Next Steps

[Ragin]

Hello everyone, my name is also Jennifer , I am new to this , I've started me a 30 gallon tank, I bought the tank off an individual , saved all the water and items in the tank, there was a clown fish and a bumble bee fish that came with it, after putting everything back, they started acting weird, and eventually I lost the bumble bee, I added some live rock to it and now the clown is acting weird, possibly going to die also, so now my rock is growing the purple Algiers on it which I am assuming is a good think after reading up on it, so now that I'm where I'm at on it, what's the next step I should be thinking about?

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Hi Jennifer, welcome to R2R!!! I moved your post to its own thread in the New to Hobby Forum to get more responses.

The first thing I would do is test the water to see where the parameters are. The purple algae is coraline and it is a great sign. How long have you had the tank?

 

[Ragin]

Three weeks


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[Ragin]

I was starting to get frustrated till I learned the purple was a good thing



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[BPBELL]

I agree with seahorse keeper test the water with a quality test kit, check the temp, and salinity as well
When you say acting weird what exactly are they doing
Another thing to consider is the fish actually need decent lighting for minimal of 4 hours a day I'd recommend 8 hours provided you don't have an algae problem


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[Ragin]

The salinity is good, and I have a good light on it, I might have had the daylight on for to many hours , I'm not sure but I got a new one with a timer


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[Ragin]

No algea


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[Ragin]

Oh and as for acting weird, the clown keeps laying on his side and gasping, getting trapped in between rocks and gasping, I think if he's still alive by morning it will be a miracle


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[Ragin]

Should I have a skimmer on my tank?


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[LVE]

I would say check all your levels. Nitrate/trite, ammonia would be the priority starting out. Then cal, alk, and mag once you start with corals.

 

[Ragin]

Ok thank you


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[Mike&Terry]

Can you tell us more about your setup? For instance, what are you using for filtration and what other equipment are you using (power head(s), heater, etc)?

 

[Ragin]

I have two power heads which are maxi jet 900's and a coralife day/night light which I'm changing tomorrow to a Marineland reef capable with timer, I keep it at 75 degrees, and a penquin 300 bio wheel filter


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[BPBELL]

Get a nice protein skimmer
They are worth the money and considered a must by a lot of people
It will greatly increase the water quality


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[Zack]

Welcome to the hobby!
Plus one on the skimmer. It IS a must have.
Hope it works out for your clown, it sounds like he is not going well at all.

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[Beariedog]

another vote for a skimmer. somepeople report ammonia or nitrate spikes when moving tanks useing the old sand
when it gets stired up.

 

[Ragin]

Thx guys, looks like I'll be hooking the skimmer up today, I did have ammonia spike, but I got it down , then after I added the rock it spiked again so I put ammo lock in it and now I'm getting a off the hook reading but after reading on it , it says it might be a false reading that its probably fine, what do you think about that issue?


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[Ragin]

Clown fish is a complete 180 after quarantining. Starfish is a bit slower, but a lot better. I put the skimmer in should I remove the bio wheel?


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[Ragin]

I took the bio out, adjusted some of the parameters, my crab is a lot more active and the goby as well, I sure hope I did everything right with the skimmer, first time using one


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[BPBELL]

Removing the bio-wheel is a matter of preference it won't hurt anything to leave it there
it will actually give your good bacteria another place to call home but if you have a decent amount of live rock it won't make that much if a difference. I removed mine due to the noise level( water trickling)
I forgot about stirring up your substrate that's never a good thing and most likely what your problem is. You could do a water change and add something like turbo start that will help stabilize everything.


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