help me , I can't get my starter fish to make it past a few days

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Fitter17

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Jan 18, 2009
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Somewhere in Maryland
hi my name is Rob and I have a 55 gallon saltwater set up that I'm having problems with. I Had it up for about 2 weeks with just about 6 pounds of live rock so then I proceeded to get 2 green chromas. Well that night 1 died, then about 2 days later the other one died. So I did a test on the water and everything was good. so I waited about a week then went and got 3 green chromas and some more live rock. well I acclimated them with the bag in the tank and poured my tank water in about every 15 mins for about 45 minutes. I lost one about 10 mins after he got in the tank. He was breathing rapidly and was at the bottom about to turn over so I netted him back out and flushed him.:( So now I have 2 left well when I went to bed they were swimming around and doing great. I woke up this morning and one of them was at the bottom dead. They had eaten too. So I checked the water ever thing checked out good , although the nitrates are about 5.0 to 10 since the color on the nitrate are very similar. What is going on ? Is this common? I have about between 1.20and1.21 salinity level in my tank my temp is at 79 degrees. I have a protein skimmer and an emporer filter although I ordered a fluval 305 yesterday.....Please help me
 

Mustang Boy

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Aug 6, 2008
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Tampa,FL
yes i would also agree with reading that and with getting ~50+ more pounds of live rock

and how long has the tank been setup cause the tank needs to cycle before adding any fish to it
 

skene

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Mar 8, 2008
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Now you're cooking with crisco.

Live rock - you will need at a minimum 1 lb for every gallon. Less than that, you need a thicker sand bed to allow a location for beneficial bacteria to live and thrive.
Now if you had 70-100 lbs of live rock, then your cycle would have gone much quicker and maybe your fish would have been able to live.

Put this into perspective. When you first start a tank, your water enough would not be ready to sustain life, with the exception of bacteria.
All of this is really something I do not want to go into because there is SO much more information already on the web. This all has to do with cycling the tank.
 
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andysam

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Jan 16, 2009
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Hi Rob, in your post you mentioned that 1 fish died after 10 minutes in the tank. It would seem to me that your problems go further then an uncycled tank. As one of the posts suggested check for chlorine, also test the water form the tap. The needle hydrometers are very inaccurate test your unit against a known calibrated unit, at 1.020 if your unit is out by a couple of points you could be in brakish water territory this wont kill the fish but will cause stress. Above all dont get fish until you get much more rock and be patient. good luck
 

ryanTEXAS

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Dec 5, 2008
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take the salinity up to 1.025 by adding more salt when you do a water change. only take it up by .02 per water change. might also want to take the temperature down to 75 f.

when you acclimate the fish you should use the drip method instead of just floating them in the bag. it seems like your fish went into shock upon entering your tank. for the drip method you need a 5g bucket, and plastic tubing. empty the new fish into the bucket along with the water thats in the bag, find something to tilt to bucket with so the fish is fully submerged, place one end of the tube into tank, take the other end and tie a knot and suck to create a siphon, place the knotted end into bucket, tighten knot so there is a fast steady drip. you should be able to see the individual drips, if it is a stream then it is too fast.

that is not your only problem. you should also have 1lb of live rock for every 1g of water. this is the minimum. the sand bed should be about 2 inches. more is always better.
 
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