Errr...Tank problems

C

Chibichanw

AC Members
Feb 22, 2006
5
0
0
London
Hi all. I am having some tank trouble at the moment. I inherited responsibility for a tank at work (Juwel Vision 450) with a nice selection of fish, soft coral, crabs, shrimps and a lobster in it. We have a couple of problems, now, however.

Firstly, we seem to have developed a bit of Marine Velvet in the tank. As we have some inverts in there, it seems the only product we can try to treat this with is Oodinex. It does not seem to be doing a great deal to sort the problem out. Anyone have any advice on this? (One thing I have noticed is that the salinity seems a tad high - we were up at 1028 at one stage. I have continued with regular water changes and have got this down to 1024 / 1025 at the moment. The next change hopefully will bring it down to 1023 ish).

Secondly, we have inherited a Red Sea Prizm Pro Protein Skimmer with the tank and it doesn;t actually seem to do anything. We have no bubbles and I understand that this is a bad thing. However, I have not got any instructions for it and I can't find the Red Sea site anywhere. Does anyone have a web address for these guys or an old manual that they can send me?

I guess that's it to begin with. We have lost two fish so far (a Box Fish and an Emperor Angel) and I would prefer not to lose any more.

Stephen
 
You might consider setting up a temporary hospital tank so that you can treat the fish without worrying about harming the inverts.

--Mike
 
and the skimmer....

Ok, firstly make sure you get your salt right, secondly make sure your nitrates and ammonia and nitrites are 0 and also PH.

The skimmer should really be on, especially if its not been skimming for a while, on the prism, you need to turn it on, and open the black tap/valve on the inlet pipe, and you need to prime it, to do so you there should be a small plastic air tube coming up to the collection cup, take this off the nipple its on and put it onto the nipple next to it, OR clamp it tight so air cannot get in, now watch the inlet pipe and water will starting going up and up and eventually over and into the small pump and then eventually out of the inlet slide. make sure you let it totally prime so all the water is coming down the outlet slide into your tank. Then let the airline pipe go, or take it off its nipple and you will instantly hear it change, well infact it will not change it will just start to make a bubble noise. its now working. Put the airline back onto the nipple it was originally on and adjust the tap / valve on the inlet until there's none or hardly any bubbles coming down the outlet slide or until the bubbles in the main chamber are coming up to the neck BOTTOM of the collection cup.

NOTE though that adjusting that tap does not do an instant change, it can take 10 - 30 Min's.

So make sure just whilst your setting up it doesn't fill the collection cup with just water!

Hope you sort it!

Gib
 
Thanks, guys.

Mike - We are seriously looking into setting up a hospital tank, as you say. Hopefully we will get this set up this week.

Gibbon - I think I have worked out the problem with the Prizm skimmer and I believe I have it running properly now. Unfortunately, I don't think that the outfit who came in and set the thing up really knew what they were doing and worse, they haven't left us with an instruction manual for the skimmer either. The one we had previously needed priming just as you described, but this one looks a little more sophisticated and it does not have a rubber tube in sight. I have also noticed that the basket for the active carbon in the skimmer is empty. I know the filter for the tank has a carbon element, but I am guessing that a bit of carbon in the skimmer would not be a bad thing. Any suggestions on how much should go in there?

Just lost a couple of black and white clowns. This is really frustrating!

Stephen
 
Ok, well ATM i really dont think you should be worrying about carbon in your skimmer, i think you should do a test for nitrite,nitate,ammonia,ph,kH and GH and salinity and post em on here, because clowns should not be just dying like that.

I never have carbon in my skimmer, i have it in my canister and my sump.

Gib
 
Thanks for the help, Gib.

I don't have everything I need to do a Nitrate test, so will remedy that tomorrow. Not even sure what GH is and I don't think I have a test for it here.

kH= 9 degrees
pH= 8.0
Salinity=1022
Ammonium=0.1
Nitrite=just between the <0.3 and 0.3 bands on the Tetra Test kit.

The Ammonium level seems a little high to me. I think the Nitrite levels may be a touch high too.

To give you the full picture, after the new tank had been set up for us, we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves. We didn't really know that anything might be wrong until the fish started to look unwell. I have treated a serious case of marine velvet with Oodinex (there are inverts in the tank) and have read all of the manuals that we have and gone through a leaflet in a testing kit as well as trawled the internet. This persuaded me that I needed to do more than just a weekly water change as I had been led to believe.

Anyway, three weeks ago, I discovered that the salinity level was up at around 1028. I have since completed 3 water changes and gradually brought the level back down to 1022. I will retest this again tomorrow just to be sure.

I also believe that the pH level dropped to about 7.8 at one stage, although I wa able to remedy that very quickly since discovering it. It has been a constant 8.0 for at least 3 weeks now and I am checking it twice a week.

While I was treating with Oodinex, I had the skimmer off completely and it was probably off for about 1 week. The carbon element in the filter was also out for about the same period and has only been put back in today.

That about wraps it up. The learning curve has been steep so far and I am sure it will continue, but I think I have got to the stage now where I am able to monitor the water quality and keep it at a decent level. The skimmer seems to be working properly now (I have bubbles - when the guys came in to set it up, all it was doing was passing water through). If you say it doesn't need an active element, I will take your word for it.

Thanks for the hlep again.

Stephen
 
Hmmm, levels are fine to me, ammonia istn high at 0.1, you will be lucky to get a test kit thats shows anything below. Very strange why your losing fish.

Make sure you do get a nitrate test though, as that is the reason you do water changes as nitrate is the final process of waste, ammonia > nitrite > Nitrate, although nitrate is in no way as deadley as ammonia it is still harmful and if at a contant high level you will start to see you fishies dissapear! But if you have kept up with the water changes then your nitrates should be fine!

Just do double checks like temp meter is working (it happened to me, mine was 10 deg out!!!!) also old test kits can show the wrong readings very easy, also happened to me!

other than that just keep at it and keep your tank stable, dont overstock and see how thigns go. Are you inverts all ok?

Gib
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom