Complete newbie requesting help with first octopus setup!

[djkaty]

Ok well everything is moved into the tank now, just the fish to go. I will take some photos later because I think mosto f the stuff is dead and you can tell me what to remove, the corals are completely ruined I think

I found this guy at the bottom of the live rock bucket:

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How did that happen?

 

[DWhatley]

That could be a crab shed. They shed their exoskeltons to grow and the shed looks remarkably like a dead animal. I always have to look twice when Harvey (our banded coral shrimp) does this. Interestingly, we have never seen the shed from our Mantis (I have seen similar post and it is suspected that mantis eat their old "skin").

 

[djkaty]

Really? Wow that is intriguing, I was really gutted when I found it wondering how on Earth it could possibly have died when the only other things in there were more of the same type of crab and live rock.

Well, after spraying myself and the floor with water a couple of times, the whole new aquarium is up and running with everything on and I'm very happy! All seems to be working well. I put the fish and anemone in after deciding that if there was going to be an ammonia spike with the live rock that was in brack water that it would have happened in the tub already. The anemone curled up extremely small for several hours but now he is out on a prominent rock and almost fully expanded. The fish has stayed in one corner of the tank but is slowly exploring his way around. I've seen 2 of the 3 crabs walking around, whether the third is still alive or not I have no idea, I thought the shells I took out of the buckets were empty until they sprouted blue and black legs and started walking around on the carpet lol, that scared me to death.

Most or all of the corals and sponge are dead - I think - but I will show photos later. I just got a new phone that should make working with photos and video on Facebook and YouTube much easier.

Now I can get to the exciting business of populating the tank I guess

Temp: 77F (was 81-82 in bucket)
pH: 8.3
Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia: 0.15ppm (grr)
Nitrite: 0.15ppm
Nitrate: 3ppm (was 25ppm in the buckets)

Please tell me if there is anything else I should be doing at this point!

 

[djkaty]

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I have added 10 new pictures to the bottom of the album. If anyone could tell me what to do with the sponge, candy cane coral and the orange thing growing on the rock, that would be good

I also took some footage with my new phone of the anemone ("Verbal" after the character in the Usual Suspects) right after adding to the tank, and a few hours later.

Here is the first in 480p:

(you have to click where it says 360p and change the resolution)

The second I recorded in HD (720p) as a test and YouTube won't let me upload it, complaining the filesize is larger than 1GB even though it's only 141MB.

 

[DWhatley]

The "sponge" is not a sponge, it is/was a hard coral. If there is no soft tissue it is likely dead. You can put it in for live rock if you would like. The candy cane coral does not appear to have any life but the attaching rocks have live polyps. You can put the whole thing in the tank. If there is ANY soft tissue left on the candy cane, part of it may survive and it won't hurt to put it in. The orange thing may be a leather coral but I can't tell from the photo. In any case it appears to be still alive so go ahead and put it in as well.

 

[djkaty]

Ok, excellent, I've put everything in then, it looks a bit unsightly with the bleached colours but there is plenty of time to make things look nicer.

So, the obvious question then, why did the candy cane coral die? Was the light not good enough, or the water conditions in the buckets?

 

[djkaty]

Everything seems to be ok today, the behaviour of the anemone is keeping me on edge but from what I've read I will just have to wait a while til it gets used to the tank to really know if it is ok or not. The clownfish loves it, he swims in and around the tentacles (but doesn't bite on them) and never leaves it alone. I don't know if this is stressing the anemone but it has been fully expanded for most of the day. I moved one of the powerheads to make it move a bit because the anemone and clownfish were both unviewable behind rocks before.

So I measured the calcium and KH for the first time today:

Calcium - 300ppm
dKH - 10.6 (3.77 meq/l)

Should I add a calcium supplement to bring it up to 400-ish? I have a box of it from the previous owner.

 

[Joe-Ceph]

Your ammonia and nitrite are high, and indicate that your live rock isn't doing it's job. Have you thought much about "flow"? That is the term used to describe the amount of water motion in the tank. It's important for several reasons, but primarily because the nitrifying bacteria on the surface of your live rock must have a sufficient supply of water to bring food (ammonia and nitrite) and take away waste (nitrite and nitrate). Any live rock surface that is getting low or no flow over its surface will not be able to support many bacteria and so isn't helping with filtration. Low flow is like having less live rock. How much flow do you need? They say "at least ten times the volume of the tank per hour." But how do you measure flow? I think people calculate the number of liters per hour that each of their pumps delivers, and those numbers together to get an idea of "how much flow" they have. Your return pump probably has a flow graph posted on the internet showing Liters/hr as a function of "head". Head is the vertical distance that the water must be lifted by the pump, plus the amount of friction caused by the plumbing (add 5-10% to the vertical distance lifted to account for plumbing friction). Use that flow graph (chart, diagram) to get the flow from your return pump. Then add to that the number of liters/hr that each of the powerheads you have in your tank claims to produce. If the total is around 10 times the number of liters in your tank, then you probably have enough flow. Such a measurement is obviously quite flawed because it ignores many important factors, like how much live rock you have, how it is arranged, and where the flow is directed. Just remember that you don't want enough flow, so that particles will stay suspended in the water, and not settle to the bottom or on top of your live rock. Then it will eventually be removed by your filter sock or skimmer. Also remember that you don't want dead spots (places with little water motion) so arrange your live rock so that water is "blowing" over as much of its surface as possible, and blowing hard enough to blow off any "dust" that might settle on it. Avoid the temptation to lean a pile of live rock against the back wall, because it makes it hard for water to flow around and between the rocks in the pile.

You'll read a lot about what "kind" of flow is best. A powerhead can blast too hard on one spot, and not enough elsewhere, so people often point two powerheads at each other, or point a single one at a glass wall, so that they create a chaotic, random, flow patter. That seems to help.

 

[djkaty]

Sounds like rocket science :/ But even without measuring it I am sure there is not enough flow because at the end of the day, it is a 340 liter water column using all the equipment from the 180 liter tank + 2 small extra powerheads I acquired along the way for the buckets. The original tank had a wavemaker which is in there too.

I have one powerhead pointing towards the glass, and the other two are at opposite ends of the tank pointing towards each other, I'd read about that a little before.

Upgrading everything is high priority now but will have to be done a little at a time. It's also quite possible some of the LR died, especially the new batch when I didn't have enough saltwater for all of it so it ended up in a salt/freshwater mix with a 1.010 SG. I don't think the tank is done cycling. There are no bad smells eminating though as I read there would be if the rock was curing.

On the other hand, I also have enormous difficulty reading the colour charts, which seems to have highlighted a problem with my ability to discern colours that I never really noticed before, so I cannot get exact measurements. I have sometimes spent minutes trying to figure out what the closest colour on the chart is to the liquids.

I will check the flow on the powerheads and pump. I also have the return pump above the surface water just slightly to agitate it, and because if I don't and the power goes off the reverse siphoning will create a massive flood.

 

[Joe-Ceph]

Before you suspect that your eyes don't work, be suspicious that your using the wrong light. Try using good old sunlight when you look at your test liquids. LED light is from a very narrow band of the spectrum, fluorescent is lopsided and actinic is super lopsided. Incandescent bulbs are okay, but you can't beat sunlight for true colors.

 

[djkaty]

Does incandescent mean the sort of light from regular light bulbs?

I have had so much difficulty I've been seriously considering going to the doctor/optician about it. I certainly have read off the values in front of the tank, which is using fluorescent and actinic lights.

Just checked all the pumps, here is what I have so far:

Eheim 1060 return pump - water needs to travel 130cm + 10% for friction, that gives 1800 L/h
Lifetech AP1600 - a pump I picked up cheaply - 900 L/h (max)
Boyu WM-1 wavemaker - I can't find any data on this other than "suitable for aquariums 40-300 L"

+ 1 more pump that has no markings on it, I looked over the Norwegian sites and there is only one that it looks identical to, the Aquarium Systems Maxi-jet pumps. All the pumps in that range look the same, the least powerful one assuming worst case is the PH 400 which is claimed to produce 400 L/h.

I have one more pump that i'm not using at the moment but it's attached to a filter box.

So, 1800 + 900 + (at least) 400 + whatever the wavemaker produces = 3100 L/h + wavemaker output, according to this simplistic evaluation.

 

[Joe-Ceph]

Sounds like your flow is okay.

Incandescent light bulbs are like the one that Thomas Edison invented, a wire, in a vacuum that gets really hot and gives off light. They used to be considered "regular" but they are being phased out.
Actinic lights are designed to exaggerate some colors, and mute others, so definitely turn off the actinics, or get far away from them, when you try to read a color scale.

 

[djkaty]

Ok, thanks, yes I use those ones that are the same shape as the 'regular' lightbulbs in my house but they are made differently to use less power and take a while to light up. But I have some normal ones I can use

There are of course points in the tank with more or less flow, but I can see little particles of whatever circulating throughout the entire tank so I don't think there are any big dead spots.

I suspect the real problem is simply that some of the LR died and it needs time to reculture and the tank to cycle.

On another note, how much waste should I be expecting in the protein skimmer cup? After two days I see nothing except a lot of bubbles which sometimes go up into the cup then down again.

 

[cuttlegirl]

On the other hand, I also have enormous difficulty reading the colour charts, which seems to have highlighted a problem with my ability to discern colours that I never really noticed before, so I cannot get exact measurements. I have sometimes spent minutes trying to figure out what the closest colour on the chart is to the liquids.

It's not your eyes, try to get as close to sunlight as you can. I have difficulty reading those colors too...

 

[DWhatley]

When you have a few extra dollars, try the strips. I tested with both for a couple of months and always got the same readings. You can do likewise while you still have the chemicals to decide which you would rather use. IMO you will never go back to using reagents.