Hi Ya

M

mikeyd

Reefing newb
I have been keeping marine fish for aroud two years now, and have had around 5yrss experience with freshwater fishkeeping. I have a red sea max aquarium 35 gallon which has been running for 2 yrs.

The tank has :
1 small yellow tang
2 percula clows
1 small yellow boxfish
1 gobie
1 lobster
1 blue hermit
4 small red hermits
1 cleaner shrimp
1 sand sifting starfish
6 x snails
2 fan wrms
1 bubble tip anenome
1 mushroom coral
​
All of these creatures eem to get on fine don't see the lobster much thou. Could anyone respond with their opinion on stock levels as I seem to have high nitrates 20-30 ppm, but all of the inhabitants are doing good.

I currently do a 10% water

I'm going to try a 50% water change today to see if i can reduce that figure and would welcome any cmments on keeping the figure down?

Thanks,

Mke.
 
mikeyd said:
I have been keeping marine fish for aroud two years now, and have had around 5yrss experience with freshwater fishkeeping. I have a red sea max aquarium 35 gallon which has been running for 2 yrs.

The tank has :
1 small yellow tang
2 percula clows
1 small yellow boxfish
1 gobie
1 lobster
1 blue hermit
4 small red hermits
1 cleaner shrimp
1 sand sifting starfish
6 x snails
2 fan wrms
1 bubble tip anenome
1 mushroom coral
​
All of these creatures eem to get on fine don't see the lobster much thou. Could anyone respond with their opinion on stock levels as I seem to have high nitrates 20-30 ppm, but all of the inhabitants are doing good.

I currently do a 10% water

I'm going to try a 50% water change today to see if i can reduce that figure and would welcome any cmments on keeping the figure down?

Thanks,

Mke.
Click to expand...

not a bad stock list... except for the boxfish. Do some reading on that fish, as they they are very easily stressed, can release a toxin into the water which can wipe out tanks (especially one your size), and their main food source would be crustaceans (your shrimp, etc.)

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/sw/boxfish.php
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/boxfishcowfishprofiles/p/prboxfish.htm

Welcome to the site.
 
Thanks Mate,

The box is a worry mygilfriend wanted it and bought it yesterday, then i checked it and and foundthe bad news!!!

Mike.
 
Welcome to the site Mike.
I'd worry about the boxfish too.Nathans right,your stocklist aint bad.
How long has it been since you completely cleaned the filtration in the back of your tank?If you can get all that crud out,it might help your nitrates.
 
Well, last night at around 1am panicking about nitrates he he, I took the skimmer out and pump cleaned it i tap water then rinsed in ro and finally dipped into fresh tank water. Two weeks ago I remove the bio filter and rinsed that just inro water (maybe should have been sea water) along with changing carbons.

Ive just finished preparing the forth bucket of new water two more and i'll be reay for the 50% change.... Can't wait any comments on the change ;all at once or one at a time?

Thanks,

Mike.
 
As long as your fish and corals arent stressing the nitrates,I wouldnt push the issue too much.
Just keep the media rinsed and the carbon fresh.Also feed sparingly and rinse frozen foods in RO water before feeding.
 
Guys,

I can't belive how helpful you lot have been ... Many thanks. The boxfish is going back to the LFS friday, they said they can only give me a credit note! (any suggestions on what i should spend it on), they don't sell beers,m he he.

I kinda like matilda the tang and she/he does agreat job of eating algae etc, does she/he really need to go?

After the 50% water change and cleaning skimmer and rinsing the bio filter along with putting a new carbon filter in the NITRATES are down to 10ppm low range 50 high range.

Kind Regards,

Mike.
 
Hey All,

Thanks for your help and information once again. I carried out the 50% water change yesterday and remove all 50% then replaced it rather than 10% at a time. I then left the tank to settle and rinsed the mechanical filters with fresh sea water. Shortly after all had settled i took a nitrate reading which was pretty much the same about 30ppm low range!

Today i removed the bio filter and rinsed it in fresh sea water and added two new carbon packs. I then left the system for a couple of hours and read ph 8.0 No2 0 Ammonia 0.5 and nitrate 30 ppm low range.

All the live stock seems fine and dandy, I feed them once evry two days about a quarter of a cube of misys rinsed as suggested in ro.

I guess theres not much more to do eh, has anyone had any experience with denitrifiers?

Finally the box is going back to the lfs and they will only give me a £39 credit note, any ideas on what would be a good replacement?

I would like to keep the tang as he/she does do some great cleaning round the tank, it's about 2" long.

many Thanks,


Mike.:frustrat:
 
Denitrifiers seem to work for some people, but for most, they don't. If you can't get your nitrates down any lower, I wouldn't recommend adding any more fish. What you could do is look into setting up a refugium to hold macroalgae. Usually macroalgae (such as chaetomorpha) does a great job of naturally bringing down nitrates. In the meantime, keep up with the water changes, it will get better if you keep doing water changes.
 
ya a tang is too small unless you plan on upgrading your tank soon. also how old is your test kit i know if thay are pritty old thay tend to miss read you should take some of your water to your lfs and have them test it to see if its on point
 
Guys,

Just after an opinion, as you know I have the 35g redsea. I've just put a 500 nano stream in and things are really perking up. The box is gone but the rest of the guys & gals seem fine.

Does the tang have too go?
 

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