patti2297

Hello everyone,

I just recently found this website and frankly it might be our last hope so to speak. My husband and I have a 55 gallon tank that previously housed freshwater fish until we moved and had to give it up while in limbo with the move. It has now been approximately 2 years, and we decided to start a saltwater tank with the help of our local fish petstore who was a great help as far as telling us everything we needed in setting the tank up for saltwater.

Our fish tank, lids, and lights etc., were stored for close to a year in a storage facility while our house was being built.

Our system: 55 gallon, Marineland BioFilter Penquin 350, another thing (sorry i do not know the name.. power head?) that moves water around on the other side, 2 heaters, one on each side. We do not have any live rock and have plastic plants. We did buy the sand with the good bacteria in it, per the recommendation of our adviser.

The tank cycled, we started adding fish every so slowly. Then for some reason, the tank cycled again, and we lost almost all the fish. Ok, we get through that, slowly start to add fish again and slowly but surely nothing seems to live beyond a month. We purchased a water test kit and everything comes out good and even when we take a water sample in to our fish store, the water checks out great. One day the fish can be eating great, and 2 days later dead. I did notice on our clowns, that they appeared slightly faded. The fishstore advisor said they were losing their slime, but he didn't know why. They are stressed, that much is clear.

Ok, we have brown allgae, but we clean that frequently. We keep the temperature 78. We do partial water changes monthly, carefully testing the water (salinity) before adding it to the tank. We are using Prime as our dechlorinator. Our tank definitely looks cloudy, but we have no clue why.

We have tried everything. We threw away everything that we had in our tank that we could not accurately determine was made for saltwater tanks (fake plants, etc), waited 2 weeks before adding fish and again, they are now dying. We thought maybe we weren't putting in enough Prime, to dechlorinate, so on the advice of our fish advisor we added more just about 3 days ago.

All in all, I am guessing we are out about 300-400 in fish. This has been over about a 3 month period now. Could something have tainted our fish tank while it was in storage? Does anyone have any ideas?

Currently, we have 2 damsils, 2 clowns, but one died 2 days ago and the last one is stressed & dying now. We have 2 hermit crabs & 1 horseshoe crabs, the crabs are doing well. The damsils look okay. The clown other than slightly faded and stressed has no spots like ich, etc. Basically, everything dies.

We love this hobby... and I am hoping someone has some ideas. Should we toss the tank and start with a fresh tank? Any advice? Sorry for the book here.

Drea

Patti, welcome to a great forum. I have no SW experience, but there are many experts here. I wanted to express to you how hard it is to be going through this.....I understand. Watch for some replies here soon...I wanted to post to you so this will remain near the top of the new posts.....OK SW folks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

needabiggertank

Well i know we need to know more of whats in your tank. You should be doing more frequent water changes once a week about 4-5 gallons or 1/2 gallon to 1 gallon a day. What is your salinity at? How many power heads do you have? There needs to be adequate circulation three power heads for a 55g. Dont over croud and use less expensive fish. I would put one in. Once one fish survies then think about adding more. But only after the fish last longer than a month. Oh yea how are the damsels doing. I bet there fine and they are picking on the clowns. Possibility!!!!

patti2297

Salinity is 1.024, very top of the red normal range. We haven't overcrowded. Never have. The damsils are the blue fin colored ones, only 2 and I haven't witnessed them picking on the clowns. Why the water change daily? One power head besides the Penquin Biofilter. Water moves very decently in our tank. What could be causing the cloudiness? Water just looks hazy.

needabiggertank

www.wetwebmedia.com/water.htm Here is the pros. opinoin

http://www.firsttankguide.net/cloudywater.php More help from pros

Peterpiper

Hi Patti2297, and welcome to fishlore!
Marine tanks are different to fresh water tanks.
Marine tanks must have live rock, for your tank you need 55lb, ie 1lb per gallon.
I have a link, How To Setup a Saltwater Fish Aquarium

http://www.fishlore.com/SaltwaterAquariumSetup.htm

IMO, the issues you are having can be fixed, first do not add any more fish as they will die. get the LR in the tank.. 40lb min, then cycle the tank.
I feel the tank may not have been cycled correctly and with no LR the fish have died due to build up of ammonia and nitrite. API Liquid test kits IMO are a must.

sirdarksol

I disagree, Peterpiper. If Marine tanks needed live rock, there wouldn't be a setup called "Fish Only" and another called "Fish Only With Live Rock"
Yes, live rock is presumed in the article, but the Saltwater Aquarium Types article says to use the article, minus the live rock, to set up a Fish Only tank.
To be sure, if you can afford to get live rock, doing so will make for a more stable setup, but it isn't necessary.

Patti, I have three questions that I'm surprised nobody has asked yet.
What is your ammonia ppm?
What is your nitrite ppm?
What is your nitrate ppm?
These are the first three things we usually look at when fish are sick. Ammonia and nitrite can kill fish outright, while nitrates can stress fish to the point that it opens their immune systems to other threats.

Welcome to Fishlore!

Peterpiper

sirdarksol, Yes, you are correct.
IMO I would not go with a fish only tank for a first marine tank due to the issues with bio filtration.
IMO With the filter mentioned, Patti could have issues when changing / cleaning the filters, and this could lead to mini cycles.
IMO The best filter system for a fish only tank is a canister filter with the lowest tray containing ceramic's, bio balls or crush corals to deal with the bio load.
IMO max stocking levels should be reduced to 3/4" per gallon.
For live sand to act as the bio filter the flow in the tank would need to be +20 x tank volume min.
Patti did mention that the water was tested at the LFS,

sirdarksol

Not disagreeing with anything other than "marine has to have live rock". Like I said, live rock does indeed make for a more stable tank, and everything I've read strongly suggests it. Just was pointing out that there are other, less expensive (though more work-intensive in the long-term) ways to keep the tank filtered, and you gave some excellent points (different filter, higher water flow) on this. A refugium (which can also provide extra water flow) would be another aid in this matter, if it were properly stocked.

agsansoo

Patti2297,
First, Do or don't you have live rock/sand ? Doesn't matter either way, we can help. Second and most important, what are you exact water parameters for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate ?

patti2297

Ok, first off. We have a test kit for ammonia, ph, nitrites, nitrates, etc., and all have tested okay. Our advisor from the fish store, told us the Marine Land Bio Filter Penquin 350 with the power head which is suppose to cycle 400 water was sufficient. We did start with live sand. We do not have live rock as I believe we would have to upgrade our lighting system and at the moment trying not to do that. Throughout the last couple of months, we have religiously checked our water integrity and/or taken samples in to our fish store to be checked as well, and they have always tested good. We just cannot seem to keep fish alive for any reason!

We are now down to 2 damsils, they are not suppose to be overly aggressive damsils, they have blue fins on the bottom. We have 2 hermit crabs, which are doing great and have already molted once. We had 2 horseshoe crabs, but can only find 1. Again, water parameters are testing perfect. Yet, within the last 2 weeks 2 clowns have died. They did not appear to have ich or tail rot. Only thing I could see if there color appeared slightly faded and they were breathing like they were stressed.

At the LFS they are baffled as our water tests perfect and we have never over done it when we have added fish. We do not want to give up. We don't want this tank to beat us. If we would have better luck by adding live rock, then so be it, we can upgrade our lighting system, but we do not want to do this and add live rock, but we don't want to continue all this expensive upgrades only to find fish still die. Seems like we should solve why they are dying now before we throw any more $ into the tank.

sgould

Welcome, Patti!

You do not need to upgrade your lighting for live rock. If you want to add corals, THEN you would likely need the upgrade, but not for the rock itself. That said, live rock can be pretty expensive on its own. From your description, ammonia and nitrite are both 0? Nitrate below 20? Sorry to keep brining up the same question, but it is very common for someone to post that their water is "ok" or even "perfect", then later state that their perfect water has an ammonia reading of .5 (or anything other than 0), so we just need to be sure.

Jumping on to something posted earlier...I would really suggest more frequent water changes. For my 55 gallon tank, I do 10 gallons per week. The more frequent changes keep trace elements/minerals replenished, and keep pollutants from building too high. IMO, this is especially important if you are not running a protein skimmer.

Jesses89

You dont need to upgrade your lighting for live rock... IMO.. you do need live rock... and also.. if your fish are dying i can guarantee you that your levels(ammonia, nitrite, nitrates) arent perfect.

Id go with a different filtration system.. the one you have is more suited for freshwater aquariums...... maybe like a canister filter? Renas are cheap...
You currently have nothing in your tank to culture beneficial bacteria... the good bacteria you need... to break down ammonia in your tank....(live rock... bio balls ..etc.)

you said you use plastic plants? maybe thats it? maybe its releasing toxins into the water?

GL... really hope you decide to put a few pieces of live rock in your tank... itll increase your success ten fold

agsansoo

patti2297, Any updates or upgrades to your system. As to my earlier statement. You don't need live rock if you have another types of biological filtration (i.e. wet/dry or sand bed filters). In the first months my tank was set up, I used an Eheim 2227 wet/dry when I had insufficient live rock in my tank.