I think im in trouble

[CaptianPaulie]

Can you get water from the ocean? Are you far away? You could also post another post explain you desperately need salt water over the weekend and your location and see if anyone on the forum is near by enough for you to go grab it

Im like 10 hrs from ocean lolol

 

[laverda]

I wild definatly remove the dry rock and cycle it separately using the water from your water change. What size are the 2 tanks you are talking about?
If your going to the lfs get bacteria to jump start your cycle and water or salt for a water change. Hopefully live rock from your other tank enough to handle the load with the dry rock out, unless your lion is large.
Another concern is if your lion is much larger then your other fish as you said, it is just a mater of time before the lion will eat it. Lion fish are stupid and will eat a fish as large as it's self and die attempting to do so. I have seen this personally when I worked in the business. Also lion fish require live saltwater food. Shrimp or small fish. Gold fish or other fresh water fish should not be fed to them. They are unable to digest fresh water fish bones fast enough. The bones clog up their intestines and they will starve to death over time.
Good luck.

 

[CaptianPaulie]

I wild definatly remove the dry rock and cycle it separately using the water from your water change. What size are the 2 tanks you are talking about?
If your going to the lfs get bacteria to jump start your cycle and water or salt for a water change. Hopefully live rock from your other tank enough to handle the load with the dry rock out, unless your lion is large.
Another concern is if your lion is much larger then your other fish as you said, it is just a mater of time before the lion will eat it. Lion fish are stupid and will eat a fish as large as it's self and die attempting to do so. I have seen this personally when I worked in the business. Also lion fish require live saltwater food. Shrimp or small fish. Gold fish or other fresh water fish should not be fed to them. They are unable to digest fresh water fish bones fast enough. The bones clog up their intestines and they will starve to death over time.
Good luck.

At the moment i thinkbi saved the tank for the time being. I did a huge water change today and the parameters are on the $$$. When i posted this i had a lionfish prob about 4 4 1/2 inches an undulated trigger 2 inches and a damsel 1 inchish. The damsel is way to fast for the other murders of the tank. Im running a canister filter and heater no skimmer unfortunately. I also had about 12 pounds of live rock from my original 20 gallon tank that housed only the trigger for 4 days before i set up my 55 gallon. I transfered my live rock, sand, heater and upgraded from HOB filter to canister. When i did the transfer it was like 3 days after a water change so i used all water from the 20 and added the other 30 with the transfer so the fish wouldnt act wierd from a tank full of fresh saltwater. Then i remembered i had some live rock that dried up since i started the 20 gal a yr ago so i was under the impression that it was now dry rock. But im pretty sure thats exactly what messed with the tank i took it out and im curing it in a 5 gallon tank with a heater and 20 gallon HOB filter. So now the display has the lionfish the damsel the sand and the original already cured live rock. After my water change today im hoping it stays good but something is telling me its not done acting up. Im hoping exposure of the the dried up live rock and all its dead decay didnt transfer to my good cycled live rock cause if it did thats a whole other issue ill have to recure the "good" live rock and go a month eith no live rock at all in a 55 gallon...

 

[paul barker]

I think Salifert makes one that the brand I use or red sea

 

[Triggreef]

Whats the big deal about bringing sand from a previous tank?? And i feel like that isnt what the problem is because the tank was perfect untill today. Would the nitrite spike take over a week because i used that sand again? I tested the water once the day i did the tank swap and once the day i put the lionfish in. Tested it again 4 days after that and now its getting screwy.

Hi there, just saw this however there is a couple pages now that I have no plan to read through so just to answer your questions in case no one else did...

When you bring over the old sand, there could be lots of gasses etc in there that normally would not be released into the tank. There are also all types of bacteria and depending on how deep the sand bed wad may even include some anaerobic bacteria. Disturbing that could cause massive die off. Also depending on how it was moved, could have caused even more die off. On top of that all the detritus that comes over to the new tank, would still need to break down. This wouldn't cause issue in the first few days, just like if the tank were brand new with all brand new items in it, and you tossed in nothing but a dead shrimp. There would be no issue until that shrimp started to break down, then you would get ammonia and your nitrate cycle a few days later. Sound familiar?

 

[CaptianPaulie]

Hi there, just saw this however there is a couple pages now that I have no plan to read through so just to answer your questions in case no one else did...

When you bring over the old sand, there could be lots of gasses etc in there that normally would not be released into the tank. There are also all types of bacteria and depending on how deep the sand bed wad may even include some anaerobic bacteria. Disturbing that could cause massive die off. Also depending on how it was moved, could have caused even more die off. On top of that all the detritus that comes over to the new tank, would still need to break down. This wouldn't cause issue in the first few days, just like if the tank were brand new with all brand new items in it, and you tossed in nothing but a dead shrimp. There would be no issue until that shrimp started to break down, then you would get ammonia and your nitrate cycle a few days later. Sound familiar?

Yea sounds familiar :/ im just hoping for the best at this point. I dont have anyone that can house my lionfish i doubt the LFS will do it. So im in a tough spot to say the least but it all makes plenty of sense i bet you my undulated screwed everything up he used to move so much sand on a daily basis