(Newbie) So Anxious for Reef, Maybe Pushing too Fast?

[jsker]

Welcome to R2R, Looks like you have got some great advice. Now it time to start you build thread so that we can see and help you as you go along your journey

 

[dbl]

Welcome to R2R.

 

[LearnSomethingNew]

Thanks
Everybody has been so helpful.

 

[LearnSomethingNew]

Great advice so far. As far as lighting, you dont HAVE to break the bank. Look into the black box lights if you want led. They'll grow coral just fine. Or pick up a decent T5 fixture. Then take a few bucks and get yourself some calibration fluid for that refractometer.
Be patient, be wary of advice from people who are trying to sell you stuff, and ask questions here!

You got me thinking about my refractometer! Its amazing how my eagerness to see a happy coral in my tank clouded my years of training as a Chemical Engineer and the importance of calibration of instrumentation. In my clouded euphoric mind, I neglected to re-calibrate my meter for the cold room due to AC that I test my water and was not letting the sample equilibrate with the meter. Shame on me. One of the problems is that My Salinity was through the roof at 1.027 maybe 1.028
I need a better light!
I am rushing acclimation and shocking the crap out of everything (especially with that high salinity)

my new motto : Slow down or Frown.!

 

[Gweeds1980]

I did dip the starfish and carried him by hand into the tank and I think that was the downfall of the starfish after reading a summary on Live Aquaria about the sandsifter intolerances.
I did not cure the dry rocks. Is that the problem?

Just going back on a couple of your questions... yeah, the stars fate was sealed as soon as you took it out of the water, let alone the dip... not to worry, you won't do it twice lol.

Not curing the rocks isn't a disaster... it just means you'll need to work a bit harder on water quality. If you can, test for silicates alongside po4. You'll probably find both will be relatively high. I'd suggest getting on top on nutrient export now as both silicate and po4 will feed pest algae and dinos etc. Algae scrubber or rowaphos in a reactor would be the best bet. You can put rowa in a mesh bag (or a pair of your wife's old tights lol) in a high flow area of the sump, it just won't work as effectively.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Thanks for the advice.
I have an EShopp Protein skimmer , I just haven't installed it (this weekend chore) The Damsel right now is quite friendly with the two clown but I will consider moving her along in the future. If I have already nitrogen cycled then what is curing the rock involve.

How's the skimmer doing? Should be starting to pull some gunk out now? Keep an eye on salinity as the skimmer will pull salt water out of the system... although reading your later posts that may not be a bad thing

 

[Gweeds1980]

Wow , Thanks
I was wondering if these were going to strong enough. I don't think I am going to like this canopy but the wife thinks its best so my 3 yrold won't chunk things into tank. Any good ideas on retrofit of inside canopy with the right LED?

Regarding the lights... depends what you have in terms of space in the hood. If it's reasonable, look at the reffbreeder photon v2 light, very thin profile which might work for you. For all lights (and decent o2 / co2 exchange) you'll need some sort of ventilation so you might need to drill some holes in the reverse of the hood if it's fully enclosed.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Just going back on a couple of your questions... yeah, the stars fate was sealed as soon as you took it out of the water, let alone the dip... not to worry, you won't do it twice lol.

Not curing the rocks isn't a disaster... it just means you'll need to work a bit harder on water quality. If you can, test for silicates alongside po4. You'll probably find both will be relatively high. I'd suggest getting on top on nutrient export now as both silicate and po4 will feed pest algae and dinos etc. Algae scrubber or rowaphos in a reactor would be the best bet. You can put rowa in a mesh bag (or a pair of your wife's old tights lol) in a high flow area of the sump, it just won't work as effectively.

For future reference, cycling rocks involves soaking them in bleach and or muriatic acid and then rinsing with RO and then getting them in buckets of RO water with plenty of flow and changing the water out daily or so... keep them dark too. This will kill everything and then force the nasties out of the rock into the RO, hence the water changes. You can 'recharge' existing rock in the same way.

 

[Gweeds1980]

For future reference, cycling rocks involves soaking them in bleach and or muriatic acid and then rinsing with RO and then getting them in buckets of RO water with plenty of flow and changing the water out daily or so... keep them dark too. This will kill everything and then force the nasties out of the rock into the RO, hence the water changes. You can 'recharge' existing rock in the same way.

Curing not cycling... doh!

 

[shrimped]

For other fish get a either a yellow head Jawfish or a peaceful Blenny such as Pictus or Tailspot. They got so much personality! Firefish, golden Assessors, swissguard basslet, and Tanaka Pygmy wrasses are also pretty neat

 

[LearnSomethingNew]

Everyone who has helped. One of two things was happening. 1) the rock that I bought online from Amazon(I think) was either very bad junk rock or I needed to cure it or 2) the single brass fitting that I had as a coupler sitting in the return of my sump was leaching metal into system. Anyway I enlisted the help of an awesome LFS in Newport News, Va who has walked me through the reset of my tank (he was gladly giving me frags of Kenya Tree to see if they would survive some earlier tests). Dumped everything and started fresh.