Tank EULOGY from a beginner

[geweagle]

Hello all,

I thought I would share my experiences to date, which have been far from good and frustratating.

Lots of dollars spent
Lost some lovely fish, yellow tang, bicoloured angel, and checkered butterfly

Far from over and very frustrated. If things do not improved I may give up on salt water.

To start a bit of introduction. I am far from new to keeping fish. I have had many fresh water fish for many years with great success. I decided to change to salt water because of the wonderful diversity and rich colours. My family have alway enjoyed viewing a good salt water tank. I was told that the hobby has improved dramatically.

So I retired my fresh water system and moved to salt. An 80 gal bow faced tank. $$$$$ later now with a HOB skimmer, live rock and sand to start. Cleaned the tank with vingear and rinsed well before I put anything in. A shop provided me with their salt water for the first fill to save me some issues with cycling the tank.

Even so I set the tank up with live rock and sand and left it for a few weeks before getting any livestock. Started with custodians and a couple clowns because they are very tough little fish. Everything was great! So I went a little further.

Then the bad stuff started. I seemed to get all the bad stuff. First it was some Aiptasis. Got a couple pepperment shrimp. They cleaned it up except one big one which I got with a shot of vingear. Problem solved. Not bad I thought.

So everything looked good so I got some more fish. I started to do water changes on a regular bases (5-10 gal) every few days. I do not have a RO/DI system (more $$$$$) so I used tap. Still not to bad, I thought, at least for fish.

Talked and read a lot and found I needed more light. I was only using a standard 4ft fluorescent. So $$$$ later and I bought an Evergrow fixture. May not be top of the line but not bad, and great programming for day cycle. Spectral range was OK. So OK and moved forward.

SO now again tank looked great and I have a yellow tang and a bicoloured angel. Also got a green star palp which is suppose to be very tough. No coral yet. I was warned to wait for a while, becasue phosphate may be high.

They were fine so I bought a checkered butterfly fish.

Little while later (like 1 week) I got a green bubble anenome for the clowns. They did not like him and so never associated. Anemone kept moving in the tank. Then one night it got into the skimmer intake. I had to extract it, but of course it was hurt. Put it in a dark cave spot so he would heal. Tang started to pick at it. Next thing the tang is belly up on the sand. Good bye to the tang. And the anemone did end up dieing too.

Checked the Phosphate, ammmonia, nitrite, and nitrates because everyone told me too. Phosphate was suoppose to be bad for corals that I wanted later and may lead to algae. Nitrates did not seem to be a problem other than maybe alage. Of course phosphate was high (almost 2 ppm). everything else seem to be near zero. Tap water was 0.1ppm. So I started more frequent water changes. Nothing was happening. So I put a hang on the back flow through filter and got Phos-X (suggested by a shop). Based on the directions added the necessary amount and started to see phosphate drop. But only down to just under 1.0 ppm. So replaced the phos-X with new and added more. Got it down to 0.5 ppm. After a whole bag (more $$$) and more water changes the phosphate would not drop more. Shops said it is leaching from the live rock. I did not have enough fish or feeding too much to be a big contribution.

Then more trouble. That horrible red algae hair started growing on everything. Cleaned and cleaned but got worse and could not get phosphate down. I was told I need to be at lest below 0.2 ppm PO4. Nitrates were low. And to drop the photo period which I did.

So what now? more reading!! And went to another well reviewed shop in Vancouver. Yup I live in Edm (more $$$) and talked about where I was. Got a phosphate reactor, granular iron oxide, a sugar? polymer (for nitrate), and Lanthanum chloride. ($$$) Thought great now I have some tools to get the phosphate down and get rid of the red mess.

Dosed as the direction with lanthanum chloride, and set up the PO4 reactor with half the suggested granular iron oxide. Everything looked great the next day the phosphates were down to 0.2 ppm. Another day dose of lanthanum chloride and down to 0.1 ppm. So I stopped that and let the reactor do its work. It held the phosphates but not dropping so I added a little more iron oxide and got the sugar polymer going in the skimmer as suggested. Phosphates droped to around 0.05ppm. I thought great now the tank should clean up and maybe I can get into corals. So I stopped water changes. A few days later I went out to look for some leather corals and maybe another tang.

Also notice I was a little low on salinity at 28 ppt, so I raised it to 30 ppt. Did not want to go to high to fast. I was told it should be at 35 ppt.

Then trouble again. The green star palp were closed up almost disappeared. What happened? They are so tough everyone said! Then I could not find the bi-coloured angel. Well after a lot of looking I found the bones. So sad. So I got worried and started to change the water again frequently, but kept at 30 ppt. Phospahtes remained at <0.1 ppm. The green star palp started to show up a little. Went out and bought another yellow tang. The phosphates remained at <0.1 ppm and the red alge was going away. Iron oxide reactor still running but no new iron oxide added. I was told it should be good for several months.

Well last night the checkered Butterfly fish died! The green star palp are still very little.

So what happened? I point to the Lanthanum chloride. But I will never be sure because I added that and the phosphate reactor at the same time.

So now I have the new yellow tang only. And all through this the two little clown fish are doing great.

So for all you people starting in this hobby, be prepared to spend lots of money. Advice is plenty but good advice maybe not. Start slowly! I would have said I was an experience fish caretaker, but this has been a rough ride. I thought I was doing everything correct, and did so slowly. But now I am not sure. I think I will change the water a few more times and just wait to see if the fish in the tank live. If they do, maybe I will continue but I sure have spent a lot of money and I'm very frustrated.

For all you experts, if you read this and I did something terribly wrong I sure would like to know. I am not afraid to learn.