Fish Kill

Is it at all possible to ask your LFS to hold your corals for you? I've read it's almost certain you'll lose them with ammonia in your system. I'd just hate to see you lose the money you've spent.

Keep at it, it's rewarding once you have it all sorted out!!
 
That is a good idea. I will test tonight and if there is still any sign of ammonia I will see if they can babysit for the rest of the week.
 
You are going through "I rushed the tank" problems. Ace and I pound on that let it cycle for a month for a reason. There are instances where one can get away with setting up a reef sooner, but often people fall into the situation you are in.

You set up a tank 1 week ago... its going through it's cycle still and adding livestock means bioload which it cant handle completely or thoroughly (very possible).

Am i getting this right DSR? 1 week ago you just fired up a tank ?

Even with live sand, cure LR, quality water it still takes a bit longer to get a salty going. And rare instances do some people get a tank up in 2 weeks with a weak cycle rollercoaster. Friend at a store got away with it but he kept an eye on things with his tests and used chemicals to keep things in check...

Still it seems your best bet is to throttle back any additions for a few weeks and let things settle. In other words.. hold your horses for now and wait.

PS Pick up some Jesus juice aka Prime Conditioner. Add some for now to keep the ammonia from going toxic on you...also in addition can you change out 1g a day on that? This will greatly reduce the roller coaster dips you are going through for now...do this for a week or two.... more hands getting wet but it will help a lot to change 1g a day.
 
The LFS where i bought the tank and the liverock said no cycle as the liverock will take care of the chemistry. Normally i wouldn't have added any fish at all but followed his advice on the issue. All was well prior to moving the tank to a different stand.

As for prime, I did use that as soon as I tested positive for ammonia (although it was still negative for trate and trites...even after several days). We won't be adding anything for sometime (at least until I get a consistent 0 on the ammonia level for several days in a row). The last test, which was yesterday at around 1PM there was only a trace of ammonia on several different tests, so we are at least heading the right direction.
 
DSR said:
The LFS where i bought the tank and the liverock said no cycle as the liverock will take care of the chemistry. Normally i wouldn't have added any fish at all but followed his advice on the issue. All was well prior to moving the tank to a different stand.

As for prime, I did use that as soon as I tested positive for ammonia (although it was still negative for trate and trites...even after several days). We won't be adding anything for sometime (at least until I get a consistent 0 on the ammonia level for several days in a row). The last test, which was yesterday at around 1PM there was only a trace of ammonia on several different tests, so we are at least heading the right direction.
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Dear god....If I was local , I would be down there with you to chew them a new one and bring my books pointing out how ignorant that advise was from them.
 
Well I have also read that advise on here as well. But I am now wiser and would not take that approach again. I was surprised by it as well considering that it takes so long for a fw tank to cycle. But he has been in the business for 40 plus years and really does some incredible stuff and runs an amazing shop. The only thing he would not sell me was coral until he had tested the water to make sure the parameters were within what he considered to be the appropriate range. I think it was more of an issue of me improperly moving my tank (had no idea that the substrate contained so many negative things). So, in truth it was my screw up and I should have thought to have done some research on how to properly move a tank.
 
Just an Update. I let things settle down a bit in the tank and tested the water last night. Same water as Saturday evening (e.g. no water change yet). The Ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and nitrate was just barely there. I am still amazed at how live rock works, but based on these parameters it apparently does work. Will still wait a few weeks before adding fish.

We are thinking of adding Mandarin Goby. I have heard/read that they are very difficult with regard to eating and only go for live copepods. A LFS in the area suggested that I "seed" the tank with some copepod stuff for 3-6 months to build up a sufficient colony of the little fellas. Does this sound accurate or are they trying to sell me on something i don't need (in their defense they have not done this in the past so my inclination is to believe them...).
 
Hopefully you can get a 'smart' Mandarin, mine is swift enough to pick Copepods off the glass, where I have incredible amounts on the backsides of my corner tank, he's plump.. You can buy the bottles of copepods, and it will help to dump them in at once and let them go crazy in the tank for a while - another thing you can do is buy a bottle and culture your own, so once a month or so you have enough to dump in.

It's not the advice of the LR here that lead you to trouble, it was your LFS selling you LR that wasn't truly cured, or they didn't help you properly transport the LR to your home and there was excessive die off.

I had truly cured LR and a cup of seeded live sand in my 36 gallon toilet bowl and I never once had any detectable ammonia or nitrites.

After your cycle is complete, you still need to 'feed' the tank so to speak, so some inverts to keep the tank established so you won't go through another mini-cycle after adding fish should be something you take into consideration.
 
Thanks for tips. Love the mandarin dragonet (just found a cool journal on a fella raising them in a nano). Right now we have a cleaner shrimp and two bumble bee snail. Had to turbo snails but must have got a bad batch as they died off within 2 days. I am going to try some black foots this weekend I think to round out the cleaning crew for now. The damsel gets fed once a day (flakes, doesnt like teh frozen mysis shrimp I spent a gabillion dollars on). but I am also hand feeding my coral so I am sure that I will have some organics kickin' around (especially after my super messy first attempt at hand feeding).
 
Def...the uncured LR and feeding corals, along with your animals probably just overloaded the tank. But if your parameters are good now, you are only going to become more and more addicted! I just looked at your progress thread and that is a neat little setup.
 
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