. The female (larger clown) is about the same size as the chromis so she played blocker to them protecting the male that is quite small. It's pretty cool to see, but still stressful to him.

We will leave them in there for about three weeks. I think I'm going to setup my 55 gallon just to put new fish into to treat them and help them out before putting them into my big tank. Just need to find a place to put it.

And no, the female was not sick, but it's best to keep the clowns paired up. These two fish have the possibility to make us a lot of money in the future when they start breeding. And yes, I will be looking into shipping them out everywhere in the country. Cheaper than the larger stores.

 

[Tony]

Well this has not been a good weekend. Since losing a second fish and my small clown on the verge of dying, the wife and I decided to completely tear down the tank. Yeah, I know, it sucks big time. But we are thinking that what ever is killing the fish was in the rock, or it was from one of the fish and is now in the rock. And if it's in the rock, it's in the sand and plumbing as well. For this reason, we had to tear it down.

Now speaking of tearing the tank down, here is what the original 110g tank looks like now...



That's right, we have broken every seal getting it ready to reseal. We have the silicone, we just need to clean up the glass and get it done.

Obviously the first thing in tearing down the tank, is getting the rock and water out of it. That is easy. I have a 55 gallon barrel, so that is where the rock is now. Once that was done, we drained the tank as far down as we could with teh sand still in the tank.



So where are my fish? Well these poor guys went from a nice cushy 90g reef, to a 10g crap tank that I"m using to dose the sick ones. I'm just hoping the sick fish that is in there doesn't get the others sick with the antibiotics that we are dosing.



Great, fish, water and rock are out of the tank and this is where we are now.



Great, now we are right back to where we started lol. But we are not done. I'm sure it's run across your mind, "how do you get rid of this stuff that's hiding in the tank?". Well, it will be a couple days, but we do it with vinegar. two to three gallons of vinegar went into the tank and we filled it up with regular tap water. Not only will any bacteria not survive in a tank with no salinity (salt) but the PH has went from 8.2 to well below 7.4 (the lowest my test kit goes). So in no way will anything survive in this tank that could get the fish sick.



So what do we do now? Well we will let this tank run for the entire week to make sure the vinegar is put into places that even I can't reach. If there is a leak, it will find it and kill anything that may be sitting there.

So what about the 80lbs of sand and 120 lbs of rock? Well we are going to either toss it, or we are going to bleach the ever loving crap out of it then sell it for half the cost. Hell we may keep it and put it in the 110 when we get it put back together. I think that tank would make a great aggressive tank with angels and lion fish. Perfect rock for that tank. But first, we have to KILL EVERYTHING on it and in it. This means a month in a heavy bleach water solution and then a couple months drying out on the sidewalk.

So what are we going to replace it with? Well we are going to get dry base rock that is as white as chalk. It will take a very long time for it to get the color we want, but this way I can choose the color that will be on it (to a degree). The sand we are going to go back to the live sand, but not the fine stuff that we had before. That stuff was horrible and made the water cloudy any time something touched it!. No more of that crap for me even though I still have a 40lb bag of it sitting here unopened.

There is another product that we are going to try as well. It's a bacteria that is good for the tank. It's a nitrifying bacteria. What it does is it takes the ammonia and nitrites and breaks then down into nitrates which are removed with regular water changes. There is some stuff called "Dr. Tim's One & Only Nitrifying Bacteria". With this stuff, I can take the cycle of my tank from a couple months, to about a week. Or so they say. I will be the judge of that.

The bacteria that is in it, is naturally found in reef tanks, so there is no harm in using it. When you put it in, you can and are suggested to immediately put fish in the tank such as a couple clowns or chromis. This will introduce the ammonia that the bacteria need to survive. Your ammonia and nitrite spikes will be minimal at best and no stress will be shown by the fish. We will see.

So as you can see, this weekend has sucked in the fish world. I was about to just pack it up and do it later but the wife talked me into keeping it going. Afterall, the price for the new sand, salt and rock is only that of a NEW ALIGN 450 PRO V2 DFC!!!!!!!!1

 

[callsign4223]

Yikes, that sucks about the clowns. So all that's left now is the male clown?


Reason number 48 not to get saltwater tank: If my fish die I go down to the creek and catch more, if Tony's fish die he has to go through a 3 month grieving process that involves vinegar and bleach.

 

[Tony]

Actually it's the Female, or what should be the female since she is larger than the other one. And I also have 4 chromis left as well. They are all in the little 10g tank. Sucks but it's what I have to do right now. I just started building a stand for the 55g that will also house the 10g, plus another 10g beside it and a 20g in the bottom if we want. Not sure if we are going to put it down there or not.

The stand right now is 48" tall putting the top of the tank over 60". I will be cutting this down though if we are not going to use the 20g on the bottom.

As for the crap I'm going through, it will all be worth it when it's over. There is nothing more spectacular in a home than a small piece of the ocean. We just have to get there...

 

[Tony]

Okay, it's been over 6 days since i made a post about the tank so here is the update. So far, I have filled and drained the tank with vinegar/freshwater, and freshwater somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 times to get rid of all of the vinegar. I have also bleached (heavily) the 80lbs of sand that was in the tank. The last 3 fill/drains were with the sand in the tank so I can get rid of the chlorine in the sand. At this time, I can smell no more bleach or vinegar in the tank and I'm draining it once again.

Let me tell you, this is about the biggest pain in the ass I have EVER been through with a tank, freshwater or saltwater. I guess it was only a matter of time before I had something like this happen, I'm just glad it did as I was just setting the tank up, and not after it was 3 years old and I lost hundreds if not thousands of dollars in fish and coral. That would have really sucked.

So the plan now is to wait. Next thursday I will have the nitrifying bacteria and the salt to do it all over again. However I think we are going to hold off on the tank until the first of the year. So, when I drain the tank this time, I will be taking it down and putting it in storage. We just have too much going on right now to worry about setting this tank up.

The other reasons for waiting to set it up is we still need some things. I want LED's. I want to automate as much as I can so I will need a controller. There are about a dozen other items that I would "like" for this tank, and I think waiting until I have them all is the way to go. Can I set this tank up as it is now? Yes, but it would be a little harder. Oh yeah, I'm replacing all 120lbs of rock that was in the tank as well.

So with that said, this will more than likely be the final update for a while. It was fun and stressful at the same time...

 

[callsign4223]

I would fill it one more time and be sure to do some testing on the water, ph and whatnot. Just to make sure ALL of the chemical residue is off. Just because you can't smell it doesn't mean it isn't there.

 

[Tony]

When I fill it the next time I will do a chlorine test on it. I'm sure I'm going to have to run some chlorine remover no matter what I do and let the tank cycle for a day before putting fish in it. Just part of the game. Because of this, I'm no longer going to fill it with the water from the house which is well water. Even though it's high calcium and very hard water (perfect for salties), I"m worried with the drought that we had the past two years that the TDS (Total dissolved solids) is higher than normal. This is not good when it comes to algae growth. With high TDS, your phosphates are usually high as well. So there is yet another $350 for an RO/DI system with booster pump to bring me up to about 70psi line pressure.

All in all, there is just too much stuff that we need for the tank to do anything with it right now. I'm talking over $2K worth of stuff just to get up and running. With the holidays, it's just not the right time to be spending that kind of money. Hell, because of money, I took back my day off on thankgiving. Nothing like double time. Well not really, I'm a state employee, I just get a day off down the road... Still, it gives me some options when I want to take a day off.

Sucks not being able to finish the tank but it is what it is.

 

[Tony]

Well, things have taken a turn once again. This would be something good that is happening, I'm just wondering what bad is going to come of it... It seems to always go that way for me...

So anyway, I made an order here a while back (about a week ago) for salt and nitrifying bacteria. The salt came from Chicago and the bacteria came from Wisconsin. This is very bad because the bacteria is a living thing and if it freezes, it dies. however I took the chance and thought I would see what happens. Turns out, it took two more days for it to get here vs the salt. Let me point something out. With the heat packs, the bacteria package weighted about two pounds. Whereas the salt was closer to seventy pounds! And the salt made it here first. Just doesn't sound right to me lol.

So, on with what has changed. I didn't want to waste this salt on what I knew would be water with a lot of chlorine in it because of the bleach that we used on teh sand and rock. No matter how many times I rinse it, it's still going to contain chlorine. because of this, the wife picked up a bottle of chlorine and heavy metal remover from teh pet store. But I would still have to do two LARGE water changes which would use up my 200 gallon box of salt. To add insult to injury, the salt had went off sale when I purchased it but was still showing the sale price in my cart. This is why I got it.

So, the money on the salt is going to be wasted, I knew this and it was a deciding factor in letting the tank sit until the first of the year sometime. Well, that all changed when I received my shipment of salt.

I woke up one day and my daughters told me there was a very heavy box waiting outside. I knew it was my salt so I just left it there. I had to get some coffee in me. Once I chugged down a couple cups, I went out to get it only to find the box was broken open and the bags were damaged. To clarify, there are 4 50 gallon bags in each box. I don't know what got into the salt so I didn't exactly want to use it, but I knew that surely there is nothing that would harm the fish or the rock (that was heavily bleached). So I put in an email to the place where I ordered it and explained to them that this is the second order I have made, and the second order where something has busted open. The first time was the bag of sand.

So I figure they would just write it off because it has in fact been the second order in a row that has had an issue and it could look like I was just trying to get something for free, which I'm not. That's not me. But I received an email the next day informing me, no questions asked, that I had yet another box of salt on it's way here.

So that is 400 gallons worth of salt that I had sitting in my living room when I woke up. 400 gallons of salt, my tank is a total of about 100 gallons, it was a no brainer to set this up since we had what we needed.

The nitrifying bacteria is in the fridge where it will keep longer. Remember, freezing is what kills them, keeping them cold keeps them alive longer. It's a cardio thing, trust me lol. So, the wife and I lugged the garden hose in here for one more fill up. Also remember we are on a well. Yes, there could be TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) in the water, as well as heavy metals, but we had great luck with it the last time. Granted we didn't have two years of a drought the last time, but I'm willing to take that chance.

So I put two bags of salt in the sump, filled the tank with water and kicked on the pumps. Holy crap this tank is cloudy lol. About as bad as it was with the sand. But we are now back up and running again.

With all of the salt dissolved, we put in the chlorine remover and then I stuck all of the rock that we are going to use into the tank for it to all cycle. "But I thought that is what the nitrifying bacteria is for" you ask? You are correct. That is what it is for. But with as much chlorine as could be on those rocks (remember, very porous) could hold, I didn't want to waste a $24 bottle of stuff that would just die because of chlorine.

so as of now, we are waiting for the chlorine remover to do it's job. This tank will sit just the way it is with some shaking of the rocks now and then for a week. At that time we will completely drain the whole tank and refill it once again. This should remove every trace of chlorine that is in the tank. I hate wasting salt like this, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

So for now, we get to look at a dark tank with bleach white rock and sand in it lmao. Well we will once all of the cloudy water goes away!

 

[Tony]

Well, the good has turned to bad, and quite quickly I might add. Because of the vinegar and the bleach residue, the PH in the tank was a little low. I used some PH buffer that I had here to bring it from 7.8 back up to 8.3 where it's supposed to be. Well that didn't turn out so well. Something happened and the PH buffer turned my sump into a bubble bath. While I was here writing the blog and the post above, as well as responding to other things on the site, I couldn't see the massive amount of bubbles coming out of my stand.

Not sure what we are going to do now... Everything has to be drained adn rinsed, again, and again, and again, and again to get rid of this crap. As if the whole draining and filling thing 7 times wasn't enough before... ugh...

 

[Tony]

Why is it that I can't leave well enough alone? lmao. I have sat here looking at the empty tank all day. I took all of the sand out of it and I think I have a plan. Key word there is "think".

I have filled the tank up with regular fresh water to test and see if any bubbles were going to form. Sure enough, everything is gone. However there are quite a few little "things" floating around in the water. Not sure what they are, but they are there. the water is also quite cloudy. This does worry me a little but I think the tank can over come this issue.

Because I do have extra salt, this is like a free screwup. However, I like to take advantage of little things like this and don't like the screwups. lol. The wife and I both want this tank. There is something about the water running, the fish swimming, the anemones swaying and just the pure relaxation you get from an aquarium. Fresh water or Salt, it's all the same.

So I'm debating filling it back up after I drain this last rinse cycle and putting another 100 gallons of salt in it. Or should I say, enough salt for 100 gallons. If I do, it's going to be done a little differently this time.

First off, it's going to be a bare bottom tank to start with. I'm going to siphon out all of the sand that is remaining which is not much when I get rid of this water that's in it. That will leave a clean tank to work with. Then, I'm going to put the salt in it and fill it back up with water and that is going to be how it sits for a while. Once the temp comes up to 77ºF, I will put the one fresh bag of sand in it that I have. This is live sand BTW and it's the bag that replaced the busted bag on the first order. That will get some biological filtration in the tank. But, it will need an ammonia source to live. But before I can give it that source, I need to rinse very well all of the rock and get it in the tank. This is a chore in it's self.

Once the rock is in the tank, the tank is going to want to cycle. This is where the nitrifying bacteria comes into play. I will pour the bacteria in the tank and 30 minutes later, 3 of my 4 chromis are going in. Hell since that last one is looking much better now, he may go in as well. But my clown is not going in just incase there is an issue. I can stand to lose a $5 fish, but not a $25 fish. Not again.

So I'm hoping it will work this time. It's going to take a while to get everything going again but dammit, I want my tank back. Come hell or high water (no offense to those on the east coast) I will have my reef tank back!!!! The question is, at what cost though...

 

[Tony]

So here we go again. As explained above, I drained the tank after doing the biggest rinse I have ever done. I don't even rinse my car that I just washed this much lmao. I can see no way that anything can be left in this tank that would harm the fish or coral. If there is, it's hiding very well. It would have had to live through bleach, vinegar, fresh water, buffer, chlorine remover and me scrubbing the crap out of it.

Once the tank was drained, I took a towel and dried it completely. Then I added the salt as you can see in the pictures below. This tank is 48" long by 18" deep (front to back). The sand covered half of the bottom of the tank to a depth of about 3", maybe a little higher in some places. It's a LOT of salt lol.

Once that was done, I started filling her up with water once again. The pictures will show you the process. It's simple lmao. And the bubbles you see on the water is NOT what I had last time. After I cleaned up the mess the first time, I waited 2 minutes and the foam you see in the first picture is what developed. And if you leave it, it just grows and grows. The bubbles do not pop which is what caused such a mess last time.

Anyway, the tank is now saltwater once again. It's heating up but is still a bare bottom tank. Once the water reaches temp, I will put in the bag of sand, then I will start stacking rock in it after the water clears a little. When that is done, I will update this once again.

For some reason, the forum did not upload the pictures in order. I'm sure you get the point though.

 

[murankar]

I hope it works this time.

 

[Tony]

You and I both bro. When I got up tonight, I drain some coffee then looked at the tank. It's up to 77.5º from 63.8º and the water is very clear after the 8 hours it has been sitting there. I decided to put the NEW bag of live sand into the tank and knew when I did, it would be very cloudy, it's just the nature of the sand. Should take about 6 hours to clear. Once that happens, I'm going to once again rinse the 80lbs of sand that I have in a bucket and I'm going to put that in the tank 10lbs at a time so it can acclimate to the tank and not cause a shock. Once I have all 120lbs of sand in there, I will put the rock in. This should take a couple of weeks to complete. Once all of that is done, then I can put in the bacteria and put in the fish. The fish that are still living are looking MUCH better. Now I just have to keep them that way.

 

[Tony]

Well, I think I finally have some good news. I think lol.

As stated above I had put the sand in the tank after adding the salt and heating it up and when I did, it made the water very cloudy. I knew it would as it did this last time. So I thought, I would go to work and when I came home, it would be clear. Well, I was wrong. The tank was still cloudy. so I waited until I got up yesterday. Still cloudy. Okay fine.

I grabbed the filter socks that I had been using and stuck them in the washer. Soap kills thing? Yup, it does. that is why I did it on the steam setting with bleach. Yes, it's safe lol. And before I went to work, I stuck the filter socks on the tank.

When I came home, I kicked the lights on and to my surprise the tank was clear. And I'm not talking just clear, I mean crystal clear! This is some good news! So finally something is going right on this tank. But wait a minute, it did this on the last setup as well so I don't have my hopes too high. Kinda like the helicopter that Jesse and Gaba found lmao. Got my hopes up and it was gone...

So I took the sand that was in teh tank that was now in a bucket and took it outside for one more good rinse. And when I say a good rinse, I mean a very good rinse. This stuff could be eaten off of.

I came back in and tossed it into the tank. It did cloud it back up as I knew it would, but it should be clear when I get up. If it is, then we will be putting the rock back in it soon. And at that point, it will be a saltwater tank again.

I really hope it works this time. I'm so tired of issue after issue.