thanks. i was in a horrible mood this morning but when I noticed that my feather dusters were still alive it was like a ray of hope or something. Im not gonna give up because you learn through mistakes, even if they can be big mistakes. I plan on getting some a firefish, 2 clowns, and maybe another yellowtail damsel because the one i had was nowhere near aggressive. I eventually want to get a sand sifting sea star, but not for a while. I want to just get things back on track first. Maybe only just get some snails because with the sun shining through my window right on my tank, the algae is growing a little too much. Its all over my rocks and it caught some of the dust from the crushed coral and sand so everything is white right now.
switching from crushed coral to sand
- Thread starter bchbm2022
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That is really very odd.. For starters most invertebrates are far more susceptible to poisoning than fish.
Stress is not what killed your fish. Fish live life in the fast lane and cope with stress fairly well. Stress with fish 99% of the time expresses itself as disease that shows up in a day or two, NOT massive death over night.
Hose washing of sand is not a problem either. Very little water ends up actually going into the tank with washed sand.
When I started with marine fish before I knew what was happening I phrenically siphoned out 80% of my crushed coral every weekend and ran hundreds of gallons of hose water thru it trying to get rid of the mat algae plague. This never bothered the fish in the least.
What will kill fish like that is a poison that is vertebrate oriented or more likely a huge sudden temperature swing.
Tell us how you proceeded.
BTW sorry for your losses.
Stress is not what killed your fish. Fish live life in the fast lane and cope with stress fairly well. Stress with fish 99% of the time expresses itself as disease that shows up in a day or two, NOT massive death over night.
Hose washing of sand is not a problem either. Very little water ends up actually going into the tank with washed sand.
When I started with marine fish before I knew what was happening I phrenically siphoned out 80% of my crushed coral every weekend and ran hundreds of gallons of hose water thru it trying to get rid of the mat algae plague. This never bothered the fish in the least.
What will kill fish like that is a poison that is vertebrate oriented or more likely a huge sudden temperature swing.
Tell us how you proceeded.
BTW sorry for your losses.
I decided to go ahead and put the rest of the sand in. I mixed in some crushed coral tohelp seed the sand and also bought live sand to mix in. Not really sure about how live the live sand at petsmart was but i gave it a try. Im basically starting from scratch now. Once things gets settled, i will try to post pictures and my progress on my tank. that way i can have some criticizm on what I am doing and what i need to do. I really dont think it was poison because i rinsed the hell out of the sand before i put it in and drained as much of the water from the sand as i could, also it was a very hot sunny day so i let the sand heat up in the sun for a while before placing it in the tank so it wouldnt cause a tempurature drop. I siphoned coral out, then allowed the little bit of cloudiness to settle, then I put the new sand in and moved my rock back. I cleaned the filter and replaced water i took out with new water i mixed about 6 days before, which had matching water tempurature, ph, and salinity. Today i repeated the process. I left a layer of crushed coral on the bottom and i mixed some in as well. Im gonna wait until I get back from my vacation to get new fish or anthing else. The only thing Im going to do is buy a better protein skimmer because my prism skimmer is not good. I hope that within a year from now I will have a very nice established system that I woud be happy to show off.
Thanks for the run down.. I can't see any procedural problem. Seems like you did a thoughtful, considered change.
I was in my local crummy LFS and was thinking maybe you accidentally put in fresh water instead of saltwater during all the commotion but it sounds like you had that dialed in just fine.
Like I said, I had a 55g and I would suck out 35~40 gallons so the fish practically had to lay on their sides. Then hours later heaved a bunch of hosed off sand back in. Never had an issue with the fish, or the anomie's, shrimp or, snails. Probably did this 35 times before terminal exhaustion got to me and I decided to hell with it. Four weeks later the truth unveiled itself.
I am really baffled by this.
How many fish did you have?
I was in my local crummy LFS and was thinking maybe you accidentally put in fresh water instead of saltwater during all the commotion but it sounds like you had that dialed in just fine.
Like I said, I had a 55g and I would suck out 35~40 gallons so the fish practically had to lay on their sides. Then hours later heaved a bunch of hosed off sand back in. Never had an issue with the fish, or the anomie's, shrimp or, snails. Probably did this 35 times before terminal exhaustion got to me and I decided to hell with it. Four weeks later the truth unveiled itself.
I am really baffled by this.
How many fish did you have?
I had 4 damsels, I had five originally but the one got beat up by the others. I had these from the beginning from when I used them to cycle my tank and they survived a bad case of ick when my clownfish didnt, which probably came in with my clownfish from petco. Im definateyl not buying from them anymore because everytime I walk in there to get dog food, i look at their fish and they all have ick or something else. Like I said I had planned on getting rid of them to get some small fish, but i didnt want them to go that way. I had lost a fish in my freshwater tank a while back for only just moving a decoration around, but then it was also really old.
Ok so i have finished with the sand and it settled pretty fast. I have my live rock back in place and got most of the dust off them, but i did have some algae that caught a lot so i couldnt get it all off. Im definately not puttin fish in yet, but I need help with a stocking list. I want to get a clown fish, a firefish, and a royal gramma. Would I be able to get a sand sifting fish also and can anyone give me an idea for one? Also, i want to get like 10 hermits and 10 snails, and a sandsifting starfish. I also want to get a cleaner shrimp but I dont know if the size of my tank would allow. Also, I love feather dusters and I literally lost the other one, i dont know where it is. Would I be able to get like 2 of these as well? I would really apreciate it if someone could give me an idea for a list. Any ideas for detritus eating things would be helpful as well. I also want to add some macroalgae. Thanx. Oh and by the way, again my tank is a 36 gallon, and i have a rena fisltar xp1 filter, prism skimmer which will get replaced because it is worthless, and compact flourescent lighting with 1 dual 65 watt 6,700 k/10,000 k, and one dual 420/460 actinic for any lighting requirements. Once things get settled im gonna start a new thread with pics of my progress.
