New To Saltwater Please Help!

[Xteme From HeLL]

well guys i've had some freshwater tanks for a while now and just decided to start salt water tanks for my first practice tank i set up a 10 gallon tank
i have crushed coral
100w heater
i had 2 50/50 bulbs but one keeps on burning out
i have a rock with a fake anemone (or w/e) and a fake red coral
i have 2 clown perculas and 1 yellowtail damsel

the damsel seems fine but the clowns are acting kinda funny
as for the filter i have a regular bio-wheel
i also have an air pump with just a small rock pumping air into the tank

here are the levels
SALINITY= 1.020-1.021
PH= 7.8
AMMONIA= 0.50-1.0
NITRITE= 2.0
NITRATE= 20

i want to know what i need to do to make everything right and not have my fish acting weird, the clowns sometimes swim vertically but slowly too they look like they are deing but when i have the lights on for more then 30 minutes they act normal i dont know what it is also i know i need to do a partial water change i wanted to remove 1 gallon of water and add a gallon of distilled water with the salt mix would that be ok? anyways here are some pics of the tank please help!

 

[psychadelicdrea]

did you cycle the tank....nitrites should be next to 0 and the ammonia should be 0 ...ph should be higher....people pick small tanks to start out s/w with but its actually harder with a smaller tank...prams will go bad real fast if you dont keep up on the tank....took over a month with no fish and lr in my tank for it to be ready for fish

 

[Max]

Also the c.c. is going to act as a great big old dust mop. It's going to catch all the trash your fish produce, wasted food etc. I'd really consider replaicing it with a dsb ,"deep sand bed", it will allow for the anoxic conditions needed by your bacteria to reduce ammonia and nitrites.
Also you're probably going to have problems with the clowns and damnsels . They are pretty closely related and related species don't do well in a small space. They are both pretty territorial and most damnsel species have some serious attitude problems. Most species only do well alone in a tank or with large fish that can stand up to their umh.... antics.
hth
chris

 

[cohazard]

I like the look of your tank, but I agree with Maxilaria... DSB is the way to go. Crushed coral is only bought by aquarists new to SW who are familiar with siphoning gunk out of the gravel in the FW tanks, but in SW tanks, it's really not necessary.

Instead, the DSB doesn't allow debris to get trapped in the bottom since it's so compact, and your clean-up crew (which should consist of hermit crabs, sand-sifting stars, and snails) will keep the top levels of your sand aerated and clean of algae.

Now, I have heard that mixing grain size in your sand bed is beneficial to the life that inhabit it, but I still wouldn't use CC for that... instead, I use varying sizes of live sand grain.

I'm interested as well in what steps you have taken to cycle the tank since I don't see any live sand/rock.... If you havent cycled the tank, I wouldn't be worried about losing your fish (just about all ocellaris percs are tank-bred and very hardy, and back in the old days when we cycled our tanks with fish, damsels were suggested since they could easily survive a tank cycle, it's just not ethical anymore ).

I would strongly suggest getting a few pounds of live rock.... (first replacing the cc with live sand (even that packaged live sand is okay). You can still keep the coral ornaments in there (they'll eventually get covered in coraline algae, feather dusters, worms, macro algaes etc... and look very nice).

The tank is bright and there aren't any hiding spots (the hole in the lava rock doesn't really count as a cave IMO since fish prefer places they can hide in darkness), so if you choose to get live rock for your tank, you'll probably see more normal behavior from your clowns (I noticed the perc in your first and fourth pic trying to squeeze underneath one fo the coral decorations in your tank).

 

[Xteme From HeLL]

yeah i had the tank running before i put any fish in there for about 1 month or 2, i plan to do a partial water change 2morrow so hopefully that fixes everything and they act normal lol, as for the rocks yeah i think i do need more lol even though i've noticed the damsel hiding between the lava rock and that green thing theres a little hole he gets into
after i do the water change im gonna wait like an hour then i'll do another water test and provide the results

 

[cohazard]

Well I hope it works out for you. Because cycling a tank, and having a tank setup for 2 months, are two completely different things.

Without a live bacteria culture seed, your tank could possibly have just been running for 2 months without cycling at all.

Did you add some filter media from a previous or additional SW tank you have? Did you buy some live bacteria in a bottle that's commonly sold at LFS?

 

[Xteme From HeLL]

nope... like i said this is my first SW tank and now im learning everything this was for trial and error to see if i could do and for practice cause this weekend im going to buy a 47 gallon bowfront and i want to do everything right

 

[Max]

Man, I'm so sorry I didn't say this the other day but, start doing massive h2o changes! I'd do like 25% ago until readings weren't toxic! There are several great ways to cycle a s.w. tank depending $, time and inclination none of the good ones involve fish. I know it will be real easy to throw 2 damsels in the 45 to start the process but, then you'll have a tank cycled for 2 damsels and it will go through a mini cycle every time you add anything else.
What I would do is buy plain old uncurred live rock remove all the large dead critters put it in and do frequent water changes to keep readings below toxic levels.

 

[Sonicblast12]

You should do water changes to keep the toxins low.

Another option is to add cured rock to the setup. I added my rock a week into the cycle when the ammonia was still over 6, and it was halved the next day, and disappeared the day after. Nitrite disappeared 4 days later. Maybe I just got lucky, but it could work for you. The goal is to get as much of the ammonia and nitrites out of there ASAP. I cycled with a hard ammonia spike in less than two weeks.

You would still have to stock slowly because you might see a mini-cycle since you didn't have a hard spike, but this could clear up your water fairly quickly.

Not trying to contradict, just another suggestion. I do think you should do something though...