new salt water tank setup..

[reckless]

hello ladies and gents,

i live in kingston jamaica and recently decided to convert my 54 gallon 1/4 cylinder aquarium to a reef tank. did a lot of research and have been asking around for info. since we are so close to the sea and i dive a lot i decided to get everything from the sea. went 3 miles out and got pristine water (45 gallons) and a lot of rock from about 25 feet of water as well as about 2 1/2 to 3 inches of crushed coral. I have a metal halide 150 watt pendant, aqua c remora skimmer,pacific coast chiller, coral life uv sterilizer, hydor koralia 2 pumps plus other stuff lke ATO. The tank was setup thursday last and has an abundance of life, snails, worms, crabs, a mantis shrimp (he is history). added nutrafin cycle 2 nights ago and it seemed to kick start the cycle. so i am in my 2nd day of the ammonia spike and everything seems to be dying.

1) does the metal halide light have to stay on during this period.
2) should i leave on the uv strilizer during the cycling period.
3) will all the critters in the tank die during this period (a lot of centipede looking worms and flat worms i am concerned about, if i had known theses things were living in the rocks i would have used gloves).
4) if they dont die should i be concerned about them in the future???

sincerely,

robin

[tike]

Welcome Robin!

Well where do i begin?? First I am not a big avocate of removing things from the ocean to put in my tank. I really strive to buy aquacultured fish and corals, with that said lets move on to your problem. First the amount of live rock is important, you need to have at least 1.5# per gallon of water. Seeing how you removed it straight from the ocean it should contain enough bacteria that you don't realize a spike. Beacause you do have a spike leads me to believe that you didn't start out with the right amount of rock.

What you should do now is water changes, about 30-40% a day to the spike drops. you may still lose a few critters and it is important to remove them so the decay doesn't continue the spike. Within a day a two things should start to settle down. Remember to add more rock.

1)The light doesn't have to be on at this time.
2)Same as above
3)Some will not all if you follow instructions above.
4)Sounds like bristleworms (centipedes) and flat worms no harm. The flatworms will die back naturally and the bristles are scavengers.

[reckless]

thanks tike, in jamaica we dont really have pet shops that specialise in marine aquariums and the one or two people that bring them in only do so mainly for soft and hard coral and fish. I also believe in protecting the environment but these rocks were seperated from the reef after the last hurricane. But anyways moving right along....

1) I am sure you are probably right as i dont think i have enough rocks in there as by your calculation i should have 60 lbs of rock (40 gals water). So i will try and get some more and put in there by this weekend.

2) So the bristle worms are no treat to the reef tank or any fish???, as long as they are not a treat then they should actually serve a purpouse as scavengers???..

3) Since this is day 2 of the ammonia spike, you are suggesting that i start doing water changes as per your instructions above ( i thaught i had to leave the tank alone apart from top off's and let it run the entire cycle without water changes)???...

4) If i start doing water changes every day till the spike drops the next thing part of the cycle is the nitrite cycle (should i be doing water changes from now till there are no more ammonia and nitrite spikes)???

sincerely,

robin

[tike]

1) I am sure you are probably right as i dont think i have enough rocks in there as by your calculation i should have 60 lbs of rock (40 gals water). So i will try and get some more and put in there by this weekend.

2) So the bristle worms are no treat to the reef tank or any fish???, as long as they are not a treat then they should actually serve a purpouse as scavengers???..

3) Since this is day 2 of the ammonia spike, you are suggesting that i start doing water changes as per your instructions above ( i thaught i had to leave the tank alone apart from top off's and let it run the entire cycle without water changes)???...

4) If i start doing water changes every day till the spike drops the next thing part of the cycle is the nitrite cycle (should i be doing water changes from now till there are no more ammonia and nitrite spikes)???

sincerely,

robin




The thing is.....your tank shouldn't cycle at all. The live rock you're getting from the ocean contain ALL the nitrifying bacteria you need. You just didn't have enough of it. The "cycling" you are thinking of is when people use uncured rock(live rock with lots ofdead stuff on it from shipping it) or dead rock that they seed using small amounts of live rock. The cycling happens because you don't have enough of the bacteria (nitrosommas and nitrobacter) to consume waste products. In your case doing water change and adding more rock will cure the problem since the rock you're adding contain all the bacteria you need.

I hope that clears it up for you.

willie

[reckless]

thanks willie i appreciate the info as i am on a learning curve (maybe i digested too much info and got confused..) i will start doing the water changes by tommorow...

1) i need to know however what to do about the bristleworms that are in the tank now eating all the dead snails etc....

sincerely,

robin

[Europa]

99% of bristle worms are harmless. I wouldn't worry about them. Have you tested for ammonia and nitrate? If ammonia is zero and nitrates are present, the tank is cycled and you can slowly start stocking it.

When getting water from the ocean, it's recommended to go at least 10 miles out.

Crushed coral is a bad choice for substrate, it traps debris that lead to nitrate problems, and burrowing creatures don't do well with it. Since your just starting, I would remove it and replace it with argonite sand or no substrate at all (bare bottom).

[reckless]

thanks europa.....

[Mike O'Brien]

You can't take rock out of the ocean and put it into a tank and expect there to be no die off. What was collected probably had more life on it than any of us have seen offered in the US.

[reckless]

duly noted, thanks for the info...... i will start the water changes tommorow.....i collect water about 4 miles out.....no where close to any pollutants..... we go fishing in that area every week so luck for us we have good water for changes...

thanks again...

robin

[reckless]

patience is a virtue....

[furman589]

id love to live where u do

[tike]

patience is a virtue....


True this!!!:)

[stevo4535]

Sounds like you have a good start to things. I too would like to live near you all year round, instead of just on a vacation:) It would be sweet if you were able to get some pictures up of your setup.

[Mike O'Brien]

My wife is going to the Blue Cave Castle in Negril next week. I'm a bit jealous. She's bringing the underwater camera though, so hopefully she'll get some good pics that I can post for us.

[reckless]

hope she has fun man.... it is great living out here with the sea and clean water so close...makes maintaining the tank so much easier and actually quite a variety of fish out here as well.....