General discussion and questions about my tank because I am noob at this

[Amethyst]

I went in my tank with my bare hands and moved some stuff around and stopped some snails from escaping then I found a black spike in my hand going under the skin and now that hand is starting to go numb I pulled the spike out. what is it what happened it is hard to type with the hand too

 

[Amethyst]

@ISpeakForTheSeas

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

@ISpeakForTheSeas

If your hand is going numb, I'd call a doctor and/or poison control.

 

[Amethyst]

If your hand is going numb, I'd call a doctor and/or poison control.

what do you think could be the cause

 

[Amethyst]

my ghost shrimp is sitting on his side twitching his legs i think he is molting

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Any updates on how you and your shrimp are doing?

 

[Amethyst]

Any updates on how you and your shrimp are doing?

Every day he I just sitting in the tank with his head in the sand and tail straight up and sometimes he moves around. One time his head got stuck in the tube for the aqua clear filter for hours when I left so I turned the filter off and he swam away and I turned the filter on again because I thought this was only a 1 time thing but he swam right back over when the filter was on and got stuck, so I put a sponge on it. And now when I try to guide him to where his food his food is, he does a half front flip so he is facing me and jabs with his claw. So now I just have to let him find his food that is scattered around the tank by the filters, it usually takes him a few hours or days to clean up all the food floating around at the floor. My crab refuses to eat anything that is not of the highest quality, I think him tasting the seabass and giant clam really raised his standards. He won't even eat the little colorful clams

 

[Amethyst]

I think some of the poop is appearing in the form of bubbles on the surface because my air stone is wayyy to strong making a wall of bubbles because it is a long air stone. I saw that in the 3 days I forgot to check on my tank the water had dropped about 3 inches and my shrimp was lying on the floor looking lifeless as bubbles were forming and covering the surface of my tank. I poured in the rest of my distilled water into the tank replenishing 2 inches of water so it was only 1 inch below normal level and I turned off my air pumps. I think for now my 2 filters shooting water into the tank can oxygenate it. I am going to the store soon to get more distilled water. After I replenished most of the water level and turned off the bubbles the shrimp just needed a little push and it regained its life and slowly walked away. I need to store more distilled water next time

 

[Amethyst]

My carbonate is 0 and ph below 6.4, no matter how many rocks and shells I add it doesn't change. I think that is because half buried in the sand it has no effect, I think I will put a bunch of shells into my filter so the water comes it contact with it constantly

 

[Amethyst]

K I sanded down some shells and crushed some into three smaller pieces and washed them in a container with a small amount of tank water to get the red stuff from the sand paper off, the water turned white from the shell dust. I put all the shells with my filter media at the exit of my filter

 

[Amethyst]

Okay I have 1 dry live rock and one 1oz bottle of Fritz Turbostart 900. I am just thinking to put in the rock on the side of the tank about 1 inch away from the glass and pour in the entire 1oz bottle of bacteria. So it will help introduce the rock with the bacteria, I also have a really powerful powerhead blowing water around the tank causing surface ripples and a constant light hurricane in the tank. Not to powerful my ghost shrimp can't swin in it even though it might have troubles at time to time I think it will help circulate the bacteria. I will not add any more creatures into the tank until I get the 50 gallon, I went digging in the sand because I needed a zip lock bag full of it and didn't find any creatures. The sand is very loose though and collapsed under one of my decorations causing it to sink about 3 inches. My ghost shrimp is having trouble with feeding time because of the wind and how bad it is at picking up food right in front of it when it gets exited. So because it went searching through the sand and probably got every bit of food, I am going to mash up some shrimp and some fish flakes and stir them into the sand along with a decent serving of two chroma boost and mix it all around in the sand then re add it to my tank so my shrimp can get food himself better and the snails will have food from the sand too. Also I am going to feed my crab some frozen salted smelt, and or salted frozen ghost shrimp. I actually don't think I will feed it ghost shrimp meat or it will probably seek out his ghost shrimp tank mate to eat it. I turned off 1 of the air pumps connected to my tank air stone because it is creating white bubbles at the top and I think it is too much. So basically that is the entire update so tell me what you think.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Okay I have 1 dry live rock and one 1oz bottle of Fritz Turbostart 900. I am just thinking to put in the rock on the side of the tank about 1 inch away from the glass and pour in the entire 1oz bottle of bacteria. So it will help introduce the rock with the bacteria, I also have a really powerful powerhead blowing water around the tank causing surface ripples and a constant light hurricane in the tank. Not to powerful my ghost shrimp can't swin in it even though it might have troubles at time to time I think it will help circulate the bacteria. I will not add any more creatures into the tank until I get the 50 gallon, I went digging in the sand because I needed a zip lock bag full of it and didn't find any creatures. The sand is very loose though and collapsed under one of my decorations causing it to sink about 3 inches. My ghost shrimp is having trouble with feeding time because of the wind and how bad it is at picking up food right in front of it when it gets exited. So because it went searching through the sand and probably got every bit of food, I am going to mash up some shrimp and some fish flakes and stir them into the sand along with a decent serving of two chroma boost and mix it all around in the sand then re add it to my tank so my shrimp can get food himself better and the snails will have food from the sand too. Also I am going to feed my crab some frozen salted smelt, and or salted frozen ghost shrimp. I actually don't think I will feed it ghost shrimp meat or it will probably seek out his ghost shrimp tank mate to eat it. I turned off 1 of the air pumps connected to my tank air stone because it is creating white bubbles at the top and I think it is too much. So basically that is the entire update so tell me what you think.

My thoughts (and hopefully others will chime in with some of their own here for you):
- If the flow is strong enough to create difficulty swimming for your tank's inhabitants, then the flow is likely too strong - so I'd tone the flow down a bit. That said, surface ripples/agitation are a good thing for air exchange and keeping the water oxygenated.

- The bacteria will spread throughout the tank without issue.

- The plan to feed the shrimp and snails sounds pretty good to me, you just want to make sure you remove any uneaten food after a while to be safe with the ammonia and nutrient levels. If your snails or other tank inhabitants eat algae, you may want to look at feeding some algae pellets/powder and or nori sheets or something too.

- I'd be hesitant to feed salted foods to the tank, but that's just me. Also, I don't know how big of an issue this is with inverts like crabs, but I've heard that predatory fish can have issues if they're fed too much "smelt" (as it's high in thiaminase) - so a little smelt is probably fine, but I wouldn't feed it too often (fish like salmon are generally preferred). Personally, I'd try offering some frozen clams, as those are generally really healthy, and can be relatively cheap.

- When you say it is creating white bubbles at the top, do you mean foamy bubbles that stay in the tank like the sea foam you'd find washed up on the beach occasionally? If so, you may want to add a protein skimmer or do something to remove any built up organics/oils/biofilms at the water's surface.

 

[Amethyst]

My thoughts (and hopefully others will chime in with some of their own here for you):
- If the flow is strong enough to create difficulty swimming for your tank's inhabitants, then the flow is likely too strong - so I'd tone the flow down a bit. That said, surface ripples/agitation are a good thing for air exchange and keeping the water oxygenated.

- The bacteria will spread throughout the tank without issue.

- The plan to feed the shrimp and snails sounds pretty good to me, you just want to make sure you remove any uneaten food after a while to be safe with the ammonia and nutrient levels. If your snails or other tank inhabitants eat algae, you may want to look at feeding some algae pellets/powder and or nori sheets or something too.

- I'd be hesitant to feed salted foods to the tank, but that's just me. Also, I don't know how big of an issue this is with inverts like crabs, but I've heard that predatory fish can have issues if they're fed too much "smelt" (as it's high in thiaminese) - so a little smelt is probably fine, but I wouldn't feed it too often (fish like salmon are generally preferred). Personally, I'd try offering some frozen clams, as those are generally really healthy, and can be relatively cheap.

- When you say it is creating white bubbles at the top, do you mean foamy bubbles that stay in the tank like the sea foam you'd find washed up on the beach occasionally? If so, you may want to add a protein skimmer or do something to remove any built up organics/oils/biofilms at the water's surface.

I have another type of frozen fish. Is catfish/tilapia good food for them? I can't buy clams becausr my parents say it is too expensive just to feed my tank clams and not eat them. so I will go to a clammy side of the beach and collect some clams and freeze them, I might be able to convince my dad to buy a bag of live clams at the store to eat and I can steal a handful of them to freeze and feed to my crab.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I have another type of frozen fish. Is catfish/tilapia good food for them? I can't buy clams becausr my parents say it is too expensive just to feed my tank clams and not eat them. so I will go to a clammy side of the beach and collect some clams and freeze them, I might be able to convince my dad to buy a bag of live clams at the store to eat and I can steal a handful of them to freeze and feed to my crab.

Catfish seems to be a no go, but from what I've read tilapia should be pretty good (no thiaminase and good protein) - it is very lean, though, and it doesn't have as many healthy fats/vitamins as salmon, so you may want to offer some good, more fatty supplementation as well.

 

[Amethyst]

Okay I will try to get the food mentioned, right now I am feeding it some unfrozen salted smelt that has been stored for a few months, and some frozen unsalted ghost shrimp that has been stored for almost double that time.
The smelt has been dead for months does that make it bad? I salted it. The ghost shrimp wasn't salted but frozen, there was a black spot on it so I removed that part and put it in salt.
this is the last one, the other 2 died from feeding them a mealworm. This is the only one that survived it, I think it is a dungeness crab and the meal worms were sick. This one got really sick from the meal worm but didn't die luckily. It looks like dungeness crabs are more hardy and I have to be careful on what I feed them.

 

[Amethyst]

@ISpeakForTheSeas
The stuff came in I have the live rock and powerhead and this.

-Why did I find candy in there ima eat it, it came in an insulated package. I am planning to store the bottle in my fridge at 37 degrees Fahrenheit. And reuse the ice pack.

 

[Amethyst]

Anything I need to know before adding it? I saw something about a uv sterilizer. I am going to save it until I get a bigger tank I will probs just double my tank size and put the bacteria in it with my creatures and a live rock so when I get the 50 gallon I can transfer the filters and the rock and some of the water and it will come with the bacteria.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Anything I need to know before adding it? I saw something about a uv sterilizer. I am going to save it until I get a bigger tank I will probs just double my tank size and put the bacteria in it with my creatures and a live rock so when I get the 50 gallon I can transfer the filters and the rock and some of the water and it will come with the bacteria.

Not that I'm aware of - I would just add it. UV sterilizers are popular these days in large part because they kill off some of the bacteria in our tanks (so I would probably recommend against running one while adding nitrifying bacteria).

That seems like a pretty good idea for instant cycling the 50 gallon tank (though I wouldn't add any new creatures to that tank for a few weeks afterward just to ensure the bacteria has time to colonize enough area to handle an increased bioload - basically I'd wait to add new creatures to try and prevent ammonia spiking again).

 

[Amethyst]

Not that I'm aware of - I would just add it. UV sterilizers are popular these days in large part because they kill off some of the bacteria in our tanks (so I would probably recommend against running one while adding nitrifying bacteria).

That seems like a pretty good idea for instant cycling the 50 gallon tank (though I wouldn't add any new creatures to that tank for a few weeks afterward just to ensure the bacteria has time to colonize enough area to handle an increased bioload - basically I'd wait to add new creatures to try and prevent ammonia spiking again).

K also Is storing the bacteria at the specified temperatures good? (37 F) idk if it needs a few
Different Temp than that because it feels pretty cold

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

K also Is storing the bacteria at the specified temperatures good? (37 F) idk if it needs a few
Different Temp than that because it feels pretty cold

37F should be fine (anywhere between 33-95F is supposedly fine), but according to their site, 45-55F is ideal.