Everything is dying

[KTrevino]

I would like to say we aren't attacking you, this just shows that rushing is not a good choice in this hobby. We all make mistakes and we all pay the price. Also make sure anything dead is removed promptly to reduce extra ammonia.

 

[Dom]

Hello everyone, ima be honest with y’all I’ve had my fluval eco 13.5 for about 2 weeks and I had a clownfish, royal gramma, yellow watchman goby, 12 corals, 5 Nesarus snails, 2 Cerith snails, 3 giant turbo snails, 5 crabs, and a normal small snail. Everything was running perfect for a new tank, every coral was popping like crazy and my girlfriends cousin who had a reef tank for a few years and has one now actually said my tank is the only tank he’s seen run that good for a new tank. So anyway everytime I put my hands in the tank my Nemo would come to me and bite me and it would actually annoy me and kinda hurt. So I decided to take him out and I guess I jacked my whole tank up because almost all my corals died, my snails, crabs died(except for like 2). And my fish won’t come out at all and it’s been about 4 days and nothing popping now I had to get rid of like 5 of my corals and I’m concerned about what to do next. Someone please help!!!

Wow... this has to be one of the worst cases of taking advantage of a newbie by a LFS that I have ever seen.

To tell you they were selling you cycled water.... either a bald-faced lie of the person giving this advice or they don't know the first thing about setting up a reef tank.

But PLEASE, Please, please.... don't beat yourself up over this. We've all made the mistake of trusting the LFS at some point in are reefing careers.

I agree with the the advice you've been given here. Personally, the presence of ammonia in your tank is probably the cause.

And has already been mentioned, you've added a lot into the tank at one time. This created a sudden and huge addition to the bio load. Whatever nitrifying bacteria that is present in the tank wasn't enough to handle the load.

I would suggest that you STOP adding anything to the tank until we can get you stabilized.

Add an ammonia badge to monitor the presence of ammonia.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I agree with the others that have stated that your tank wasn’t cycled. There is no such thing as cycled water.

When you say you bought live rock, what exactly do you mean? Was the rock wet and covered with coraline algae and other live organisms? If so, how long had the rock been in the store you bought it from.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

To tell you they were selling you cycled water.... either a bald-faced lie of the person giving this advice or they don't know the first thing about setting up a reef tank.

Hey @Dom, what do you have against people without beards? Bald-faced? LOL

 

[GILLty Guppy]

Think of your tank as juggling balls. You don't start with 10 right off, you start with 2 or 3 and then slowly work your way up to 10. We have all been guilty at one point or another of moving too fast. It takes a lot of patience to give everything time to adjust and to slowly work your way up but I promise you will be glad that you did. So sorry that you are learning this hard lesson, I have learned many along my way as well.

 

[Cell]

Eh I don't know. Everyone seems so convinced it was not cycled but all he essentially did was transfer a 13.5 gal tank from one location to another. He used live rock and apparently used tank water so I'm not seeing a huge difference. A clown, royal gramma and YWG isnt grossly over stocking a 13.5, especially depending on size of fish. Now all that CUC on the other hand...I think its equally likely some of his cuc starved to death thereby creating an ammonia spike and subsequent cascade.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Eh I don't know. Everyone seems so convinced it was not cycled but all he essentially did was transfer a 13.5 gal tank from one location to another. He used live rock and apparently used tank water so I'm not seeing a huge difference. A clown, royal gramma and YWG isnt grossly over stocking a 13.5, especially depending on size of fish. Now all that CUC on the other hand...I think its equally likely some of his cuc starved to death thereby creating an ammonia spike and subsequent cascade.

Theres no doubt about it being cycled, it's the amount of bioload for the size of tank and its age that is the problem. A mature 13gal would support that biomass no problem, a 2 week old tank? No way

 

[DeniseAndy]

HI. Sounds like you have some reading to do. I have set up many nanos and picos with live rock and no cycle. However, I know the rock is live when started.
As stated above, the cycled water means nothing. However, I am leery to assume your rock was live too. If it had some life on it, it probably was, but could have had die off. Causing an ammonia to raise.
Bioload is a bit much for that tank in general. EDIT: referring to turbos and what crabs? How are your snails? They will not survive long term in that small of a tank (the turbos).
How are the other fish?
Good of you to ask for help. We have all started at some point in this hobby.

 

[AZ_Reef]

Are the cycled water and live rocks from the same tank? If not, it probably killed all the beneficial bacterials on the rocks. I purchased a used tank with rocks, fish, corals, and water and traveled for 5 hours and everything is doing great. I even put new sand in the tank same day.

 

[piranhaman00]

The hell is cycled water? Is this a new ploy?

 

[Cell]

Lets throw out the cycled water term and call it what it is, mature tank water, which isnt a terrible thing to use when jumpstarting a new tank.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Can you post any pictures of before and after?

 

[ApoIsland]

The hell is cycled water? Is this a new ploy?

I will start selling cycled power heads and pumps. Only twice the price of regular power heads and pumps.

 

[Jason04]

Wow... this has to be one of the worst cases of taking advantage of a newbie by a LFS that I have ever seen.

To tell you they were selling you cycled water.... either a bald-faced lie of the person giving this advice or they don't know the first thing about setting up a reef tank.

But PLEASE, Please, please.... don't beat yourself up over this. We've all made the mistake of trusting the LFS at some point in are reefing careers.

I agree with the the advice you've been given here. Personally, the presence of ammonia in your tank is probably the cause.

And has already been mentioned, you've added a lot into the tank at one time. This created a sudden and huge addition to the bio load. Whatever nitrifying bacteria that is present in the tank wasn't enough to handle the load.

I would suggest that you STOP adding anything to the tank until we can get you stabilized.

Add an ammonia badge to monitor the presence of ammonia.

You basically stated everything I was thinkin. Whoever sold him his tank appears to have taken advantage of him. Sad that there are lfs that do that.

 

[ApoIsland]

Eh I don't know. Everyone seems so convinced it was not cycled but all he essentially did was transfer a 13.5 gal tank from one location to another. He used live rock and apparently used tank water so I'm not seeing a huge difference. A clown, royal gramma and YWG isnt grossly over stocking a 13.5, especially depending on size of fish. Now all that CUC on the other hand...I think its equally likely some of his cuc starved to death thereby creating an ammonia spike and subsequent cascade.

This is 100% true if we are going with the assumption the live rock he bought was in a system where it was supporting a similar bioload. Most the shops I see selling live rock have it in a bin where it is supporting basically no bioload except what comes off the other rocks in the bin. There are no fish and food going in those tanks. I think he just overloaded that tank. An easy problem to sovle with large regular water changes until bacteria level catches up.

 

[brandon429]

Apol that statement you made is reflected well here below/ interesting how rules for surface area mechanics are still being debated in reefing vs hard set in stone, like the chemistry side. How alkalinity works in reefing hasn’t needed to be updated for decades, but cycling is still Wild West phase:

Can the size of your nitrifying bacteria colony be measured?

As the title says....

www.reef2reef.com

heres live water, which does confer cycling bac tank to tank:

Connecting Established Reef To New Tank

EDIT: In conclusion, if using the method I did - connecting an established reef to a new system with dry rock (clean), I recommend the following: 1. Dose your new tank prior to connecting to your old tank with NO3 and PO4 enough to raise to your established tank levels. 2. Take your skimmer...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

We need pictures not test reads here, to see if this posters tank was skip cycle rock transfer, lfs may have violated cryptocaryon protocols though lol

 

[Cell]

While there may or may not have been enough nitrifying bac to handle the bioload, there definitely was not enough algae to support 11 snails and 5 crabs.

 

[ApoIsland]

While there may or may not have been enough nitrifying bac to handle the bioload, there definitely was not enough algae to support 11 snails and 5 crabs.

Thats for dang sure!! And it's not just starvation. Plenty of predation to be had from hermits.

When I first got into reefing 10 years ago I made a similar mistake. I read on some forum they were advising 1 clean up crew per gallon of tank. Because I was cheap I only went with 30 hermits and 15 snails to a 120gallon tank with about 150 lbs of live rock. By the end of the first weekend you could see empty snail and crab shells from the epic battles that must have taken place.

The correct advice is probably 1 clean up crew per 10 or 20 gallons of tank. Currently in my 120 I have 2 hermits and 2 snails.

 

[Silverfish]

R2R rises to the occasion once again! Great advice with a dash of subdued rage! How does one get to this point? Was all of this livestock purchased fm the LFS? If so, were they ok with the knowledge of a 2 week cycle and brand new tank? Very irresponsible of them bordering on animal abuse. There is plenty of blame to go around.
My advice which would apply for any project is Do Research before u start.
Thank you to R2R members for all your great advice.
I hope my rant wasn’t too negative but it had to b said.