Herefishyfishy
Smart Bass
RD, Your edited post is excellent.
Having Some Problems - Don't Know What To Do
- Thread starter Nattan
- Start date
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Reeferdude
Reeferdude
Nattan, I forgot to add that your fish deaths may have been from many reasons other than your tank or water quality. Could have been stress from the move unseen illness that was exacerbated by the move, improper handling etc. By using the process of elimination rather than the "shotgun" approach you will better understand what effects individual components and or the role environmental factors will play in your particular set-up. Good luck! And go slow..
Krish
RF STAFF
Welcome to RF Nattan! 
I just wanted to add a bit of info on filter pads, bio-balls etc and why they can be considered "bad". Where filterpads are concerned, they aren't necessarily bad, but can cause problems if not used properly. What I mean by that is they do a great job of trapping waste, detritus and so forth, but if left too long sitting in the tank/filter, all that waste it has trapped can begin to rott and eventually degrade water quality which is something you don't want to happen. Some recommend either changing or replacing filter pads, sponges, and so forth atleast every 3 days to prevent this from happening. When people feel like this becomes too much of a chore, they will remove all filter pads, sponges and so forth from there system and deal with the excess waste in other ways. I personally went to the extent of removing all of the pre-filter sponges off of all of my pumps as well as they are no different and just cleaned the pumps themselves more frequently. Where bio-balls are concerned, they aren't bad either, but can too work against you. The bio-balls aren't the problem but the environment they are in which is a wet/dry environment. In an environment such as this, there are no anaerobic zones present for denitrification to take place (ie where nitrates are converted into nitrogen gas) so over time you can end up with an accumilation of nitrates as the end product of a wet/dry is nothing but nitrates. Some are able to keep nitrate free tanks using a wet/dry if you really know what you are doing, but more often that not, you will find more cases where people switch from a wet/dry because their nitrates got out of control and just use live rock, sand etc to perform all of the necessary biological filtration and denitrification. For someone new to the hobby thinking about setting up a reef tank, a wet/dry is something I wouldn't ever recommend. However, if it is a fish only setup they are planning on keeping, then they are great with dealing with nice sized bioloads and where nitrates to a certain degree aren't a concern. Many ways to skin a cat in this hobby so learn all you can and go with what method you feel works best for you.
I just wanted to add a bit of info on filter pads, bio-balls etc and why they can be considered "bad". Where filterpads are concerned, they aren't necessarily bad, but can cause problems if not used properly. What I mean by that is they do a great job of trapping waste, detritus and so forth, but if left too long sitting in the tank/filter, all that waste it has trapped can begin to rott and eventually degrade water quality which is something you don't want to happen. Some recommend either changing or replacing filter pads, sponges, and so forth atleast every 3 days to prevent this from happening. When people feel like this becomes too much of a chore, they will remove all filter pads, sponges and so forth from there system and deal with the excess waste in other ways. I personally went to the extent of removing all of the pre-filter sponges off of all of my pumps as well as they are no different and just cleaned the pumps themselves more frequently. Where bio-balls are concerned, they aren't bad either, but can too work against you. The bio-balls aren't the problem but the environment they are in which is a wet/dry environment. In an environment such as this, there are no anaerobic zones present for denitrification to take place (ie where nitrates are converted into nitrogen gas) so over time you can end up with an accumilation of nitrates as the end product of a wet/dry is nothing but nitrates. Some are able to keep nitrate free tanks using a wet/dry if you really know what you are doing, but more often that not, you will find more cases where people switch from a wet/dry because their nitrates got out of control and just use live rock, sand etc to perform all of the necessary biological filtration and denitrification. For someone new to the hobby thinking about setting up a reef tank, a wet/dry is something I wouldn't ever recommend. However, if it is a fish only setup they are planning on keeping, then they are great with dealing with nice sized bioloads and where nitrates to a certain degree aren't a concern. Many ways to skin a cat in this hobby so learn all you can and go with what method you feel works best for you.
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Thanks To All Of You
KRISH...Wow, this is GREAT. I've never been part of a forum before and I have received a LOT more response than I thought I would. I am soaking everything up and will analyze everthing that has been said and go with it.
REEFERDUDE, thanks for encouraging me to go slow...I figured 2-3 months of taking it slow would help me out, but I'm sure you're right about leaving things as they are for a while.
RETURN of SID, I just purchased a Hydor Koralia powerhead ( as you had mentioned you have started using ). So far, I'm impressed with it. I got the #4 that is rated at 1200gph...that along with the return from the pump in the back at 1200gph and the (not-long-for-this-world) PowerSweep at 300gph puts me at almost 3000gph ( hopefully ). For a 140 gallon tall this is hopefully sufficient ? ... About 20x flow rate. The outlet from the return is up high on the back/right of the tank, and I placed the PowerSweep lower down on the right side of the tank, and the Koralia up high on the left side and pointing down....IS THIS the recommended way to do it ( meaning cross-currents like this ) ? With this Koralia, I am getting great flow behind the live rock down at the bottom where there was nothing before...the few fish I have in there seem to like it ( 4 blue-green Chromis ) and are more active....The Hawkfish fish's favorite perch is getting a lot of flow which moves him around a little - so not sure if he's enjoying it - but being more saturated with oxygen can't hurt, eh ?
Again, thank you all for your advice.
Nate
KRISH...Wow, this is GREAT. I've never been part of a forum before and I have received a LOT more response than I thought I would. I am soaking everything up and will analyze everthing that has been said and go with it.
REEFERDUDE, thanks for encouraging me to go slow...I figured 2-3 months of taking it slow would help me out, but I'm sure you're right about leaving things as they are for a while.
RETURN of SID, I just purchased a Hydor Koralia powerhead ( as you had mentioned you have started using ). So far, I'm impressed with it. I got the #4 that is rated at 1200gph...that along with the return from the pump in the back at 1200gph and the (not-long-for-this-world) PowerSweep at 300gph puts me at almost 3000gph ( hopefully ). For a 140 gallon tall this is hopefully sufficient ? ... About 20x flow rate. The outlet from the return is up high on the back/right of the tank, and I placed the PowerSweep lower down on the right side of the tank, and the Koralia up high on the left side and pointing down....IS THIS the recommended way to do it ( meaning cross-currents like this ) ? With this Koralia, I am getting great flow behind the live rock down at the bottom where there was nothing before...the few fish I have in there seem to like it ( 4 blue-green Chromis ) and are more active....The Hawkfish fish's favorite perch is getting a lot of flow which moves him around a little - so not sure if he's enjoying it - but being more saturated with oxygen can't hurt, eh ?
Again, thank you all for your advice.
Nate
This type of power head set up is great as long as it's not blowing sand around. You want to have your power heads set up in a way where their currents hit each other to cancel out the laminar (straight) flow. This causes random currents that are made even more random when they bounce off of glass or live rock in your tank. The more random flow you can create, the better.
As was mentioned above, your Power Sweep WILL stop rotating soon...lol. They're JUNK. When it happens, replace it with a MJ1200 with a Hydo Flo adapter. It's a very inexpensive way to create GREAT flow.
Sounds like you're making the improvements that are needed and are on the way to having a great reef tank!! Keep up with the research and keep us all informed!!
Another thing to keep in mind, as great of a forum as this is, and it's AWESOME, you'll still get contradicting information at times. Doing your own research and finding out what works the majority of the time will be your best bet!! A great book to read is The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert M. Fenner. I checked it out from a library, read it twice and then purchased it...lol. In a lot of people's opinions, it's "required reading," I'd be hard pressed to disagree!!
As was mentioned above, your Power Sweep WILL stop rotating soon...lol. They're JUNK. When it happens, replace it with a MJ1200 with a Hydo Flo adapter. It's a very inexpensive way to create GREAT flow.
Sounds like you're making the improvements that are needed and are on the way to having a great reef tank!! Keep up with the research and keep us all informed!!
Another thing to keep in mind, as great of a forum as this is, and it's AWESOME, you'll still get contradicting information at times. Doing your own research and finding out what works the majority of the time will be your best bet!! A great book to read is The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert M. Fenner. I checked it out from a library, read it twice and then purchased it...lol. In a lot of people's opinions, it's "required reading," I'd be hard pressed to disagree!!
Krish
RF STAFF
That's the great thing about forums...You hear the views and experiences of many different people and not just one guy at the LFS who "could be" (not all) trying to make a quick buck and that's all. You do have good guys out there that run LFS' that are looking out for your best interest, but not all so it is always best to learn what you can and these forums do a great job at providing that info...Atleast for me it did
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Herefishyfishy
Smart Bass
Is this Forum great or what!
Or what. J/K. This is an awesome forum. Especially after starting out on a much larger "Central"ized forum we all know and love...lol. This one "live" ROCKS!!!
