silverbaby

I have a couple of questions about my saltwater tank.
Ok first question is I set up my 20 gallon about a week and a half ago. I put about 6lbs of live sand and 4lbs of live rock (These where from an established tank from the LPS and it was cured) I got ammonia readings about a week ago and nitrite readings yesterday, today my ammonia and nitrite readings were at 0 and i had a nitrate reading of anywhere between 1 and 4 (my test is yellow is 0 and orange is 5 and it wasnt the yellow but it wasnt dark orange either) My question is can a 20 cycle this fast with the live rock and live sand? My other question is about the hardness of my water. I have a KH test kit and it took 16 drops for the blue the turn yellow so my question is should the water be softer or is it ok as it is. Also my last question is I have a small domino damselfish to help cycle. He always hangs out next to the filter (he swims around also but i think he is trying to claim this as his terrority) Can the heater burn him?? He seems to have some scales missing on one side near his tail. The only other think i can think of that is causing this is i have a couple of aiptasia hitchhikers in the tank and I know they sting, could the scales be missing if he got stung by these pesky things??

cerianthus

Yes, it can cycle that fast but becareful not to overload with too many addtion at once. remember bio-activities equal bio-load. Your tank can sustain what is being produced at this moment. Thus too fast increase in bio-load can/will lead to mini cycle. Just control amt of addtion at once and amount of food given.
As far as Damsel, I Dont think it got burned by the heater. I dont think fish are that S....d.
On the contrary, i found them to be very smart. Even my seahorses wrapped on Heater will move away as soon as heater is on..
Scales missing is probably not from Aiptasia but should remove them before they multiply. Just monitor the fish to ensure it is not an infection or leads to an infection. If fish is healthy and water is in good condition, should be able to recover on its own.

Matt

Yes it is quite common for tanks to cycle faster with Live rock and live sand.

As cerianthus said Dont add to many corals/fish/inverts to quickly i would say any more then 3 fish at a time is over-adding.

-Matt

silverbaby

Thanks for the help. I plan on adding one fish a week at a time to be sure not to over load. Im not sure if my fish is sick or not. Hes hiding and leans againsts the heater and ive seen the aiptasia sting him a couple of times. I wanted to wait til my water cycled before i get anything to eat the aiptasia because i didnt know what they were til they already started spiting little red worms in my tank and i was worried.

cerianthus

Aiptasia can becontrolled with peppermint shrimp but my experiences, it was hit and miss. Could use Syringe to suck it out rather than inject chemicals into it.
As far as adding one fish, dont have problem with that idea as long as avoiding territorial fish such as tangs. Since only 20G, could have one baby/juvie tang provided willing to accomodate properly as they grow.
As far as Damsel, if you saw it being stung by aiptasia, no arguments there though I've never seen fish get stung by aiptasia/anemone as any alert fish will avoid such danger.
Only time I actually saw fish die from such stung was when tomato clown which was spook by simple tap on glass somehow got stung by Cerianthus (not me) as dashed around the tank.
It sounds like fish is very nervous for whatever reason. Could it be because he/she is w/o any tankmate?
Hopefully does calm down and feel at home as tankmates are added.
I dont mean to add another damsel since these particular damsel can seem to tolerate each other (especially 2 in such small quarter) unless match made in heaven!LOL!

Hope all goes well!

silverbaby

well the reason i say he got stung was i saw my damsel swim very close to the aiptasia and he just grazed it but he kinda flinched and swam away quickly. Since my last post my damsel has died. I was very upset and i am assuming that this is the cause since i checked all my paramiters and they are all good.

travie

How big is this Aiptasia?

silverbaby

id say the one I saw sting him is about 1 inch tall, the other big one is about 1.25 inches tall but that ones alot thicker. I saw another very very small one today, and i havent seen any other ones.

JohnnyOcean

It is best to remove the pests now while there are only a few of them. If you try to remove aiptasia physically make sure that you throughly remove it, any remaining pieces can regenerate. Possibly creating a larger colony.

Good Luck

travie

Removing probably won't rid you of them. If you try to remove them with tweezers or the like, they will release spore-like liquid out of their mouth. This will be more aiptasia. You are best to use something like Aiptasia X. You need to kill it, while sealing its mouth shut at the same time, which Aipstasia X does when used correctly.

I didn't think Aiptasia had a strong enough to sting to hurt fish, but I may be wrong.