HELP!! really frustrated with my tank!!

ok good info on the flow. I had my husband fix our pump again for me last night. He usually has a tought time doing it as he has to try and get the top on while it's spinning for some reason but last night he got it on the first try.

More bad news.... this morning I was feeding the fish and "Blaze" (my firefish) didn't come out to eat. I wonder how many other people name their fish? I took a look around and he was dead laying in the sand and a crab was trying to eat him actually. I got him out right away. Well not right away, amazing how hard it can be to get a dead fish out. I couldn't reach him with the net so had to used my hands which kind of freaked me out a bit. I'll try and figure out which snails/crabs are dead and get them out as well.

I hope I can get this all straightened out, cause I'm on the verge of giving up and selling my tank I've had so many probs. Gosh at this rate I'll hardly have anything alive left to sell:-( Could the firefish have died from the low salinity problem I had earlier in the week even though it's straightened out now???

Thanks for helping everyone. Sorry to be such a downer!!!

 

make that tough time. not tought time trying to type this quick before heading to breakfast duty for K-5th graders the day before a break.  This should be fun!!

 

thanks rc "kiddo", haven't heard that one in awhile!!

Some real good pointers there. I've fixed several things already. Threw out that chili coral(it never looked that great in my tank anyways) took off dome on pump and shifted the pump direction.

Is the strainer the thing on the top and bottom of the back wall, the slits??? The filter cartridge we actually threw that out and were using the protein skimmer instead. So I'm running the protein skimmer and then have a sponge in the middle chamber. I rinse it out once a week, but haven't changed it out to a new one since March.

Also running the carbon and phosphate remover in the back middle chamber in a filter bag. I'm a little confused still about how much to put in though. I got some directions earlier but they were in grams so realized I was a little confused when trying to measure out the right amount. What is the amount in say teaspoons/tablespoons I should put into my 29 gallon??


Yeah I'm real confused about the salinity issue too. I have no idea what happened!!! At least it seems to be straightened out now. Some good news finally. My inverts are actually moving around tonight. The last couple days they were just laying in the sand and I figured they were dead. I haven't found any dead ones actually but have found a couple empty snail shells and a couple crab shells that I can't tell I think they are empty. I found a snail in a hermit crab shell tonight. Wierd.

I think I have just over a half a dozen snails and 2-3 hermit crabs and 2 or 3 red scarlett crabs still alive, just found my peppermint shrimp tonight he's still alive, and the 2 clownfish seem to be doing well tonight. I'm most worried now about the corals. The don't look good at all. Will they come back???? Could they have started dying off due to the low salinity prob??

Will definitely plan on moving pump down instead of unplugging and turning off for next water change.

I'm not ready to give up yet!! I'd given myself a deadline of getting my tank the way I want by March which would be a year but lately had gotten so frustrated was thinking I'd possibly give up sooner. Thanks everyone. I'll keep ya posted and ask more questions as I come up with them.

Wish me luck!!!! I wish all it took was luck. This is a lot of hard work! But I figure I'll feel so proud if I do get it looking the way I want. Don't have the expertise as you rc and never will so don't believe mine could ever look quite as beautiful as before, but maybe I can come close. It is on!!!!!! haha

 

ok so last night as you could all tell from my last post I was ready to give this a go. Well before going to bed last night my husband heard a loud noise coming from the tank. He opened the lid to check on it and water came gushing out. The main pump hose had come disconnected somehow. So he got shocked a couple of times when touching the power strips. Overnight we wanted to keep things going but water level had gone down some so we kept the supplemental pump on and the heater on. This morning the temp was down to 74, I don't think the heater was working overnight. Now that everything was dry my husband tried to plug lights back in. He got one in and nothing. Maybe the lights got fried from the water gushing??? And he tried to plug the second set in and got a major shock that sent him to the ground. Anyways, I guess this was a sign.....


We are now to the where to go from now being how can we get our living things in there somewhere else quick so they don't die. Then our plan is in the next day or 2 start emptying out the tank and getting it cleaned out and ready to sell. I'm afraid to try and plug anything else in and don't want my husband to either so right now everything is unplugged so don't know how long things will make it.



ryan.... I know this is dissapointing isn't it??? I was so ready to give it another go.... another one bites the dust:-(( I know some of the things I'l gotten from you (rock, testing kits, ect) do you want any of that back???

I have 2 clownfish, 1-2 small cerith snails, about 5 large cerith snails, 2-3 blue legged hermit crabs and 2 I think red scarleet crabs, and a small peppermint shrimp. All seem to be doing very well (right now) We probably spent 70-80 bucks or so for all of these. It's hard to not get anything out of them but if that's what we have to do, it's what we have to do...., but I'd like to get some money out of them so I posted in the buy/sell/trade section. If I don't get any interest in the next day or so what can I do would a pet store take them?? My husband said they're just fish flush them down the toilet, but no way, I can't do that.

 

I can't believe how many times I've change my mind today!!! I think that's what helped my husband realize I'm not ready to sell yet. We were real concerned thought the hood had gotten too much water in it and the lights too much water and that none of them were going to work, but hood and lights are ok we waited for them to dry out and just tried them. He looked at me and said, how about I go and get some RO water for you so we can get this going again tonight. and thanks to AJ whose on his way over to help me get er up and running right this time. Wow, didn't know anyone could change their mind as many times as I have in a 24 hr. period, I"m worn out. whew. Anyways, gonna give her a go again. I had given myself the March deadline, maybe I should stick with that and hope that by then things are looking good. Good news is the inverts and fish are fine still I'm anxious to try out some of the advice from ya'all now. thanks!!

Wish me luck everyone!!!

 

wow up to 584 views now!!! It does help me feel better realizing I'm not alone with these probs. I tend to overreact sometimes (lol) so the take a deep breathe advice is always good

I did check my make up water and it tested fine. I get it at Walmart. I'm not sure if it is just RO water or if it is RO/DI water. I'll have to check next time I go in or if someone knows you could let me know.

Right now things are doing allright. I'm busy using my little powerhead to stir up the (detritus I think it's called) and have been emptying my sponge and skimmer every couple hours. wow I'm getting alot of crap out of there!!! Thank goodness I have the next few days off to work on this. Now I just gotta hope my daughter takes a nice long nap and I start feeling better so I have more energy to work on everything (got sick this weekend in the middle of all this) I feel like I need to do a blog or something. haha my posts are so long.!!

Anyways thanks for the help everyone and hopefully someday soon I'll be able to get a pic posted of things looking better. I should have asked more questions along the way, I'm finally learning who cares if my questions seem stupid the only way for me to find out is to ask, right

thanks again

 

good to hear about the Walmart water, I was thinking it was RO/DI.

I started out mostly just reading posts too and was afraid to post much partially because I felt like I knew so little compared to 90% of the people on the forums maybe even higher. lol....and I'm sure other newbies feel the same way..... but am glad I finally decided to start asking questions cause maybe this time I'll do it right and get that beautiful tank I've wanted

 

Good to hear I'm on the right track with water source. Thanks Bela!

 

so I was gone Wed. afternoon through today for Thanksgiving and was only able to get my parents to come over on Friday for me to clean out my sponge and skimmer cup and feed my fish. I did call them to check on it.   I was so nervous I'd come back today and have a mess of dirty water/algae to worry about.  THe 3 days before I left I'd been cleaning the sponge/skimmer cup out multiple times a day and blowing my rocks off multiple times a day.  But much to my surprise it looked pretty good!  A little film of brown on the rocks and glass and sand but I blew it off with my little pump and cleaned out my skimmer cup and sponge(I got a new one in now) and wow tonight it's looking great  I'm excited.  It's nice to actually sit and enjoy looking at it!!!!  I just need to keep it lookin good so I can get some corals in again.  My green zoas are coming back very nicely, I"m not sure about my purple zoas and my green star polyp still hasn't opened yet in weeks.  Maybe it's a lost cause??? but I'll keep my fingers crossed they'll come back as well. 
Quick water question again.  Last week I went in to Pet's Playhouse to get a new sponge and thought heck I'll go ahead and get my water while I'm at it.  Forgot to ask when in there, is that RO/DI water as well???  I'd checked my Walmart water and it had been at zero phosphates., I'll have to make sure and check this make up water too since it's my first time using it.  Just thought it was nice and handy not having to go way to the back of Walmart/stand in a long line. Maybe Ill save $ too, I'd always stop and get something else at Walmart. lol.... of course I'll probably end up just finding something else at PP to buy too!!!